Keith

Sven. He's different. The only time he seems to be close to the man or the boy I remember falling in love with all those years ago at the Academy is when he's with Princess Romelle. With his he's taciturn, and maybe that's not different but his quiet isn't like it used to be. He's not talking to us whereas before he simply wasn't speaking until he had something to say.

He's angrier than I remember, more ruthless - which is worse than terrifying. His ruthlessness much to my chagrin used to turn me on. It was the cause of many sleepless nights, not for the obvious reasons but I was having trouble reconciling it in my head. How I could find someone who could go cold and attack with precision violence unbelievably hot...It came down to the fact that Sven was ruthless and decisive about it because he hated the idea of taking lives, or hurting people. After any hand to hand combat class, or airfare combat course he'd go off alone for hours, I finally tracked him down once, to see if he was okay and he told me he had to let the adrenaline drain out of his system slowly and in peace and quiet.

I find peace in martial arts, I know no one understands it, but there is a structure and a dance to it that calms. I practice it and it works better than any meditation and in in battle, I am always ready to do what is needed without thought - and that helps with knowing that I may have to kill an opponent. I can feel the gravity later.

Sven feels it all while it happens. What he went through on Doom - We know he was hiding alone, in the caves in the Pit of Skulls, surviving on his own, eating rats. He survived and he's back. Well, he is here.

I'm not sure he's back. He gets this look in his eyes and I don't know where he goes, I used to be able to read him. I used to be able to understand him. Sven could take team arguments and narrow them down one sentence, a perfect question that went to the heart of the matter. We were arguing about a new strategy I wanted to try out, a harder flying formation I've been wanting to try with the lions but feared Allura couldn't handle, but Sven can. When I finished, Lance said we should train Allura to do it as well, I instantly disagreed. I don't think she can do it. Lance got angry, he pointed we never know when one us will be down, she needs to be able to back us up. I simply said, she's in a lion we aren't doing this formation. He then asked what formations or attack strategies I was keeping from him, since some members of the team only got to learn certain things.

It turned into an asinine argument. At some point Hunk yelled, let's just get flying and learning already. Then Pidge piped up saying he thought Lance was right Allura should learn all formations and attacks in case she was needed for back up.

I turned to Sven, I studied his face, the upturn of his nose, the curl of his lips and I felt more secure than I had in a long time. I asked him for his opinion. His grey eyes turned to look at me and he said. "I'll do what you order, Keith."

(Italic) I'll do what you order, Keith. (Italic)

No opinion, no sense he was even listening to the argument and I...I was unsure by then my stance was right. Was I being unfair to Allura? She'd taken Sven's return in stride, but Lance had said a few things during the argument that might mean she wasn't as nonchalant about giving up her seat in Blue Lion as it appeared. If she allowed herself to admit the truth about her feelings about being on the team it would be to Lance.

It is that it was always meant to be temporary. She's a Princess, not a soldier and I know she wants to be active in defending her planet, in freeing them from terror they are under. Allura is fierce in her passion for her people, it takes my breathe away when I witness its fervor, but she isn't meant to be under fire.

Life can be snuffed out too quickly.

Sven walking around detached, indifferent, with sudden bursts of anger from time to time, I feel like a piece of Sven's soul has vanished. Unless she's around. Romelle. And she keeps coming around because Sven keeps going into the control room the middle of the night here and mid-afternoon Pollux time to talk to her.

He talks to her and not to me, he used to talk with me. We dated once, long time ago, when we were too young to know what we were doing. He always said he was experimenting and that his time with me had helped him to be sure of a few things that had been nagging at his soul. He's intensely private, he never told me everything he felt about me, us, or our break up.

Maybe it was I never fully let go of him, of us, or the idea of us. The thing was we weren't supposed to fall in love. We were supposed to be having fun, it was a surprise we became friends. The truth was Sven picked me up at a club, he never thought the boy he met at the gay dance club would be the guy he was partnered with in his Theoretical Physics course their first year at the Academy.

