"So after Luke's fighter crashes and he can't get it started, Luke realizes that he's about to be crushed by the AT-AT in the snow."
"Those are the ones you said were like our lions?"
"Yes. Anyway. So they're losing the base and the battle of Hoth and everyone has to escape, and Luke goes in his X-wing fighter to find Yoda on Dagobah-"
"That's where Ben's ghost told him to go when he was frozen, right? How did he get directions?"
"He used the force? I dunno, maybe he had a map. Honestly, Keith, you should just watch the movies. I can't believe you've gone an entire childhood without seeing Star Wars."
"Dude, those movies are like a hundred years old."
Lance could feel that unreasonable irritation rising again. Why did Keith always get under his skin so easily? Admittedly, they had both already been awake for over 24 hours already and frankly, Lance needed something to talk about with Keith strapped into the fold-out seat in the cockpit of the blue lion behind him.
"Maybe we should call it that," Keith offered, after a moment of silence, "Dagobah 2."
"Yeah. sure. Whatever."
Lance couldn't help it. He always felt stared at when Keith was around.
When they landed in the Blue Lion, Lance was surprised that they could put down almost exactly where they'd rescued the refugees. There was no muddy or sinking ground. There wasn't any water anywhere.
As it turns out, when a planet is surrounded by two moons almost the size of the planet itself, some pretty powerful tidal forces come into play. The water on this side was... gone.
The ground was dry and cracked everywhere. Flood plants pasted the ground and tree-root systems, dehydrated and flat. Everything smelled like a rotting tide pool. Every move Lance and Keith made stirred up huge swaths of tiny flies.
"So... this would be more like a Tattooine?"
Lance rolled his eyes. "No, but 'A' for effort. Tattooine is a total desert. No trees or plants. Juts sand."
"Oh. So, where I lived." Keith's voice went momentarily flat.
"Yes, Keith. Where you liv-" lance scowled and bit his lip. How could Keith possibly appreciate living in the desert for a year without knowing about Star Wars?
The air hung about them like a hot breath. The ground was dry, but the humidity was like hitting a wall of bricks. Without his helmet, Keith's hair was starting to frizz. This was going to be a hard hike.
"So, what are we looking for, exactly?" Keith asked, as he hacked through another wall of vines with his bayard. They fell and hit the hard ground with a thud.
"To be completely honest, I have no idea," Lance answered, doing his best to not give the impression that he was already out of breath, "After three months, everthing is different. I don't know why I thought it would be the same."
Lance chose not to hear Keith grumbling "because you're an idiot" under his breath.
"I want to try to find the Snake-worm thing's body. See if it's still there where we killed it. Maybe we can find a clue"
Keith shrugged and kept on cutting his way through the vegetation. "Yeah, we can try."
They marched for hours, feeling vague wisps of familiarity between certain uniquely shaped stumps or clusters of trees. It was hot and slow and the tree crabs crunched under their feet as they tried to bury themselves further under the drying plates of silty mud.
The first clue they came across was a withered jet-black vine braided among a knot of green ones hanging in front of their faces. Keith cut into it and the vine oozed a thick black blood. And it had a spine. The boys visually followed the length of the body both ways as it disappeared up into the trees, and then down again, further along their path.
"Think this is it?"
"Looks the same," replied Lance as he poked at the seeping bloody tentacle with a gloved hand.
"But, I mean, could there be more than one tentacle-eyeball-beast?" Keith asked, and it sent a vicious shivver up Lance's back.
"Keith, whatever you do, do not fucking bring up that possibility. I don't want to think about it." Lance pushed forward past Keith and hurried up his pace, dragging his tired and sore legs one in front of the other. he couldn't handle the idea of an entire planet filled with nightmare-material.
The trail was awful to follow, and the clouds of flies were getting thicker with every step, but that was nothing compared to the smell. Lance was sweating profusely and his stomach was turning on itself and he could no longer tell what was his illness and what was from the ripe stench of decomposing body from this monster they were following.
Its body was nothing short of miles long. This was merely one tentacle, and it was getting thicker as they followed it back. Back to the source.
The swamp was incredibly loud during low tide, the squawking and screeching of the small pterodactyls ringing in both their ears. Occasionally one would drop down from the canopy and dig itself up a nice tree crab, then quickly take off back into the upper branches. Lance wondered why they weren't all just on the ground feasting away.
Lance couldn't help but think about the million possibilities of his own death. When he stepped on a crab and watched its soft innards get squashed out of it; the little puddle of orangey-brown and shell the only remainder of a once-living thing, he could only think of how fragile his own life was. If he wasn't being shot at by Galra forces on a daily basis, he was landing on alien planets with who knows how many parasites and diseases and poisons all around. Now that he thought about it, he was actually very surprised he hadn't died yet.
