Music tip:
Alan Walker - Force
youtube: watch?v=lqYQXIt4SpA

Dancing in Flames

No 42:
'I don't know if I should kiss you or slap you.'

Characters: Lance, Keith, Shiro, others
Pairing: Klance
Universe: Canon, during S2

He can't tell how long he's been unconscious, but it can't have been very long.
His body is still throbbing with pain and no one is with him in the room. Not Shiro, not the people who are after his blade. For a moment he gives in to the urge to close his eyes once again and to drift away into the blissful nothingness waiting at the edge of his consciousness. Just a little longer, then he'll be for sure able to get up, just a minute…

"Hey sleeping beauty."

It's neither the half-hearted teasing that gets to him, nor the recognition that makes his heart stumble a bit – it's the fact that Lance of all people shouldn't be here right now.
If he is, something must have gone wrong, after all they had a completely different agreement.
If he is, he must have gotten past those stubborn guys somehow – a fight? Is their hope for an alliance against Zarkon already dead and buried?
If he is, from all the way from the castle, then why isn't Shiro?

Panic sets in and despite the heaviness of his eyelids and the pain exploding in his head, as the bright light blinds his unfocused eyes, he sits up and grabs his blade with trembling fingers. "What-" he begins with a croaking voice and wonders briefly how long exactly he has been out of it, when a shadow appears in the left corner of his eyes and makes him twirl around as fast as his battered body is able to given the circumstances.
"Hey, hey – calm down, it's just me, you're fine now, promise."

With raised hands Lance's form slowly crouches down in front of a kneeling Keith, before he gifts him with one of his cocky smirks. The apprehension begins to fade away for some sweet relief, when he realizes that they are alone. No more deadly fighters, no teammates to rob him of what he needs most at the moment. But still… it doesn't sit right with him. Lance has a tendency of bending the truth every so often, if it means he is able to get rid of Keith's foreboding tension he never was fond of. "Where are the others? What happened?" he asks with a bit more breath than before and relaxes visibly, when Lance comes a bit closer and puts his hand on Keith's right arm still holding the dagger.

"They are alright. You beat those guys – no one managed to get as far as you did, they said," Lance explains with obvious pride in his voice that always makes Keith blush a little. This time though he doesn't mention it like he usually does to make it worse, instead he continues and ignores Keith's more urgent question.
"To be honest it all turned out a bit different than expected – they still want your blade." Something in Lance's tone is off, the pressing feeling in his stomach returns and leaves him resistant to the soft ministrations of the hand running up and down his tense arm.

"Keith, you have to calm down first, come on, just- look at me, babe."
He loses the hidden steel in his voice and makes way for what always gets to Keith. Cocky, but not too much, charming, but not too obvious, and then full of the overwhelming love that usually is reserved for quiet hours in the darkness of the castle.
Warm fingertips brush over his cheek, with a sigh he isn't able to hold back Keith succumbs to the hidden demand and turns his head to his fellow Paladin. His face is closer than anticipated and for a moment the wordless desire in his boyfriend's eyes is taking his breath away.

And finally he leans forward and presses his soft lips onto Keith's, who is melting away and caught a moment later by Lance's chest and his strong arms around his back. His muscles go lax, the tight grip around his blade eases up and his eyes flutter close as he enjoys the feeling of Lance's hand gripping his neck and deepening the kiss.
It is exactly how he needs it to be – furious and wild, a mix of all the emotions running through his confused mind, but still full of the love and steadiness he needs from Lance to find his way back out of old memories and the lingering arms of his father.
The kiss, Lance himself, is exactly what he needs, what he wants right now –

And that's when it finally clicks in his mind.
He freezes in Lance's arms, eyes wide open, before he pushes him forcefully away. The pain returns to his body, he can't twist away from him as fast as he would have liked and tries to grab his blade, but it has disappeared into one of Lance's- that guy's hands. His heart is pounding rapidly against his ribcage and his breathing is way above normal, when he turns around on stumbling feet to face his next opponent.

