"C'mon." Lance popped to his feet, fighting for breath. He fell into a fighting stance and waved his hand at Keith, beckoning him. "Let's go again."

Keith scowled. He wasn't out of breath at all, even though they'd been sparring for upwards of twenty minutes. "No. We're done for today."

"What?" An indignant squawk. Lance straightened and gave him a look of intense hurt and confusion, which was somewhat spoiled by the way his chest heaved inside his armor. "I can't believe this. Keith is turning down a fight? Are you kidding me?"

"I'm turning down a fight with you," Keith retorted. "Because you look terrible. Seriously, have you even glanced in a mirror lately?"

Lance gasped in outrage and placed a hand over his chest. "How dare you. I'm insulted."

Keith snorted as he turned away. The corner of his mouth turned up, but he hid it with angle of his body and strode over to the wall to fetch his water pouch. That almost sounded like the old Lance. It had been a while.

"Keith, Keith." Lance was trotting after him. "C'mon. Fight with me." He reached out to punch Keith's shoulder, and Keith turned on instinct and deflected the blow. A little too hard, maybe. Lance backed up with a hiss and shook his hand in the air to dispel the shock.

Keith's mouth turned down in remorse. "Sorry. But this it, okay? No more today."

"Okay, but why?" It was a high whine. Lance spread his stance, fists clenched at his sides. "You never used to get tired of beating me up. What is up with you lately?"

Keith turned to face him fully and sucked on his straw. "You're not in good condition right now," he said bluntly. Sometimes you just had to tell the truth. "Your hands are shaking. Are you so used to it that you didn't even notice?"

Lance looked down at his hands in surprise, as if they had betrayed him, then stood straight and jammed them under his armpits, elbows jutting out like a toddler throwing a tantrum. "Stop acting like you're worried about me," he spat. "You're not my leader anymore. That only lasted for like five minutes anyway."

A flash of anger had Keith lowering his water pouch and forcibly repressing a snarl. It was true that he had only had to lead Voltron for a very short time while Shiro was temporarily gone, thankfully. He had disliked the job and had been happy to give it back to its rightful owner. And it was true that the time had affected him, even so. He had gotten used to looking at his teammates more carefully, making sure they were okay, trying to look out for them even when they weren't looking out for themselves. Maybe he wouldn't be quite so sensitive to Lance's condition now if he hadn't had that experience.

But he didn't understand this petulance coming from Lance right now. It was as if he was trying to get under Keith's skin by the shortest route available. "Why are you being like this?" he asked, unable to push back the heat rising in his voice. "Why are you pushing so hard?"

Something snapped. Lance's face reddened, which looked terrible against the bruised rings around his eyes, and he flung his arms out to the side. "I'm just trying to make myself better! Or is that not something you would understand, wonderful Keith, fantastic Keith, perfect Keith?" The words were ground out like insults, harsh and loud and grating. "Keith with the fastest lion, the sharpest instincts, best pilot of his generation, groomed for leadership on Earth and in space and probably everywhere freaking else too?"

"All right, fine." Keith had had enough of this childishness. He dropped his water pouch and fell into a crouch. "Come at me, then, you big baby."

It was over in a moment. Lance rushed at him, even more out of balance than before with his emotions raging the way they were. Keith grabbed him, flipped him, and pinned him against the wall. Lance raged against the hold for a few moments, trying to get free, then suddenly went limp, panting.

His head was down. Keith let go of him as gently as he could and stepped back several feet, watching him. His heart was in his throat. He had gone too hard. The sound of Lance's back slamming into the wall still echoed in his ears. It was just...too easy for Lance to provoke him.

He had done it on purpose, hadn't he? And he'd succeeded. He'd been trying to make Keith angry so he would fight him, and Keith had fallen for it as usual.

Keith really wasn't cut out for leadership. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

"Lance..." Are you okay? never left his lips.

"Don't," Lance snapped. He looked up at Keith, his eyes hard and fiery. Keith had thought he was crying, but his face was dry. "Don't act all concerned about me. I'm fine. I brought this on myself, didn't I?"

Keith grit his teeth, but he refused to rise to the bait. He took a step closer, forced his voice to be calm. "I am concerned about you. I'm allowed to be. We're teammates. Whether you asked for it or not, I'm still not okay with you hurting."

Lance bared his teeth in an awful grimace. It looked like he was choking on something invisible. "Don't...don't lie to me like this."

Keith halted. He was truly baffled. "Like what? What am I saying that sounds like a lie?"

"That you're worried about me. That you care."

Keith started to react to the hostility in Lance's tone, but then he held himself still. He listened. He looked in Lance's face. Did...did he really think that Keith didn't care about him? Did he really think...?

It wasn't anger filling Keith's heart now. It was pain.

This was about Ustar, wasn't it? Oh, quiznak. Suddenly it all began to make a horrible amount of sense.

Keith took a step closer, then another one. Something was rising in him. Pain and guilt and fear. And anger, yes, but not anger at Lance. Anger at an object that was too far away for him to fight. "Of course I care about you!" He was yelling, and he knew it sounded like fury. He knew it sounded bad. He'd never been good at expressing his emotions, but they were all pouring out now, they were all overflowing, and wasn't it like Lance to do that, to provoke him again until he shattered like a badly tempered sword?

Lance went still against the wall. His face was stony, and he looked at Keith with narrowed eyes, his jaw firm and back straight. Keith stalked right up to him and got into his face. There was nothing else he could do.

