The planets they freed sure did like to party once the Galra were gone, and if they fawned over their saviors? Well, it was no skin off Lance's teeth.
Planet Cancri was celebrating their independence with music, dancing, a huge buffet, and copious amounts of a delicious golden liquid the natives called 'chispa.' It made them smiley, giggly and uncoordinated, but Lance had drunk about a litre of the stuff to no ill affect so they all assumed it just didn't affect humans the same way.
Even though people of Cancri weren't his cup of tea for flirtation purposes, (they were tiny and colourful, like the Arusians, whereas Lance's type was bodacious with long flowing hair) they were cute, and they hung on his every word as he recounted his heroic actions during battle, tittering and gasping and cheering at all the right moments.
Lance positively basked in their approbation.
During a lull in conversation he looked across the huge tent that had been erected for the event and mentally ticked off his teammates; he liked to periodically do a headcount. It eased his mind to keep track of everyone's whereabouts.
Hunk was standing by a table laden with food, enthusiastically exclaiming over something large and red on his plate with Pidge. It looked like he was trying to cajole her into sampling something, but she was shaking her head emphatically in refusal.
Allura and Shiro were speaking to the leaders of the Cancri with smiles and bowed heads, and Coran was out on the dance floor doing something - interesting - with a crowd of Cancri surrounding him. There was way too much hip movement going on to be healthy.
Lance scanned the tent for a familiar mop of black hair, but Keith was nowhere to be seen.
Come to think about it, Lance hadn't seen the grumpy bastard at all the whole night. Sure he wasn't a social butterfly like Lance was, but he could usually be found leaning against a wall in the shadows, doing a convincing impression of a broody gargoyle.
Lance excused himself from his admirers ostensibly to get some fresh air.
Beyond the tarp there was a view of a clear blue lake, with the reflection of two moons softly caressing its surface.
Lance spotted Keith sitting cross-legged out near the lapping edge of the water.
Normally he would have been satisfied with seeing Keith. He would have ticked Keith off his mental checklist and turned on his heel to re-join his admirers, but he was doing something – weird.
Keith was staring at his own hands as if they contained the answers to life's secrets, paladin gloves discarded on the ground behind him. Lance watched as he very slowly clenched both hands into fists before relaxing them again, brows furrowed in contemplation.
And then, even stranger, he proceeded to cross his arms over his chest, gripping the opposite bicep with each hand, as if he were giving himself a hug. He looked… melancholy.
The sight was incongruous with everything he thought he knew about Keith, and Lance found himself strolling over to investigate further.
"What're you doing you weirdo?" he demanded by way of greeting, flopping down into the reddish alien grass, facing Keith's hunched form.
"There's something wrong with me," said Keith hoarsely, eyes downcast.
"Something? Singular? Because, hate to break it to you, there is definitely more than one thing wrong with you," Lance ribbed.
He expected Keith to come back with a snappy retort immediately like he usually did, but he just unfolded his arms and went back to staring at his hands.
Clench… relax… clench… relax.
"Ok, that's kind of freaking me out."
Clench… relax… clench… relax.
"Hey, cut it out."
Keith ignored him, engrossed in whatever he saw in his palms.
"Seriously, you need to stop," Lance reached over and physically gripped the Red Paladin's hands to make them still.
Keith's finger's clenched weakly around Lance's and he stared down at their joined hands for a beat, eyebrows pinched together in confusion.
He slowly lifted his head to look at Lance, frowning deeply.
"What color are my hands?" he asked gravely. The sky of this planet was violet and the color reflected in Keith's eyes, making them appear bottomless.
An uncomfortably warm feeling Lance did not want to properly identify blossomed in his chest. If he were being totally honest with himself, it wasn't the first time the giddy feeling had manifested itself while he was in Keith's presence, but Lance was an expert at self-deception. Particularly where Keith was involved.
He swallowed, and watched as Keith's violet eyes tracked the bobbing movement of his Adam's apple.