Because Lance, the real one, would never be perfect.
He doesn't do what Keith wants, he doesn't react the way he would have anticipated him to. Lance goes with the flow, he shows him how he feels in the most unusual ways for Keith, he likes to surprise him with little gestures and hidden winks behind the others' backs. He would have made sure Keith isn't hurt first, then he would have taken him to Shiro to get him out of here as fast as possible. And late at night, when Keith would have been released from Coran's watchful eyes in the infirmary, he would sneak into his room to sleep by his side. Only in the morning, when he wakes up with bruises all over his body and the accompanying aches, Lance would have finally kissed him – soft and slow with the brightest of smiles on his face.

Lance never is what Keith wants him to be.
He is what Keith never realizes he needs to keep breathing in the oppressing vastness of space.

"Who the fuck are you?"
Despite his threatening growl the Lance-imposer comes a little bit closer and still pretends to have no clue what Keith is talking about. But there are things he notices now, the relaxed stance as he slowly steps forward, the half-smile still implanted onto his face as well as the way he holds the dagger.
His Lance would tense and back up to not aggravate him further.
His Lance would never have picked up the blade.

He especially wouldn't hold it as if he were about to attack Keith.

"Those guys messed you up badly, didn't they? You should have just given them the damn blade, it would have spared us all this mess, you know?"

"Shut up!" he screams in a fit of rage, because Lance doesn't talk like that with this ugly grin planted onto his face. He isn't smug or arrogant, even if Keith has thought so some time ago, before he learned to love and to see beyond his iron-will like need to survive.
"What did you do to him?" he growls threateningly in a tone that throws him temporarily back in time, when he was surrounded by pain and fear and constant darkness. A time before Shiro, before his helping hand pulled him out of the misery he had ended up in.
A time before he met Lance – beautiful, kind and happy Lance. Not this abomination.

"Keith, come on, you're clearly overreacting," he tries again without noticing that it's the final straw. With a scream that hurts his throat Keith lungs forward as quickly as if he hasn't fought whole armies just mere minutes ago, as if it isn't the image of his boyfriend he attacks. The imposer raises the blade in a stance that is impossible to be Lance's, who has no clue how to properly defend himself even if his life depended on it. He has no weapon and no energy left to win this fight, but he is Keith. He fights against the odds since his birth.
His left arm pretends to go for imposer-Lance and as he tries to come around with the blade, Keith lungs out with his right and barrels his fist straight into his shoulder. He doesn't even blink nor does he show any sign of being in pain, as he ignores the fatal move and shoves Keith's blade towards his side he left open without any defense.

A stupid little mistake born out of sheer exhaustion.
He should have grabbed his wrist with his left hand.
He should have known it wasn't Lance from the beginning on.
He should have…

Maybe he should have given them the damn blade, he ponders, as it reaches his undefended side and Keith closes his eyes.

Shiro is already up and about, ready to pass their supposed allies, when a voice from the speaker renders him immobile.

"Hey sleeping beauty."
His brain has barely caught up on the fact that it is Lance's voice, as his body already comes to a stop in front of the person clearly in charge with Shiro's changed arm pressed against his throat. If Lance is here, they must have either let the others through in a sudden urge of misplaced kindness – or they have overpowered them. If they actually did, despite the strong defense of the castle, despite the other Paladins and their lions, despite the agreement, there is no reason left not to kill them, especially with Keith barely coherent and bleeding out on the floor.
In a fluent move his opponent has turned things around impressively quick and the rest of the in cloaks wrapped resistance doesn't even lift a finger. "Look," he mumbles with no emotions reverberating in his deep voice and despite his thudding heart in his chest and the hidden need to cut off the arm that holds the slim dagger over his heart (so damn similar to Keith's), he risks a glance at the monitor.

"Hey, hey – calm down, it's just me, you're fine now, promise."
Lance is completely unharmed, as far as he can see. No rigid movements, no flinches, no hissing, no pain in his eyes. Something is off though, a lingering feeling in his chest, while he stares at the boy.
There has been no alarms for him to hear, no sight of something going not as planned. The group around him is as calm as they can be, Shiro recons, but it doesn't make any sense. Why would they let someone in here despite their agreement, let alone straight to Keith without batting an eye, while they keep Shiro back like a prisoner when all he wants to do is help the kid?

