"Absolutely not."
"Come on, Lance!" Pidge tugged hopelessly at his hand.
"No." Lance glared at them, remaining determinedly glued to the front seat of the truck. Pidge and Keith stood outside his door, Keith holding it open as Lance attempted, unsuccessfully, to pull it shut.
"It'll take us like five minutes; we'll be in and out."
Lance stopped struggling for a moment and turned to Keith incredulously, "You want to detach a nine foot metal lightning generator from the ceiling of a hockey arena without any equipment, and I'm supposed to believe that it'll only take five minutes?"
Keith shrugged, "We don't have to take it… we can just confirm that it's still there and then leave."
"But-" Pidge glanced at him imploringly, and Keith shook his head. There was no way Lance would agree to that, and either way Keith really needed to get out of that truck.
"Fine." Pidge pouted, "We can just see if it's there and then come back later with Hunk or something."
"Why do we even need to do that?" Lance gave one last tug at the door and gave up with a sigh, "Why the hell wouldn't it be there?"
Pidge folded their arms, "Pirates."
"We're on land."
"Land Pirates."
"Pidge." Lance smacked his forehead, and Keith bit back a chuckle.
"Come on, please?" Pidge stuck out their bottom lip, kicking Keith in the shin when he snorted derisively, "Please please please please please please please please please please please please-"
"ALRIGHT!" Lance smothered his ears with the heels of his hands, "Alright, alright, fine. We'll go in really quickly, but only to look! If you so much as pull a screwdriver out of that bag of yours, I will personally carry you back to the truck."
"Yes!" Pidge pumped a fist into the air and moved to retrieve their crossbow from the back seat. They dumped the box of granola bars and the Cheez-its from their bag, and pulled a few random supplies out from under the seat. Keith wondered vaguely if he had been the only one secretly prepared.
He turned back to Lance and smirked smugly at his dour expression. Lance caught his look and arched an eyebrow at him imperiously, "Don't pretend this is for Pidge, I know you're just doing this because you have some weird inability to sit still for five minutes."
"Hey." Keith raised his hands in mock surrender, "I'm not denying that, but it's your dumb ass that agreed to it."
Keith watched Lance's expression in amusement as it soured even further and he muttered something under his breath about how Shiro was going to kill him.
"Come on drama queen," Keith rolled his eyes, "What's the worst that could happen?"
Lance shot a glare at him as he jumped lightly out of the truck, "Don't even go there."
They carefully picked their way toward the hockey arena; they were only a short distance away, but there was still no telling what could be lurking around corners or down alleys. Keith's mind drifted to the guy they'd seen being eaten on the street corner earlier.
Lance glanced around anxiously, despite the fact that Keith couldn't see any zombie within a seventy yard radius, and Keith began to get the unsettling feeling that something was amiss.
The rest of the city was crawling with them, and yet, the closer they got to the rink, the fewer zombies Keith saw. He shook his head, trying to dispel the paranoia; not everything could be a disaster.
"Hey." Lance jumped as Keith rested a hand on his shoulder, "Stop expecting the worst."
Lance frowned at him reproachfully and gently shook his hand off his shoulder, "If you expect the worst, then nothing can surprise you."
Keith raised an eyebrow, but Lance sped up to walk with Pidge, his expression automatically shifting back to neutral.
Perhaps trying to tell Lance what to do wasn't the best decision, but Keith was getting tired of his pessimism. Actually, he was getting tired of everyone's pessimism. Which is ironic, considering he's usually the most pessimistic one on the team.
He missed the old Lance like a bullet to the heart and the little glimpses of his old self that Keith had been gifted with these past few days had just ended up rubbing salt in the wound.
He missed the Lance that was carefree. The Lance that challenged him to pointless races, and laughed with his head thrown back, and didn't always have to look over his shoulder. He wanted to be able to give Lance his life back, to guarantee his protection, and, perhaps most of all, to never let him out of his sight.
A particularly farfetched notion when Keith couldn't keep his own well-being in check.
