Chapter Text
The pod hisses as it opens, the cold air dispersing from the chamber in a fine mist and leaving Lance's skin chilled to the touch. Warm, strong arms are there to catch him when he lists forward. He lifts his head slightly, trying to blink the haze from his vision and clear the fog from his mind.
"There you are, my boy!" A familiar voice cheers, and when Lance's eyes focus, he finds himself face to face with Coran grinning down at him.
"Hey, Coran." Lance returns, a smile of his own pulling at the edges of his mouth.
"All right?" The Altean asks as Lance straightens up, removing himself from the man's hold.
"I think so, yeah." He nods, shaking out his limbs a bit. His eyes sweep slowly over the room, his gaze catching and locking onto another as he cracks his neck — a horrible habit, really, but that wouldn't stop him from doing it.
"Oh, hey, you're awake," Keith calls from where he stands next to his brother. Lance can't help but feel as though he'd interrupted their conversation.
Instead of saying anything, however, Shiro smiles over at him. "I'll go let the rest of the team know," he turns, calling, "I'm glad you're okay!" to Lance over his shoulder by way of goodbye as he exits the med bay.
Lance watches him go until the door slides closed behind him and Keith steps forward, drawing his full attention. "Hey," he smiles gently, sending a fluttery feeling coursing through his stomach and a tingly feeling down his limbs — or are those after effects of the pod...?
"Hi," Lance sighs out as Keith reaches out to pull him in, wrapping him tightly in his arms. Lance returns the gesture, his arms pressing Keith impossibly closer to him as he closes his eyes and buries his face into the other boy's shoulder, inhaling his familiar, comforting scent.
"How're you feeling?" Keith asks as he pulls away, inspecting Lance's face with earnest eyes as he holds him out at arm's length.
Nope. That feeling in his stomach and limbs has nothing to do with the pod.
Lance shrugs, "fine." He gives himself a quick once over, staring at his hands as he turns them over. "Kind of got the pod-dumps, but it's nothing I can't sleep off." He shrugs once more, looking back up to grin — what he hopes to be charmingly, although he is sure looks more exhausted than anything — at the other boy.
"That's good,"
Lance hums his agreement, "how long was I out?"
Keith seems to consider the question for a moment, "maybe a few hours?" He muses, turning to look over at the other man and ask, "Coran?"
"Not long," Coran responds, absently twisting his moustache as he looks up from the screen he'd been focused on. "Just a couple of vargas. I can assure you, the damage was not extensive."
"Anything happen?" Lance asks, turning back to Keith.
He bobs his head from side to side as he considers, "not really. Once Coran assured us you were okay, everyone sort of went off to do their own thing. Shiro sent Pidge to take a nap, but knowing her...." He trails off, causing Lance to chuckle.
"She's probably still messing around with some sort of alien tech." Lance agrees, knowing Pidge well enough to guess that she would be avoiding sleep. He swears, she has intentional insomnia or something.
Before they could say anything else, the door to the med bay reopens and the rest of the team files into the room. Hunk makes a beeline for Lance, sweeping him out from underneath Keith's hands and wordlessly wrapping him up in a tight hug, suspending him in the air.
"Man, you've gotta stop being so reckless when we go on mission." He sighs, squeezing Lance tightly once more, just to make him wheeze, before replacing him on the floor and holding him out at arm's length.
"I'm fine, guys. It was just a spine injury," Lance rolls his eyes with a fond smile. "What are the pods for, anyway?"
"You know, you're lucky we have those." Shiro reprimands him lightly, "a spinal injury back on Earth could have a death sentence."
Lance huffs, "don't remind me."
Allura steps in then, admonishing him lightly for purposely throwing himself in harm's way despite the pods; but the lecture is brief, quickly opening the floor to Shiro as the two of them guide the team through a debrief of said mission now that Lance is back online. When they're finally done with what Lance dubs their "boring, old-people talk", he sighs and announces he's taking off to his bedroom to take a nap.
The group waves each other off as they part ways to return to their respective down time and Keith follows Lance out of the med bay, intertwining their fingers and pressing their shoulders together as they head to their sleeping quarters. The air between them is quiet and comfortable, the only sound between them is the echo of their footsteps through the halls. The silence is broken when Lance let's out a large yawn, smacking his lips lightly.
