What happened?

All Lance remembered was falling asleep beside Keith, and dreaming of home and food and Keith and wonderful things. And at some point that night Keith had rolled onto his arm and it went completely numb and Lance didn't care at all. It made them closer. He finally had Keith.

And he wasn't attacked by the monster that night! He didn't drown! Everything was supposed to be better, damnit. What was going on?

Lance tentatively brought his hand up underneath his nose. Dry.

It didn't make sense.

Lance's gaze moved past his hand to Keith. He was tired and confused and scared, but that was nothing compared to how Keith looked.

Lance could see Keith slipping into a frozen state of shock. He couldn't take his eyes off of Lance's abdomen. Keith was quickly becoming completely rigid again, and his breath was fast and shallow. Lance's eyes darted between Keith and his stomach. It was... strange looking down at himself, seeing the sudden change in his body from smooth brown skin to angry purple and black. It was all so sudden.

Lance fell back onto the pillow, swimming in his own memory. He was so happy in those dreams. He wanted to make all of them come true for him and Keith. Maybe one day they could land on a planet with a beach and go surfing, or go home and just sit on his family's couch and cuddle. But they couldn't. He was dying.

He was dying.

Shit. He might never see his family agai-

"I made you wait..." whispered Keith, ripping Lance out of his own thoughts. His fingers traced gently over the massive bruise on Lance's stomach. He couldn't focus on anything but the hemorrhage.

"I made you wait." Keith's voice was cracking, his eyes were red. "I thought we had more time. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit."

Keith was suddenly up, out of the bed and over to the comm system by his door in two easy steps. Lance felt a tiny twinge of jealousy at Keith's grace and his total lack of fainting at such a sudden move. Keith was beautiful. And Lance hadn't been able to do anything sudden like that for months.

Keith switched the comm on to connect to the entire castle. Lance's stomach dropped.

"You guys, things have changed," said Keith, his voice aggitated, "I need help with Lance. He's gotten worse-"

Keith heard a giant hissing noise coming from behind him.

"KEITH!" Lance let out a strangled shriek.

Keith cut the communication on the wall and turned to see Lance frantically waving his hands in front of his face. The comm crackled to life. It was Shiro.

"What's wrong, Keith? Where are you?"

Keith raised a questioning eyebrow at Lance. Lance was now biting his fist.

"We're in my bedroom," Keith answered Shiro, only to hear a high-pitched squeal behind him.

Keith slowly turned back to Lance to see him wide-eyed and red-faced, his jaw dropped open.

"Keith! I'm in your bedroom!" Lance hissed.

The realisation dawned on Keith. Lance smacked his forehead with his palms.

"Uh, We're in Lance's bedroom!" Keith stuttered, quickly correcting himself.

Lance was shaking his arms in screaming silence. That's not any better!

Keith panicked.

"WE- WE'RE EXACTLY HALFWAY DOWN THE HALL BETWEEN BOTH BEDROOMS!" He shouted, slamming the transmit button off.

"Then how are you calling from your bedroom, Keith?" asked Coran.

Silence hung in the air.

For a long, long time.

"Guys, no one cares that you slept together." Hunk's voice came through, finally.

Keith paused before he hit the transmit button again, cringing.

"...Is it that obvious?"

Five various "yes" answers resounded through the comm. Keith sighed.

"Nevermind where we are, just get the pod ready and meet us in medical bay."

Keith shut the comm off and looked at Lance with sheepish embarrassment. Yes, he did just do that. It wasn't how Lance wanted to officially announce their relationship to the rest of the crew, but what's done was done.

"Come on, I'll help you up," Keith offered, extending his hands to Lance over the bed. He was still scrunching his eyes and breathing heavily from accidentally telling the others that they'd slept together last night; still in shock from discovering Lance's internal bleeding that morning.

When Keith looked at him, Lance could see that he was on the verge of tears. He hated the way Keith's eyes pierced him. Lance never wanted to see Keith cry again. He especially didn't want to be the cause of it. Again.