These were all wishes and wants that would have been impossible in the old world. In this new world, they were simply inconceivable… And yet…
Keith watched the back of Lance's head as he nodded to whatever Pidge was saying, and his memory flashed back to the way he used to watch Lance in class.
Despite the fact that the mere notion of safety was laughable in their current situation, Keith couldn't help but want that. For him.
Keith was lifted abruptly from his reverie as the building loomed before them, and he sped up to catch up to the other two. His stomach churned uncomfortably, but he pushed it out of his mind.
He would last a quick trip into the building; if this was his last adventure he sure as hell wasn't going to be rendered useless by a small tummy ache.
"Hey," He tapped Lance's shoulder, "we should try the front entrance; if anything that's probably the easiest place to break into if it's locked."
"Okay but we need to hurry up," Lance heaved a sigh, "It feels like it's going to rain."
Keith snorted, "So now you're a meteorologist? Who made you an expert?"
Lance raised an eyebrow at him as they picked their way along the side of the building, "I'm more of an expert than you."
Oh. Keith's brain clicked as he remembered something, "I forgot you grew up around here."
Lance's family had moved to Florida from Cuba when he was younger, and he and Hunk had been with them when the end hit. Keith, Pidge, and Shiro had found them halfway back to Texas, on their way to see if the Garrison was overrun. Keith felt stupid as he realized he should have known Lance had been with his family.
"We weren't all born in the desert, Keith." Lance glanced back at him with a smirk, and Keith had to stop from rolling his eyes at himself as he felt his heart flutter.
Keith swallowed his heart as Lance turned back around and they approached the entrance, quickly noticing a group of about fifteen zombies milling about near the doors; a small number for such a large building but Keith decided not to focus on this.
The front entrance of the arena consisted of a rather small courtyard containing a bronze statue and a half set up stage. Keith assumed that there'd been some kind of live performance scheduled there before the apocalypse had hit and thanked their lucky star for the extra coverage.
There was a set of blue painted stairs leading up to the doors, and Keith figured that would be their point of access.
The zombies were scattered throughout the courtyard, and Keith was willing to bet there was at least a couple nearby that would come running at the sound of a fight.
He glanced around as Lance tapped his and Pidge's shoulders, gesturing to a parked car about thirty yards away. As quietly as possible, they snuck over to the car and crouched behind it to come up with a plan. Keith didn't miss the way Lance positioned himself in front of him, as if shielding him from view.
"We need to get rid of them in order to even reach the entrance." Pidge stated, "From here it's hard to see up the steps to know if there are any more between us and the doors."
"Alright then," Keith rolled his shoulders back and stood, sliding his sword from its scabbard, "Let's do this." He stopped when he felt Lance's hand gripping the back of his jacket.
"Woah woah woah," Lance tugged him back and braced a hand on his chest, "You can't just run out there like a psycho. I say Pidge sneaks around to the other side of the courtyard and starts a fire in that dumpster over there, while you and I make a break for the door and wait for them to join us."
Keith glanced over to the dumpster, which sat an innocent forty yards away, and then back at Lance. He knew Lance was just trying to protect him, but his breathing down Keith's neck was starting to get irritating.
"Or," Keith suggested, "Pidge could set the fire and we could kill the herd from behind while they're distracted."
"Mhm," Lance folded his arms, "And what are we going to do if the noise attracts a second herd? Or if we meet trouble inside and I run out of bullets because I used up half of them out here?"
Keith rolled his eyes, feeling his veins already buzzing with anticipation and hating the fact that deep down he was dying for a fight, "Then let me and Pidge take care of them, there's only fifteen-"
"Keith." Lance laid his hands on Keith's shoulders, "Please, can we just do this my way?"
Keith stared at his determined expression and felt his resolve waver. Perhaps he was being too irritable. Lance just wanted to keep them all safe, and Keith could admit to himself that he wasn't exactly at his best.
The ever present nausea in his stomach increased as if in agreement, and Keith breathed deeply through the slight tightness in his lungs. The little voice in the back of his head, that was normally rather bad at telling him when to quit, coughed pointedly, and Keith sighed.
