Archive of Our Own

The debrief should have felt victorious.

The main control deck still carried the aftermath of the mission in scattered fragments: discarded helmets resting against consoles, streaks of grime across polished Altean metal, the lingering sharp scent of overheated wiring from the hangar doors to board the Castle. The massive windows at the front of the room framed open space in bands of dark violet and distant stars, the Galra cruiser already gone behind them.

Coran was speaking animatedly near the central holotable, hands moving almost faster than Keith could track.

“An absolutely textbook extraction!” he declared. “The data recovery alone—oh, wait until we decrypt those files. They’ll be invaluable.”

Pidge looked exhausted enough to fall over where she stood but still managed a smug little grin. Hunk leaned heavily against the table beside her, armor scuffed black along one shoulder.

Shiro stood at the head of the room, calmer than the rest of them as always, one hand braced lightly against the table’s edge while Allura pulled up the recovered schematics across the holographic display.

“It was risky,” Allura admitted, though there was unmistakable relief softening the severity of it. “But successful.”

Keith crossed his arms harder against his chest.

Risky. That was one word for it.

Across the room, Lance somehow looked infuriatingly relaxed for someone who had nearly gotten himself killed less than an hour ago. His helmet hung loose from two fingers at his side, dark curls damp against his forehead from sweat that had not entirely dried yet. There was soot smeared along the jawline of his armor, a shallow cut near his chin, and he kept leaning one hip lazily against the nearest console like he had not, moments earlier, charged headfirst into a Galra general entirely alone.

Keith could still see it.

The corridor alarms. The flashing red emergency lights. The sharp crackle of comms dissolving into static while Pidge shouted that the general was heading straight toward the intel room.

Then Lance’s voice cutting through:

“I’ll handle it.”

Not we. Not wait. Not even enough time for Keith to answer before Lance had already gone off-channel. Something hot and ugly twisted again under Keith’s ribs.

“It still could have gone very badly.” Shiro answered Allura's claim as he gave Lance a sharp, knowing look. "What made you go against him alone, Lance? That was very reckless." He followed by asking, not angry exactly, but clearly trying to understand the decision-making process that had led there.

Lance shrugged. “He was between me and the others.”

“That general was twice your size,” Keith snapped before he could stop himself.

The room glanced toward him. It wasn't new for Keith, always led by impulses rather than logical thoughts, to snap at them. But there was something in the air that day that made everyone else tense. Everyone except Lance Fucking McClain.

Lance’s eyes flicked over lazily, infuriatingly unconcerned.

“I know something that's twice your size.” he said wiggling his eyebrows as everyone in the room groaned, except for Coran, who looked genuinely curious.

"Lance you're so fucking disgusting. No one wants to know the size of your tiny dic-" Exclaimed Pidge, only to be cut off by Shiro's loud "Language!"

“Fuck off, McClain.” Keith shot back. “It was stupid.”

“Oh, come on. It worked.”

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t stupid.”

“It objectively means it wasn’t that stupid.”

Keith stared at him. Lance smiled like this was somehow a normal conversation to be having. That smile was going to kill him one day. Keith was becoming increasingly certain of it. Shiro exhaled quietly through his nose in the way he did when arguments among the team started circling.

“Keith has a point,” he said carefully. “It was a reckless move, Lance.”

Lance lifted both hands immediately in surrender.

“And yet—” he said, drawing the word out dramatically, “—the team escaped safely, we got the intel, no one got captured, and I even managed not to blow up the ship. Reckless or not, it worked.”

Hunk snorted despite himself.

Traitor.

Allura’s mouth twitched faintly at the corners before she smoothed it back into something diplomatic. “Your actions protected the mission,” she admitted. “But next time, you must alert the team before engaging a commander-level threat alone.”

“Yes, Princess,” Lance said easily.

Too easily. Keith narrowed his eyes. There was something off underneath the performance Lance put on for everyone. Tiny things. Easy to miss unless someone was looking directly at him. Good thing Keith was so mad that he couldn't stop staring.

Lance was leaning too heavily against the console now. His breathing looked wrong. Not labored exactly. Just careful. Keith’s gaze dropped. Nothing seemed out of order, and yet, Keith couldn't shake the feeling that something was.

The others had already moved on, Coran pulling up part of the stolen Galra schematics while Pidge argued excitedly about power routing, but Keith barely heard any of it anymore. Because now that he had seen it, he could not unsee it.

The stiffness in Lance’s shoulders. The faint tightness around his mouth every time he shifted. The way his armor sat unevenly near his side. There was something clearly wrong with the Blue Paladin. And apparently everyone else in the room had gone blind.

Lance caught him looking. For half a second, something flickered across his face. Not fear. Not quite. Awareness, perhaps. Keith wasn't too sure, he still struggled reading Lance sometimes. Then, instantly, the grin returned.

“Well,” he announced suddenly, pushing himself upright from the console “since I personally saved all your lives today, I think it’s well deserved that I go shower for like three hours.”

“You did not save our lives today, you risked yours. Two completely different things.” Keith said immediately.

Lance pointed at him.

“You see? This is why we don’t invite Keith to our slumber parties.”

“There are no parties in space.”

“Uh, not in Brooding town there aren't.” Lance waved his hand all over Keith, pointing.

“Lance—”

“I’m going,” Lance interrupted smoothly, already backing toward the exit. “Debrief me later. Preferably after I stop smelling like exploded Galra.”

Before anyone could answer, he flashed one last disarming smile toward the room and slipped out through the doors. Fast. Too fast. Keith stared after him. The doors slid shut. A beat passed.