"So what happens next?"
Lance was yanked suddenly out of his dark daydreaming.
"Huh?"
"In Star Wars. What happens next?"
"Oh," puffed Lance, using that as a convenient excuse to stop for a breath, "Well, originally, Han Solo was going to leave the Rebel Alliance-"
"Why? They need him!" Keith wasn't facing lance as he cut more of the reeds and vines in front of them, but his voice sounded sincerely disappointed.
"Yes. Keith. Shut up. I'm getting there. He was going to leave, but when they got to space, the Empire shot out their hyperdrive. And they had to go hide in an asteroid field. But it turns out they were inside a giant worm mon- KEITH!" Lance blanched and he felt the bile rising in the back of his throat.
Keith jolted around to look at a bug-eyed Lance.
"Jesus christ, WHAT?"
"I specifically told you NOT to remind me of more worm monsters!"
Lance folded his arms like a petulant child, and Keith took that as an opportunity to get up in his face.
"How was I supposed to know that would happen? I literally haven't seen your stupid movies!" He ended with a small shove on Lance's chestplate. Lance rubbed the spot where Keith's index finger smeared off. Lance blushed a bit. Yeah. He was, admittedly, being a bit unreasonable.
"Sorry, Keith. I'm just... really nauseous right now."
–
The closer they got, the more Lance could feel his stomach doing somersaults. Shivers were running up and down his body. This must have meant something. The body they were following was getting thicker. Even dried and leathery, it was still the size of a watermelon.
They came across more and more overlapping lengths of body. There were either multiple creatures, or this one was massive. Its body was like a creeping vine, sometimes implanting itself deeply in the hardened ground, and sometimes reaching up into the canopy of trees where it disappeared into the leaves and branches. Always, it was thick and dark and smelled like death.
And then, after a sudden corner, they were there.
Lance knew it immediately. He had spent too much time hanging there helplessly, memorizing the trees and the underbrush to miss it. The body was still there, wrapped and dried inseparably around the roots of the dead tree. Its head was missing. It must have decomposed or floated away. Lance got closer to the stump of its neck, seeing the rotting flesh ooze out in jagged chunks. The stench was overpowering. And yet, Lance needed to get closer.
"Welp." Keith kicked a loose tentacle on the ground. More flies flew up.
Lance stood there in awed silence He was inches away from the dead body. He could see the alien maggots crawling throughout it, and even those were being eaten by the crabs burrowing in its body cavity. He was sweating and shaking. Maybe he was just tired from hiking? Please, let it be that. No. The rot was so strong he could practically taste it. His vision started to swim and he slapped his own face and screeched.
"NO! Get away! I won't sleep!"
"Lance!"
Keith had his arms out, but he was just edging around Lance, obviously not knowing what to do.
Lance was stumbling and tripping all over the place, and the loose tentacles and roots on the ground didn't help. He was staring up at the dead, almost crucified body of the snake-worm and nothing made sense. What did it want from him? Was this its revenge? Was he going to die a slow death because he killed the snake monster?
Lance didn't even kill it. Keith did. This was so unfair.
"Come on, you need to get out of here. This place isn't doing you any good."
Keith grabbed at Lance's arm, trying to guide him away from the corpse of the snake-worm and the sudden jerking motion was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Lance bent over and vomited all over Keith's boots.
Keith sighed, and Lance noticed the pressure on his grip change. He couldn't manage to lift his throbbing head to see what was going on, but Keith had stopped trying to hustle him away. Keith just stood there, and let Lance retch. Lance's cheeks were flushed with sickness and heat and most of all, embarassment. He should have been tougher than this. He should have figured out what the hell he was doing before he got here. But Lance had nothing. No clue. No solution. No cure. Just Keith.
"Sorry about your boots."
Keith readjusted his grip, sliding his arm under Lance to support his weight better.
"It's cool, man. I'll just wipe it off on the grass. Come on, Luke Skywalker."
After shouldering Lance and half-dragging him far enough away from the corpse that they could no longer reasonably smell it, Keith set Lance down on the edge of a small circular clearing of mangrove. The ground was slightly elevated, with less tree-crabs than usual due to it being an open space. Good enough.
"What's the plan, Mr. Han?" And, in his slightly delirious state, Lance thought that pun hilarious. Keith smirked a bit, and began to gather up small sticks and branches in the dirt around them.
"I can't carry you back to Blue by myself, especially at night. We sleep out here, then figure out what we're doing tomorrow."