"What is Lance doing down there?" he asks with a hint of caution, as the voice of the blue Paladin is loud and clear for them to hear through the speakers. It's a weird sight to see. Lance tries to calm Keith down with words and gestures – something Shiro is quite used to from the emphatic Paladin, but directed at Keith…?

"His suit has the ability to create a virtual mindscape, reflecting its wearer's greatest hopes and fears," Kolivan explains calmly. And then, while Lance places his hand oh so tenderly onto Keith's shaking one, it finally dawns on him. The castle hasn't moved, there has been no attack –
With a rigid move he turns his head towards Kolivan, who waits by his side, dagger hidden again and watches the scene patiently. "A hologram."

Slowly Shiro's eyes wander over to the screen again, over Keith's kneeling form, bloody and beaten, over fake Lance – greatest hopes and fears? Since when has there been a connection deep enough between the two combative Paladins for Keith to wish him by his side in a situation like this? Have they finally overcome their rivalry for something better, something Voltron desperately needs at this point to survive against Zarkon?
Another question lingers on the tip of his tongue, but Kolivan continues in his heavy voice, ever so void of any emotions despite the deeper meaning of his words.

"And, at this moment, your friend desperately wants to see him."

"Keith, you have to calm down first, come on, just – look at me, babe."

And while both of their voices mix up, Shiro finally understands. It's not that hard regarding the fact that Lance is leaning forward to kiss Keith with a familiarity that says it all.

When Pidge tells them that she got through somehow, he anticipates the castle to fly straight for the rare opening or Allura to send them to their lions to bail their teammates out of whatever mess they got themselves into again.
Instead there is a flickering image replacing the current one of the hidden base of their – hopefully – future alliance. For a second they stare at it in anticipation-filled silence, eager to see what has occurred so far –

Lance's heart stops, the sudden screams and commands around him fade away into a distant echo, while his wide opened eyes are fixed onto the screen in front of them. Distantly he is aware of the other pictures flickering up: the overview of the base, Red's location, possible weak points brought up by Pidge –
But none of them really matter, as he stares at Keith's unconscious form clad in a dark uniform he isn't familiar with. He looks horrible. Dark bangs hang into his pale face, an ugly bruise begins to form at his jaw line and the blood sprinkled onto his cheeks and the rest of his body does nothing to ease the pain in Lance's stuttering heart.
The slight lifting of Keith's chest though finally brings him back at least so far that he hears the distant command of Allura directed at him. Even before she finishes it, the weapons of the castle are ready and distantly humming with the need to unload their deadly power onto their enemies.

Keith is hurt.
Oh god, he is injured, actually unconscious and oh god he really needs to calm down right now but fuck, Keith is in fucking danger and they-
"Lance stop!"

He flinches and stares to his left with blinking eyes.
Allura's gaze is sharp and piercing, below though is something hidden that pushes the panic in his veins a little bit further away. Enough to make him understand what she means.
"Don't-fire!"
His fingers are hovering over the pad, one of the lasers is already powering up for the attack he was about to unleash onto them in white burning fury that they brought upon themselves.
With a shaky nod he pulls his fingers away as if burned by the lingering thought that he could have made it all worse and by the cautious looks thrown in his direction. "Sorry," he mutters and feels Hunk's lingering gaze onto him, until he concentrates on the princess again.

"Anything on contacting Shiro?"

"Nothing yet. I can't locate him via other security footage either, this is the only feed we are able to hijack at the moment," Pidge answers Allura and as usual gives her more information than asked for, while her fingers rush over her console at dizzying speed.

"What about Keith?"