Lance grabbed Keith by both arms, pulling him down onto his body. Keith braced himself, trying to stop his weight from falling forward and gasped when he landed on Lance's chest. Lance let out a small huff, but his smile remained.

"See? I told you, it doesn't hurt... that bad."

It was weird. Lance thought he'd be howling in pain, or passing out from blood loss. But his stomach was only tender and all he felt was the ever-present nausea that had plagued him non-stop for months. And at least that was familiar enough to shove down and ignore.

Keith's body loosened in his grasp a bit. He buried his face in the pillow beside Lance, groaning.

"I should have let you sleep with me when you asked…"

Lance felt a wash of guilt. And then, annoyance. No way Keith was going to take the blame for this. Lance shook his head.

"No. Nope. You know what? I needed that, Keith. I was straight-up an asshole to you for the longest time. I've barely even made it up to you now. You… You honestly deserve so much better than me, but through some miraculous fucking circumstances, I got to sleep like a baby next to you last night despite being a royal fucking prick ever since we've met."

Lance could feel Keith squeezing him a little tighter even with his face buried in the pillow. Lance squeezed back..

"And I wouldn't have even recognised what a giant asshole I've been if you hadn't beaten it through my thick skull. You were right to hold out on me. I mean, it's too bad we didn't get to…"

Lance was cut off as Keith suddenly stood up and started pulling him up from the bed, onto his feet.

"Get to what?" Keith asked, motioning for Lance to get up.

Lance shrugged as he stood. He pulled Keith into a hug, leaning his weight onto him and nibbled Keith's ear. Keith groaned like he was in pain.

"Hey. Hey, Keith, stop it. Don't you dare blame yourself. Yes, you held off from me for a while, but damn it, I needed that. I was a dumb, selfish shit, Keith. It was worth it. Trust me."

Lance pulled Keith in for a kiss. He felt warm whenever he was near Keith. God, he loved his soft lips.

"And remember what I said? I will spend every second I have left trying to love you. I wasn't lying."

Keith's fingers curled around the material of Lance's T-shirt.

"You say that like you don't think you're gonna get better, Lance," Keith whispered.

Lance's face dropped. He refused to meet Keith's eyes, even held in his arms. Even as Keith tried to kiss lips, and then his cheek and Lance kept shifting his face away.

"Keith. I don't wanna talk about it. Please."

Keith tried one more time to pull Lance's face back to look at him. Lance still pushed away, winning their silent battle of wills. Then Keith shrank from Lance entirely. Space. Lance needed his own space. Keith went to go pick up his boots and put them on.

The idea of Lance's death hung inconsolably between the two boys, and Lance could keep on living and being sane if he could just… ignore it. If he could just have the Keith part without the Death part. That would be nice. That would be okay. Keith zipped up his boots.

"So, it doesn't hurt?"

"Not... not terribly. Hurt worse when I got blown up, that's for sure."

Lance shuddered at the memory. His body still remembered the force of the bomb going off in the Castle's control room, and the shrapnel from the crystal explosion piercing his body. And Keith. Keith holding him in his arms for the first time.

Lance felt a stabbing pain in his stomach, and his vision blurred for a moment. He shook his head, trying to think of anything else. Suddenly it was very hot and stuffy in Keith's bedroom. Keith noticed Lance's agitation and started to motion him towards the door.

"Can you walk the whole way? I should have asked," said Keith, offering Lance his shoulder.

Lance took him by the hand instead.

"I'm fine, Keith. Well, I'm fine enough. I can walk."

Lance laced their fingers together, and Keith matched his pace to Lance's shaky steps. Together they opened the door to find Shiro coming down the hallway towards them.

"Pidge and Hunk are prepping the pod. I didn't know if Lance could walk all the way there."

Keith looked at Lance.

"I want to make it there myself, but thanks." Lance nodded at Shiro.

Keith and Shiro hovered close to Lance, but Lance was set and determined. He stood on his own and held himself on his feet. He still held Keith's hand, but he made sure to show that it was because he wanted to. Not because he needed to. The three of them started off together down the hall.

