Swirling plumes of sand drifted like smoke, obscuring the blue figure that trudged across the land. Lance sighed silently once again before continuing his long trek across the blackened desert. The heat was unbearable, beating down on Lance's body with fanatic intensity. Sweat dripped down his face, only to pool at the bottom of his helmet. His armpits felt wet and irritated from the extra moisture, the black fabric of his armour sticking uncomfortably to his chafed skin.
Only the pulsing light of his teammate's red arrow pushed Lance onward through the shifting gritty sands. His teammates were his family, after all, he couldn't lose even one of them, even if they were an annoying mullet. Gasping for air, Lance paused at the edge of a massive pit filled with disturbingly sky blue mud. He had just spent an hour or at least what he thought was an hour, time was wonky in the neverending blaze of sunlight and sand-battling his way through the black sand. All the while, powerful gusts blew sand harshly into his path, clouding the ground in front of him.
When he could barely see his own feet Lance relied on the glowing red arrow that lit up his helmet screen. Again and again, Lance rose to his feet every time he fell, whether from tripping over little sand mounds or the sand crumbling out from under him, sending him flailing down sand dunes head over heels. His suit was entirely caked in the black sand, The gritty sand sticking to his sweat soaked body. Lance suspected that sand clogged his fans in the temperature regulation system. It would explain why Lance felt like a slowly melting gummy bear.
Anyhow the mud hole was maybe ten meters across but more than three meters down, overflowing with the aforementioned disgusting blue mud. The only slightly appealing part was the glittery silvery tint to the surface of the mud. Lance glanced around the edge of the mud hole, his hand scrubbing at his helmet glass, hoping to brush some of the black sand away. Unfortunately, while he was hoping for a clearer view, he only succeeded in smearing the sand around, causing the glass to be even more streaked and dirty. Glancing around again, Lance squinted. According to the pulsing arrow, Keith should have been visible, but nowhere could Lance see a red and white paladin.
'Huh,' Lance thought, confused. 'Unless the helmets messed up, Keith should be right here.'
Lance bit his lower lip, brows furrowed in confusion and concern. He didn't get it. Every sign pointed to Keith walking towards the mud pit, yet there was no Keith. Lance took another scan of the area.
'There!' Lance thought triumphantly.
There, clear on the other side of the mud pit stood a humanoid figured clad in midnight black armor.
'Of course, he's not wearing red! Duh, black sand.' For a split second Lance wondered what he would do if it wasn't Keith, he shrugged, 'I'd just ask him if he's seen any of the others'.
Lance waved both of his arms to gain the stranger's attention before gesturing to the side of the mud pit. Lance wanted to walk as little as possible. His tree hugging experience had left him sore and aching, especially his ribs. There was a small burst of pain every time he took a breath. In reply, the distant figure gave him a thumbs up before making his way carefully over.
'Yep, most definitely Keith. No one else would know Earth slang and happened to coincidentally be in my location. Woot! Go me!' Lance smirked to himself in victory as he carefully tread his way around the sandy rim.
A short while later Lance stood in front of the black armored figure, presumably Keith. Opening his mouth the greet Keith, Lance remembered his distinct lack of sound and he closed his mouth with an audible click. Then an overly loud voice assaulted Lance's ears causing the brunette to cringe.
"Lance!?"
He nodded, ears still ringing slightly from the encounter.
"Are you alright? Why aren't you speaking? You're always talking!"
Grateful as he was for the concern he heard in Keith's voice, Lance held up his hand to quiet Keith. Then Lance pointed to his throat and with his other hand, he started opening and closing it as if it was a mouth before having the hand that was pointing to his neck clamp down on the talking hand, silencing it.
"Ah, you've lost your voice, must have happened in the crash. That explains everything, make a lot more sense why you wrote in the ground. Not that it matters, my speakers were damaged during the fall, so I can't hear you anyway." Keith paused then asked hesitantly. "Any ideas on how to find the others?"
He glanced around at the billowing sands, "Or frankly how to get out of this sand bowl?"
Lance gestured to himself and Keith with his pinky and thumb, then he held up two fingers with one hand and three with the other. The hand with three fingers up swiped across his helmet before pointing in a direction, Lance then slowly moved both hands together. Once his hands were side by side, he kept them there a minute before allowing them to drop to his sides. Then he gestured to his helmet screen and flapped his arms up and down.
"Oh, you want us to go find the others through the location device? And only the black lion has wings, so Shiro's first?"
Lance nodded his head yes.
"Alright, let's go." Keith directed.