Then another.

Shiro looked back toward the mission display. “We’ll continue tomorrow. Everyone should get some rest.”

Keith was already moving before the sentence fully ended.

“Keith?” Shiro called after him.

But he barely heard it. Because suddenly the memory of that corridor came back sharp and vivid in all the worst ways: Lance disappearing alone down the hall. The sound of blaster fire. The silence afterward.

And underneath the anger now, buried deep enough to feel humiliating, something else had begun unfolding slow and sick beneath his ribs.

Keith’s fist struck the door hard enough to jar up his arm.

“Open the damn door, Lance.”

Nothing.

Behind the metal door, the room remained stubbornly silent except for the low hum of the Castle’s systems. Keith could see light under the frame. Shadows moving faintly across the floor.

Lance was in there. Keith hit the panel again, flatter this time with the heel of his palm.

“I swear to God, McClain, if you don’t open this door—”

Still nothing.

The anger sat too close to the surface now, molten and unstable. It had been building since the mission, since that moment in the corridor when Lance’s voice had vanished off comms and Keith had been left with nothing but blaster fire and imagination to fill the silence.

Shiro and Allura had let it go because the mission succeeded. Because nobody died. Because Lance had smiled through the debrief like he always did, bright and easy and impossible to pin down long enough to stay angry at him. Keith was not interested in being reasonable about it.

He slammed his palm against the door again.

“Open the fucking door!”

His own voice echoed sharply down the hall. No response.

Keith exhaled hard through his nose, already furious enough to feel heat crawling up the back of his neck. He drove the side of his boot against the lower panel of the door. Not enough to damage it. Enough to make it rattle violently in its frame.

“Lance!”

Still nothing.

Something ugly twisted tighter under his ribs. Because the thing was, Keith knew anger. Anger was easy. Anger was familiar. He knew how to sharpen himself into it, how to let it burn hot enough to cauterize everything softer underneath.

Fear was harder. Fear sat in his chest and made his pulse feel wrong. Fear sounded too much like Lance disappearing alone down a corridor of a Galra cruise.

So Keith got angry instead.

“I know you’re in there,” he snapped toward the door. “So stop hiding and open the fucking door before I knock this thing down myself.”

His breathing had gone shallow without him noticing. Fast. Tight. He was already halfway through the fight in his head. He could practically hear it: Lance making jokes, Keith yelling over him, both of them too stubborn to back down.

The lock clicked. The door slid open. Keith immediately stepped forward, ready to continue the argument at full force—

—and stopped.

Nobody stood on the other side. The room beyond was lit but empty. Keith frowned and walked in anyway.
The first thing he noticed was the armor.

Pieces of blue paladin plating lay scattered across the floor in uneven disarray: gauntlets tossed near the bed, chest armor half overturned beside the wall, one boot abandoned near the desk. Not careless exactly. Rushed.

Lance was messy, sure, but he was not careless with his gear. Hunk complained constantly about finding snack wrappers in the Blue Lion, but Lance still polished his armor after missions. Still lined his bayard neatly beside his bed.

Now it looked like he had torn everything off himself while running out of time. Keith’s frown deepened.

“Lance,” he called, anger still roughening the edges of his voice.

No answer.

Then, a sound. Faint. A muffled grunt from deeper in the room. The bathroom. The door there sat half-open, bright white light spilling through the gap. Keith strode toward it immediately, irritation already rising again.

“Seriously?” he snapped, shoving the door fully open. “You’re hiding in your own bathro—”

The rest of the sentence died in his lips. For one terrible second, Keith’s brain failed to process what he was seeing.

Blood.

Too much blood.

Bright red against the white sink basin. Smeared hand prints streaked across the wall beside it in uneven swipes, fingers dragged downward like someone had tried to steady themselves and slipped. Used gauze littered the floor. Bandage wrappings. An open disinfectant kit.

The metallic smell hit him a heartbeat later. Lance stood hunched against the sink at the far side of the room. Or rather, braced himself against it. His black under suit hung halfway peeled down his torso, twisted and stuck wetly against one shoulder where blood had soaked through the fabric entirely. The upper half of his armor was gone, exposing the injury beneath.

Keith’s stomach dropped. The wound carved across Lance’s left shoulder and upper back looked vicious. Not a blaster burn. Something sharper. Like claws or serrated metal had raked across him hard enough to tear through armor and skin alike. The flesh around it was swollen and angry red, blood still sliding sluggishly down his arm despite whatever pathetic attempt Lance had made to clean it.

Pod-level injury. The thought landed immediate and cold.

Lance still was not looking at him. His jaw had gone tight with concentration, breathing uneven as he struggled one-handed to peel the under suit away from where it had dried into the wound. Every movement tugged visibly at the torn skin beneath it.

That explained the blood on the walls. He had probably tried to rip the fabric off too quickly.

“Don’t,” Keith said immediately.

The word came out harsher than intended. Lance froze. For the first time since Keith entered the room, he looked up. And suddenly the anger became difficult to hold onto correctly.
Because Lance looked bad. Not theatrically bad. Not dramatic. Just pale.

Sweat dampened the curls at his temples. His lips had lost most of their color beneath the usual smart ass expression he was very obviously trying to reconstruct by force alone.

“Wow,” Lance said weakly after a second. “You know, usually people buy me dinner before breaking into my room.”

Keith stared at him. Then at the wound again. Then back at Lance. Something in his chest twisted violently enough to hurt.

“You idiot,” Keith said quietly.