"Pasty white, same color they usually are," he snapped, letting go of Keith's hands hastily.
Looking relieved, Keith went back to hugging himself.
"I feel weird. I'm usually good at not thinking, but… but now I can't stop thinking. I want to stop thinking," Keith rambled.
"Well it isn't news to me that you usually don't think," snipped back Lance. This conversation was getting weird; he needed to antagonize Keith so they could fall back into arguing.
That was their thing, and Lance was comfortable with it. He was not comfortable with - whatever this was.
"I want to stop thinking but I can't," replied Keith, not rising to the bait.
"Why? Maybe if you thought a little more often I wouldn't hate you so much," the words rolled out of Lance's mouth; it was natural to him to try to press Keith's buttons. It was satisfying to make Keith lose his cool.
"Do you really mean that?" asked Keith in a small voice, eyes shining with hurt. Lance tried not to gape in shock; he'd never seen Keith's stoic façade falter into anything other than anger before.
It was satisfying to make Keith angry, but this? It was not satisfying. The warm feeling blooming in his chest twisted into something needle sharp. It burned like acid.
So Lance ran his mouth, desperate for Keith to stop looking so hurt. Desperate for them to get back into familiar territory.
"Yeah, I mean I know you're supposed to be 'Mr. Instincts' or whatever but your habit of running headlong at everything is actually pretty dangerous-"
"No, not that. I mean, do you really hate me?" Keith cut him off. Lance sighed and scraped a hand through his hair roughly, finally accepting that Keith's weird mood wasn't going to allow him to make everything into an argument or a light-hearted joke.
"Jeez Keith I was messing around; I don't really hate you. The rivalry shtick is just our thing,"he explained, gesturing expressively between them.
Keith just stared at him, eyebrows drawn together, lower lip jutting out ever so slightly.
"Stop looking at me like that," Lance huffed.
"Like what?" Keith tilted his head to one side. Lance felt the tips of his ears heating up. Keith had no right to – to – look so soft and sad.
Endearing, sweet… supplied Lance's stupid brain without prompting.
Shut up! He hissed back mentally.
"Like a kicked puppy! That expression on your face is just wrong!"
Keith's shoulders slumped even further and he curled in on himself at Lance's harsh words.
"Sorry," he muttered, looking impossibly small and forlorn.
"Don't apologize! You look even sadder now! Stop it!" Lance cried, unreasonably panicked as the heat spread across the rest of his face.
"I… I can't help it. I am sad. I'm sad…" Keith's hands migrated from clutching at his biceps to clutching at his skull.
Watching Keith pull at his own hair in barely supressed anguish - it was as if someone had upended a bucket of icy water over Lance's head and he suddenly had a name for the emotion coalescing in his chest - guilt.
There was clearly something not right with Keith and all he'd done was be purposefully mean and try to pick a fight. Keith was his teammate and he was hurting, Lance had a responsibility to help him. It wasn't Keith's fault that Lance was having some sort of existential crisis.
"Do you want me to get Shiro?" he asked haltingly.
Keith shook his head.
"D-don't bother Shiro. M'fine. You should leave me alone," was his muffled reply.
"Do you want to be alone?"
Silence. Keith trembled, and Lance figured that was answer enough.
He scooted closer so they sat shoulder pressed to shoulder.
"Why are you sad?" the question was asked softly, gently. It was the same tone of voice Lance used to use to soothe upset nieces and nephews. He never would have imagined using it on Keith.
Keith let his hands fall limply into his lap and looked up at Lance with suspiciously shiny eyes.
"Can't stop thinking," he mumbled.
"You're sad because you can't stop thinking?"
"Thinking makes me sad. That's why I try to, you know, a-avoid it," the hitch in his voice killed Lance. Keith was supposed to be strong and angry and invulnerable, not soft and sad and unguarded.
"Well… what are you thinking about?"