Lance put one finger up and Keith paused as Lance locked onto the Black Paladin's location. As the seconds crawled by, Keith impatiently crossed his arms and tapped his foot, his normal scowl ever present on his lips, even though he knew that this was important. A few moments later Lance turned and gave Keith a thumb-ups, pointing to a direction where vague mountains were discernible. As one they took a step in the indicated direction, beginning their long journey home.
Naturally, Lance was bitter about the direction of their journey; across the mud pit and through god knew how long a desert. He kinda wished they had been able to retrace their steps but no, of course, they had to walk in a completely unknown direction for an unknown length of time. Cresting a dune and seeing only another expanse of black sand, Lance sighed unhappily in silence. As Lance stumbled down yet another mound of shifting sand, he couldn't help but grumble sarcastically, 'Admit it, the universe hates us, why else would it be so quiznackingly hard to regroup?'
Silence suffocated the pair as they marched through the dusty black sand. Lance struggled to keep his hands still, restless energy coursing through his veins. Sweat trickled down his forehead, pooling at the bottom of his helmet. Even Keith was unnerved by the silence. Don't get him wrong, Keith loves quiet, but seeing Lance so uncharacteristically quiet unsettled him Yet there was nothing he could do about it; one of them couldn't talk and the other couldn't hear. It would be a pretty one-sided conversation, so the pair continued to suffer in silence and sweat.
Maybe an hour or two later, judging by the sun's movement, the black sand shifted from loose soft grit to hard packed stone and ocean blue rock formations rose upwards, stretching boney hands towards the sky. Hot wind blew ocean blue and bronze dust directly in their path, obscuring their vision. They walked a few more minutes before they stumbled across a cliff edge yawning down to a blue striped canyon valley. Both boys sighed, albeit one silently. The edge of the cliff dropped sheerly for 2 meters before leveling out in a sharp angle towards the canyon floor. It was a catch 22; either they leapt down the cliffs in the most direct path to the other paladins while risking bodily harm, which would hinder their efforts to help their teammates, or they took a different route with even more unknown dangers.
They couldn't see the bottom of the valley well either so if they went down and made unpleasant discoveries, it wouldn't be so easy to scurry back up again. The two paladins, red and blue, glanced at each other before Lance held out his hand, unwilling to be separated from his teammate. Keith eyed the gloved hand for a long moment before firmly gripping Lance's hand in his own.
While it may be true that Keith didn't exactly see eye to eye with Lance, he realized that a stubborn refusal to hold hands would result in wasting time finding each other again if they got separated on this godforsaken death trap of a planet. Seeing the greater good, for once, Keith held tightly to Lance's fingers. Using his other hand, Lance held up three fingers, then two, then one. When he hit zero, a closed fist, both he and Keith jumped. Weightlessness clawed at them a moment and their hearts pounded heavily in their chests. A sharp, loud intake of breath blasted through helmets speakers for a mere moment before the pair of teenagers slammed into the slanted rock below. For a second they stood on their own feet.
Then the gravel underneath their boots skidded out from under them, sending them crashing onto their bottoms and backsides. Lance gasped silently as the air was knocked out of his lungs and Keith cursed loudly and creatively as they slid down the rock formation, gravity increasing their speed to a breakneck pace. Keith clenched his jaw and fist, willing himself not to scream. He turned his head slightly to the left to catch a glimpse of Lance's terror-filled face.
Blue eyes wide open, surrounded by rims of white and mouth frozen in a scream. Stunned, Keith could only watch as the black sand ripped across their armor and a cloud of blue and bronze dust burst out behind them in a brilliant cloud. Keith grimaced as Lance crushed his hand and a particular brutal bump knocked the wind out of him in one fell swoop. Once he could breathe, Keith cracked his eyes open, blinking away the dust filtering in through the crack in his helmet. Seeing the end of the slope looming ahead his muscles tensed in anticipation of the crash.
White-knuckled hands clenched each other, straining the alien armor to its breaking point. Quiznak! this misleading cliff! Lance screamed internally as they rocketed downhill. From the top of the cliff, it seemed as if the rock formation eased into a gentle slope near the bottom. But no, perspective had screwed them over. The slanted rock rested on a flat plateau; a steep angle absurdly changing to no angle at all. Keith bit back a curse as they plummeted closer to the plateau, he actually bit his tongue on accident. A shock ran up Keith's legs and through his spine as his feet smashed into the plateau, ankles crying out in pain as they took the brunt of his momentum. Lance shuddered as his feet slammed into the hard packed blue alien rock, hand still tightly intertwined with Keith's. They stayed on their feet for a second before their momentum pushed them forward, into a classic tuck and roll maneuver. Well, it would have been classic, if Lance hadn't tripped over his own lanky legs and sprawled diagonally forward, dragging Keith down with him. The pair rolled a couple times, head over heels before rolling to a stop. Since their hands were still intertwined, they sprawled awkwardly with Keith's arm bent at an almost alarming angle, with both boys badly winded from the fall.
