There was impulsiveness, and then there was Keith.

When you've been fighting non-stop for the past two hours, and your comrades are nearly dead of exhaustion, going off on your own is not a good idea. Hell, going off on your own is almost never a good idea when you're outnumbered and outgunned.

Keith does anyways.

Pidge notices when Keith breaks away, mostly because he leaves Hunk vulnerable to three Galran cruisers. He can't shake them off of his tail. She manages to swerve in last minute, tangling them together with vines that die almost immediately after being exposed to the void. Her lion whines at the loss of life, however petty. The three ships crash into each other, a series of explosions running through them until they're dead in the water. "Thanks, Pidge."

"No problem, Hunk." Green shows her Keith's path, heading straight for the main battleship. "You should get back to the others. I need to cover Keith."

"He's doing one of those 'I'm-a-badass-and-need-no-help-whatsoever' things?" Hunk asks as he swings back toward Lance and Shiro's location.

She grins, and spits sarcastically. "Of course he is. And now I have to go cover his ass before he gets himself killed."

Hunk doesn't comment (he knows better than to try and hold a conversation with her when she's pissed), and then she's left on her own. Keith's comm is still turned off, and while she still has a connection with the others, they're busy holding off the Galra in her and Keith's stead; if she wants to stop Keith, she's gonna have to do it alone. The Red lion is headed straight for the largest cluster of ships, which they had been avoiding. Flying directly into it would put Red under heavy fire, which even Yellow wouldn't be able to handle sustained damage from. Damn it! There was a reason they were picking them off slowly from the outskirts, instead of heading straight in.

She guides Green past three fighters that attempt to corner her, and turns around with a sharp three-sixty to shoot them down. A mid-class cruiser aims it's external cannons at her, and she shoots them down, albeit too late. It's lasers scorch Green's left flank, and her left leg aches faintly.

"Sorry, girl." She mutters as she follows Keith into the fray. Finally, she gets close enough for their helmet comms to get a signal. "Keith!"

"Stay back Pidge. I've got this." Keith says, his face popping up on her screen again. She can see the red trail of wiped away blood under his nose. It's obvious that he doesn't 'got this'.

"You're lion isn't built to take this many hits. You need to back out, now." She orders, shooting two fighters that have gotten hooked on his trail. "Before someone gets hurt."

Keith frowns but doesn't reply.

"Keith." She pleads, her lion whining as another hail of lasers pellet her back. Pidge's back burns with ghost pain, echoing Green's.

Keith frowns, and then slams his fists into the dashboard. Red roars, and it's unclear who it's directed at. "Fine." He snarls, steering Red around in a sharp ninety-degree turn.

Pidge waits for him to pass her before turning around and following him back to the outer cluster. "And turn your comm back on."

He doesn't reply, but the red blinking light on her dash disappears, and Shiro's directions turn to reprimands.

"Keith, where did hell did you go? You need to cover Hunk; his armor isn't gonna hold up forever." Shiro is too focused on the battle to say more about Keith's recklessness, and the comms fall silent aside from the occasional order or murmured exclamation of victory.

It takes another two hours before they beat back the Galra, and another three that they are forced to sit through a diplomatic dinner. Throughout the rest of the day, all she can think about is how close they came to death in that moment. All because Keith had to be the hero. She'd thought that he'd grown out of his impulsive tendencies, that he'd at least learned to control them until he could think through it. Pidge guesses that she was wrong.

During dinner, neither of them had spoken, although she did occasionally look up to glare at him. The redness of his face was enough to let her know that he saw, but she couldn't do much about it until they got back to the castle. Even then, during debriefing and changing and the walk to their rooms, they hadn't spoke. It wasn't until the door slid shut behind them that she let the first of her angry words dribble out of her mouth.

"You could've fucking died out there!" The words sound less like the hot and angry ones she intended, and more like a plead. It is one, she realizes. She's pleading with him because god dammit, he keeps doing this and one of these days no one is gonna get there in time to save him from himself.

"And I didn't. I lowered the-" He doesn't even look at her as he pulls back his sheets, and slides in between them.

She marches over to him, and grabs his night shirt, pulling him up to look at her. He could easily push her away, force her to leave him alone, but he doesn't. He just sits there and stares at her, eyes angry and hands shaking. "Don't lie."

Pidge doesn't want to let him think that his behavior was acceptable, but she doesn't think that anything she does will change him, because that's what this is. It's a part of him, and she's known this from the start. She practically rams her face into his, their foreheads only avoiding collision because of Keith, tilting his head at just the right moment. He relaxes, tenseness leaving his body as she pulls at his shirt, tugging until he raises his hands and pulls it off, flinging it across the room to hit the door.

"I could've handled it." He manages between huffed breaths, lips still pressed to hers. She bites at his lower lip, giving him an ultimatum: shut up or lose your lip.

