Scopophobia - fear of being looked at or stared at.

Eyes. A sea of them, unblinking and staring at me, and only me.

Eyes that don't blink, eyes that don't move in the sockets of people that don't speak. They don't breathe, and I am terrified.

Sing.

And I can't. My lips part but the only thing that slips through them is a quick burst of my quivering breath. Maybe, back then, I could have sung, but I cannot now.

Times have changed, and I am not the person I used to be. I'm not fearless like I used to be, I am, in fact, full of many fears. I am very fearful, contradictory to how I was before. I guess with puberty comes fears.

My hands are sweating, the microphone is slipping against my fingers. My throat is dry, my eyes are watering with unshed tears of panic. My stomach twists, and I can feel nothing but my heart. The stagelights make my skin feel so much hotter, and they blind my eyes.

Someone clears their throat, and I take off running.

"Keith! Keith wait!" The voice behind me is deep and masculine and filled with worry. "Keith!"

I push open the large doors to the auditorium, sinking to the floor. I press my back against the lockers, a rush from the cool metal exploding on my back. It is calming, relaxing, even, and it soothes my burning skin.

I close my eyes, and I know I look smaller than I ever have.

The doors are pushed open again and three different footsteps make their way to me.

I open my eyes, my vision blurred by tears, and I see three faces staring straight down at me.

"I can't do this. Not without him." I don't cry, not yet, I wouldn't allow myself to look that weak in front of them, even if they are my family.

"Keith..." his voice is laced with pity, with sadness, and with a hint of worry. A heavy hand sits on my shoulder, his fingers tapping against my skin in a soothing rhythm.

Shiro had always been the best at comforting me, and yet his touch does nothing to soothe the hole in my heart or the pain in my chest. It's a pain of longing, because he has been away from me for so long.

Mentally, I can feel him, but the connection is weak. I do not know if he can feel my panic or my longing or my unshed tears. I thought that that was what soulmates were supossed to do.

And we have been told that our mental link is so much stronger than other pairs.

"He is coming back home," the little bird next to me offers when Shiro is lost for words. Pidge adjusts her glasses, looking down at me with her arms crossed. Her posture seems uncaring, but her expression is soft and her words are... true.

"Really? Because I can't feel him anymore. I can't see him, and I haven't been." I say, almost panicked, and I am.

"Its been a year, Keith, maybe it's been strained for too long." Shiro speaks next, cutting Pidge off, because she snaps her jaw closed when he starts to speak.

"It wouldn't ever." My voice is weak and promising.

"You think he's hurt." Large hands rest on my knees, the large haiwaiian sitting directly infront of me. Hunk is the teddy bear of the group, and is softer than all of the rest of us.

To say, his words calm me a little more than the words of the bird and of the brother.

"That is exactly what I think. I can't feel his pain, so I don't think he can even feel the pain, himself."

Two Years Before

I wake up in arms that are long, scrawny, and warm. My eyes stare up at a cieling that doesn't belong to me, and the breath that tickles my neck is wispy.

He is still asleep, with his arms over me, and the realization hits me like a strong gust of wind.

Oh shit.

I have, knowingly, slept with my soulmate. The link of our minds is less than twenty-four hours old and it is fairly weak, but yet I can still feel the vividness of his dreams in my mind.

I can see bits of them, mere peices of the whole thing, and he is dreaming of us. I had not expected that, but finding your soulmate does change people after all, even if you barely know them.

It's not uncommon for newly found soulmates to sleep together. Our mental link became itself when we first met, and it usually happens to draw us closer, showing us what the other is like in one of the rawest and most intimate forms.

I run one of my fingers over his hands, the skin soft and moisturized. His breath is still even and it bares no signs that my soulmate will wake up anytime soon. I am content, his dreams calm me, and his body keeps me warm.

We had met, funny enough, at a small family cafe just a couple blocks down. When I felt the pulling against my own thoughts I knew - that was how you knew.

His thoughts had envaded mine as quickly as he had made my coffee. It was new, and I could only hear bits and peices, much like with how I can mentally see his dreams, but I knew that they were his, because 'who gets coffee at eight at night' were the first thoughts of his that I ever would read.