"Fine." Keith's eyes lowered, and he heard Lance let out a breath of relief.
"Okay, so Pidge," Lance nodded to them, "Do you have anything to light a fire with?"
Pidge grinned in a way that made Lance and Keith glance at one another in worry and rummaged around in their bag, pulling out a glass bottle, a lighter, a cloth, and three tubes of liquid that Keith couldn't put a name to.
Two of the tubes Pidge poured into the taller bottle, the third of which they dipped the cloth into before stuffing it into the opening.
"Viola!" Pidge stuffed the remaining supplies back into their bag and held up the bottle.
"Did you just make a Molotov cocktail?" Lance's eyes widened and he took a step back. Keith couldn't bring himself to feel surprised and stayed where he was, though he did lean back a few inches. Just to be sure.
"Relax." Pidge adjusted their glasses nonchalantly, though their evil grin remained in place, "I'll throw it into the dumpster from a safe distance."
"That's not what I'm worried about." Lance muttered.
"Come on." Keith rolled his eyes and got into a ready position behind the parked car, "get ready to run."
Lance sighed and readied himself as Pidge slipped away toward the dumpster, ducking around the abandoned stage.
Keith and Lance stayed crouched behind the car, watching for any signs of trouble. Lance held his arm out in front of Keith's chest, and Keith had to swallow back a snide remark. If it made him feel better, then Keith could withstand his incessant babysitting for a moment or two.
He took a steadying breath, tensing up as he saw the bottle arc through the air in the distance as if in slow motion.
"Now!" Lance whisper-shouted.
He grabbed Keith's wrist and sprinted. Keith rolled his eyes and picked up the pace until he was the one pulling Lance. Just to be petty.
His eyes widened as they passed the dumpster, the inside of which completely consumed by flames, and Keith vowed never to get on Pidge's bad side.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Pidge slip out of sight behind the stage and hoped that he had been the only one to see them.
They made it to the steps without incident; all of the zombies were completely enamored by the small explosion, drawn to the dumpster like moths to… well, a flame.
Keith and Lance hit the bottom of the stairs at a sprint, and he felt Lance slide his hand into his as Keith tugged him up the chipping blue stairs.
Keith nearly laughed at the "Welcome" sigh painted near the top, and felt Lance's hand squeeze his conspiratorially. He let out a small laugh as his lungs burned from the short run, and Keith winced as his stomach rebelled against the half a granola bar he had managed to force down.
There were five zombies on the landing when they reached the top, and Lance put down the first three before Keith had even registered his hand leaving his.
"No." Lance put a hand on Keith's wrist as he reached for his sword, "Let me do this."
Keith pouted but didn't argue. He was starting to believe this was a bad idea more and more by the second, but there was no way he was going to tell Lance that.
Lance used his knife to dispatch the last two, and Keith realized belatedly that he was conserving bullets. Lance was preparing for a fight.
"Come on." Lance gestured toward the door as Pidge joined them from the stairs.
Pidge took one look at the zombies on the ground and turned to Keith who was standing off to the side, unsure what to do with himself, whispering, "He's still got you in a muzzle?"
Keith nodded, rolling his eyes, and could tell from the sudden tenseness in Lance's shoulders that he had heard them.
The doors ended up being unlocked, to Keith's immense surprise, and the three of them entered cautiously. An unlocked door meant there was probably at least a few inside, and with such a huge building they could be anywhere.
The three of them made their way cautiously through the halls and past the concession stands. Keith was nearly shaking with adrenaline, and thought belatedly that he had never felt this unsteady during a fight before. He hurriedly chalked it up to nerves and put the thought out of his head, his eyes automatically searching for a distraction.
"Hey," Keith said, smirking when Lance jumped in surprise, "They probably have a ton of soda and nonperishable stuff here. We should see what we can find." Lance seemed about to protest, so Keith broke away and headed for the nearest booth.