His own hands start to wander from her waist and under her shirt. His hands are warm to the tough, calluses familiar against her smooth skin. Keith's fingers pull at the underwire of her bra, and then unclasp the hooks keeping them shut. The garment is tossed to the floor as he squeezes her tit; it barely fills his hand, but that doesn't deter him from playing with them. His other hand tweaks her nipple, and then the other, each one sensitive enough to make her gasp as gently sucks on one before attempting to move onto the other. She pushes him down to the bed.

"You almost got killed today." She practically growls, pressing fierce kisses to his neck and collarbone, each one slowly getting becoming more like a bite. "and it's killing me. So we're gonna fuck, because I know that I can't change your impulsiveness, no matter how much I want to. And you, are gonna shut the fuck up until we're done. I don't wanna hear anything out of you."

Keith looks like he wants to protest, but then she's pulling off his boxers, and he buries whatever he's gonna say for something more useful. "Nothing at all?"

"Nothing." She hisses back, tossing the offending article to the ground.

He's already half-hard (he always is, after a fight) and it doesn't take more than a few strokes of her hand for him to harden all of the way. She considers continuing, letting him come before moving on, but then she remembers; this is hers. Her night, her punishment, her anger. It will be her choice when he was finally allowed to come.

"Tap me if you can't breathe." She says, before moving farther onto the sheets. She sits on his face, mouth directly under her clit, and wonders if she gave him fair warning before deciding that it doesn't matter. He didn't give her fair warning when he ran off.

It only takes him a second to work through the shock. She feels the familiar slickness of his tongue against her, and her resolve fails. Her thighs tighten around his head, and her hands clench, first in the sheets, and then, in his hair as she presses his face harder against her pussy. His chest rumbles as he attempts to suppress a moan; he's no stranger to playing rough. Pidge knows how much he loves it when they wake up the next morning, bruises patterning pale skin, a lingering soreness reminding them of what they spent the night doing. Normally, she's content to let him lead, but not tonight.

Her legs clench around his face a final time as she comes into his mouth. She pulls back, rests on his chest for a moment as the aftershocks slowly fade away. "Round two?"

Keith nods, his face splotchy and red.

Pidge slides off of the bed, and opens the drawer beside the bed. Luckily for them, condoms are essentially the same in Altean culture (except a it's stronger, because with Altean shapeshifting abilities, you never know what size they'll need), and the med-bay had plenty to spare. Both of their rooms have a pretty good stash. She grabs one and tears the plastic wrapping off with her teeth, and then pulls the rubber onto his dick. A groan escapes from between his clenched teeth, and her head snaps up to meet Keith's gaze.

"No."

She lowers herself onto him, careful to get the angle right. She's still sensitive from her previous orgasm, but she still has enough control to take it slow. Keith is choking himself, sputtering with every inch that she takes in, but he doesn't dare to speak. She never does when it's him that's doing the ordering around.

For once, Pidge is glad for all of those training sessions that Shiro forced them to do, because without them, she wouldn't have the strength to ride Keith, or at least, not like this. She makes it a point to rise off of him slowly, his cock slowly sliding out of her, until only the tip is submerged, before she slams down again. His eyes flash and he rolls over, effortlessly pushing her to the bed. His dick is halfway in her, and he quickly moves to correct that.

"I was trying to finish it, okay?" Keith pushes into her, but the feeling of orgasm is slowly disappearing due to the change in position. Pidge lifts her legs up and hooks them together behind Keith's back. The next time he thrusts, she feels the familiar tightening in her stomach (technically her uterus). The feeling surprises her, and she chokes on the words that she was going to say. "I thought that I could hurry it up, maybe take down the command ship. Then we'd be fine. No one would have damages to their lion, and the battle would be over that much faster."

"You almost fucking died!" She repeats, because that is all that she can think about right now. He almost died, and he's trying to make excuses? Especially right now, when the feeling in her stomach is growing tighter and tighter, like a violin string pulled taut, and she's finding it hard to keep listening, to keep being angry at him. Maybe this was his plan; let her get all delirious from orgasm so she'd stop being angry that much faster.

"I would've fallen back if I were seriously in danger, Pidge. Don't you at least trust me to know that?"

Pidge is done. She comes, all words leaving her mind because all she can think about is the color red, and pleasure and how fucking done she is. As she's coming down, Keith grunts, his arms shaking as he comes, warmth spreading; she can feel it through the condom, pressing against her but unable to really touch her. He pulls out as soon as he's done, and rolls over beside her.

They're both breathing deeply, air escaping them no matter how hard they try to hold onto it, just like Pidge's anger. No matter how hard she tries to hold onto it, it's leaving her, and now she just feels cold. "I trust you, Keith." She says, turning her head to look at him. "But I still get scared for you. I don't want to lose you too."

She reaches over, and threads her fingers through his. At first, he doesn't respond, but then he tightens his hand over hers, and squeezes reassuringly. "I'll try and do better, okay?"

"Okay." It's a lie. She's gonna lose him to this war, just like she lost her family, and there's nothing that she can do about it, except wait, and live every day as it comes.