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Lance squinted his eyes open, and groaned when light hit them. The light wasn’t purple, though, so he let his eyes slide shut again and tried to figure out where he was with his other senses. The quiet ambient noise was familiar, which meant he was on the castle. He was on something soft, but not his bed. He was sitting up, so it had to be one of the couches. His neck hurt from being at a weird angle all, however long he’d been asleep, and the rest of his body felt stiff. He’d slept for a long time, longer than he had since... probably since before the Garrison, maybe even earlier than that. He was still wearing his flight suit, and his mouth felt tacky and gross. He groaned at that, and made to lift one of his heavy arms.
It was pinned, and had been for a while if the numbness of his fingers was anything to go by. His other hand was resting on something warm, probably the same warm thing which was pinning his left hand. He flexed his fingers, and realized it was hair. Or at least, mostly hair. One of his fingers dug into fur. Keith. Keith’s head was in his lap. He grinned, and shifted his hand slightly to the side to optimally dig into that one spot at the base of Keith’s ear.
Keith purred, and last night started coming back in bits and pieces. He’d dropped his armour... somewhere, he couldn’t recall right now, and flopped down on the couch to avoid going to sleep. Keith had come in, Lance had helped him out of his own armour, and then... they’d talked. Not about the twenty varga long battle they’d just won, or the countless enemies destroyed in the process, but about stupid shit. The sky on Earth, lizards, the video game Hunk had managed to rig up to a holo-screen so Pidge could kick all their asses during free hours. Their nightmares.
That was why they’d both come here, after all, instead of going back to their own quarters. Looking for a way to avoid the horrors of their own unconscious minds just a little bit longer. Keith had slumped against him, and he’d- he’d started petting Keith. God, he was never going to live that down. But, it had definitely seemed to lull Keith to sleep. And then, well, everyone knew it was Illegal to move when a cat was asleep on your lap so Lance had just sat there and kept petting. Probably until he fell asleep, since he was still here with Keith’s head pillowed on his lap.
Keith, who didn’t seem to have moved an inch from when he’d fallen asleep. Keith didn’t thrash when he had nightmares, not like he did, but he fidgeted, he twitched, he clenched his hands into fists so tight he gouged claw marks into his own palm until Allura found him a blunting stone. But when Lance cracked an eye open, Keith’s hands were loose. One was curled in half a fist against the couch cushions, and the other was palm-up, fingers slack under Lance’s numb ones. The scars on his hand were as faded as they would ever be, but they hadn’t been aggravated overnight. Lance carefully extracted his hand from under Keith’s shoulder, and rolled his shoulder a few times to work the stiffness out.
He paused mid-roll, eyes opening. If his limbs felt stiff, then that meant he hadn’t moved all night either. The thought struck him again that he felt rested. Really, truly rested and refreshed and ready for a new day. He couldn’t remember if he’d dreamed, but that was miles better than waking up with the taste of blood and rotten druid magic on his tongue from a nightmare. Better than having to wrap his blanket around himself and check that his friends were still where he’d left them. Better than burrowing under blanket and pillow and clinging to his bond with blue until the lack of air forced his body to remember how to actually breathe.
He shouldn’t’ve been waking up rested and dreamless after a fight like that. They’d destroyed dozens of battleships, hundreds of fighters. In the heat of battle, he’d blown the engines on a ship nearly the size of the castle and cheered as it turned to shrapnel. There were hundreds, thousands of people on that ship. Galra, yes, but still people. Lives he’d ended, lives he’d celebrated the end of. He should’ve woken screaming after two hours of sleep, if that.
“Don’ stop.” Keith mumbled, and Lance realized he’d stopped scratching at the base of Keith’s ear. He resumed, and Keith purred. Lance wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d been cured of his nightmares in one day, or night, but maybe having someone else around helped? He’d talk about it with Keith later. But until someone came looking, or his stomach started growling, Lance was perfectly content to doze and give Keith ear scritches.