"In and out." Lance smacked his forehead, reluctantly following as Keith made his way behind the counter, "In and out, that's all I asked!"
Keith ignored him and yanked open the small fridge, wrinkling his nose as the smell of rotten food hit him. It looked like some random employee forgot their lunch when they'd been eaten, and the smell had been trapped in the sealed fridge for months.
He tucked a can of sprite into the pouch on his belt and shut the door quickly. He thought that he'd gotten used to bad smells, since half of his life consisted of hacking apart dead things, but for some reason the smell of that fridge made his head spin uncomfortably.
"Eew." He turned to find Pidge poking at an unopened bag of nacho cheese, "I guess this stuff actually does go bad."
The cheese was speckled with brown and green splotches and as Pidge poked at it the cheese wiggled around like jello.
"Disgusting." Lance wrinkled his nose, "Can we just get out of here?"
"Yeah, fine." Keith snickered to himself as he noticed a bag of skittles sticking out of his jacket pocket.
They exited the booth, jumping as they heard a crash from the hallway to their left. Lance stepped in front of Keith with such quickness that Keith had to take a step back to keep from cutting him as he whipped his sword from its scabbard. Pidge moved to flank him, and Keith nearly growled in annoyance.
There was a moment of silence, and he heard Lance audibly click the safety off his second gun.
After about ten seconds, just as Keith was about ready to go investigate the noise himself, they saw a figure move about in the dimness, and Lance's hand arced toward it.
"Wait!" Keith grabbed his arm, and the shot went wide just as the figure came into the light.
"Don't shoot." The figure had his hands up as if in surrender, though his expression and body language seemed almost cocky.
"Drop the machete." Lance's gun's didn't lower, and the guy gave him an unmistakable once over.
Keith felt his temper flare as the guy smiled at them, his eyes never leaving Lance, "You have no idea how nice it is to see some friendly faces."
"The whole friendly part depends on you, buddy." Lance growled, his eyes narrowing, "Drop the machete."
"Anything for the pretty one." The guy dropped his weapon on the ground with an audible clatter, and laughed as the three of them flinched, "Oh don't worry, my companions and I have been camped out here for a few months, the undead have been completely wiped out from the building."
"Companions?" Pidge asked, narrowing their eyes, "Where are they?"
The guy shrugged casually, "They left this morning for supplies, I don't expect them to be back until sunset at least."
Keith caught Pidge's eye and he knew they were both thinking of the zombie food on the street corner. They made a silent agreement not to speak up. There was something about this guy that seemed slimy; and it wasn't just the fact that he hit on Lance.
"What's your name?" Lance asked skeptically.
The guy grinned, twirling a strand of long white hair around one finger, "Call me Lotor."
"That's a weird name." Keith grunted as Pidge elbowed him reproachfully.
Lotor simply chuckled, "My companion's names are Sendak, Haggar, and Prorok. My father, Zarkon, was killed a little over a month ago."
Keith narrowed his eyes. Why was he telling them this much? Either he was trying to get them to trust him by telling them this information, or he was lying through his teeth. Either way, he was way too confident for someone with two guns and a crossbow pointed at his face.
"Might I ask what you're doing here?" Lotor asked, and then seemed to hesitate, "Or, rather, I suppose if you don't wish to tell me that's fine. If you are looking for a place to stay I'm sure we can accommodate you-"
"We're just here to see if the tesla coil was still here."
Lance and Keith turned to Pidge in surprise, and they glanced over to them, "It doesn't hurt to tell him that much."
"Oh," Lotor blinked, momentarily taken aback, and Keith thought he noticed a slight shift in the guy's demeanor, but couldn't tell for sure as he covered up his surprise with another grin, "I'm not quite sure what a Tesla coil looks like, but I'd be happy to help you find it."
He gestured to the hallway behind him, and Keith, Pidge, and Lance glanced at one another skeptically. Finally, Lance sighed and nodded, "Fine, we'll allow you to come with us since we can't exactly leave you here. But the machete stays where it is, and if you make one false move I'll put a bullet through each of your eyes."