Around the hallway corner they turned, and up the first set of stairs. Lance slowed down. His footsteps became very deliberate. One in front of the other.

Lance may not have been in deep pain from the bleeding, but he certainly felt it. He was feeling faint and his breath was already heavy only halfway up the stairs. And he was hot. Far too hot in the cool, dry castle air.

Shiro held out his arms in offer. Lance just kept walking. He leaned more heavily on Keith for support, but still slowly, surely making their way to the medical bay. Several times Lance nearly passed out, and he stopped, and Keith stood there, supporting his weight.

Lance noticed Shiro observing the sudden change in relationship between himself and Keith. The bickering was over. Rivalry had gone out the window. And Shiro was glad. He was worried, yes, but every whispered encouragement from Keith, every word of thanks from Lance made Shiro smile out of the corner of his mouth.

Despite all his determination, Lance's pace wavered, and then, a few short paces before they reached medical bay, he finally collapsed in a breathy heap. Sweat shone on his forehead. Nausea creeped in his gut.

"I... think I need that help now."

Shiro immediately dove down to help Lance and started lifting him under his shoulder, but Lance looked at Keith.

"Buddy?"

Keith looked at Shiro, then over to Lance.

"We'll share," said Keith.

Lance nodded as Keith and Shiro lifted his weight, supporting his arms over their necks. He must have been light for them. It was no chore carrying Lance between the two of them, and they were off and down the hallway at double the speed of Lance on his own.

"This reminds me of the first time we all met," Lance chuckled, remembering their escape from the Garrison with Shiro hoisted between them. Shiro smirked at Lance and nodded in agreement.

Then Keith did something amazing. He put on a mocking tone and sneered at Shiro.

"No. Nononono. I'm saving Lance."

The sheer audacity of Keith's sudden joke made Lance giddy. He cracked up in laughter, barely able to stay upright. It was perfect. Lance had to join in.

"And who are you?" he asked, in utter bewilderment.

Keith's voice pulled a brilliantly nasal tone.

"Uh, the name's Keith."

Lance's laugh turned into a hacking cough. "I do not sound like that!"

Keith continued, his pitch comically elevated. "We were in garrison together! We had classes together! I'm a fighter pilot and you're a cargo pilot!"

Shiro was equal parts amused and confused.

"I don't remember any of this. Was this really what happened?"

Lance and Keith both laughed. It made Lance feel better, even as the laughter sent stabs of pain through his abdomen. He was dying, yes. He felt like shit. But when everything was dark and serious, there was always humour; always jokes.

Up the final stair and into medical bay, Lance saw Hunk and Pidge hurriedly working to get the pod ready. Lights were flashing on the wired accessories that Hunk was prodding at and Pidge's fingers flew across her keyboard. They both looked up when Shiro and Keith arrived with Lance in tow.

"Pidge! We're gonna need you to hurry up on that diagnostic program!" Keith said, as Lance broke away from his support. Keith re-offered his arm to Lance, but Lance quietly pushed his hand aside.

"Why? What happened last night?" asked Pidge, before she quickly added, "And please, spare me the details, if you can."

Lance didn't say anything. He just lifted up his shirt.

"Oh, Jesus," said Hunk. Pidge visibly shuddered.

"Yeah, so how close are we to getting Lance inside?" asked Keith, impatiently, "I mean, it's gotta at least see this as not-normal, right?"

"Yeah," chimed Lance, "Am I finally fucked up enough that it sees something wrong with me?"

Lance braced himself against the wall. The pain was getting worse. He refused to fall down in front of everyone.

Pidge wiped her eyes behind her glasses.

"I hope so. We're just about ready in a minute. You can get undressed." Pidge went back to her frantic typing.

Lance obeyed and slid his soft cotton pajama T-shirt up and over his head. This was an incredible act of manual dexterity and balance, considering the fact that he felt half like fainting, half like vomiting and half felt like he'd just got stabbed with a knife to his gut.

Keith and Shiro were hovering again. Lance didn't know how to accept their help. It made him feel weak. More like he was dying. If he took his own clothes off, he was fine. He was still alive. That was enough.