Keith was the first to recover, groaning as he opened his eyes to view a splendid pink sky from his sprawled position on his back, head pointing toward the cliff that they had just slid down. He turned his head to look at Lance and was slightly shocked to see his feet instead, though the pain in his arm should have told him otherwise. Keith then tilted his head up, hissing under his breath as his muscles creaked in protest. From this better view, Keith saw Lance facedown in the dust, his head facing away from Keith. Keith stifled a yelp as he sat up, his bumps and bruises announcing their presence. He turned part way, still seated and glared at the offending rock formation behind them.
He could clearly see the skid marks that he and Lance left behind, bronze stripes of granite mixing with ocean blue and white granite stripes. It was actually very striking and pretty, with the horizontal stripes of varying lengths, colors switching between bronze, ocean blue, and cream white. Lance shifted slightly, whipping his head around, Keith watched Lance closely as he grimaced in pain before clamoring unsteadily to his feet. Lance nearly fell over again as Keith remained seated, pulled by the weight of their interlocked hands. Keith quickly scrambled to his feet. He eyed Lance and the slow sway he was performing, not quite steady on his feet.
"You okay?" He asked, concern lacing his voice.
Lance gave him the universal gesture for ok, as he was too disoriented to nod. Keith raised an eyebrow but ultimately decided to let it go, in favor of finding the others.
"Where to now?" He prompted.
Lance tilted his head to the side, eyes somewhat glossy and unfocused. It took him a moment to respond, brow creased in contention, before gesturing off to the left. Keith nodded and the paladins continued on their journey trucking across the rocky plateau.
All too soon, they faced their next obstacle: a cliff, overhanging a twenty-foot drop to a sparkling crimson pond. Predictably Keith scowled and Lance silently sighed, oxygen escaping his lips in a puff when presented with their next challenge. The rock slanted sharply inward from the cliff top to the shaded area of the pond. Since it was impossible to climb down the overhanging, the boys would have to use their jetpacks.
Keith glanced towards Lance, cooperation was the only solution to bring them both to the pond without injuries. He was astonished to see Lance looking worse for wear. Armor scuffed and littered with scratches, tan skin drenched in sweat, mouth slightly agape and gasping for air, and eyes partially glazed over and unfocused. About to comment Keith paused when Lance sluggishly turned toward him, unfocused eyes struggling to concentrate on his face while tan lips attempted to form a smirk as if to say, 'you ready Mullet?'
Unfortunately, the smirk wasn't even half convincing. Something was wrong, but for the life of him Keith couldn't figure out what it was. Just as he was going to suggest a break Lance's eyes rolled into the back of his head and his legs gave out from under him, his body crumpling to the ground. Keith shot out, positioning himself between Lance and the ledge, foot skidding slightly on the loose gravel. Lance twisted as he fell, back now facing Keith who managed to snag Lance under his armpits just before he hit the rocky ground. Keith sighed in relief, thankful that they hadn't fallen over the edge. He gritted his teeth, everything would be fine, it had to be.
Keith glanced down at his teammate, who's head hung limply, like the rest of his body. Keith was about to stand, when the gravel underneath him crumbled, sending them tumbling through the dust-filled air. Keith instinctively latched tighter onto Lance, arms wrapped securely around Lance's chest. Teeth gritted enough to hurt and violet irises glaring at the rapidly approaching foreboding dark crimson water.
Lance floated limply, air resistance forcing them up from lack of control from the boy. Keith squeezed his eyes shut, his entire body tensed for impact. A moment later the pair crashed into the pond, causing a huge cherry red splash that kissed the lower fourth of the cliff.
All Keith saw was dark all-encompassing red, as they plunged into the water. He gasped as the air was knocked out of him, water trickling into his mouth from the crack in his helmet glass. Instead of choking on the water, Keith snapped his mouth closed with an audible click and swallowed the water that was already sliding down his throat. Keith ignored the burning and numbness of his muscles as he locked one arm around Lance's chest and used his other arm and legs to propel him through the cloying dark water.
His head broke through the surface of the pond in less than a minute, the water leaking into his helmet pooled at the nape of his neck. The Red Paladin kicked frantically, struggling to keep himself and Lance above the surface, maybe if the situation wasn't so serious he would have given Lance a snarky comment about his weight. But it was dire so Keith continued to paddle, glancing back ever so often to make sure they were still on track, heading toward the shore.