"So, what're you gonna do?" He asks, glancing at the boy beside him, "hog the training deck?" A knowing smirk is stretching the corners of his lips.
Keith is quiet for another moment before responding. "Actually, I thought I might take a nap with you," he suggests quietly, as if he's nervous. "If that's alright?" He turns to look at Lance, only to find the other boy looking back at him with a stunned expression. "What?" He frowns.
Lance's footsteps come to an abrupt stop, halting both of them there in the middle of the hallway. "You're asking if you can spend your free time taking a nap with me, instead of leveling up on the training deck?" Lance asks, his voice brimming with disbelief.
"Yes?" Keith answers, but it comes out as more of a question.
Lance furrows his eyebrows and squints at the other boy. "Who are you and what have you done with my boyfriend?" He asks, suspicious.
Keith rolls his eyes at that, pulling his hand away from Lance's grip. "Fine, maybe I willgo train if you're going to make fun of me," he huffs, turning away.
"No, wait!" Lance laughs out, reaching out to grab him by the wrist and pull him back in, "I'm sorry." He grins, not looking sorry whatsoever as he presses a kiss against Keith's lips, his other hand reaching back to smack against the touchpad on the wall and open up his bedroom door. "Please take a nap with me." He leans back in for another kiss, this one deeper than the first as he drags Keith into his bedroom with him.
Keith huffs when he pulls away, but he can't keep the stupid, lovesick smile off his face. "You're really twisting my arm, here," he jokes, swallowing the sound of Lance's responding laugh.
They stay there for a few minutes, pressed close together. They're lost in one another, separated from the rest of the world around them, alone in their own little bubble. At some point, Keith's hands find themselves buried and twisted in Lance's hair, his blunt nails scratching gently against the other boy's scalp and causing him to groan appreciatively into his mouth.
Eventually, he pulls away. He presses his forehead against Keith's as he smiles, the both of them panting. "I think I'm gonna take a shower first," Lance tells the other boy.
Keith's face pulls into a slight pout. "Okay," he mumbles, making Lance laugh once again.
"That was an open invitation. Just, by the way." He tells him, staring imploringly into the other boy's deep, dark violet eyes.
It's Keith's turn to huff a laugh at that, "you think showering together after you've been in a pod is a good idea?" He asks, seemingly entertained.
"As long as you promise not to get handsy," Lance tells him, a sly smirk pulling at his lips.
Keith scoffs, although it holds no malice. "Says you," he grins, his expression mirroring his boyfriend's as he reaches around to place one hand overtop one of Lance's, which had long since slid down to enthusiastically grope his ass.
Lance hums, a pleased little noise in the back of his throat. "It can't be helped," he tells the other boy, his hands unmoving. "You have a wonderful ass, baby," he emphasizes his point with a firm squeeze with both hands. "Very grope-able."
His entire body lights up with sheer delight when Keith throws his head back, letting out a loud, full-body laugh.
"You're ridiculous," Keith tells him, his own face mirroring the pure joy Lance was radiating.
"You love it,"
Keith hums, his fingers lazily playing with the hair at the nape of his boyfriend's neck. "How about that shower, stinky?" He smiles, eyes focused on the other boy's lips.
Lance scoffs, shoving the other boy off of him as he turns around, storming towards the bathroom. "Never mind. I revoke my invitation," he calls out as he stomps away.
"Ah-ah, you can't!" Keith hurries after him, his cheeks hurting from the smile plastered on his face, "no take-backs!" He reaches up to pull at the elastic in his hair as he steps into the room behind Lance, yanking it free and shaking out his hair. "Besides, I'm stinky too."
That catches Lance's attention.
He turns around from where he'd been leaning into the shower to mess with the temperature controls, looking over his shoulder at his boyfriend. "You didn't take a shower after the mission?" He asks, eyebrows furrowed.
For as much as Lance nags him about not taking care of himself, Keith has always made it a point to clean himself after a mission. As he should.
He hates the feeling of sweat drying against his skin, the stench of his body's exertion, the way his hair feels — generally, he hates the way his body feels after a mission. Again, as he should.