"Alive but unconscious, that's all we are able to make out at the moment. It looks like he has been in a severe fight if we take the kind of his injuries into account," Coran's voice replies as he normally would and Lance can't keep the frown off of his face. Why don't they panic? Why don't they worry, why don't they want to go in guns blazing in a fiery act of revenge that burns at the tips of Lance's fingers?
For all they know he could be dying, bleeding out or succumbing to an internal wound only the cryo-pods are able to heal. Shiro could already be dead, while their supposed allies are taking Red apart piece by piece, until there is nothing left than two cold bodies and superior alien technology in their hands.

"You were the one most skeptical about this so-called resistance and now you hold back to not piss them off while Keith dies? What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

He has stepped over the line, of course he knows, but even Allura's furious look isn't able to contain the rage slowly bubbling up. "We should be already on our way down there to save him! We-"

"-will kill him if we attack. Because if our weapons won't, they will. Right now he and Shiro are their hostages. If you have a brilliant plan to get them out of there without causing any more trouble, I'm all ears."
If the situation wouldn't be so dire Lance might have laughed at Allura picking up human phrases, but as it stands he evades her blue eyes that pierce through his body like Keith's, when they are all alone and talking about the fears hidden deep inside of their chests in comforting darkness. She is right, but it doesn't make it any better. Not one bit.

"Hey sleeping beauty."

His voice is as unexpected as it is disturbing with the tension-filled silence of the bridge and it's a first that he feels uncomfortable under their undivided attention. There is a mix between confusion and anger in their eyes at the bad timing of the easy-going tone in his voice, especially after his little tantrum just mere moments ago, but he can kind of understand them. It's nothing he would have said, especially now, but then again… He kind of has. Before Lance is able to defend himself despite the fact that is was his voice, it echoes around them once more. With a look towards the screen they finally understand.

"Hey, hey – calm down, it's just me, you're fine now, promise."

It's him.
His body, his hair, his voice, his stance, his fucking smile, the one he gives Keith in secret whenever he knows the other boy to be upset, his damn skin, his eyes, his expression –
"What is this?" he whispers with a voice that sounds too strained in his ears, but he can't take his eyes away from himself.
He touches Keith, softly and with a care that makes him want to puke. It's not his hand on Keith's injured arm, slowly stroking up and down to soothe the confused boy who is looking around wearily.

It hurts.
It physically hurts to watch, to not be there by Keith's side to hold him and tell him that no one can get to him. It hurts to be put on display like that in front of everyone who matters up here, because at least Hunk knows the instant he looks into fake Lance's eyes.
Quickly he whips his head around, but Lance ignores Hunk's silent question once more to stare at the unwavering image in front of them. They weren't ready to let them know yet. It's fresh and unfamiliar and oh so fucking beautiful whatever they have going on. Above all they want to keep it going and the thought of involving the others, of making it official sets of a whole other kind of panic he didn't know existed up until now. Every little thing feels as if it can rip what they have build for themselves apart effortlessly, so they keep it secret and continue to explore and learn and love.

God, loving Keith is like a fucking drug.
It makes him want to rip his hair out, whenever he does something stupid on a daily basis.
It also makes him want to get better at everything.
His dorky flirts that Keith secretly loves despite the displayed annoyance, whenever he enters the room to one out of Lance's endless repertoire. His way to spill everything out that goes on in his mind, while Keith just shoves it all inside – he wants to open it up oh so carefully and let it all out, because the guy waiting below all the dark thoughts and memories can only be more breathtaking than his boyfriend already is.
A few months ago he would have outright laughed at the insanity of the mere thought of Keith and Lance actually being a thing, of him having emotions for the quiet Asian boy who seems to live life on a whole other level than Lance ever has. Sometimes it feels as if he sprung out of an action movie, a soldier ready to kill and defeat whoever is brave enough to stand in his way. His fighting skills are unmatched, not even Shiro can keep up with his fluent way to move and strike like an assassin out from the shadows.
And like a soldier he has an emotional shitload of baggage that sometimes makes Lance doubt whether he really is the right one for this job.

Because Keith has nightmares.
They are ugly and horrible and especially frightening, when he doesn't recognize Lance for a second or two. He never really talks about them, Lance still has no clue what is tormenting Keith in his sleep, but… He isn't sure whether he'll ever be ready to listen to all the darkness and pain that took over the bright child Lance is able to coax out on blessed and rare occasions, when Keith laughs unhinged and in a way that makes Lance want to kiss him long and deep.

