Keith stayed the night.

Lance didn't actually ask, but he was pretty sure that Keith is staying in his and Shiro's empty flat by himself, and something about that didn't seem right. They didn't bother to ring in the new year; instead, Keith went out the next morning to buy cheap alcohol and was asleep on the couch by late afternoon, while Lance closed his bedroom door and Skyped his family; the time difference didn't matter much, as long as he got to see his oldest brother slipping off with his girlfriend when he thought nobody would notice, his aunts squabbling over whether they should have the Times Square fireworks on the TV in the background, and his niece, thrilled at being allowed to stay up for the first time, blow a big kiss directly into the lens while the others cheered.

The apartment seemed oddly quiet when he finally took the headphones out and headed through to the kitchen. He could hear fireworks outside, but couldn't see any of the lights. He was balancing on his toes, peering out of the window trying to at least figure out what direction the noises were coming from, when a voice behind him said, "Shiro hated fireworks."

"Jesus!" Lance caught hold of the table as he slipped, heart hammering in his chest when he turned to see Keith standing in the doorway, skinny frame swallowed by the blanket around his shoulders. "Hey, man. You're awake."

"He hated loud noises," Keith continued. "Cars especially. They freaked him out." His voice was low, and hoarse from sleep, but there was a childish edge to his voice, something lost and pitiful that spoke in disjointed sentence fragments. "Which is fair enough. He nearly died."

"Hey," Lance said, wary. "Keith, buddy. How much have you had to drink?"

"Not enough," Keith answered, distracted. "And then he did die. Not in an accident, though."

"Okay," Lance said. After his initial outburst, Keith had been quiet; he'd slept for the rest of the day, and Lance had only woken him that evening to offer him some food. It had been accepted, as had the offer of a bed for the night, but they'd barely spoken since. Now, Lance was suddenly acutely aware of just how little he really knew about Keith. "You want to talk about it?"

"I don't know," Keith said. "I want to... I want to understand."

"Yeah," Lance said heavily. "I'll bet." There was a new burst of fireworks, closer this time, and he glimpsed a flash of colour at the window. Keith edged into the room, closer to the glass, and Lance dragged a couple of chairs away from the table. "You want to see?"

They sat down and watched; Keith stared out of the window, in a sort of stupor, lips moving silently, and Lance watched Keith, watched the fireworks reflecting in his dark eyes.

"I think," Keith said after a while, "it's easier this way."

"What?"

"Waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

Keith shrugged. "Waiting for it to be over."

"For what to be over?" Lance didn't have a lot of experience with whatever sort of drunk Keith seemed to be; Hunk just tended to hug people until he passed out. "You're not making a lot of sense, buddy."

"This." Keith waved a hand in the vague direction of the window, clumsily letting it fall back into his lap. There was another burst of light in the distance, silver sparks in the sky like rain, the reflections in his eyes vanishing as he frowned like he was trying to think of the right word.

"The noise?" Lance suggested, trying to help. "Or do you mean, like, New Year's in general? It's nearly over."

"No," Keith said, so quietly Lance barely heard it over the fireworks. "This. This..." His frown crumpled, and Lance barely caught the next word. "Sadness."

"Oh. Oh, man. Keith."

"But what happens if it isn't?" Keith asked. "Over. If it doesn't?" He wasn't looking at the fireworks anymore, but directly at Lance, eyes slightly unfocused.

Lance swallowed hard. "I... I don't think it ever really goes away," he said slowly. "But it fades, after a while." Keith nodded, and then again, head drooping until it rested on Lance's shoulder. "And it's not... that isn't a bad thing," Lance continued. "It's not like you're forgetting them, because that never happens. It's more like... more like healing. Like an injury. It leaves a scar, but you forget how much it hurt after a while, and you just have the memory of how you got it." He paused. Keith's head was still on his shoulder, dark hair brushing the side of his neck, and his eyes were closed, light playing across his face, smoothing it out, somehow. "Okay," Lance whispered, but he didn't move, not until he was sure that Keith was asleep and not about to wake up again. "Okay." He stood carefully, supporting Keith's shoulder with one hand before sliding him off the chair and picking him up, awkwardly balancing his limp limbs the short distance to the couch. He set him down and retrieved the blanket, leaving a glass of water on the floor beside him. As a last, impulsive action, he dropped a kiss on Keith's forehead; the other boy shifted as he leaned forward, and for a split-second their lips touched.

Lance jerked away immediately, heart pounding, but Keith simply stirred a little and settled again. He brought a hand to his mouth, wiping at his lips as if he could brush away the action, and headed back to his room. Don't be stupid, he thought. It means nothing. You barely know him.