And Lance is very aware of this fact. It's not really something that goes unnoticed when his boyfriend gets antsy as soon as they settle after a battle, always running off at the soonest possible moment to rid himself of the day's work. So, it comes as a surprise to Lance when said boyfriend is standing in front of him, willingly unbathed after a mission. For hours on end, no less.
"I was waiting for you." Keith tells him nonchalantly, reaching over to grab one of Lance's wrists and pull it towards him, dragging the hair tie onto it. "I wanted to make sure you were okay when you got out of the pod."
That response gives Lance pause, and for a moment, he just stands there, staring at the other boy. And — yeah, okay. Lance will admit, for as much as he was playing off the whole thing after he emerged from the pod, having a spine injury hurt like hell.
And yeah, maybe he had been screaming his head off like a wild banshee when he plummeted from that cliff and gravity rammed his back straight onto a large, jagged rock at the bottom. Maybe he had been rendered paralyzed, and maybe he had passed out from the pain of being moved by his friends when they finally reached him and tried to figure out how to get him safely into a pod. But none of that is really relevant when he's standing here, exhausted, but otherwise completely fine.
Finally, he straightens out again and turns his hand, grasping onto Keith's own and pulling him back into his arms. "I'm okay," he murmurs against Keith's temple as he wraps him in his arms again, feeling Keith press his nose to the side of his neck.
"I know," Keith sighs. "I just..." he squeezes a bit tighter, "worry."
If Lance feels a bit caught off guard by his boyfriend's lack of walls at the moment, he doesn't say anything about it. "You don't have to." Lance tells him, pulling back to press their foreheads together once more. He rubs his nose softly against Keith's as he whispers, "I'm not going anywhere, samurai. I promise."
Keith breathes out a sigh, sounding relieved. His eyes slip closed and he nods, causing his nose to bump against Lance's, "okay."
Lance presses another kiss to his lips. This time, it's deeper, slower, more tender than their previous kisses. Gently, carefully, they strip one another of their respective clothes — Lance, his pod suit and Keith, his armor that he still has yet to change out of.
It's safe to say, they do get handsy in the shower.
Eventually, when they are both clean and satiated, they find themselves cuddled close together in Lance's bed, both dressed in a pair of his clean, soft sweatpants. Well, the closest thing they'd managed to find to Earth sweatpants at one of their stops to a space mall awhile back. Keith lays his head against Lance's chest, ear pressed just over where the other boy's heart pulses underneath. He allows the soft, steady beating of it ease his mind. Lance is here. He's here, and he's safe where he lays below him.
"I'm okay," Lance promises once more, as if he can read Keith's thoughts. His voice is gentle as he runs his fingers reverently through Keith's dark hair. "I'm here to stay, baby."
The two of them are startled awake when the castle's alarms go off. They are up and out of be within seconds, Lance immediately rummaging through his closet for another change of armor, while Keith bolts out the door, hurrying to his own room to do the same.
When he's finished, Lance whips around, eyes roving across the room in search of his bayard. After a few seconds that he doesn't really have to spare, he remembers that he'd left it in the med bay, along with the armor he'd been wearing before he was shoved into a pod.
He's sprinting down the hall towards the med bay within moments, slipping inside to snatch his bayard out from its place amongst the pile of his discarded armor pieces. He's back to running again, and finds himself entering the castle-ship's bridge at the same time as Keith. It seems that they are only moments behind the rest of the team's arrival.
Everything happens in a flurry and Lance barely has time to register what's even going on. Allura explains that they've picked up on a distress signal from a planet in a nearby solar system. According to the planet's inhabitants, it's been invaded by a large Galran fleet. Unfortunately, they don't have much time to discuss their strategy or order of operations. The enemy has already touched down on the planet and has begun to wreak havoc upon its residents. The paladins all rush to their respective hangars as Allura and Coran prepare a wormhole, allowing them to immediately pilot their lions out into space and head directly for the planet below.
Shiro and Allura are barking orders at the team instantly, talking quickly over one another as they attempt to come up with a plan on the fly. You'd think they'd be better at this by now, considering they've been doing this for several years at this point, but things always get a bit messy when they try to reverse damage already done.