Then there are his… issues.
Lance isn't sure what to call them exactly, because sometimes they are a mix between crippling anxiety and severe depression, but then he manages to turn it all around and be the guy Shiro swears he really is. He laughs and jokes and even plays pranks – when they are all alone and the thoughts of the looming war are blown away in the mist that surrounds them whenever they start to act on their feelings.
It begins with soft kisses in the middle of the night after a conversation that leaves them both unable to sleep. It continues with careful touches and trembling fingers on flat stomachs and two bodies tightly pressed together, until Keith finally opens up. It is gorgeous.
His eyes are alight like the fireworks Lance used to watch with his little siblings back on earth and his words are graced with a light kind of tone –
And then he shies away from friendly pats on the back and goes all quiet and concerning at easy celebrations and happy occasions the next day. Just like that. So Lance keeps coaxing the real Keith out of his shell again and again and again.
But it's not that easy. Not at all. He can't stand large crowds and throws mistrustful glances over his back, whenever he is unable to get a clear view of their surroundings. He gets angry when his team fails to see the possible danger they are in, when they all feel perfectly save on a foreign but welcoming planet. He stays awake at night more than is healthy, when they don't sleep in the castle far off from Galra territory or planets they haven't personally checked out yet.

He is complicated at his best and it scares the shit out of Lance – one wrong move, one wrong word and there might be more damage done than he is able to repair – but at the same time it is what pulls Lance towards him.
Loving Keith is sometimes like a drug. At times it's unhealthy, it's dangerous (more than once Lance has woken up to a sweaty Keith crouching above him with his knife at his throat, when a nightmare was too real again) and deadly (because he would give himself up to save Keith in a heartbeat), but…
It's like flying. It pushes him on and on and on to do better, to look out for someone in a way that requires all of his social skills. It enables him to do the impossible, it changes him into a person he actually imagines his family to admire and be proud of. It destroys the dark thoughts that sometimes enter his mind and erases all the doubts.

And at times it brings an anger to the surface not even Hunk is familiar with.

When his double puts his hand onto Keith's bruised cheek, Lance balls his hands into tight fists.
When Keith reacts to his touch and visibly relaxes, his muscles painfully tense.
When fake Lance pulls his boyfriend into a kiss, he is absolutely livid. Harsh profanities leave his mouth in an angry snarl and from the corner of his eye he can see Hunk pale a bit. Not that it matters. They know, they all fucking know and fake fucking Lance is kissing Keith. With a unexpectedly loud "Fuck this shit!" he leaves his station and turns to rush out of the door. At first the others are too perplex by the sudden revelation and his more than out of character-y behavior, but when they are able to pick up the equally agitated roar of Blue in the distance of the bay, Allura snaps out of it and bells something at him he can't hear over the thudding of his racing heart in his ears.

Then hands are on him, Hunk and Coran, and even though he usually wouldn't stand a chance against their combined strength, they have to put up quite a fight to keep him on the bridge. "Let me go, I'm gonna punch this hijo de puta into the next century for even thinking about touching him!"
They try to calm him down and reply something to his low growl, but Keith's voice stops him dead in his tracks in a millisecond. Hunk and Coran are still clinging onto him, partly just to make sure he doesn't bail on them, but mostly due to the fact that they are as surprised about the defensive and suddenly distrustful tone in the young Paladin's voice as Lance is.

"Who the fuck are you?"
They are standing several meters apart, Keith's knife in fake Lance's hand and the calculating look on Keith's face Lance is more than familiar with.
For a moment all the anger bleeds out, while Lance is trying to get what is going on exactly, but every thought in his mind dies, when Keith rushes at the glinting knife and the cold, terrifying grin on his double's face.
And when Keith's attack fails, the one that always gets him out of the most impossible situations, when the knife slices down with deadly precision, when it buries itself in Keith's side with nauseating ease, his legs give way and a sound leaves his throat that makes Hunk tighten his grip on him.