"People… I've never understood people"
"You're sad because you don't understand people?"
"Kind of."
"Who are you and what have you done with the real Keith Kogane?" said Lance haltingly.
"It's that drink making me feel… funny. I can't control my brain."
"That drink? You mean the chispa?"
Keith nodded jerkily. Come to think about it, sitting this close, Lance could see that Keith's face was flushed and his pupils were blown wide. His speech was stilted and slow, somehow less fluid than normal. He was acting like he was drunk, or drugged, or something.
"How much did you drink?" asked Lance skeptically.
"The cup they gave us for the t-toast."
"I've had waaaay more than a cup of the stuff and I feel fine so I can't be that. Could you have eaten something weird?"
Keith shook his head miserably.
"Alright… well, what it is about people that you don't understand?" Lance asked.
Keith never volunteered information about himself. They'd been floating around in the castle together for months now, and he hardly knew anything about Keith other than what he could garner from looking at him.
Sue him, he was curious to see what Keith had to say in his apparently uninhibited state.
"How to get close to them," replied Keith solemnly.
"You want to be close to people?" Lance couldn't supress his disbelieving tone.
"Desperately," Keith breathed
"You?" Lance squeaked.
Keith choked out a bitter laugh, "Doesn't everyone?"
"Well, normal people do, but you-you're-"
"I'm not right," Keith sounded resigned.
"That isn't what I was going to say-" that was the problem with running your mouth without thinking, Lance wasn't actively trying to make things worse, but somehow his words came out sounding terrible.
"It's what you mean. T-there's something wrong with me. S'probably why none of the foster families stuck," Keith's words were really slurring now.
"Foster families?"
"None of them liked me. I t-tried to be likable but I didn't know how. Not like you. Always something w-wrong with me."
"Keith-"
"My dad knew. He knew. He must have, or-or else he-he wouldn't have left."
That was the moment Lance became painfully aware that he had been misjudging Keith this whole time.
"When did he leave?" the question fell out accidentally.
"When I was s-seven. H-he was always busy. I th-think I drove him away because I w-wanted his attention all the time. I tr-tried not to make the same mistake but, well, no one ever wanted to adopt me so-"
"What do you mean same mistake twice?"
"Being too clingy. W-wanting attention. A-affection."
"But-but what about your mom?" Lance blurted.
"N-never met her. She… she um, abandoned m-me when I was a baby."
Lance couldn't help but stare at Keith gormlessly. Keith was, for all intents and purposes, an orphan. Whenever he imagined what kind of background Keith hailed from, he imagined privilege. He assumed that Keith, with his perfect grades, his perfect simulator scores, and his stupidly perfect face, must have come from a perfect family with perfects parents that doted him and were rich enough to afford the tuition at the Garrison. It certainly fit with his aloof, I'm-better-than-you persona.
All this time Keith must have been a scholarship student, just like him and Hunk.
In hindsight, this shouldn't have come as a shock. He wanted to kick himself in the face for his own stupidity because it was so obvious; why would Keith live in a dilapidated shack in the middle of the desert if he had anywhere else to go?
The shininess of Keith's eyes spilled over, down his cheeks, and Lance was dumbstruck. Keith drew his knees up to his chest, burying his face in his arms, breathing ragged.
"I-I'm s-sorry. I-I shouldn't be t-telling you th-this. You-you probably don't want to-to h-hear this. You d-don't care. I k-know you d-don't like me-" Keith's words were tripping up on his hitched breathing, and the more upset he got the more Lance felt like something was squeezing his heart painfully in a vice-like grip.
"Keith, I-"
"I-its okay! I k-know its b-because there's something w-wrong with me. S'my fault. My fault. I-I always push people away. J-just go back to the party. I-I'm f-fine," Keith choked back a sob, and Lance broke.
He couldn't help himself. Lance shifted so he was kneeling before putting his arms around Keith's shoulders, and tugged him into a loose embrace.