The fight had gone out of his voice entirely, at least for the moment. Lance’s eyes flickered at that. Not the insult. The tone. Keith stepped forward before he could think too hard about it.

Up close, the injury looked even worse. Torn fabric clung stubbornly to the wound, dark and wet. The sink counter beside Lance was littered with failed attempts at bandaging himself one-handed.

Keith could suddenly picture all of it with horrible clarity: Lance locking the door. Trying to get the armor off alone. Bleeding through his gloves. Losing grip on the bandages. Trying not to pass out before he finished.
A fresh wave of anger surged abruptly through Keith’s chest so sharp it almost made him dizzy.

“You should be in a healing pod,” Keith muttered, cold.

Lance huffed a weak laugh.

“Yeah, well. That seemed like it would involve explaining things.”

Keith looked at him sharply. Lance finally glanced away first. There it was. The real reason. Not wanting the lecture. Not wanting the team pulled off mission high into panic mode. Not wanting everyone to know he had nearly gotten carved open protecting them.

Idiot.

Absolute fucking idiot.

Keith reached carefully for the edge of the under suit stuck to Lance’s shoulder. Lance immediately sucked in a breath through his teeth.

Keith paused. Their eyes met briefly.

“I have to get it off,” Keith said.

Lance swallowed once and nodded. Keith tried to ignore how warm Lance’s skin felt under his fingers. Tried very hard, actually. Because suddenly the bathroom felt too small, too bright, too full of the sound of Lance breathing.

And Keith was becoming uncomfortably aware of the fact that Lance trusted him enough to stand still for this.
Keith kept working the fabric loose from the wound. Or trying to. His hands were not particularly gentle about it.

The under suit had fused itself to the blood around Lance’s shoulder in dark, stiff patches, and every second Keith spent looking at the injury only made the urgency under his skin worse. They were wasting time. The wound needed sterilization, sealing, before the pod even started repairing tissue damage.

Instead, Lance had apparently decided to bleed to death alone in his bathroom out of sheer stubbornness. Keith grabbed Lance’s uninjured shoulder to hold him steady and tugged harder at the fabric. Lance jerked sharply with a hiss.

“Jesus Christ,” he snapped, breath catching unevenly. “Could you maybe be a little gentler—fuck—”

“You deserve it,” Keith shot back immediately.

The words came out hot and sharp before he could stop them. Lance glared at him. Keith barely noticed.

“None of this is gonna matter once we get you into a pod anyway,” he continued, already reaching for the ruined edge of the under suit again. “Which is what you should’ve done the second we got back to the Castle.”

The room went still. Not physically. The Castle still hummed softly around them. Somewhere deeper in the hall outside, something mechanical shifted through the walls.

But Lance went still. His expression changed too fast for Keith to fully track. The irritation vanished first. Then the exhausted humor. What remained underneath was colder.

“I’m not getting in a pod,” Lance said quietly.

Keith stopped.

“What?”

“I said,” Lance replied, each word clipped flat, “I’m not getting in a pod.”

For a second Keith simply stared at him. Then the disbelief hit.

“The fuck you mean you’re not getting in a pod?” he demanded. “Lance, your shoulder looks like something tried to carve it off—”

“And it failed,” Lance snapped.

Keith laughed once in sharp disbelief.

“Yeah? Barely.”

“I said no.”

Keith could feel the argument escalating almost physically between them, like static gathering in the air. Sometimes he felt like the universe had punished him for his stubbornness by giving him someone that matched it with his own.

“You don’t get to say no,” Keith said. “Not to this.”

Lance turned suddenly to face him fully despite the movement clearly pulling at the wound. Frowned brows and a deep scowl, like Keith was the one making crazy claims.

“I’m not getting in one.”

“Oh, yes, the fuck you are.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Keith—”

“You are bleeding all over your damn bathroom!”

“And I’m handling it!”

“You’re doing a terrible job!”

Lance shoved him. Not hard. Weak, honestly, which in a way, surprised Keith. But angry. Keith took an involuntary half-step back more out of surprise than force, his own expression matching Lance's.

“I said leave it alone!” Snapped Lance once more.

“The hell I am!”

Lance’s breathing had started coming faster now, uneven beneath the strain of the argument and the obvious pain. Sweat dampened the collar of the under suit still hanging half-off his torso.

Still, he straightened stubbornly against the sink.

“I’m not going into a pod,” he repeated.

“And I’m not standing here watching you bleed out because you decided to lose your mind! What is wrong with you?!”

“I said I can handle it!”

“With what?” Keith snapped viciously, gesturing around the disaster of the bathroom. “Because from where I’m standing, your plan seems to be bleeding on every available surface until you pass out!”

Something flashed across Lance’s face then. Not anger, something colder and deeper, something that lived in your bones and never left. Keith wondered if it was the same fear he felt. However, it was gone almost immediately beneath fresh irritation.

“Fuck off, Keith.” Lance bit out.

Keith stared at him in mounting disbelief.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Lance looked away first.

“Just drop it.”

Keith felt something in him snap. Because Lance was injured, pale, barely upright, and still somehow trying to push everyone away like this was something he had to survive alone. The anger came roaring back immediately.

“Unbelievable,” Keith muttered.

Then, before Lance could react, he grabbed his good arm hard enough to get leverage and started dragging him toward the door.

Lance stumbled with a startled curse.

“What the fuck—Keith!”

“You’re going to the med bay.”

“No, I’m not—”

“Yes, you are.”

Lance tried digging his heels into the floor. It worked for approximately half a second. Normally Lance could hold his own in a fight against Keith if he tried hard enough. Key word: normally. Right now he was injured, dizzy from blood loss, and trying to fight one-handed.