Lance hates these missions the most. It's always harder to lose innocent lives simply because they weren't faster. He thinks the panic of these sorts of situations gets to Allura and Shiro, too, making their plans a bit sloppier. It's fine, though. They'll rush in here and come back out victorious, just like they always do — at least, that's what Lance tells himself.
What they've got now probably isn't the best solution, but it's all they can do at the moment. The team has to split up. There are still some ships hovering in the planet's atmosphere, despite most of the fight being on-ground.
Someone needs to be planet-side to properly take out the foot soldiers and sentries, otherwise, they run the risk of endangering even more of the planet's inhabitants.Hunk, piloting the lion with the most bulk, and Keith, piloting the fastest, smoothest lion, are tasked with taking out the remaining ships sailing through the atmosphere. Lance, Pidge, and Shiro are tasked with landing and fighting hand-to-hand.
Lance isn't sure how long he's been in the heat of battle by the time Hunk and Keith have finished off the last of the Galra ships and race to join them in the fight on ground, but he's sure the two of them have made quick work of the job.
The five of them are separated but nearby, each taking on the seemingly endless sentries and Galra soldiers relentlessly attacking them. Lance has never particularly excelled in hand-to-hand combat, much preferring to take out enemies from a long range as the team's resident sharpshooter. Even so, he and Keith have been training more lately, so he's more comfortable holding his own in a battle like this. Thankfully, this means that he can keep tabs on his friends, watching their backs for them as much as possible while avoiding getting his ass handed to him.
He hopes that the amount of soldiers starts dying down soon, because this is frankly getting a little ridiculous. He isn't sure how long he's been fighting by now — probably only a few minutes, if he's honest with himself — but he could feel his stamina begin to dwindle. Say what you will, but fighting for your life is an insanely draining task, as it turns out.
As if his prayers had suddenly been answered, he picks off a few more soldiers and can feel their numbers begin to dwindle. With the decline in enemies after his head, he directs his attention to be more aware of Keith and Pidge, both of whom are within closer proximity to him than anyone else.
With his attention split so heavily between fighting off a whole platoon and trying to watch his teammate's backs, his senses are a bit overloaded and he misses the sound of stone gradually cracking and crumbling from behind him. By the time registers the echoing crash and whips his head around to find the alien-government building behind him collapsing beneath the flames licking up the sides and consuming it, it is already too late.
He turns on his heel and begins sprinting in the other direction, feeling the ground shake beneath him as the structure comes crumbling down and collides into the street below. Despite how fast he's been booking it, the force of gravity on the structure is gaining on him.
He gasps when something is pierced through his back, forcing itself through him until it reemerges through the left side of his abdomen. His legs give out beneath him and, much like the building, he goes crashing to the ground. Heavy pieces of stone, metal, and glass swallow him, caving him in against the ground.
He must have blacked out, because he feels his consciousness being reeled back in by the sound of his friends screaming at him through their comms.
He's surrounded by darkness. His head pulses and throbs painfully, his vision blurry and unfocused. Every breath he attempts to take is shallow and wheezy, each inhale and exhale causing pain to spike through his abdomen.
"Lance?!"
"Lance, are you there?"
"Come in, Lance."
"Lance!"
"I'm-" he croaks, causing him to cough. The jostle of his body sends another wave of fresh, ripe pain rolling through his body and he can feel a wetness in his mouth that he doesn't remember being there before. "I'm here."
"Are you okay?" Someone asks. He thinks it might have been Shiro. "Can you tell us what sort of condition you're in?"
He lies there for a moment, his tongue feeling heavy as a brick and his mind glazed over with a thick fog. A particularly deep breath has a new pang of pain ripping through him, sobering him up enough to mumble out, "I'm fine, always fine. I'll be fine," he tries to reassure them, "I'll bounce right back, just like always."
"Something's wrong." He hears, although it's not directed at him. He thinks Keith is the one to say it.
"Lance, we're going to get you out of there, just hang tight." Shiro's voice appears again. It sounds even and firm despite the obvious stress dripping from it.
"No rush," Lance manages, trying to wave them off, but the words cause him to cough once more. His mouth fills with the coppery tang of blood and he corrects himself. "Well, maybe rush?"