Lotor chuckled, the sound grating further on Keith's fried nerves, "That sounds fine to me. I wish you no harm."
As the three of them approached him, Lotor moved to walk near Lance, whose guns were still trained on his head.
"You know," Lotor purred, purposefully walking in between him and Keith, "Perhaps later, I have something else I can show you-"
He was cut off as Keith dropped his sword, his hand shaking in anger, and Pidge turned to him in concern.
"Keith, are you-"
"I'm fine." Keith bent quickly to retrieve it, his face burning, "Just tripped over that." He kicked a random bottle angrily, trying to hide the way his hands were still shaking.
Lance's expression was worried, but Keith realized with a jolt that Lotor's eyes were trained carefully on his arm.
"Are you injured?" Lotor asked curiously, his eyes still watching Keith's arm, "When my companions return with supplies, I'm sure-"
"Thanks, but I'm perfectly fine." Keith spat, and Lance moved over to him, sending Lotor an apologetic expression.
"Pidge, could you explain to Lotor what the coil looks like?" Lance nodded to them, "I just want to talk to Keith for a moment."
Pidge nodded reluctantly, and Keith noticed with some annoyance that Lotor seemed a bit put off by this turn of events, but Lance had already pulled Keith aside by the arm.
They walked a few paces behind them, and Keith noticed that Lance never clicked the safety off on his guns. There was something extremely unsettling about Lotor, and Keith realized that Lance must have noticed it too.
It clicked suddenly in Keith's mind that Lotor's story didn't make sense. The snackbar they'd raided was untouched, and there was still a fair amount of clutter over the floors.
"If they'd been here for a few months then they'd have used up all the food here before going out on a supply run." Lance muttered under his breath, his eyes still trained on the back of Lotor's head.
Keith blinked, trying not to think too much into the way that he and Lance were automatically on the same page.
"I guess it doesn't make him automatically guilty. He could just be protecting his friends. But don't let your guard down."
Keith nodded. He had been thinking along the lines of tying Lotor up and leaving him for his friends – or a couple walkers – to find, but Lance still managed to keep at least a little faith in humanity.
As they walked, Lotor kept shooting Lance glances over his shoulder, but every time he did, Keith narrowed his eyes and eventually Lotor seemed to get the message.
Keith's chest still ached, and his stomach was still revolting, and as they walked the pain increased with every step. His morning nausea had morphed slowly throughout the day to pain that Keith knew would turn crippling if left unchecked.
Stupid. He nearly smacked himself in the forehead. He'd attempted to ignore his symptoms as long as he could, and now they'd encountered a potentially dangerous person, that may or may not have friends in the wings, and he was pretty much about to fall out of commission.
It wasn't bad enough that he had to stop, but it was to the point that he had to let Lance know. At the very least. Tugging on his sleeve, Keith opened his mouth to tell him when he heard a quiet thumping coming from the door to their left.
Lotor must have heard it before him since he lunged for the door too quickly for Keith to react, shoving Pidge out of the way. Since Lance's attention had been caught by Keith he didn't raise his gun in time to stop him from throwing the door open, revealing a dozen or so zombies.
"Damnit!" Pidge whipped around, stunned by the sudden attack, "Lotor!"
"Sorry." Lotor grinned at them as he backed away slowly, grinning from ear to ear, "It's nothing personal, but it's a dog eat dog world right? Someone has to be the wolf-"
He cut off as Lance fired a shot above the crowd of zombies, and Keith thought he saw a spurt of blood from where Lotor had disappeared, "Fuck off, Chihuahua."
Keith burst out laughing as the herd closed in, and he heard Pidge shout, "As funny as that was, this is not the time!"
Keith felt adrenaline fill his veins, and knew that his sympathetic nervous system would hold him up for a little while. At least he hoped.
The door Lotor had opened was one of the locker rooms, and a few of the zombies still had on hockey equipment, as though they'd tried to use it as armor.