Blood. There is too much fucking blood on the screen.

The pain doesn't hit until he hears a familiar shout behind of him.
His legs stumble backwards, his arms shove his attacker away and one of his hands grabs the solid knife buried in his left side somewhere below his ribs. Everything seems off. The sudden rush of adrenalin is gone, evaporated in his last attack that should have broken Lance's shoulder. But then again it isn't Lance. He figured out that much at least.
His feet stumble back some more steps, but with each one it gets harder and harder to stay upright. It's impossible to keep his thoughts straight – every fleeting idea rushes off to make way for another desperate grasp at what is going on. He should run forward, fight this evil abomination and get out of here. He needs his knife, a weapon. Where – Right, his side. That's where the burning is coming from.
Slowly his mind is able to assemble the pictures inside of his head, fake Lance, the failed attack, the unexpected stab, the shout behind of him –

Keith is about to turn around, to see for himself whether it's another hallucination or real help this time, when his legs give way under his weight. Two strong arms catch him before he is able to hit his head on the hard, cold ground and pull him into a warm chest that rises steadily with quick breaths.
The pain hits full force and sends a jolt through his aching body that makes him writhe in his saviors arms with a low moan, but it all flows to the back of his mind, as one thought takes over. It's Shiro. No evil copy, no mindless robot trying to kill him, no stupid hallucination.

"Keith? Buddy, can you hear me?!"

They can't fake the familiarity that spreads in his chest and gives him some warmth he is desperately missing at the moment. At least he prays that they can't, because if he is wrong, if this is another mind game, he'll actually loose it. Not Shiro as well. Please, not him as well, the only thing he has left that vaguely counts as family in this good-forsaken universe (Earth doesn't cover it any more).
But his touch is warm and careful, his words firm and steady to guide him away from the blackness at the edge of his consciousness. Not once do his fingers land on the blade. He would have taken it by now, right? With words of reason to cover his intent and promises to erase the pain if Keith only gives up…

"Keith? Hey, kid? Come on, talk to me!"
And he would recognize the concern in his voice probably out of a million. By now he must have heard it more often than his own name, if he counts all the times he stumbled into the older man's room with bruises or a deafening silence that said it all.
"…'m fine," he manages with a trembling voice and leans heavily into his mentor's chest, before Shiro's head snaps up at a sudden noise coming from the other side of the room. Vaguely Keith wonders where fake Lance went, as he tries – and quickly fails – to listen to the heated conversation Shiro and whoever-it-is share. With each pounding of his heart the wound is set aflame and sends a web of pure agony through every fiber of his body. Without the knife still buried in his side it might have been bearable.

Suddenly the warmth is gone and the shiver roaring through his shoulders and down his back intensifies the pain for a second, before he realizes that he lies on the ground behind Shiro's standing form. In the blinding light coming from behind of Shiro the tall figure in front of him is illuminated in a wrap of mystic white light that reminds Keith of happier times once upon a life which he imagined for himself. When everything wasn't as dark and harsh, when they weren't as brutal and unforgiving.
The voices pick up and turn into screams filled with a rage that rings every alarm bell in Keith's mind that isn't overflowed with the lurking unconsciousness yet. Something is wrong – beside the whole situation in itself and the knife in his side. The light is reflected by a metal surface and blinds him. Shiro's arm. Transformed? Why? Is he fighting? His body is too quick and only a dark blur in front of his eyes, but his movements are too coordinated to be anything else. Left, right, further right, then left again… He gets dizzy and nauseous, so he closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them again after taking some shaky breaths, everything is a little bit more focused.