He hated that wrinkle Keith got in his forehead when he was worried.

With a few clumsy attempts, Lance managed to get his shirt off and his pants down without pulling off his boxers. The cool air from medical bay hit his skin and Lance felt a small wash of relief from the uncomfortable heat and sweat on his skin.

Hunk stood up from the cords on the pod and turned back to Pidge, nodding.

"We're good," He said, "Let's get Lance in."

This part, at least, was familiar now. After more than a week of testing; in and out of the med pod; in and out of consciousness, and having lost a strange amount of his life to unmemorable blackness, Lance knew what was coming next.

He climbed into the open pod and turned to face his friends.

"Here's hoping, guys." He smiled, weakly.

"Oh!" Pidge let out a small squeak while still looking at her laptop. Keith's eyes shot to her.

"What? What's wrong?"

Lance's heart skipped a beat.

"I was going to mention it a few days ago when we redid Lance's bio-chart, but I got caught up and I… forgot." Pidge looked at Lance apologetically.

Lance's heart was thrumming in his chest. He couldn't handle any mistakes right now.

"What? What did you forget?" Lance was shaking and sweating. He had one foot already out of the pod, ready to abandon ship.

"Nothing bad! Sorry! Just…" Pidge blurted out quickly, "Happy birthday, Lance."

Oh.

Lance let out the breath stinging his chest. Huh. It was July already? He'd completely lost track in space.

"Yeah," said Pidge, "It's July 20th. So, you're 20 now."

Lance looked around to see the room slowly relieving itself of the tension. He leaned back in the pod, smiling a little to himself. He'd made it to 20. That was something, wasn't it?

"Congrats," said Shiro.

Keith smiled at him as the door closed.

"Yeah! Happy birthday, Crabmeister!" said Hunk just before the door sealed itself shut.

He saw Keith's mouth move through the clear pane, but those were the last words Lance heard. Crabmeister. What did Hunk mean by that? Something familiar about that word ate at him. Like a long-forgotten childhood memory. Lance felt the temperature drop in the pod, and felt his body start to go weightless. His consciousness faded. Crabmeister…?


He was floating. He could feel his body; the tips of his fingers and toes existing in weightlessness. Everything was dark. But he was aware.

Strange.

Lance knew he was in the pod. He'd never dreamed in the pod before. It was always nothingness, always empty blackness until he woke up, however later that might be. Hours, days, weeks. Had something gone wrong?

He never dreamed in the pod.

Lance felt a light pressure on his back. Smooth and settling. Shifting, contoured to his body. He was laying down. In warm, shallow, water on a bed of sand. The swamp. He was dreaming of the swamp. It couldn't be anything else.

He felt so strangely comfortable, laying in the ankle-deep water, the soft sand cushioning him. Maybe he should just wait to die. Let the monster come. Let it take him. Let him die.

Let all of it end.

The water lapped quietly around his ears, his hair gently fanning out into it. Lance breathed deeply, tasting sweet air on his lips. Odd. Instead of hot, choking fog filling his lungs, he felt a cool breeze blow over him, tickling his outstretched toes.

Lance opened his eyes.

There was no fog. There were no trees. There was no horizon.

It was night, and the indigo sky stretched on above him forever with endless, twinkling, unfamiliar stars. Galaxy arms reached overhead in dusty clouds of illumination. Meteors streaked from the heavens.

Lance felt himself struck with awe. How could he possibly dream of something so beautiful?

The expanse of it all shook him to his core. He shivered in the warm water. Lance tilted his head to the side. The stars stretched on endlessly to the horizon, falling seamlessly into the crystal clear water that reflected the sky perfectly.

Only the slightest ripples in the surface sheen and the wetness on his body gave away that he was not simply bathing in the stars themselves.

Lance could lay there forever, watching the endless expanse of space above, the water gently lapping at his sides.

He felt an ache deep within himself at the beauty of his dream.

Lance closed his eyes again.

The ache didn't go away.