Keith hauled him out of the bathroom anyway.

“Keith, let go of me!” Lance exclaimed through clenched teeth.

“Not happening.”

“Are you insane?”

“Look who's talking, Mr 'I'm not going into a pod despite the fact that I have a massive injury'”

Lance clawed at Keith’s wrist, trying unsuccessfully to pry his fingers loose. Keith could feel the bottling desperation in the way Lance tugged and pulled at Keith's arm, trying, with all his might, to stop him.

“Keith!”

“You can yell at me later!” Because they were definitely going to scream at each other once Lance came out of the pod, all healthy and healed.

“I’m serious!”

“So am I!”

Keith dragged him another step toward the room door. Lance stumbled again, barely catching himself before falling face down on the floor. Then suddenly stopped moving entirely. Keith nearly lost balance from the abrupt resistance.

Lance had grabbed onto the bathroom doorway with his good hand hard enough for his knuckles to whiten instantly.

“No.”

The word came out different this time. The sharpness and bite Lance's tone had carried a few seconds ago dissolving into something else. Something rawer.

Keith pulled again automatically, not willing to listen to whatever stupid excuse Lance had come up with. “Lance—”

“No.”

Lance’s grip tightened desperately against the frame. And then Keith looked up properly, meeting the other boy's gaze. Lance had gone pale beneath the tan of his skin. Not pain pale, the one you got after too much blood loss. No.

Terrified pale.

His eyes were wide in a way Keith had never seen before, breathing suddenly too fast, chest rising sharply beneath the torn under suit, like he was struggling to keep the air inside his lungs for more than a second.

“Don’t,” Lance said.

And this time it wasn't shouted. It was pleaded. Soft and low and vulnerable in a way Keith had never seen Lance portray so openly. So Keith froze. Lance did not.

“Don’t put me in a pod.” He repeated once more, this time, that soft, wary voice making it's way to the surface instead of snapping anger.

Everything in the room seemed to tilt strangely sideways for a second. Because this was wrong. Lance was many things: reckless, loud, stubborn to the point of self-destruction… but not this. Not afraid in the quiet, unnerving way.

Keith’s grip loosened instinctively before he could think too much about it. Lance stayed locked onto the doorway anyway like Keith might still drag him out by force.

“Lance,” Keith said slowly, confusion beginning to overtake the anger, “what the hell—”

“Please.”

That word hit harder than the shouting had. Keith was used to the bickering, the loud voices and the sharp remarks. He could deal with snarky comments or mean accusations. But quiet, wary, fear? That was not something he had had to deal with before. Not when it came to Lance.

Lance swallowed visibly. His voice came rougher the second time.

“Please don’t make me.”

Keith went still once again. Not metaphorically. Actually still. His hand remained wrapped around Lance’s wrist for one stunned second longer before Keith realized something felt wrong beneath his grip.

Lance was shaking.

Full-body tremors ran through him hard enough that Keith could feel them where their skin touched. Lance’s breaths kept catching strangely, uneven and shallow, and his fingers were locked around the doorway so tightly they looked painful.

Terrified.

The realization landed slowly, incomprehensibly. Keith had seen Lance afraid before, technically. Anyone would be afraid in battle sometimes. But Lance usually burned through fear at high speed, smothered it under jokes and reckless confidence and sheer momentum.

This was different. This looked ugly. Instinctive. The kind of fear that lived somewhere deeper than reason.

“Please don’t make me.”

Keith’s grip disappeared immediately.

Lance stumbled backward the second he was free, retreating into the bathroom like distance alone might protect him. His expression shuttered almost instantly afterward, fear folding inward beneath irritation and something worse, embarrassment.

Keith hated that part immediately. The fact that Lance looked embarrassed to have been seen like that didn't sit right in his chest.

Silence settled heavily between them.

The fight had drained out of the room so fast it left Keith feeling disoriented. His own pulse still hammered unpleasantly from the argument, but now there was nowhere for the anger to go. Because Lance was standing three feet away looking shaken enough to fall apart, and Keith had no idea why.

He wanted to ask. What happened? Why pods?

What the hell scared you that badly?

But he already knew Lance would not answer. So instead the room stayed quiet except for Lance’s breathing and the occasional sharp grunt when he tried once more to peel the ruined under suit from his shoulder.

It did not go well. The fabric dragged against the wound each time Lance tried to gently pried it free. Lance hissed softly and stopped again, jaw tightening. Keith watched him struggle for another few seconds before stepping back into the bathroom.

Lance flinched immediately. Just a quick instinctive recoil and a sharp warning look in Keith's direction. Keith stopped moving at once and raised his hands slightly away from him.

“I’m not taking you to a pod,” he said. Carefully. Slowly.

Lance still looked tense enough to bolt.

Keith swallowed once and tried again.

“I won’t.” He promised.

For a second Lance only stared at him like he was waiting for the trick hidden somewhere underneath the promise. Then some of the panic eased fractionally from his shoulders. Not gone. Just loosened enough for breathing to become possible again.

“But,” Keith added quietly, “you have to let me fix this properly.”

Lance exhaled hard through his nose. Defeated.

“Fine,” he muttered.

Keith moved closer again, slower this time, giving Lance every opportunity to shove him away if he wanted to.

He did not.

Keith guided him carefully toward the bathtub instead, one hand hovering near his waist without fully touching him unless necessary. Lance sat heavily on the edge of it with a wince, his legs inside the tub and his back facing Keith, exhaustion finally beginning to show through the adrenaline and stubbornness.