"You're my teammate! You're my friend! When they were hurting you on that planet, I wanted to run to where you were and knock the door down and get you out. I wanted to rescue you! It was all I wanted, it was all... And then afterward, Hunk and Coran said you were physically okay, but you were so quiet, so sad, and Shiro said give you time, so I did, we all did, but I never stopped caring! I never stopped worrying about you! I never stopped, not even for a second! Why would you think that, you stupid, ridiculous, unbelievable idiot?"

Lance started to break down. His stony mask crumbled away, and he stared back at Keith with dismay and pain. And yes, there they were, the tears that Keith had known were hiding just under the surface. His chest was heaving again, this time not because of physical exertion.

"Then why..." His voice was broken, cracked, shot through with fissures, just like Keith's heart. Lance swallowed hard and tried again. "Why didn't you come for me? If you wanted to, why didn't you?"

Keith panted for a moment, trying to regain control. He felt almost dizzy with everything rushing through his body and his mind. He tried to hold himself steady, fists clenched in front of him. "At first we didn't know... We didn't know how serious it was. You sounded scared and freaked out, but we didn't realize... We didn't realize the cell was actually killing you. That it was hurting you. They said it was punishment, but that could have meant anything. Isolation, darkness. Something unpleasant, certainly, but not painful. Allura was trying to talk them out of it, and we all thought she could do it, so..."

Lance stared at him, his eyes still wide and continually leaking tears. It all started to sound like excuses to Keith's ears.

"I still wanted to go get you!" He had to say it, he had to make Lance understand, had to make him see... As the desperation in Lance's voice had risen, it had stoked the protective fire in Keith's chest to greater and greater heights. "Shiro was holding me back, he thought it would be okay, we all trusted Allura. There were so many guards. If we fought, we would have had to kill a lot of them, and any chance of making an alliance with the Ustarese would be gone. And then..."

Keith swallowed. Lance's face was still blank, uncomprehending. He didn't know what to say to get through to him.

"I swear to you, Lance, I swear. As soon as we knew what was actually happening, as soon as the priestess made some off-hand comment that explained what the cell really was, and Allura asked for clarification, and we all heard it... I swear, nothing could have stopped us after that. Nothing. Hunk was in the cell scooping you up not two minutes later. But I'm sorry, Lance. I..." He stopped, choking on the guilt. He heaved for breath and pressed a hand against his ribs. Everything ached. Everything hurt. "I'm sorry we didn't come earlier. I..."

Excuses. It all just sounded like excuses. Keith didn't know what else to say. Lance had suffered and almost died, and nothing he said could make up for that. Even now he was still suffering, still depressed and lonely, somehow struggling under the delusion that Keith didn't even care about him. And why should he think differently? What else had Keith ever showed him?

Enough. Words were useless. Keith had never been good at them, and they had failed him now. Instinct took over, and he surged forward and wrapped his arms around Lance as tight as he could.

Lance, of course, stiffened immediately and started babbling. "K-Keith? What...what are you doing? Is this some kind of sparring move? I don't...I don't know how to counter this, you haven't taught me this one, is there something I'm supposed to do?"

"Just shut up and let me hug you," Keith said.

"This is a hug?" Lance sounded so incredulous that Keith wanted to let go and knock some sense into him, but he denied that impulse and held on a little tighter instead. He reached one hand up and buried it in the hair on the back of Lance's head, and Lance suddenly softened in his arms.

Lance was struggling for breath a little, not enough to make Keith let go. "Is this...is this happening?" Soft, unbelieving, not entirely connected to reality. It had to be totally surreal for him to go from Keith yelling at him to this within the span of minutes.

"It's happening," Keith said as gently as he could. Which wasn't very, but he tried. "Now are you gonna hug me back or not?"

He put a touch of challenge into his voice, and Lance had never been able to take that lying down. Or standing up. His hands rose almost automatically and pressed against Keith's back, though Keith could feel them trembling. Lance stood still for a few seconds, breathing. And he pretty much melted.

Keith pressed Lance's head down to his shoulder and just held him. After a few seconds he started stroking his fingers through his hair. Lance sniffled, but didn't cry, not more than he already had. It was somewhat moist and uncomfortable, but Keith had initiated this, so he felt honor-bound to see it through.

After a bit, Lance started to draw back, and Keith let him go. He stood there and watched as Lance kept his head down, swiping at his eyes with his gloved fingers. Keith's heart still hurt pretty bad. He knew this hadn't fixed anything.

"You should talk to Shiro."

Lance looked up, blinking and disoriented. "What?"

"Talk to Shiro." Keith tried to make his tone more like a suggestion than a command, but from Lance's frown he could tell he'd failed. Keith shrugged. "I just...I think it will help."

Lance looked down and kicked his toe against the floor. "I don't want to bother him."

Keith grit his teeth. "Oh, for..." Lance flinched, and he stopped. Tried to reframe it again, shoulders slumping. "You're not bothering us, Lance. You're not bothering any of us. You know Hunk and Pidge care about you. Hopefully I proved that I care too, or we're gonna have to hug again, and I don't know if either of us can stand that right now. You really think Shiro doesn't? Out of all of us?"

Lance held still for a long moment, then shook his head, face still aimed at the floor. He drew a breath, then blew it out. "Okay. I'll talk to him. Later. I wanna...clean up first."

"You'd better," Keith said grimly. "Or I'll hunt you down. You know I will. Doesn't matter how tired you look then, I will beat you into the floor."

Lance laughed, small and stuttering, then looked up at Keith and gave him a smile. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Make sure you do."

"I will, jerk."

"Idiot."

Lance laughed again, a little more sincerely, and Keith smiled back. Everything hurt. Nothing was working. But maybe it wouldn't stay that way.