When Lance comes to, everything is blurry.
He can barely feel his body, doesn't even know if he has one anymore, but at the same time there's an undercurrent of dull pain pulsing through every vein, lacing his bones like hot wire – like he's nothing but hot dust and air, non-coherent but still present. It's all incredibly fuzzy, dulled. He doesn't quite know whether to be thankful or not, too off-kilter to think.
The puddle he's melted into dries and pulls back into defined lines when Lance opens his eyes, but the blurriness stays. The pain sharpens into pinpricks and needles, then daggers in his chest. He can hardly breathe; the sky is whirling and the dust is still there, biting into his skin. He blinks against dirty grey, indiscernible from clouds, or the sky above, or the earth below, or anything else.
What happened?
Lance wills himself to move. His mind is slow but images are beginning to come back to him. He remembers: he wasn't alone.
Sitting up is impossible, his fingers only just managing a twitch, but naked fear for whoever was with him gives him enough strength to turn his head to the side, eyes frantically searching the dull landscape for a touch of colour. Lance finds nothing but more grey, the dust in his lungs and fog in his head. He painfully, motion for tiny motion, turns his head to the other side, and his heart stops. Red.
Keith? Is he…
He's motionless, his back toward Lance and laying in a big puddle of something suspiciously red. Lance's throat feels even drier than before, a feat with all that dust coating his insides, and so tight it hurts. He coughs, unconsciously straining toward Keith, as his heart hammers away in his chest, an anxious thing stumbling in fear.
Is he okay?
Lance's hands ball into fists, and he squints to clear his vision of listless shades of grey, to find sharp relief in familiar reds and soft blacks, brilliant blue – if only Keith would turn around and make it easier to breathe.
Is this Lance's fault, that Keith doesn't do what he should, doesn't throw a barbed comment about his stupidity at his head?
Did I fuck up everything?
"Keith?" Lance finds his voice, a rasping croak at best, and at last the stifling silence is gone. He pauses, but receives no answering echo to his plea. Red, as loud as the colour is, lies still. "Keith?"
He waits but the silence only grants him a brief reprieve, resuming where it left off. It's stifling, weighing heavily on his chest, as his lungs desperately rattle in an attempt to draw air. It all culminates in more desperation, growing inside him until finally – finally – the leaden fear wrapped around his muscles are broken through. His hand, followed by his arm, moves like an entity of its own, and appears just as disconnected to Lance, but it moves toward Keith, slowly pulling toward him, and that's all he wants.
"Keith – Keith, answer me - " Lance cuts himself off, rolling into his side and ignoring the pain that the movement shoots through his limbs.
Is this the end? We…
…lost?
What will happen next?
Eyes on the prize, as that saying goes, and Lance keeps his on Keith, pressing his lips together as he concentrates all his strength on moving forward.
I didn't say goodbye…
Lance manages to progress, slower than he wants to, with the final hope of reaching Keith.
My family…
It feels like eons, but then he stretches as far as he can, and finally manages to brush Keith's back with his fingertips for just a single moment.
My house…
He falters; Keith seems so far away, yet so close. But he can't give up, not now.
My planet…
Not ever. Just…a little…more…
My friends…
He can't fail.
Keith.
This…
I didn't say goodbye to them.
This is his last chance.
Lance's hand lands on Keith's shoulder, relieved and heavy. He breathes out, expending air he really can't spare, but smiles nonetheless. It's the only thing that doesn't hurt right now.
"Keith…are you listening?" Lance pulls himself closer, using strength he wasn't aware he still had left. He uses the last of it to wrap his arms around Keith's middle, revelling in the closeness he never dared to try for until now. Too late.
I didn't tell them how much I love them.
Everything is too late.
Pain, sharper than hot wire, pierces his heart and makes his body whole, all at once. All the tiny cuts littering him flare into existence, dried blood rubbing against his skin and dyeing the skinsuit beneath his armour. His whole side and lower stomach feel hot and wet while the rest of him is cold. He can't feel his fingers or his toes; his hands and feet prickle uncomfortably and his limbs grow heavy again. His short burst of strength leaves him, and Lance couldn't move even if he wanted to.
"Ugh." Lance coughs, the weak spasms of his chest shooting more pain through him, keeps coughing until he has no breath left and can only wheeze. His mouth is filled with a metallic taste, and he spits red, feebly squeezing Keith. "Keith -," he bites back the cough tickling the back of his throat, already raw from abuse, "ugh, Keith, wake up – Keith – c'mon buddy –"
Lance can't hold back another cough this time, his body reaching the limits of what it can take, but he has no air left to breathe and so he convulses painfully with each attempt of his lungs trying to purge the fluid slowly filling them up. He's drowning, Lance realises. Somewhere, buried deep inside, he can tell he's beginning to panic, but the far greater, more conscious part of him, is slowly fading to black and strangely calm. Lance is tired. He wants to sleep.
But there's something he can still say, despite the many things he didn't. He has to, if this is the only chance he gets not to regret everything he missed.
"Keith…I'm sorry." He pauses, voice as drowsy as he feels. He relaxes, smiling into Keith's hair and nose buried in inky black just as soft as he imagined. "I forgot to tell you…I love you…"
Keith doesn't react. Not even as a moment passes and flows into the next; he never gives any indication of having heard Lance.
Keith's back is pressed to Lance's chest, and while it expands in weak imitations of regular breathing…Keith is utterly, completely still.
Too late.
Keith…he isn't breathing…
And Lance can't either even though his lungs are straining for air he cannot reach.
Too late.
Lance knows he's broken. His body, so far gone with pain it's numb, feels like a shattered shell holding a shattered heart.
Too late.
But maybe, among the stars, they can both find peace.
Lance's hold around Keith tightens with the last bit of strength he can muster, and he presses his face into Keith's neck. It warms beneath his skin, but a telling chill remains.
Goodbye, Keith…, he thinks, slow and heavy, just like the rest of him. He can sleep now. Lance's eyes close as he breathes in red and black, dust and dirt, space and the stars watching from above. He thinks he can hear voices, soft and mysterious, beckoning like the next big adventure.Goodbye.
He breathes out and out, dissolving into welcoming black…and red.