Keith grunted with the extra effort it took him to slash through the padded uniforms; it was costing him much needed stamina, and as he cut through his third walker, he felt one grab his shoulder.
Keith winced as brain matter splashed against the side of his face, and glanced over to find Lance turning away, eyes wide despite his steady hands. Keith pivoted to find his next target, and swung his sword hard, feeling a new burst of adrenaline. When this was over he'd be lucky if he could remain upright.
"Every time a 9mm rings, an angel gets its wings!" Keith cracked up as Lance fired his guns, and walkers hit the floor in rapid succession.
Pidge whipped around, their jaw dropping open comically, as they stabbed a zombie in the eye, "Lance! Stay out of my Deadpool collection!"
"No way, Pidgeon," Lance shot a zombie over Keith's shoulder with such precision that the hairs on the back of his neck stood up straight, "Your fault for having good taste in comics!"
Keith grinned at them both, ignoring the ache in his arm as he swiftly decapitated a zombie. Fighting alongside them like usual was the best type of medicine he could have asked for.
Even if they were both obviously working double time to keep zombies away from Keith, it was still so fucking normal that Keith could've cried with relief.
Then again, if Lance was joking around, that meant that he had very little confidence in their chances of survival. So there was that, but then again, Keith had often thought to himself that he would give his life to hear another one of Lance's corny jokes.
Though, he thought, glancing up at the ceiling, if the universe could quit being so literal, he'd really appreciate it.
The fight got ugly as more walkers emerged from the open doorways, and the three of them did their best to shut as many as they could manage, nearly getting split up in the process.
Keith felt his strength weaning just as the crowd began to thin, and he thanked his lucky star that he had managed to even make it through this much of the fight feeling the way he was.
"Lance…" Keith called out. He didn't want to worry or distract him, but it was getting to the point where it had to be said. It would be more of a detriment to them if Keith collapsed without a word.
"You're sick again, I know." Lance said shortly and Keith risked a glance at him, "I noticed it when we were walking with Lotor."
Keith ducked as one of Pidge's knives whizzed over his head, and backed up, leaning against the wall gratefully as they maneuvered in front of him. Keith wiped sweat from his forehead as the floor spun around him, and cursed inwardly at not being able to help out his friends.
Suddenly, as Lance stepped out to shoot over Pidge's shoulder, a zombie approached him from behind and Keith summoned all of his willpower, pushing roughly away from the wall and driving his sword up and into the zombie's jaw, straight through to where its pituitary gland should be.
"Keith!"
Keith spun and watched as the zombie just behind him droped to the floor, its head peppered with bullets.
It was only a moment, but it was enough of a distraction for a zombie to get close to Lance, and Keith had a moment of déjà vu as his vision went red and he threw himself in between them.
His swing wasn't as powerful as he had intended, and his sword ended up stuck in the zombie's ribcage. Keith lifted a hand and grabbed it by the throat, just barely keeping it's gnashing teeth away from his face as he attempted to wrench his weapon free. His arm burned, and in the back of his mind he heard an angry shout.
Suddenly Lance appeared beside him and drove a blade into its temple. Keith sighed with relief, his ears ringing from the sudden silence, and he glanced around to find that the hallway had been cleared.
Lance stood beside him, and Pidge was a few feet away. They all took a moment to catch their breath, wincing as Pidge fired a bolt at something on the floor.
They shrugged at Keith and Lance's expressions, "I saw it move."
Keith had just enough time to shake his head in amusement before he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.
"What the fuck were you thinking?!"
Keith felt the air whoosh out of his lungs as his back hit the cold cement wall, Lance's hand planted roughly into his chest.
"Um," Keith coughed, shooting him a reproachful look, "that I could save you? I'm dead anyway, you aren't."
Lance grit his teeth and backed away with a shove, "You've already saved me. Don't do something like that again."
Keith glared at him, "How about a thank you? You'd probably be bitten if it weren't for me."
Lance was silent for a moment, eyeing him up and down before dropping his gaze, "Sorry. I'm just…" He broke off and kicked a wall in frustration.