I fell for him by the time the affair, his experiment, was over. I knew what it was, Sven is too true of heart to lay the cards out on the table. He told me he had questions, he had nagging thoughts and he was working through them. I wasn't the only man, I wasn't the only person. I was the only one to remain in his life. A confidant, with what little he would share but I would never push, I share so little with people myself. I know what is it to feel the inability to know how to find words for the feelings and thoughts that are within you from the experiences you go through.

The longer we fight Doom the more I have hidden inside of me. I thought having Sven back would make it better, a place to go for comfortable quiet and well worded talk that wouldn't be too overwhelming. But he's dazed, and when he's not dazed he's angry and when he's not those things he's doesn't seem to be here.

Is he in the Pit of Skulls or is he on Pollux? With Romelle?

~~.~~

Keith's pen made a strange curved loop he could never do on purpose when the alert on his door chirped to inform him he had company. Frowning at how the black line had squiggled over his last few lines he closed the red covered journal and stood up. He half-hoped it was Sven, the other of him wasn't sure he could handle seeing the indifference in Sven's grey eyes.

The disappointment when it was Lance was a harder punch than he was expecting. Keith nodded his hello to his friend and allowed him to enter. Lance walked in with his hands in his jacket pockets. A quick way to read Lance was to read his body language in relationship to the brown leather jacket that he wore like a second skin. Hands in the pockets meant Lance felt uncomfortable in the situation he was in, the more he dug into the pockets the more disconcerted the situation made him. Lance almost looked casual if Keith glanced at him without a discerning eye but Keith knew Lance. A stranger could believe Lance was fine but what Keith witnessed was Lance trying to hug leather tighter against his skin because something was making him uneasy. Keith stayed by the door, arms crossed over his chest and waited for Lance to make the first move.

"It's not going to work."

Keith didn't allow himself to show his confusion on his face but the truth was he didn't know what Lance was talking about. "What isn't going to work?" he asked.

"Sven back on the team, Keith. It is not going to work," Lance said enunciating the words more clearly.

"He never left the team, Lance. He's been through Hell. He's working with the therapist, he'll..." Keith trailed off because he ran out of words to say to defend his position but he wasn't giving up. They couldn't turn their back on Sven, he wouldn't turn his back on Sven.

"Keith," Lance said. It wasn't only his name. Lance had locked his gaze with him and forced Keith to see him expressing a knowing, and surprisingly compassionate expression. Lance was saying he knew, he got it, he knew Keith and the way he'd said Keith's name spoke of it. It was the way an old friend says your name where it can have a thousand more meanings. This time Lance meant Keith stop lying to yourself.

"No," Keith argued. "He needs our support, we can't turn our backs on him. We need to support him and hold him."

"I don't think we can do it," Lance said.

"No," Keith said again.

"Keith, he's at his best when he's talking with her, or when she's here. I think you need to tell him it's okay if he wants to leave, if he doesn't feel ready yet. Honestly, I don't get why the Garrison agreed to allow him back on active duty."

Keith frowned he knew why, Sven had asked him to stand up for him. Coran had pleaded with Keith to do the same thing so Allura would no longer be running into danger. He'd agreed because he'd wanted both things: Allura safe and Sven back.

"I stood up for him. He proved he was healthy enough, the shrinks wouldn't have allowed if they thought he couldn't handle it."

Lance sighed.

Keith waited again because he knew Lance wouldn't quit, not this easily, Lance fought hard when he believed he was in the right. It aggravated Keith because Lance points at time were so out of the box of linear rational thought it didn't seem possible he could have a real point. Then when the smoke cleared it would turn out he'd been onto something the rest of them missed. It meant Keith could never dismiss Lance's crazier thoughts out of hand.

"Allura's upset."

It was Keith's turn to sigh. "She knew it was temporary."