The air was quiet. The stars shone over him, softly illuminating his body in the twilight darkness. This was how he would go. Peacefully. Without a fight. Lance willed himself to slip away into dreamless oblivion, as he squeezed his eyes shut and tensed his back, but instead of darkness, he felt light shining through his closed eyelids. Brighter and brighter. He chanced his eyes open once more.

On the horizon, through the tips of his toes, he saw it. The full moon, rising. Silent and enormous. It was only the upper edge skimming the water, but already its pale illumination reflected spectacularly off the endless shallow ocean.

It hurt to watch the moon. The more it rose, the more its piercing brilliance stung Lance's eyes. Lance squinted as the white moon emerged higher and higher from the horizon, larger and brighter than any moon he'd ever seen before.

He brought his wet hand up to shield his eyes and felt a sharp stab of pain in his gut. Lance clutched his stomach at the sudden jolt, wiping wet sand down his chest. And he felt it.

The lump.

Lance kept his hand clutched to his stomach as the moon rose higher and higher above him. The ache slowly deepened, a vile pressure from deep inside him.

Again.

Something pulsed inside his stomach. He could feel it under his fingertips.

Lance felt dizzy and faint, as fear and realization collided within him and he was assaulted by another spike of crippling pain; another lurching throb underneath his hand, stemming from deep within his own flesh.

Something was inside of him.

And it wanted out.

"Soon."

Lance could feel a shifting pulse under his body. The sand undulating beneath his back. The still waters churned and Lance was frozen in pain as the sand stirred all around him and quiet, hissing bubbles rose to the surface of the muddied water.

Thick black tentacles reached up, out of the sand, out of the shallow water and slowly wrapped themselves around his arms and legs and neck.

Tightly, they squeezed him, forcing him down, the water too shallow to drown him, but the heavy, constricting weight stifling Lance.

And still his stomach was in agony. Lance let out a mournful howl as a tentacle brushed his abdomen and the pain sharpened and increased its intensity. Piercing and stabbing. He wrenched his head up, out of the water to see what was happening. To look at himself. And he deeply regretted doing so.

The pulsing lump was visible now. Little mounds from inside of him poking up, and the dark, angry red spreading out from underneath his purple skin. It was inside him. It was getting out by any means.

Lance screamed in pain as the beautiful moon shone overhead and the stars twinkled above in their cold, eerie twilight.

It was coming. It was tearing him open.

The tentacles wrapped tighter around his neck, holding his head down and Lance didn't bother to fight. He couldn't watch. He couldn't move. He was doomed to witness the monster inside of him clawing and shredding its way out.

He could feel his skin splitting open. He could see nothing but endless stars and the silent, glowing moon above.

Something was reaching up, out of his abdomen. Crawling, scratching along his chest.

In the silvery halo of the moon overhead, Lance saw the wet and bloody creature clamber its way up, over the tentacles holding down his neck as it snapped its dark and blood-slickened claws.

It was a crab.

Lance saw its shadowy silhouette peak on his chest in the blinding moonlight, reaching its claws toward him, before he was suddenly, thankfully swimming in darkness.


Lance awoke to three smudged and distorted faces peering at him closely through the med pod door and nearly screamed, the images from his dream far too fresh in his mind. He'd never dreamed in the pod before. He didn't ever want to again.

"Hey. Lance."

"How you doing?"

"Are you ok?"

Keith, Pidge and Hunk spoke nearly in unison as the pod hissed open and released Lance into medical bay. Lance flexed his fingers and toes instinctively, testing his upright position and his return to gravity.

He immediately reached down and felt his stomach, and his face and his arms; all in tact. He allowed himself to breathe. He was okay. In fact, he was better than he was before.

"We have good news!" said Pidge.

Lance lifted his hand away from his stomach. The giant bruise was gone. His skin had returned to its smooth, even brown colour all over. He took another deep breath. No blood. No bruising. No stabbing pain. Everything was-

"You should be feeling a lot better now," said Pidge, "We picked up a massive hemorrhage around your liver and the pod stopped the bleeding and cleared the blood from your system..."