A grueling four minutes later Keith hit the shore, literally. He was just glad no sand made its way into his mouth. He dragged himself and Lance onto the bronze and blue stone shore, water streaming off their armour. Now that they were on solid ground, Keith scanned Lance more closely, once again cursing the crack in his helmet, skewing his vision. Keith nearly screamed in frustration as he used his left eye to access the damage. He didn't look good. Lance's tan cheeks were flushed red and dark purple bags were smeared under closed eyes. His cocoa colored hair was soaked with sweat, plastered to Lance's forehead. His armoured chest rising and falling too fast for Keith's comfort, mouth cracked open, his breathing labored and faint.
'Shit! What do I do?' He thought, beginning to panic. He had basic medical training, but he couldn't fix a problem he couldn't see!
About the only thing he could do for Lance was to carry him to the others and hope he made it in time. Keith paused, contemplating the problem of carrying his slightly taller teammate. His frown deepened in thought. He heaved a sigh, sack of potatoes it was, hell if he was gonna carry Lance like a princess.
He paused in the midst of lifting Lance as he realized he had no idea where to go, Lance had been directing them this entire time. Frustrated by the time he felt slipping away Keith brought his hand to his helmet, pounding a few buttons, waiting impatiently for the program to work, teeth anxiously gnawing on his lower lip.
A moment passed before a pulsing arrow faded to life on his screen. A weak arrow, but an arrow nonetheless. Keith quickly and carefully slung Lance over his shoulder where he hung like a rag doll, arms and legs dangling uselessly. Keith began sprinting in the direction that the arrow indicated, pausing only when the arrow faded out.
Then he would anxiously wait, bouncing on the balls of feet. Waiting for the arrow to return and guide him. Though he supposed, during a particularly long interval, that he should be thankful it worked at least part of the time. Given the level of damage his helmet sustained, he was honestly surprised that its location tracker functioned at all. Each time it did, the arrow look more faded, and the edges slowly deteriorated from crisp lines to static-filled ones, bending the arrow out of shape.
Many dobashes later found the red armoured figure still running across the unending canyon of rock spires, breath ragged and sweat crusting to his face. Keith tried not to jostle Lance too much, he doubted he was successful. Suddenly all the panic from earlier crashed down on Keith. Of course he was hurting Lance! There was literally no way he wasn't, especially since he was rushing to get to his teammates before his helmet gave out, stranding both him and Lance in this quiznacking maze! Keith turned his focus to his arrow, little more than a blob of static at this point. Which promptly dispersed, shattering into little dots of static before winking out of existence. The red paladin's lithe body cut an odd sight as he literally hopped from one foot to the other, anxiously waiting for the arrow's return. Though a gut feeling told him otherwise.
He took a deep breath, patience yields focus. He needed a level head if he wanted both of them to survive this ordeal.
Keith looked up and spotted a black blob in the distance a little to left. He squinted, hope flared as he realized it could be one of his teammates. He started off in that direction only to stop a moment later, dread filling his stomach as he remembered that they were on a hostile planet. If whatever it was threatened them he had no chance, especially burdened with Lance. Quickly he laid Lance along the rocky ground, out of the way and protected if it came to a fight.
The dark-skinned Cuban slowly cracked his eyes open, focusing on Keith after a moment of confusion. A ghost of a smirk tugging at his lips. Irrationally Keith felt the urge to slap that smirk right off his face. Though it was a normal thought for the dark haired boy. Instead, Keith set his features to neutral mask, asking, "Can you stand?"
Lance's ocean blue struggled to focus on the violet ones glaring at him, eyes glazed over and drooping, yet he managed a weak thumbs up.
"Nope," Keith popped his "p", drawing Lance's fading attention. "I can tell that you're gonna collapse again, and hell if I let you scare me again. So I'm carrying you. Your job is to keep your eyes open, got it?"
Lance weakly held up a trembling hand, showing a thumbs up before it dropped back down along with his eyelids. Keith shook him as his eyelids fluttered closed.
"Lance! What did I just say?" Keith scolded. Lance responded by opening his eyes a fraction. Keith nodded his acceptance, "Good job buddy."
He stood, hoisting Lance onto his back, arms underneath his legs, while Lance's arms draped down Keith's front. He needed to see Lance's eyes to make sure he stayed awake as well as leave his arms open to fight. Clearly, something was wrong with Lance Keith knew enough medicine to know that letting him sleep after hit to the head could make it worse. Even though he failed the first time since Lance just collapsed out of nowhere, Keith was determined to protect his teammate at all costs. Wearily the red paladin sighed, beginning his trudge towards the black blob.