"You're not even allowing her to train as back up for Black for any longer. I thought that was the plan. And as far as I'm concerned it wouldn't hurt to ensure she could be back up for any of us. She's all we got when it comes to a back up pilot, not having her continue to train with us..."

"Lance she's done. Coran wants her off the line of fire. Sven's back. It was meant to be temporary and it should've been. I don't disagree with you as a soldier but she's the Crown Princess, the only Crown Princess this planet had. Arus needs her to survive and every time she went out there Blue Lion she risked the Monarchy."

"The Monarchy?" Lance mocked.

"You may not find it important Lance, but it is. Arus has always been ruled by a King or a Queen. Queen Orla isn't not the ruler of the planet as you know that falls to Princess Allura as the daughter of the last ruler of Arus. They have a much more complicated system than of the Monarchies of Earth to be honest. Allura needs to survive, wed and have children to keep the royal blood line alive. It's one of the reasons Coran and Nanny are always happy about any Princes that arrive."

"Given that all the Princes she's met are either evil or bores, I'm thinking they might have a problem. Also what about what Allura wants?'

"She was born who she is, Lance. She may not get that choice."

Lance rolled his eyes. "Wait, wasn't one of the King's of Arus gay? With a husband?"

Keith stared at him. "What?"

Lance nodded. "Yes, I'm right about this, Allura told me, we were in downstairs where all the older paintings were. There was a painting with two men, with two young boys and one daughter. They adopted... adopted. Tell me their children had real royal blood? I doubt the husband was a Prince either. There must be loopholes for Allura."

"Lance, I'm sure if that is true the loopholes wouldn't apply to Allura."

Lance bowed his head and looked down at the bed, spotting the journal bright red against white bedsheets. "Pining in Japanese for Sven, again?"

"English...and no," Keith said, shaking his head as he realized he almost admitted a piece of his spirit remain in Sven's grasp.

Lance looked back up, his expression saying bullshit but he didn't say anything out loud. He crossed the space between them, hands coming out of his pockets and he placed them on Keith's shoulders, close into his neck, thumbs finding hard knots on blind instinct and digging in to try unknot them. "We're making a mistake, we'll manage without him, we have a great team. Yes, he's a part of us. I missed him too, I still miss him. He's not back, Keith. He's here but he's not back, the closest he gets to being our friend to being the that guy I know is when Princess Romelle is around. I know you know this, I bet if I opened that red journal I'd read it."

Lance's thumbs were working a bit of magic, his neck felt loser and the dull ache of tension in his head was subsiding. Keith fought to keep his eyes open, forced himself keep eye contact and he conceded. "Yes, he's damaged, Lance. All the more reason he needs us. You and me, we're his oldest friends, his 'valgte familien.' He told his own words, remember?"

"I do," Lance letting his forehead hit Keith's and his thumbs stilled. "But Keith, I don't..."

"No!" Keith pushed Lance away. "We aren't turning are backs on him, Lance."

Lance's narrowed his eyes at him. "You fucking know that is the last thing I mean. You can't fucking keep him here because you want to Keith," he shouted.

"You think everything is about sex, don't you. This is about friendship and what is best for the team and Arus. Sven makes us a stronger team, he's a better pilot, a better fighter than Allura."

"Not if his headspace is fucked up in ways we can't help him deal with, Keith, this is going to backfire, I can..."

"What?"

"Feel it."

"Whatever."

"Fine, ignore me, don't listen to reason. And you're fucking wrong about Allura. She's less precise sure, less ruthless, I'll give you that. But passion like she has to fight for her people, makes her one hell of a strong teammate and I'm pretty damn sure you know that too. Or you never would have trained her in the first place, Keith."

Keith turned away, he didn't want to listen to this anymore, he didn't want to think about this anymore. "Just get out of here Lance. Out."

A second later Keith heard the door swish open and shut, his room felt colder and bigger in that second and he closed his eyes, the dull headache that had started to subside roared back and became a sudden migraine. He walked to his bedside table lamp, turned it off and sat on the edge of his bed in the dark.