The sun was going down. It wasn't terribly cold on the planet, but a fire would get them through the night. Lance watched as Keith, obviously exhausted, bent over at the waist to swoop up some more sticks. Lance was about to make an... asinine joke, but he suppressed the urge when he saw Keith stagger. They were both tired, and Keith was the only one he had to talk to. Keith was the only one who volunteered to go with him in the first place.
Keith piled the kindling into a small box formation, using his knife to scrape the bark off of the dryest pieces into shaved tinder. Lance watched as Keith did this all with a practiced eased that said "I lived in the fucking desert for a year, I could light a fire anywhere, out of anything."
No. No. Lance couldn't stand for that. Not after puking on Keith's boots. Lance needed to win something. He needed to settle the score. Keith couldn't accompany him, and guide him, and carry him away AND light a fire. Lance could feel the testosterone kicking in and taking over any rational thought in his brain.
"Hey Keith, wanna see something cool?" Lance activated his bayard and adjusted a small dial to the lowest setting.
"You're gonna light the fire with your gun?"
"Yeah! I discovered this trick a while back!"
Lance aimed and shot his plasma assault rifle at the small pyramid of sticks and they both watched as the gun blasted the stack apart, throwing burnt kindling in their faces, and in every other direction as well. The sticks landed around the blackened patch of ground Lance shot and there was certainly smoke, but definitely no fire.
"Cool?" Keith just looked confused, like he wasn't sure what the result was supposed to be.
Oh, great. Now Keith was going to make fun of him.
"One second! Let me adjust it a bit!"
Lance desperately fiddled with his blaster, trying to steady his shaking hands on the slippery plastic dials.
Keith reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. "How about I just light us a fire like a normal person? You sit there and rest."
After a moment of protest, and a silent staring contest between him and Keith, Lance collapsed against the tree where Keith had set him down. He hadn't noticed before how badly his heart was racing.
Fucking Keith. Always trying to show him up.
Lance was sitting comfortably against the nicely curved tree, his dizziness receding somewhat. The fire was crackling and warm, a nice counter to the swiftly dropping temperature around them. The night air was no longer like walking into a bathroom with the shower on, and they could see one of the giant moons rising slowly on the horizon. They sat quietly, watching the flames dance and both realizing just how exhausted and hungry they were.
Keith brought out a handful of rations from his belt pouch, probably more than they both needed for one night and pushed several cubes into Lance's hands.
"Hey... Are you still hungry all the time? I haven't heard you complain about it in a while, and I don't know if it went away, or if you're just... keeping it all inside now." Keith was avoiding Lance's gaze, even as he spoke.
Lance grabbed the cubes and gladly started tearing into the plastic packaging on one. He muffled a grateful thanks, his mouth already half full of food.
Keith watched him eat, the firelight flickering in the dark indigo of his eyes. Lance sighed and swallowed, looking over at Keith, who hadn't even opened his rations yet. He shrugged, and folded his arms.
"I don't think you'd understand, Keith."
Keith looked up at Lance, his brow creased.
"Why not? Come on, try me."
Keith looked like he was about to get up, and then Lance started.
"I've been feeling like I'm dying ever since we were first here rescuing those refugees. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to talk to people about it. It's this huge thing and I'm just so afraid that everyone will reject me if I come forward and tell the truth about how I really feel, Keith."
Keith nodded, and the colour seemed to have drained from his face.
"I just wish you knew what it was like to have to hide something so big so... constantly from everyone else... you know?"
If Lance didn't know any better from the firelight, Keith looked like he was blushing. Heavily.
"Do you get what I'm saying, Keith?"
Keith's pupils got really small and his eye appeared to be twitching and he rather aggressively started to tear into the plastic packaging of his rations with his teeth.
–
The night wore on, and Lance watched as Keith allowed himself to relax a bit. He still felt like Keith was staring at him, but every time he looked over at him, Keith's eyes darted away. A few rounds of this game and Keith finally broke the silence between then.
"So what happens next? Did Han and Leia get out?" Keith was much quieter now, leaning between a mossy clump and a rock that served to prop up his head.
"Yeah, they got out. But before that, Han and Leia share a kiss in the Falcon! It's been building for a while now. Despite all their arguing, they know they're in love."
Lance's hands were making a little heart shape as he told Keith about the Empire Strikes Back. Keith got really quiet and stared up at the stars. Eventually, Lance decided that he just wasn't listening anymore, and the conversation faded away while the fire burned into the night.
"Sleep."
"NO!" Lance's mind launched into an adrenaline-induced panic. He was up on his feet before he could stop or think and he was spinning around, wildly looking in every direction like a scared animal and- wait-
"Why are you shouting at me, dude? I just think you should get some rest." Keith crossed his arms, clearly on the defensive from Lance's over-reaction.