Keith didn't resist him at all. He leaned into Lance limply, trying to muffle his sobs against Lance's chest. Hearing Keith cry honestly make Lance feel like crying too. The sound cut him down to the quick.
"Hey man, please don't cry. You're fine, you're okay," murmured Lance desperately, rocking him back and forth slightly in an attempt to soothe him.
They sat like that for a while. Lance could feel faint tremors running through Keith's body. Tears dripped down Keith's face onto Lance's armor.
Eventually he disentangled himself, and held Keith by the shoulders at arm length.
"Keith? I want you to listen to me," he said seriously.
His tone seemed to pierce Keith's cloud of misery, and he stared at Lance with huge wet eyes.
"I don't hate you. I don't dislike you."
"You d-don't?" sniffed Keith, staring at Lance incredulously.
Jesus, that made Lance feel incredibly guilty. Had he really been so mean to Keith all this time that the poor guy thought he hated him?
"I don't," Lance confirmed, "I like you just fine, alright?"
He let go of Keith and rose to his feet.
"I'm getting Shiro," he declared.
He intended to march back into the tent and get help because he was way out of his depth, but then Keith was surging to his feet and scrabbling to grip his wrist.
"N-no, please Lance. D-don't bother him. I-I'm fine-"
Keith was not at all steady. He swayed dangerously, the only thing keeping him standing seeming to be his tight grip on Lance's wrist.
"Keith, I want to help you. You're clearly not okay. What do you want me to do?" implored Lance.
Keith's balance gave out and he keeled over, pulling Lance into a crouch in front of him when he refused to let go.
"Shiro I- I don't - h-he'll be worried; I don't want him to - h-he's got enough-"
"Ok, ok, I'll leave Shiro alone," soothed Lance hastily, because it looked like Keith was working himself up into a panic.
The tension drained from Keith's body at Lance's assurance, and he released his wrist.
"How about I take you back to the castle?" suggested Lance.
Keith nodded weakly.
"Do you think you can walk?"
Keith pushed himself back up to his feet, but Lance had to grab him to stop him from immediately face-planting.
"I'll take that as a no."
Lance maneuvered him so he could pull one of Keith's arms over his shoulder, keeping a tight grip on his wrist. He slid his other arm around Keith's waist to clasp his side.
They set off to where the Castle was set down in a clearing on the other side of the lake.
It was slow going, with Lance mostly dragging him along.
"Maybe I should just carry you," Lance muttered to himself.
"M'bigger than Pidge," was Keith's garbled reply.
"I realize that smartass. Are you implying that you're too heavy for me to carry?"
"M'gonna be sick-"
Keith wretched himself out of Lance's grip and fell to his hands and knees to retch.
Lance knelt beside him and laid a hand on the back of his neck to rub soothing circles.
"Just get it all out, maybe it'll make you feel better. You obviously ate or drank something that really disagreed with you."
Keith didn't manage to bring up much, mostly just bile. Once he was finished, he roughly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and collapsed back on his haunches, tears streaming down his face.
Lance took his hand off Keith's neck, and Keith let out a desperate whine.
"P-please c-can you j-just…" he trailed off as Lance hastily resumed what he'd been doing.
Keith practically melted into a puddle at the simple touch, the tension draining out of his shoulders, the stream of tears drying up. It was as if no one had ever comforted him before and he was trying to soak up the experience to last the rest of his life.
A few minutes later Lance stopped, and this time Keith stayed silent.
"Keith, buddy, let's get you back to the castle. Can you get on my back?" he asked cautiously.
Lance moved so that he was crouched with his back facing Keith, arms out by his sides ready to catch him.
Keith practically fell on him, but Lance was more than able to hitch him up and bear his weight.
Keith's arms clasped weakly around his neck, and he laid his head against Lance's shoulder.
The only sounds as Lance walked were his steady footfalls, and his slightly elevated breathing. He didn't know whether it was from the exertion of carrying another person, or nervousness.