Keith nodded, sliding down to sit on the floor tiredly, "I understand completely."
Lance and Pidge both moved over to join him on the floor, and Keith heaved a sigh, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you guys like that." The unspoken "again" hung in the air between them like a bridge and Lance nodded.
"You're fine. I'd have probably done the same."
Keith felt insane laughter bubble up in his chest, which quickly turned into a hacking cough, and Lance and Pidge glanced at him worriedly, "Sorry," he choked out, "It's just that all this is over a stupid coil."
Lance shook his head, "I would say I told you so, but I think you've learned enough of a lesson for today, huh?"
Keith bumped his arm playfully, before turning to Pidge, "Are we still going to look for it or what? Time's running out before dark, and we came all this way-"
"Are you sure you're up for it?" Lance bit his lip, glancing at the way Keith held his arm against his chest, "You're probably running on adrenaline and nerves right now-"
"I have you to protect me." Keith grinned lopsidedly at him, and watched Lance swallow thickly.
He felt it psychically as Pidge rolled their eyes and pushed themselves off the floor, "Well, if Lance is your great protector, then he can carry you the rest of the way, but I'm gonna catch a glimpse of that coil if it kills me."
"Please don't say that out loud." Lance glanced worriedly up at the ceiling, and Keith held back a grin as he was helped up off the floor.
He hated having to lean on Lance like this - literally - but it was worth it if they got to see what they'd come for. Besides, Keith couldn't really complain about having Lance's arm around his waist, even if it was for the opposite reason than he would've liked.
It took them longer than any of them cared to admit, but finally they stumbled across the entranceway to where the ice would normally be, and Lance whistled as they entered the vast room, eyeing the thousands of empty seats.
Keith wondered idly if there were even that many people left in the world.
"Going by the one hockey game I've ever watched," Pidge tapped their chin, "the coil should be right… up…" they traced an imaginary line across the ceiling and paused as the three of them registered the empty space.
"Who the fuck!?" Pidge looked about ready to tear their own hair out, "Stole a nine foot tesla coil in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse?!"
"Uh, I dunno Pidge," Lance raised an eyebrow, "Maybe someone like you?"
"It probably wasn't Lotor, at the very least." Keith theorized.
"Yeah," Lance agreed, "If I had to guess I'd say he's been here for only a day or two at most… Plus, judging by the fact we saw his friend being eaten in the street I'm willing to guess they don't have the equipment, people, or purpose to steal it."
Keith opened his mouth to add to the theory when he felt his legs begin to shake beneath him, and Lance tightened his grip, "Come on, we can theorize more in the car, but right now we need to leave."
They made their way dejectedly through the halls, and as they neared the front entrance Keith realized that Lotor must have escaped the building as he noticed the machete gone from the spot where they'd left it.
At the doors Lance stopped dead in his tracks, and Keith nearly fell over as his arm slackened momentarily. He glanced around through the windows and his stomach sank as he registered a group of zombies huddled around another body.
He hadn't exactly liked Lotor, and after his stunt with the walkers Keith couldn't say he was too distraught, but it still wasn't a pleasant sight to witness.
There was a bloody handprint on the door handle, and Keith assumed that Lance's bullet had found its mark. He glanced at Lance's face worriedly, though it betrayed no emotion other than determination as he hauled Keith's ass through the door.
Keith knew there would be emotional repercussions; Lance had just practically killed a person, but he assumed that the action hadn't actually registered in his mind yet, what with all the stress and adrenaline coursing through him.
They stepped through the entrance into the muggy Florida air and Keith blinked as a rain drop hit his nose.
"Don't say I told you so." Pidge turned from Lance's smug expression, and hopped lightly down the steps. The zombies completely ignored them, as they gleefully tore apart their newest meal.
A/N
This chapter ended up being much longer than I intended so I cut it up into pieces. I'm still working on the second half, but it should be up tomorrow.
Or rather later today haha….
Anyway, reviews are greatly appreciated!