Up close, the wound looked even angrier than before. Keith crouched slightly in front of him.

“Okay,” he murmured. “I need to get the rest of this off.”

Lance nodded once. Keith reached carefully for the edge of the under suit still stuck against his shoulder. This time he went slowly. Very slowly. He didn't have the same anger guiding his actions as before, or the same rush to be fast and get Lance into a pod, clearly. His fingers slid beneath the fabric where it remained unstuck, easing it away millimeter by millimeter so it would not tear the wound open again. Lance’s breathing roughened immediately.

Keith could feel every flinch.

“Sorry,” he muttered automatically when Lance hissed under his breath.

“Mm.”

Keith kept working. The under suit peeled gradually down Lance’s arm and chest, exposing more skin inch by inch beneath the harsh bathroom light.

And that— That became a problem almost immediately. Because Keith had seen Lance shirtless before. Of course he had. Training rooms, beach planets, late nights after missions.

That was different.

This felt unbearably intimate. Maybe because Lance was sitting directly in front of him exhausted and hurt and letting Keith touch him carefully enough to matter. Maybe because Keith’s hands were the ones sliding the fabric from his skin. Maybe because Lance trusted him enough to stay still for it.

The under suit finally came free from the injured shoulder entirely with one last careful pull. Lance shuddered sharply at the release.

Keith forgot how to breathe for a second.

Lance’s torso was all lean muscle and warm brown skin under the sterile white lighting, softer-looking without the armor somehow despite the obvious strength underneath it. Freckles dusted across his shoulders and upper chest, scattered unevenly like someone had flicked paint there carelessly years ago.

Keith had never noticed how far down they went before. A few disappeared beneath the line of his under suit pants. One sat just under the curve of his throat.

Keith stared at it for entirely too long.

There were bruises forming already along Lance’s ribs too, darkening shadows beneath skin still flushed faintly from pain and exertion. A thin line of sweat tracked slowly down the center of his chest. Keith became abruptly, painfully aware of the fact that his hand was still resting against Lance’s side.

Lance shifted slightly beneath the touch, tired enough now that he leaned unconsciously into the steadiness of it. Keith’s stomach twisted hard.

This was bad. Catastrophically bad, actually.

Because Lance looked wrecked and exhausted and painfully vulnerable sitting there half-undressed on the edge of the tub, and Keith’s brain had apparently decided this was the perfect moment to notice details like the shape of his mouth when he breathed through pain or the warmth of skin under his palm.

Humiliating.

Keith forced his attention back to the wound. Professional. Mission-focused. Normal. Except his fingers betrayed him immediately by brushing too gently across Lance’s shoulder as he moved to inspect the injury more closely.

Lance went still. Not tense. Just suddenly aware. Keith could feel it happen. The bathroom had gone very quiet again.

Keith swallowed once. Then reached for the disinfectant. He poured disinfectant over the gauze, the sharp medicinal smell immediately cut through the metallic scent of blood still lingering in the room. His fingertips lingered briefly against Lance’s back before he started cleaning the wound properly.

That had probably been a mistake.

Lance’s skin was warm under his hands. Smooth. Alive. Every tiny movement beneath Keith’s touch felt magnified somehow, and when his fingers brushed lightly across the uninjured part of Lance’s shoulder blade, Lance shuddered once beneath them.

Keith felt it right away.

Felt it and immediately hated the direction his thoughts tried to take afterward. Because for one reckless second, some traitorous part of his brain suggested he could stay like this forever: hand spread across Lance’s back, thumb resting near the curve of his shoulder, Lance breathing quietly under his touch while the rest of the universe remained somewhere very far away.

Then Keith looked at the actual wound again. Reality returned instantly.

Right. Medical attention.

Not whatever the hell that had been.

Keith pressed the damp gauze carefully near the torn skin. Lance hissed immediately. His shoulders tightened hard under Keith’s hands, chin dropping toward his chest so Keith would not have to see the expression pain pulled across his face.

As if that helped. Keith could still feel every reaction. The tension. The way Lance’s breathing stuttered. The instinctive attempt not to make noise. Without really thinking about it, Keith lifted his free hand and placed it gently against the back of Lance’s neck, thumb resting just below his hairline while his palm settled warm against his uninjured shoulder.

He squeezed lightly. Lance exhaled shakily. Then, almost against his own will, relaxed fractionally into the touch.

Keith’s stomach twisted unpleasantly. He swallowed once and kept cleaning around the wound carefully.

A few quiet seconds passed.

The tension from earlier still lingered heavily in the room, stretched thin and fragile after Lance’s panic at the doorway. Keith could not stop thinking about it. About the fear in Lance’s face. But he also knew better than to ask directly.

So instead he said quietly, “The general?”

Lance sighed. Keith felt the movement against his hand before he heard it.

“…Yeah,” Lance muttered after a moment. “The general.”

Keith scrubbed a little harder around the edge of the wound.

“I told you to wait for backup.”

Lance jerked sharply with a hiss.

“Jesus—”

“Stay still.”

“You’re doing that on purpose.”

Keith did not answer immediately, which was probably answer enough. Lance grunted under his breath, clearly irritated, but stopped trying to pull away.

“I had it handled,” he snapped.

Keith scoffed softly.

“Sure,” he muttered, pressing the gauze closer to the raw edge of the injury. “I can see that.”

That one landed too close to exposed skin. Lance’s breath caught sharply. A soft, involuntary sound escaped him before he could stop it, a broken little whimper that seemed to surprise both of them equally.