Pidge was saying other things, and Lance consciously registered her mouth moving, but he was still stuck in a numb state of shock. Better? He was better? No. No way.

"...It also restored your platelet count to healthy levels. You were dipping pretty low, which is why your nosebleeds kept going on and on…"

Shock turned into realisation and realisation turned into a tiny, fluttering joy. He was... fixed! He was cured. The machine must have gotten whatever was wrong with him, his blood, that… crab… out of him.

Lance stepped out of the pod and made brief eye contact with Pidge and Hunk, nodding and saying words of thanks to them, but that was not his purpose. He took two steps towards the arms outstretched in front of him and collided with Keith, kissing him deeply, frantically, feeling the warmth and stability of Keith's body in his grasp.

"Wow. Okay. You two are in your gross phase. Cool." Pidge rolled her eyes and shut the pod door.

Hunk coughed and tried to pick up where Pidge left off, doing his best to ignore Keith twirling Lance's hair between his fingers and Lance's smitten gazing into Keith's eyes.

"Now remember, this may not mean you're totally cured, but we did catch the immediate problem, and the machine no longer thinks there's nothing wrong with you. So that's a good head start in my book, at least."

Hunk wiped his brow, looking Lance up and down, and Lance became very aware that he was still in his boxers.

Lance pulled away and noticed that they were all wearing different clothes. Again.

"How long was I in?" Lance asked as Keith handed him a pair of pants.

"Another full 24-hour set," said Hunk.

Another day lost. Lance briefly wondered, as he dressed himself, what Keith did when he was always in the pod so much. But he shook away the questions. He was out now, and he had Keith now, and they had plenty of time together. They had Galra to defeat and a universe to save. No more crabs-

"Hey," said Lance, pulling a shirt over his head, "What did you mean by calling me crabmeister?"

"What? Oh. Nothing, really," Hunk shrugged and waved his hand nonchalantly, "You don't remember, dude? You're a cancer."

"Hey, um, fuck you," sniffed Lance, highly disappointed in his best friend.

"No, dumbass," Hunk snorted, "The astrology sign. July 20th."

"Oh." Lance's eyes narrowed, but he was still blushing.

"Crabby cancer. Cardinal water sign. Ruled by the moon. Highly emotional, they say," teased Hunk.

"Um, fuck you again, but sure."

Hunk laughed.

"Yeah, it goes back to when we were kids," Hunk looked over at Keith and Pidge, "One time Lance's sister got this huge book out of the library because she had a crush on some guy, and we lifted it from her bedroom and looked ourselves up. Lance is a Cancer. I'm a Virgo. Fine details, man, they run my life."

Keith looked at Lance with mild suspicion. "You're a crab?"

Lance squeezed Keith's arm. "Only in my nightmares."

Keith blinked several times.

"Ha! Oh, god, remember, Lance?" Hunk elbowed him in the ribs, "You also got super mad because you wanted to be a Sagittarius, when you read that your sign was all about domesticity and maternity."

"Uh, yeah! It was a fire horse and it shoots fire arrows! That's cool, Hunk! Way cooler than a mom-crab!" Lance retorted, the eleven-year-old argument still burning within him somehow.

"Yeah," said Hunk, having gone back to the pod and unplugging a few connectors here and there, "but then you'd have to be born around Christmas. And combination presents suck."

Lance let out of huff of derision. "True."

Then, "Keith, what are you?"

"I dunno," Keith shrugged.

"When's your birthday?" asked Hunk, overseeing the final power-down of the med pod.

"November 15th."

"Ooh, Scorpio. Intense and Sexy. Ruled by the god of war. Nice." Hunk gave him a thumbs up as re-coiled some of the cables he'd detached from the pod to an external device. "Pidge?"

Pidge raised her hand. "Gemini, though I don't believe in any of that stuff."

Lance felt the mixture of giddy happiness and the lingering adrenaline that always trailed behind his more violent nightmares cause his body to shake slightly. He was a crab. A cancer. He dreamed of bloody crabs and moons and violent births because he was a cancer.

He was cured.

And he didn't have to think about it anymore.