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Keith's body ached.
He didn't know how long he had pushed his body against the flow of the water, didn't know how long he had been following the wake in the sky, with no way of finding himself.
He had lost his helmet somewhere down the line, crushed in between rocks or washed away by the current, god only knew. The panic was starting to settle in his bones, the need for oxygen that could never be fulfilled, the rapid humming of his heart, threatening and dangerous.
Sweet hell, how could everything had gone so wrong?
He had had his friends right there with him, had been able to feel their warmth through the body suits, could still feel the weak impression of Shiro's hand on his back and the sound of Lance's laugh in his mind. He had had them, and now he was alone, stranded in a foreign planet with no possibility of communication.
He groaned out loud, hands coming up to his face, palms digging into his eyes. He tried to ignore the water pushing against his shins, the slight fog that covered the atmosphere and made it look so sombre he couldn't help but feel trapped.
He tried, and failed.
What could he even do? What was he supposed to do on a planet made of rocks and water? Was the wake shining in the pink sky a product of his mind to keep himself from falling apart? Was he wasting energy in vain?
The breath left him in a rush, his eyes closing tightly and, god, he needed to feel something that wasn't cold or fear. Needed and wanted and—
"Keith?"
The flow of the current almost drowned the voice, soft and low as it was, but to Keith, it felt thunderous. He startled, lungs constricting and vision blurring at how fast he turned his body towards the voice. The rushed movement blinded him, agonizing seconds that seemed hours, before his eyes settled on a figure standing a few meters away from him. Something seized inside of him at the familiarity of the armour; the bright blue a shocking antithesis against the dark water and the washed-out colours of the sky, making hope scream at the back of his mind.
"Lance?" his voice broke at the end but it carried out, reaching the blue paladin and caressing him sweetly, like a lost lover.
He trembled and Keith watched: watched the way he held himself, bent and curved forward, as if his body weighed too much for him. Watched the way his skin had become pale and sickly, a frown permanently etched in his delicate face. Where was that gorgeous tanned skin? The brightness of his eyes? The smirk that made Keith’s toes curl? He felt his words die on his tongue as he took Lance in, heart hissing inside of his ribcage.
Lance was hugging himself, trying to preserve what little warmth he had, but the moment his eyes collided with Keith's he stumbled forward, water splashing around him. His legs tried to hold him up, but they gave underneath him, gravity pulling him down. Keith's body moved on its own, following the current he had fought so much, running with an energy he had thought lost.
He screamed Lance's name, throwing himself forward, knees bending as he let his body cushion Lance's fall, and he felt, suddenly, all that he had numbly kept at bay, running up his spine like spiders and making him choke on air.
"Keith," Lance murmured, sinking against his body, and Keith choked, this time on the panic, on the frantic feeling that pulled at his heart so strongly he felt his lungs were getting crushed.
"Lance, what's wrong?" his voice trembled as he got his arms around the paladin, trying to support him with his torso.
That’s when he felt it: the warmth flowing from Lance’s back, a pure contrast the coldness flowing around their bodies, making his heart stop, making fear crawl through his skin like a ravenous beast.
No, Keith thought frantically as Lance slumped against him. The warmth tangled itself playfully with his gloves before running downwards, creating a river and tainting the armour crimson. Lance’s eyes were closed, looking like he had already given up, had already made peace with the terrified part of himself that begged him not to die.
No, Keith thought again, breath stuck in his throat as his fingers slipped on Lance’s armour, blood coating their bodies messily. He drew Lance closer to him, arms coming around his frame more tightly and hands pressing down on the wound. He ignored the cold seeping through his calves, ignored the warmth soaking his hands and looked at Lance, desperately searching for hope.
He couldn’t bleed out inside his arms. He wouldn’t.
But even so, the flow of the water was louder than Lance’s breaths, his usually scorching skin growing by the moment.
He fell forward a little, leaning his forehead against Lance’s temple, murmuring his name and feeling the shaking breaths the boy struggled to take.
“You aren’t going to die,” Keith found himself saying against Lance’s cheek, and it was so cold he hated it, hated that the image of Lance he had in his mind was being destroyed by the one he had in his arms.
When they sparred, when they fought, forehead to forehead. He was always warm, always brightening the room with how loud he was, always making everything seem alive. And now Keith was holding just a shell, because Lance was slipping away, as rapidly as the blood flowed out of his body and into the water.
You can’t die, he thought, feeling it in his very core, the weight of being useless suffocating, destroying him bit by bit.
“Debatable,” Lance said then, croaked voice so low Keith could barely hear him. He tried to push himself up, but his arms laid unmovable at his sides so he groaned, hiding his face on Keith’s neck. “At least you are here.”
“I am,” he tightened his hold on Lance, putting more pressure on the wound, wincing when Lance cried out weakly and hotly against his neck. “Lance, we have to—“
“Shiro is coming,” Lance managed to say, feeling the way Keith’s breath shortened and trembling when it fell over his neck. “I… I sent a distressed signal.”
His body tensed then, muscles coiling as the coughs ripped through his body like a wild force. His chest hurt, breaths coming short and difficult, but Keith was there, holding him tightly, holding him together and keeping him from falling into a darkness he would never be able to escape.
Lance turned his head, getting out of his refuge on Keith neck to look at him. It felt inadequate for his heart to take off from his chest when he looked at the red paladin’s expression, but there he was; following the worried line of Keith’s tightened lips with his eyes, watching the way his brow furrowed and looking into the prettiest eyes in existence, only to find them anxiously looking back at him. And that was all it took to render Lance helpless, really. He leaned forward until their noses touched, close, so close that Keith wondered if he would be able to breathe some life into Lance this way.
“I want to tell you something,” Lance murmured, feeling Keith’s breath falling on his lips. His heart was burning, recklessness running through his veins, taking up the space the blood was leaving behind.
“If it’s some ‘I’m going to die so I have to tell you my last wish’ bullshit, Lance, I swear—“
“I love you.”
Lance had never liked the silence. It always tugged at him the wrong way, but he welcomed this one, welcomed it in the way it allowed him to watch the shifts of Keith’s expressions, to watch Keith longingly. He would do anything to feel his body again, to be able to trace Keith’s lips with his fingertips, follow the line of his jaw. But it felt enough, in some kind of way, to be able to see Keith’s eyes brightened up with tears, feel the way his chest constricted and hear the pained sound that tore out of his throat.
“It— It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Lance,” a single tear rolled down the paladin’s cheek and Lance wanted to catch it, wanted to do something, anything. Stay alive, perhaps. “I love you.”
He chuckled, weakly, something warm exploding inside of his chest and spreading through his numb limbs. Keith loved him and he was dying; two facts too difficult to reconcile.
Lance felt overwhelmed, something far too heavy lifting from his shoulders as he buried himself on Keith’s own, trying to smother the cries that were threatening to fall out of his lips, to spare Keith the sight of him slipping away. Keith readjusted his hold on him, always putting pressure on Lance’s wound, always making sure he could make things easier for him. Always protecting him. Something churned in his bones, something akin to hope, and Lance suffocated it, drowned it in his own blood and gasped, feeling dizzy.
“Keith, I’m dying,” he whispered against the edge of the paladin’s armour, sighing, surprised, when Keith carded his fingers through his hair.
“No,” was his answer, with a hand cupping the back of Lance’s head, strong fingers pressing comfortably there. “They are coming.”
Keith looked to the sky, felt and heard the water flowing, flowing, cleaning the blood and dragging it away.
The stars were falling.