Heat climbed instantly up Keith’s spine.

Lance apparently hated himself for making the noise because he immediately covered it with, “Fuck off.”

Keith’s hand tightened instinctively at the back of Lance’s neck.

“Mind your own fucking business,” Lance muttered through clenched teeth.

Keith stared at the side of his face in disbelief. And people called him defensive. Unbelievable. He pushed lightly forward against Lance’s shoulder and neck, trying to steady him again. The movement tugged at the injured side just enough to wrench another startled gasp from Lance’s mouth.

“Keith—”

“This is my business,” Keith snapped suddenly, louder now despite himself. “You went after a Galra general alone!”

Lance stiffened. Keith barely noticed.

“You ran into hand-to-hand combat with someone twice your size when hand-to-hand combat is not your thing!”

The second the words left his mouth, Keith knew he had hit something wrong. Lance went completely still beneath his hands. Then he shrugged violently away from Keith’s grip and twisted around to face him.

His eyes looked furious. Hurt, too. Keith’s stomach dropped slightly. Lance shoved at his chest with his good arm. Weak from blood loss or not, the force behind it still carried real anger.

“Fuck off,” Lance snapped for like the third time that day. “Not everyone can be perfect at everything like you.”

Keith blinked at him.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Lance pushed himself upright from the edge of the bathtub despite the obvious pain it caused him. He moved backward a step immediately afterward like he needed distance to stay angry properly.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about!”

“No, I don’t!”

“Yes, you do!” Lance shot back.

He pointed at Keith vaguely with his uninjured hand, frustrated movement jerky and uneven from exhaustion.

“You’re always good at everything! Always!” he exclaimed. “Perfect fucking Keith. Never screws up, never makes mistakes, always knows exactly what to do—”

Keith stared at him in open confusion.

“What—”

“—and of course you would’ve beaten that guy!” Lance continued over him, voice rising. “Because you’ve got amazing hand-to-hand combat skills and your weird half-Galra murder genetics and—”

“What the fuck?”

Keith could not even process the sentence properly. Lance looked too angry to stop now though. Or maybe too hurt. Something raw had opened behind his expression, ugly and vulnerable all at once.

“I’m sorry, okay?!” Lance snapped suddenly.

The words cracked strangely on the way out. Keith’s confusion faltered immediately. Lance looked away first.

“I’m sorry I can’t be as good as you.”

Keith stared at him.

Water from the sink faucet dripped slowly somewhere behind them. The sound echoed softly through the bathroom in uneven intervals, almost swallowed by the low mechanical hum of the Castle beyond the walls.

Lance stood a few feet away breathing hard, half-undressed and bleeding through the bandages Keith had not finished applying, his curls damp against his forehead and his chest still rising too quickly from the argument. Keith felt almost disoriented looking at him.

The words sat between them like something physical.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he demanded.

Lance scoffed sharply and looked away. Keith stepped closer before he could think better of it.

“No, seriously,” he said, voice roughening. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Lance’s jaw tightened stubbornly. Keith could see the pulse fluttering there.

“You’re our best sharpshooter,” Keith snapped. “Why would you even want to be anything like me?”

That seemed to hit something.

Lance’s expression twisted abruptly into something frustrated and raw. His eyes looked bright suddenly, not soft exactly, not sad, but sharp around the edges, like anger had turned molten underneath his skin and was searching desperately for somewhere to go.

“Because you’re good at everything!” Lance burst out.

Keith blinked. Lance threw his good arm outward in a frustrated motion and immediately regretted if the sharp hitch in his breath meant anything.

“You are!” he continued before Keith could interrupt. “You’re good at fighting, you’re good under pressure, you always know what to do, you—”

“That’s not—”

“And I’m not!”

The words cracked hard enough to silence the room. Keith stopped moving. Lance looked furious now. Furious and exhausted and dangerously close to unraveling entirely.

“I’m not smart like Hunk or Pidge,” he snapped. “I’m not a leader like Shiro or Allura, I’m not some insane fighter like you—”

His voice faltered for one terrible second. Keith watched the moment it happened. Watched Lance’s throat work around something too sharp to swallow properly. Then Lance looked away and said, harsher this time:

“I’m just Lance.”

Something unpleasant curled immediately in Keith’s chest. Because Lance said it like it meant less. Like his own name was a disappointment. Keith opened his mouth, but Lance beat him to it.

“I shouldn’t even have been chosen as the Blue Paladin, for fuck's sake!”

The sentence hit the room like a physical blow. Keith froze yet once again. He seemed to be doing that a lot in the past few minutes. For a second all he could hear was the distant ringing in his own ears.

Lance stood rigid a few feet away from him, breathing unevenly, eyes fixed stubbornly somewhere over Keith’s shoulder like he regretted saying the words already but was too angry to take them back.

And suddenly pieces started rearranging themselves inside Keith’s head in ugly, horrible ways. The recklessness. The constant need to prove himself. The stupid unnecessary risks. The jokes after every near-death experience. Keith had always assumed Lance just… operated that way naturally. Loud confidence covering impulsiveness.

But this—

This sounded like someone trying desperately to earn his place.

Keith lowered his voice carefully.

“The general,” he said slowly. “You went after him to prove something?”

Lance immediately looked away. That alone was answer enough. But Keith wanted him to deny it. Wanted him to laugh and say 'Obviously not, Mullet, don’t psychoanalyze me.'