There are more spots than before. Their colors are a bit lighter than Shiro's familiar dark one, whom they have surrounded. There is more glinting stuff between the rays of light, weapons.
"Stop…"
His voice is too weak, inaudible to the fighting warriors in front of him. Shiro will probably be fine, but then again this is an enemy so much more complicated than those they have faced before. They don't stop. There are endless waves after endless waves; they even pull mind tricks to get to them. And mind tricks and Shiro don't mix very well.
Something ugly spreads in his chest. He knows it's unreasonable, he knows it's probably due to the throbbing, constant pain, the adrenaline and the blood loss – but nonetheless the worry spreads faster than anything else and pushes images into his mind he has nearly forgotten by now.
He'll be alone. Like he always was. Shiro – probably dead. No way to contact him, no way to find out what happened to him so far away on the other side of the galaxy. There is sand, so much fucking sand; that's all there ever is. No people, no anything, no Shiro. No friendship that gives him something new and fresh and to thrive for.

He can't go there again. Even with Lance by his side (whom he attacked just mere minutes ago).
So he pushes his tingling arms under his chest and pushes himself up. It feels like a lifetime and everything is swirling in front of his eyes again for several seconds, until his vision returns enough to show him how dire the situation is.
Shiro is out of his mind. He is absolutely ruthless, slice after slice are aimed at the most vital points of their supposed allies (when the hell did Keith ruin all this?!) and only their superb training prevents any fatalities as far as he is able to see.
But Shiro's blinded rage is what finally brings him down. Someone is approaching him from behind, weapon raised and aimed at his heart. Keith's own stops, while he imagines him to slowly pull the trigger. No.

And suddenly there is a scream tearing through the battle-filled noise and all movements stop. The dizziness is back in a rush Keith didn't expect and only when his arms nearly give out again under the unbearable weight of his weak body does he realize that it was his voice. His desperate "Stop!". His bloody dagger that is embedded in the wall opposite of him and mere centimeters near the guy's head who was about to kill Shiro.

"Take it," he whispers and for once his voice is audible in the tension-filled silence, while their eyes are solely focused on him. His eyes stare at the shifting ground beneath him. "It isn't worth it. None of this is. Just… don't hurt them. Please."

It's a shame that he doesn't see the glowing of his knife anymore and can't hear Kolivan's words of appreciation, while his body stops resisting the lulling darkness at the edge of his mind that finally takes over his consciousness even before he hits the ground with an ugly thud.

When he comes around again he feels uncomfortably numb.
His fingers twitch under the tremendous effort to try and lift his hand.
There are no noises. Not the familiar wind howling through his little shag in the middle of nowhere. No coyotes in the distance howling away. No sound of the old record of his father Keith plays at night, when the pain and loneliness are too much to bear without tears and when he just wants to hear his calm voice again.

"Babe? You awake?"
Instead he is greeted by another one. It's so overwhelmingly familiar, that the memories of the past hours rush into his groggy mind at lightning speed and leave him light-headed. With a gasp he opens his eyes and stares into two brown, worried orbs above him. At the sight of him being awake they begin to glow and loose the gloomy shine as fast as Keith is used to from Lance.
The smile spreading on his face sparks off a similar one on his own chapped lips like a roaring wildfire that can't be stopped. His face hurts as well as the rest of his body, but the happiness unfurling in his chest can't be dimmed one bit with the feeling of his hand in Lance's, as the other boy puts his other one carefully onto Keith's cheek.

"I don't know if I should kiss you or slap you. What the hell were you thinking?"
The half-hearted angry tone in his voice turns the smile on Keith's face into a fine grin and a moment later Lance leans forward to kiss him unexpectedly deep regarding Keith's current condition and his general disorientation after just waking up.
This is his Lance. It's him in all of his troublesome and startling glory that Keith will never get enough of (at least that he is sure of these days). The knowledge and full on certainty are so reassuring that his clenched muscles finally relax under the soft touch of his real boyfriend (because why else would they be on the castle of all places, when there are so many more dark places in his mind to get another punch in on him?). For a second or two he thinks distantly about telling Lance of his vision-like state of unconsciousness. About his father's words, the feelings that crawled back to the surface while seeing him again, the choice that made him feel like a traitor, when he turned his back on his own father…
Maybe not yet.