It didn't stop him staring at the ceiling. He reached for his phone after what felt like an hour, and pulled up Facebook before realising that he didn't even know Keith's surname. After hesitating for a long minute, he typed Takashi Shirogane into the search bar. A list of names came up, but it wasn't until he'd narrowed the search results down by age and location that he spotted a post by someone called Matt Holt. It was a photo of three guys on a couch; two of them, a sandy-haired guy and someone it took Lance a couple of seconds to recognise as a smiling, shorter-haired Keith, sitting on top of the third. The caption said: Congrats to Keith Kogane on moving to college! Poor choice of flatmate though Takashi Shirogane (seriously dude get fb already) #broganeflat photo creds to Pidge Holt

Lance stared at it for a long time. According to the post, the photo was taken a little over a year and a half ago, just before he and Keith started their first year. He tried to line it up with what Keith had told him the previous day; that meant that the car crash that had killed Shiro's parents must have been less than six months ago. He squinted at the figure he assumed to be Shiro. His face was completely covered by Keith's shoulder, and Lance only paused for a few seconds before clicking on Keith's name. He was disappointed; although Keith had Facebook, the last post was a profile picture from the middle of summer. It was simple enough; just a candid shot of Keith walking beside a shorter girl with the same sort of sandy hair as the guy in the first picture. Matt Holt had commented excuse you creds pls underneath; Keith hadn't replied. This time, Lance didn't hesitate before clicking Matt's name.

Matt Holt, he soon figured out, had been Shiro's best friend. His page was mostly memes and the occasional 'sorry for the spam but if I post this I get free stuff in the game' posts, but after Lance had scrolled through a couple of month's worth of stuff, he found a status update from mid-October. thanks for all the kindness, it read. the next while is going to be rough. shiro was probably the best person i've ever met, and i don't really know what the world's going to be like without him, but we'll see. look out for each other, okay? There was a photo with it; a younger Matt, probably around the same age Lance was now, with someone who could only be Shiro, tall and dark-haired, one hand waving at the person taking the photo, the sort of smile on his face that could only belong to someone who was exceptionally kind.

He felt like he was intruding on something just by reading it, and scrolled on down without reading the comments. There were photos, some of Matt and his family, including the girl in Keith's profile picture, and then, before summer, an album titled brogane flat 2k16. It was mostly selfies and candids: Keith asleep on a couch with what looked like half the flat's contents piled on top of him; several of Matt and Shiro with various snapchat filters; one of Keith with a flower crown perched lopsidedly across his forehead, mouth open in a laugh directed at someone out of shot; a bewildered-looking Shiro raising a thumbs-up with one hand and holding a flaming pan with the other; this last is accompanied by a clip of Keith skidding into the kitchen with a tea towel yelling don't fucking snapchat it Matthew, get some fucking water, holy fucking shit Shiro- and Shiro-in-the-video goes don't worry, it's only a little on fire and Matt laughs so hard he drops his phone and the clip ends in chaos.

Lance closed the tab suddenly, clicking it away before he fully realised what he was doing. The two images of Keith blurred in his mind, the skeleton of a person curled up on his couch in the next room and the laughing boy in the pictures. The more he thought about it, the more amazed he was that Keith has been functioning this long. He wanted to help him- he needed to help him, because it was really starting to look like nobody was going to do that. Unless-

"Matt," he whispered, trying the name out on his tongue. He doubted that Matt wouldn't have already tried to reach out to Keith- something in his gut told him Shiro's friend was a good guy- but he also didn't doubt that Keith would have waved away any and all help until he couldn't support himself anymore. Lance was good at reading people. Sometimes he felt like it was the only thing he was good at; he could see when something was up, but he wasn't much good at figuring out what to do after that.

He hovered over the button on his screen for several minutes, mulling it over, before deciding fuck it and beginning to type out a message.

Hey, it started. You don't know me, but I'm a-

A what? A classmate? A stalker? A good samaritan way out of his depth?

I'm a friend of Keith Kogane. I don't know him all that well, but I bumped into him the other day and he wasn't doing so good, so I brought him back to my place. I'm trying to help, but he seems to be like... really isolated and stuff. He stopped coming to class and he looks sick. Less like he's actually ill and more like it's just everything piling on top of him. I just figured that it probably means the people who care about him don't know about it, otherwise they'd help. I really hope I'm not overstepping, but I want to help. I'm just not sure how. It's like if I touch him I'll break him, and he already seems broken enough.

Lance reads it over, deletes the last sentence, adds a He's crashing on my couch atm- he can stay as long as he needs to, and hits send before he can change his mind.