Instead Lance stayed silent. Keith felt anger surge back so fast it almost made him dizzy. Not the sharp irritation from before. Something hotter. Something frightened. He grabbed Lance’s uninjured shoulder before he could stop himself, fingers tightening hard enough to force Lance to look back at him.

“You went after a Galra general alone,” Keith said, voice rough now, “to prove your worth on this team?”

Lance’s jaw clenched immediately. He stared Keith dead in the eyes. Did not answer. Keith let go of him at once. Not because he wanted to. Because suddenly he was too angry to trust his own hands.

“What the fuck?!” he exploded.

He shoved both hands back through his hair violently, pacing two sharp steps away before turning back again. He was fighting the urge to grab Lance by the shoulders and shake him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

Lance flinched like the words physically struck him. Then immediately got angry again to cover it.

“Oh my God,” he scoffed, reaching for the disinfectant gauze still in Keith’s hand. “Forget it—”

Keith jerked it away immediately.

“No.”

“Keith—”

“No, we’re not done!”

He shoved Lance lightly backward before he could snatch the supplies again. Lance stumbled against the sink with an angry hiss.

“Why would you do that?” Keith demanded. “Why the hell would you think you have to prove yourself like that?!”

“Okay!” Lance snapped suddenly, throwing his good arm upward in frustration. “Okay, I get it! I’m stupid! You don’t need to have a breakdown over it, fuck—”

“Yes!” Keith shouted so loudly it echoed off the bathroom walls.

Both of them startled slightly at the volume.

“Yes, Lance, that was stupid!”

Lance’s face changed instantly. The anger remained, but underneath it something else cracked open, hurt, sharp and immediate. Keith barely gave him time to react before continuing.

“I cannot believe I’m having this conversation with you right now.”

Lance stared at him. Confused and upset now more than angry. Keith laughed once under his breath, harsh and humorless.

“You really think you’re not good enough?”

Lance’s expression flickered. Keith stepped closer again despite himself.

“You are an incredible sharpshooter,” he said, voice still heated. “You hit targets the rest of us can barely even see. Half the missions we survive are because you can shoot through a moving target from across a damn battlefield.”

Lance opened his mouth weakly. Keith kept going.

“You come up with strategies none of us would think of because your brain actually works under pressure instead of just throwing itself directly into danger—”

“That’s literally what you do,” Lance muttered automatically.

“Shut up.”

Lance actually did. Keith pointed vaguely between them in frustration.

“And you keep this team functioning! Do you know that? You keep everyone sane up here!”

Lance blinked at him. Keith could feel his own pulse pounding now, words spilling too fast to stop properly.

“I could train for ten years and still never shoot like you,” he snapped. “I can’t fight long-range the way you can. I can’t improvise plans the way you do without almost getting everybody killed.”

He stepped closer again. Too close now probably. Lance did not move away.

“So why,” Keith demanded, quieter this time, “are you talking about yourself like you’re disposable?”

The room went silent. Completely silent. Lance stared at him without speaking. Keith could see the fight draining slowly out of his posture, confusion taking its place around the edges. Keith swallowed once. Then said carefully:

“You have nothing to prove.”

Lance’s eyes flickered downward briefly. Keith looked at him for one long terrible second before continuing more quietly still.

“So when you ran after that general alone…” He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Yeah. It infuriated me.”

Lance rolled his eyes immediately, defensive instinct returning on reflex.

“Right,” he muttered. “Because obviously I couldn’t handle—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Keith reached out before he could stop himself and placed his hand carefully against Lance’s uninjured shoulder again. Warm skin. Freckles beneath his fingertips. Lance went still immediately. Keith’s voice came out rougher than intended.

“It made me angry,” he admitted quietly, “seeing you throw yourself into something like that because you thought you weren’t good enough.”

The words settled heavily between them. Lance looked up slowly. And for the first time since Keith burst into the room, he looked less angry than stunned.

Silence settled between them again after that. Not the violent kind from before. Not sharp with anger or swollen with things unsaid. This silence felt thinner somehow. Fragile. Keith’s hand still rested against Lance’s shoulder.

He could feel the warmth of his skin beneath his palm, the slight dampness from sweat, the uneven rise and fall of his breathing. Lance had stopped looking angry. The defensive edge around his mouth had softened into something quieter, uncertain almost, like Keith had just said something he genuinely did not know how to process. The harsh bathroom lighting caught strangely in his eyes. Dark lashes. Blue irises gone softer around the edges now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

Keith became abruptly aware of how close they were standing. Too close. Close enough that he could see the faint freckles scattered over the bridge of Lance’s nose. Close enough to notice the way exhaustion had started pulling his posture downward despite every stubborn attempt to stay upright.

Close enough that Keith could still remember exactly how Lance had looked clutching the doorway in terror.

The thought returned cold and immediate. And before he could stop himself, before he could shove the admission back down where it belonged, Keith heard himself say quietly:

“I was scared, Lance.”

The words seemed to still the room entirely.

Lance’s gaze did not leave his.

“What?” he asked softly.

Keith swallowed once.

“Terrified.”

Saying it out loud felt strangely humiliating. Not only because it was Lance. Somehow that made it worse. Because Keith did not scare easily. Fear usually arrived sharp and practical inside him, all instinct and motion and immediate action. He knew what to do with danger.

This had been different. This had been standing in a Galra corridor listening to comm silence and imagining Lance dead somewhere beyond the walls. This had been seeing blood all over the bathroom sink. This had been the horrible realization that one day Lance’s recklessness might finally outrun his luck.

Lance stared at him for several long seconds. Then his mouth parted slightly in a small startled oh. Not mocking. Not disbelieving. Just genuinely surprised. Keith almost wished he had not said it.