"What happened?" he asks instead in a too small voice for his own liking and looks around the otherwise abandoned sickbay to make sure they are alone. The look on Lance's face he is able to make out from the corner of his eye, before he turns back to him and is faced with the same seemingly reassuring smile, is doing the exact opposite and with growing concern he studies Lance's eyes. "What went wrong?"

"Beside the fact that you nearly got yourself killed because of that stupid blade?"
Yeah, okay. That one is fully deserved.

Instantly the silent accusation melts away and with a deep sigh Lance sits down on the side of his bed and grabs his hand once more. "Pidge was able to get a signal sometime in between. Just a video feed she hijacked, nothing more, but… We saw you. After the fight Shiro told us about. You were unconscious and bleeding and then… I turned up."
They know. Oh god, they actually know about Lance and Keith.

Lance ignores the slight alarm in Keith's eyes (mostly because he stares at the wall above the bed) and continues.
"After Shiro turned up to save the day, everything kinda escalated – still not sure how exactly. Red went completely crazy and we were able to get her off of them with our lions, while you threw that thing at them and somehow must have impressed them in the process, because they were very willing to give it back to you afterwards."
There is something else off in the way Lance won't look back into Keith's eyes. Before he has to ask with a fierce tone he isn't sure he can pull off at the moment, Lance suddenly looks down at him with a concerning amount of fear and sympathy he rarely ever shows in front of Keith. A moment later it sadly makes sense.

"Though it might have been because you are actually part Galra. Otherwise the blade wouldn't have been activated to turn into this sword-thingy."

The first thought that comes to his mind is Allura.
Not what Shiro thinks about it, not the way Lance is all weird about telling him and scared of his reaction, not the way his heart painfully clenches at the revelation he feared and expected for some months now.

"She hates me, doesn't she?"

Thankfully Lance for once doesn't sugarcoat his words.
"She will come around."

And while Keith fully believes his words, he silently wonders if he himself ever will, when he will be reminded of what the Galra have done every time he looks into their princess' eyes full of pain and rage about having lost everything.

AN:
This one took me so, so long. I'm sorry. Had the idea in my head from the beginning on, but forming it out the way I wanted it to go was harder than I thought. Now I'm quite satisfied with the result. What do you think?
If you have a wish for a prompt, look at the list I put in the Story Summary and contact me any way you want. Tumblr, here, Twitter... I'm everywhere.

Now some things I wanted to add regarding some stuff happening in the chapter that might be a bit questioning:

Why did Shiro notice way sooner that Lance wasn't the real one, when Keith is actually in a relationship with him?
Mostly I blame Keith's condition on it. You saw in the episode how done this poor boy is, he's literally been their personal punching bag and then some. And when his lover shows up all he wants to do is curl up in his embrace and endure the pain like he always does.
Also Shiro had a huge advantage with being able to see the resistance. None of them were throwing a fit, of course something has to be amiss here. And that guy has been captured for a year, if someone questions everything it's him.

Why did Keith recognize Shiro as the real one so much sooner than Lance?
To be honest 80% are pure hope like I wrote in the chapter. He is bleeding out on the floor, all energy reserves are gone and he is close to passing out. He fucking needs it to be the real Shiro.
Also they have this beautiful brotherly connection in my mind (and in the show anyway, just LOOK at it! 3). They have known each other for quite some time before the events of the show happened, so they not only know each other longer but also better. Klance is a beautiful and deep thing, but oh so fresh. They are still trying to figure it all out, so yes, Keith felt that adorable brotherly connection and just knew beside hoping his cute butt off.

The fight at the end was a bit over the top thinking about the resistance here.
Naah, it really wasn't. In the original episode they were clearly willing to go all out for just the blade, when Shiro began to defend Keith and fight them. Despite all the talks in the beginning about an alliance. I only took it a tiny bit further and let Shiro snap a bit (because bros, you know it 3).

hijo de puta
I desperately wanted to show how fricking afraid Lance was with putting in some Spanish vibes. Lance is canon Cuban I read somewhere, so Spanish it is. Sadly I don't speak it at all, so google had to do it. If there is something wrong with the term or so, just let me know. I'll fix it asap.
Basically it means 'son of a bitch'.