Lance was gasping and adrenaline was shooting through him, and the dizziness was so powerful, his vision was going checkered and black and white. It was all Lance could do not to fall face-first into the fire, and Keith seemed to see that as a distinct posibility.
Just stop. Just think for a moment. He was real. Keith was real. He wasn't dreaming. Not yet, at least.
Great. Lance was crying now. He couldn't stop. He was just so tired. He'd been awake for probably 36 hours, and the shaking wouldn't stop. He just... Oh, now Keith was seeing all of it. All of his weakness. In front of Keith.
"You don't get it, man! You don't understand the half of it!"
Lance was holding his head and swaying and he could see the rotting maggot-ridden corpse of the snake-monster swimming in the back of his mind.
"Lance, sit back down!" Keith was over to him in two steps, trying to force him back down onto the ground. Lance was fighting his urge to flee or panic or vomit, and just trying to stay sane in that moment. He so desperately wanted to sleep, but he knew the monster was always there, waiting for him.
Keith grabbed him and held him tightly.
"shush."
Lance snapped back into consciousness. Keith was holding him. Tightly. Keith was hugging him. Cradling him in his arms? Bonding moment. This was weird. Not... totally uncomfortable, but weird.
"Just get some sleep." Keith spoke softly, gently.
No. nope nope n-n-no.
"I can't go to sleep. I can't go to sleep!" Lance sobbed hysterically into Keith's arms, "The monster is telling muh- me to sleep. I think I'm g-gonna die, Keith. If I fall asleep, I'm gonna die!"
He was stupid and blubbering all over Keith of all people. His rival. The one he wanted most to impress. And Lance was so scared. Every time he started to feel better, there was always some reminder that he might actually die. And soon.
"What monster?"
Lance looked up at Keith with completely serious eyes.
"The monster in my dreams."
Keith looked visibly worried now. His eyes passed over Lance's body, and, while Lance looked a little strained lately, there wasn't much visibly wrong with him. Whatever was inside must have been eating him alive.
Lance was shaking and crying, gripping Keith and so, so exhausted. Keith, raised his hand, and, after pausing for a moment, brushed Lance's hair out of his eyes.
"Hey. I'm sorry I'm not a doctor. But you look really tired. I think you should try to get some rest. Look, I'll watch you breathing the whole time. I'll check your pulse every five minutes. If anything happens, I'll wake you up or do CPR or something. Ok?"
Lance looked up at him, embarrassment and newfound respect for Keith flooding him. This was a bonding moment! Lance's lizard-brain had to shut that shit down immediately.
"Ha! CPR, so you'll kiss me on the mouth?"
Keith didn't say anything. In fact, Keith just glared straight forward and his breathing got heavy and his lips got really tiny and pinched and white.
Lance couldn't argue. Exhaustion was gripping him. 36 hours without sleep was taking its toll and his body couldn't hold out for much longer.
"Just sleep, Lance. I'll be right here. Just get some sleep."
The swamp was deeper and darker than ever. The water was up to his chest now, and Lance had to carefully find his feet in the silt.
He knew what was coming. Lance was ready to give up, to let the water take him down. After 36 hours with no sleep, and the endless repetition of his own demise paraded in front of him, even his dream self was running out of the will to keep going.
"Sleep," the monster whispered to him.
"I am!" Lance tried to shout. God damnit, he was asleep. That's why he was here, wasn't it?
"Sleep"
Fuck you, monster. Stop fucking with my life. The writhing body was encircling him again. Slowly, from the outer edges of his vision in the swamp. Lance knew, and he had little will left to fight.
Suddenly, he felt something on his shoulder. A warm hand. It was Keith? Keith was there, standing beside him, looking fiercely out at the swamp. And for some reason, he was also shirtless.
Keith stepped in front of Lance and raised his fists up, ready to fight. This seemed to anger the snake monster, and it lashed out, splashing and whipping its body, trying to capture them both.
Keith was caught up in its many layers of body, wrestling it in the water, and Lance could do nothing more than watch, his paralysis in his dream rendering him useless and scared. Keith was fighting, fighting for both their lives against the terrible infection in Lance's mind and Lance could do nothing more than watch. Watch Keith's muscular body, and his wet hair, his strong arms and... this was getting weird.
And then Lance was dragged under the water and the tentacles were shaking him viciously, knocking the air out of him and he was drowning...
–
"Lance, wake up!" Keith was shaking him awake.
He groaned and the nausea was back.
"Did I die? Did I stop breathing?" Lance was half awake and his nightmare-brain was still running full-force.
"No, actually. It's just morning. You slept all night."
Lance took a closer look at Keith. He had tired bags under his eyes and a pile of sticks lay nearby, whittled into oblivion.
"let's get some breakfast. You snore really loudly."