He hears someone curse quietly under their breath and everything goes quiet for a few moments.
Suddenly, the sound of rock and metal being thrown around catches his attention. Things begin to shift and move around him, light slipping through and seeping into his little hole in the rubble. He squints his eyes against the light, groaning. The shifting around him stops momentarily.
"Lance, you okay, buddy? What's wrong?" Another worried voice pipes up and Lance thinks it might be Hunk this time.
"Bright...." He manages to croak out weakly.
"You see light?"
He manages a hum of affirmation and the rubble around him begins to shift and move more rapidly than before. Through the returning fog in his mind and what feels like cotton in his ears, Lance can hear the sound of his team heaving frantic breaths through the comms as they dig. Something shifts and he realizes that his abdomen is still pierced through at the way his flesh and insides are stretched and tugged with the shift of whatever is inside of him.
He cries out, tears quickly gathering in his eyes and his whole body breaking out into a cold sweat. If his friends are talking to him, he wouldn't know. There's a loud ringing in his ears and a buzz in his head making him feeling dizzy and floaty.
It isn't long before his face is uncovered, the light of the sun like a warm, soft kiss against his skin. His blurry vision goes white as his mutilated body is tugged at again, which is quickly replaced by pitch black.
He doesn't know how long it's been until he comes to. His breathing is no more than shallow, shaky panting. It feels impossible to get air to stay inside of his lungs, like as soon as it's inside, it's slipping back out. Like water through his fingers.
Ever so slowly, the ringing in his ears fades, replaced by a wall of dull sound. His eyes flutter open gently, and he can't tell if the blurriness of his vision is due to his tears or the pain. Maybe the fact that he's dying? If he had the capacity to think at the moment, he'd probably conclude a combination of of all three. As it stands, he really only has enough energy to focus on the face above his.
Keith — that sweet, stubborn, beautifulboy — fills his vision and Lance thinks he can feel his face pull into a sweet smile of its own accord. "Hi," he rasps, earning him a soft, watery smile from Keith in return.
"Hi, baby." He returns, brushing back the hair from where it's plastered against Lance's clammy forehead. Lance thinks the rest of his friends might be somewhere just behind the boy above him, but he really only has the ability to see what is immediately in front of him, and Keith is monopolizing that space at the moment. "It's okay. You're going to be okay, we're getting you help." He promises, his voice shaky and strained.
Lance's smile turns sad as his eyes begin to brim with tears once again. It takes everything he has to reach up and cup a hand against Keith's cheek, whispering, "I can't...." Which probably doesn't make much sense, but the other boy seems to understand him regardless, if his reaction is any indication.
"Yes, you can. You can and you will." Keith sounds determine, despite the way his words waver. "You said it yourself, sweetheart. You're going to bounce right back, just like always." His determination begins to slip into desperation.
"Not this time," he says, because he knows. He can feel his eyelids growing heavier and heavier.
"But you promised," Keith sobs after a long moment of silence. He presses his forehead to Lance's in a mirror of earlier that day. The only difference is that this time, Lance is bleeding out below him. "You promised."
"I know," Lance whispers, because that's all he can manage. Tears begin to slide down his cheeks, mingling with the sweat, and blood, and tears from his boyfriend. "I'm sorry."
Keith shakes his head, "please, please, can you just keep your eyes open for me, baby? Please. Lance, please."
Lance can't. He wants to, he's been trying. He just can't. "I love you," he tells him, a bit desperately. He knows for a fact that he's dying. He knows he isn't going to make it, and he has to let Keith know, knowing he'll regret it if he doesn't. He doesn't have to be alive for that. He knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his soul will never be able to rest beyond the grave if he doesn't tell him now.
"I love you too," Keith sobs, pressing his forehead harder against Lance's.
Lance smiles, feeling the weight of his eyelids become too heavy. He can't fight it any longer. His lids begin to flutter and he succumbs to the darkness behind them; allowing himself to be pulled deeper and deeper, until he's drowning in it.
"Lance...?" Keith's soft, breathless voice echoes in his mind as he is consumed. "Lance!" He feels the last shallow breath slip from his lungs.
Just like that, it was over.
And then, suddenly, it wasn't.