Keith's warm breath tickled the nape of his neck.
Once he got them into the castle, up the elevator, and to the floor where their rooms were, Lance broke the silence.
"We're nearly there, think you can walk the rest of the way?"
Keith responded by unclasping his hands and allowing himself to slide off Lance's back.
He was still wobbly, so Lance put a supportive arm at his back as he tottered down the hall to his room.
The door swished open and Lance led Keith over to his bed, where he sat down heavily, blinking dazedly.
"We-we're in my room," said Keith stupidly.
"Yes Keith, we're in your room," said Lance patiently.
Keith sat, as docile as a sleepy kitten, while Lance knelt in front of him and started un-clipping his paladin armor. He knew from experience that it was impossible to sleep in the getup comfortably, and that even fully sober and cognizant, it was a mission to get out of.
He got Keith down to his flight suit with relatively little effort.
"What do you usually sleep in?" Lance asked.
"Sleep," said Keith, blinking slowly.
"Keith, focus. Where are your pyjamas?" said Lance, snapping his fingers in front of Keith's face.
"M'tired. Sleep."
Keith slumped forward so his head was resting against Lance's chest-plate.
Well… Lance supposed that sleeping in his flight suit wasn't the end of the world.
He reached out and pulled back the covers, before taking Keith by the shoulders and shifting him so his head was laying against his pillow.
He lifted Keith's legs onto the bed next, before pulling the blanket over his body.
Keith cured onto his side towards Lance in a little ball, wrapping his arms around himself again in that sad imitation of a proper hug. The sight gave Lance a pang.
"Are you l-leaving?" asked Keith, in the tone of a frightened child.
"Do you want me to leave?"
Keith shook his head.
There was no harm is staying until he fell asleep right?
Lance sat gingerly on the edge of Keith's bed, and hesitantly laid a hand on the crown of Keith's head.
Keith let out a sigh.
When Lance stroked through his hair, Keith's face fell slack and every tense line of his body seemed to relax into the bed.
Keith's hair was as soft and thick as it looked, and Lance couldn't help but stare as he let the inky strands slip through his fingers over and over.
Eventually Keith's breathing evened out and deepened; he was asleep.
Lance stilled his hand, holding Keith's bangs out of his face so he could examine the other boy properly.
He looked impossibly young and innocent like this.
Almost in a trance Lance let his hand drift out of Keith's hair so he could cup his face.
Hearing Keith's gentle puffs of breath, feeling the smooth softness of his skin laid over a delicate cheekbone, brought home the fact that Keith was just a flesh and blood human; he felt so fragile.
He was smaller than Lance, he had a slighter build and he was an inch or two shorter, but that was so easy to forget when they were wearing their paladin armor and Keith was fighting with his trademark ferocity and single mindedness. His presence on the battlefield eclipsed even Shiro's sometimes; it was hard to believe that such a force of nature was contained in so slight a person.
Keith always seemed… implacable. Untouchable. Too cool to need or want human interaction, too cool to be touched or held.
Lance had a sudden epiphany: the boy that he thought was his rival - the stubborn, arrogant, show off - he didn't really exist.
That Keith was a shadow, a caricature of the real Keith, because the real Keith was a lot more than his anger and instinct, and Lance didn't know those other parts of him at all.
None of them did, except maybe Shiro.
Looking at Keith laying curled like that, tear tracks still glistening on his cheeks, Lance felt an overwhelming surge of protectiveness.
"I'm going to try and be nicer to you," he vowed quietly, giving the top of Keith's head one last pat.
He left the room, letting the door swish shut behind him.
Even though the festive mood was officially killed for him, Lance headed back to the party.
He didn't plan on telling the others what had happened between him and Keith, but he did need to let them know that he was okay, and that Keith had gone to bed.
Umm so this is a character study of sorts?
I have no idea if I'll write more or where exactly I was going with this, but uh, if you'd like more drop me a line?
:D