Your thinking about us. His voice in my mind is new and it startles me. I forget that he can, too, read my thoughts and sense my emotions just as I can his. It's an adjustment, but I feel relaxed with the fact that he can peak and wonder around my mind.

Soulmate bonds do odd things.

"And you were dreaming about us," I say aloud, feeling the hum vibrate through his chest. "Are you content?"

"Can you not feel me?" Lance's words are slurred, I can feel him yawn against me and the sudden press of lips against my neck send shivers down my spine. I could get used to this. "I am very content."

"I can. I could see bits of your dreams." I admit to watching his dreams like a movie and I feel no guilt.

Lance chuckles, because he knows that I didn't feel guilty, and he probably knew I was watching them the entire time.

"I could feel you watching them," he admits, shifting his body away from me to stretch. The warmth is instantly gone and I instantly began to long for it, the cold air brushing unwelcomed against my skin. "I can't explain how that feels. It's kind of weird, but it's also calming. I don't know."

The bed shifts as his weight leaves, and it is only me laying there, half covered by a fluffy blue blanket. I am cold, and I feel the sudden sinking feeling of heavy longing.

Lance turns to me and smirks, pulling oddly patterned boxer shorts up to his hips. Of course, he felt my longing.

I scoff. "Get out of my head." I demand, though I'm not as serious as I wish I could be. His thoughts that mingle with mine wash over me like cool water, and they soothe the fire of my own.

"I couldn't if I tried," he mimics my scoff, but his smile never falters. "Literally."

It's no joke, once a pair meets they stay bonded until death. Realistically, he could leave me, but I could never stop feeling him in my mind - the mental link is constant. I have heard stories of people who had left their soulmates and ended up entirely miserable.

I don't know if I could leave Lance, and I've known him for less than a day.

"Your nosey." He rolls his eyes, still smiling. My words don't bother him, and he finishes dressing without another word. I hug the blanket tighter around me for comfort, the thing smells of nothing but Lance and I, I feel relaxed, my head the slightest bit of fuzzy, a little out of it.

"Yeah, that happens," Lance says, jumping on the bed like a child, wrapping his arms around me. I'm still naked, but I don't think he minds.

No, I don't mind.

That's good to know.

I'm lucky. My cheeks heat at his words, though part of me wonders if he is actually lucky. I can be detached, I'm known for my ability to do so.

Are you? The feeling of my doubt settles between the both of us. It's strong, doubt is a hazy emotion that feels like walking through dense fog. I can feel Lance shift, and I can feel his discomfort.

"Your doubting yourself." He states, running a finger down the dips and turns of my stomach, memorizing each characteristic of it. "You think I'm not happy with you."

"You only know that because you can feel it." I'm defensive, my words sharp and pointed. I can feel him trying to calm me, somewhere in the moment my mind had begun to panic, even if my words didn't have the tone to them at all.

Lance trying to calm me is soothing. My calm is the crackle of a fire, the burning red blaze of one, and his calm is the running of a stream or the crashing of waves along a beach. His emotions and his mentality could put my fire out if they wanted too.

But for now, he settled just along the edge of my flames, a safe distance away as if they could harm him. He is trying to calm me, but he is just as doubtful as I am.

Lance is holding back, and through out bond I can feel him doing so.

His lips along my neck are warm as they kiss my skin. "I'm sorry," he is sincere, truly, but I can't see a reason why he would apologize. "This is new."

"Why are you apologizing?" I question, feeling him shrug against me, the cotton of his shirt smooth against my bare skin. He doesn't speak after that, he just continues to kiss my skin, fleeting touches of warmth along my body. I wonder if his other partners have ever received this kind of treatment, but his thoughts tell me other wise.

He is thinking of us, again, and I can read them much clearer than before. I learn then, that Lance has never had any other partners at all, and that I am his first entirely, in every aspect.

I was always waiting for you.

And those swells, as we lay there together tangled in his sheets, crash, and they swallow me whole.

As much as I thought I would mind, I don't.