Almost.

Because something shifted visibly in Lance’s expression afterward. The stubborn tension in his shoulders loosened fractionally, and for the first time since Keith arrived, he looked less like someone preparing for a fight and more like someone suddenly unsure where to put his hands.

“Oh,” Lance repeated softly.

Keith looked away first. That somehow felt easier than holding eye contact through this.

After a moment Lance said quietly, “Sorry.”

The apology sounded rough around the edges. Honest. Keith shook his head immediately.

“No,” he muttered. “Don’t—”

He stopped himself there. Because there were too many things underneath that conversation now. Too many raw edges exposed at once. Keith could practically feel how exhausted Lance was becoming beneath all the adrenaline and anger.

And honestly? Keith was exhausted too. The argument had burned through him completely, leaving behind something heavier and harder to navigate.

He still wanted to shake Lance senseless. Still wanted to force every stupid self-destructive thought out of his head permanently. But not like this. Not while Lance was bleeding through half-finished bandages and barely standing upright. Keith exhaled slowly through his nose.

“Come here,” he said more gently.

Lance looked at him warily for half a second before the exhaustion apparently won out. Keith guided him carefully down onto the bathroom floor instead, maneuvering him until Lance sat between his knees with his back angled toward Keith’s chest. The cold tile clicked softly beneath their movements. Lance let out a tired breath as he settled there, leaning forward slightly to keep pressure off the injured shoulder.

Keith moved behind him. The position felt immediately, dangerously intimate. Lance’s bare back rested inches from his chest now, warm and solid and distractingly close. Keith could smell the sharp disinfectant still lingering in the air beneath the cleaner scent of soap and the faint metallic trace of blood.

And underneath all of it—

Lance. Something warm. Skin and sweat and the lingering ozone scent from the mission. Keith ignored that thought aggressively. He reached instead for fresh gauze and disinfectant.

“You need to stay still,” he murmured.

Lance made a quiet sound that might have been agreement. The fight had left him almost all at once now that there was no anger left to sustain it. Keith could see it in the heavy slope of his shoulders, the way his head dipped forward slightly with fatigue.

Keith soaked the gauze carefully. Then pressed it gently against the torn skin near the edge of the wound. Lance jerked immediately. A sharp breath hissed through his teeth. Keith felt the reaction all the way through him.

“Sorry,” he said automatically, softer this time.

Lance shook his head once, curls brushing lightly against Keith’s forearm where it hovered near his shoulder.

“It’s fine.”

It very obviously was not fine. The wound stretched viciously across the curve of Lance’s shoulder and down the upper part of his back, ugly and swollen around the edges where the Galra had torn through armor first before flesh. Keith worked carefully around the deepest part of it, cleaning away dried blood and soot in slow deliberate motions.

Lance flinched every few seconds anyway. Sometimes it was small, a tightening of muscles beneath Keith’s hand, a sharp inhale. Sometimes it was worse. Keith touched a particularly raw section near the center of the injury and Lance shuddered hard enough that his head dropped forward with a strained sound low in his throat.

Keith reacted before thinking once again. His free hand slid automatically upward, fingers settling against the side of Lance’s neck. Warm skin met his palm immediately. Keith rubbed his thumb slowly beneath Lance’s ear in absent little circles meant more to steady than soothe.

Lance melted under the touch so visibly it startled him. The tension eased fractionally out of his shoulders. His breathing loosened. He leaned back, not fully, not enough to put pressure on the wound, but enough that Keith could feel the shape of his spine shift subtly closer.

That same horrible, tender trust. Keith swallowed hard and kept cleaning the wound. The bathroom remained quiet except for the soft rustle of gauze, the occasional clink of metal instruments against the sink, and Lance’s breathing.

Every reaction became magnified in the silence. When Keith’s fingers brushed too close to torn skin, Lance inhaled sharply. When the disinfectant stung badly enough, a helpless little sound escaped him before he bit it back. Each one landed somewhere deep in Keith’s chest and stayed there.

He tried focusing on practical things instead. The angle of the wound. The swelling. How much blood loss there had probably been. Anything except the warmth of Lance’s body between his knees or the way his head kept dipping slightly toward Keith’s touch whenever the pain got worse.

Keith’s hand remained at the back of Lance’s neck almost the entire time. Sometimes rubbing slow circles. Sometimes squeezing gently when Lance flinched too hard. At one point Lance’s hand found Keith’s wrist blindly during a particularly painful moment and grabbed tight without warning.

Keith froze instantly. Lance seemed to realize what he had done a second later because his fingers loosened immediately.

“Sorry,” he muttered weakly.

Keith looked down at the hand still resting against his wrist. Long fingers. Keith’s pulse stumbled strangely.

“You don’t have to apologize for that,” he said quietly.

Lance did not answer. But he did not move his hand away completely either. And Keith—

Keith let him keep holding on.

By the time Keith finished wrapping the bandages around Lance’s shoulder, the bathroom had grown almost unbearably warm.

Or maybe that was just him.

The air smelled thickly of antiseptic now, sharp and sterile over the coppery residue of blood, and the floor around them had become cluttered with ruined gauze and discarded medical wrappings. Somewhere above them, the bathroom light buzzed faintly in uneven little pulses. The Castle itself hummed softly through the walls, distant and constant like breathing.

Keith tied off the final bandage carefully.

“There,” he muttered.

The white fabric crossed diagonally over Lance’s shoulder and upper back, layered tight enough to hold but not so tight it would pull at the wound every time he moved. It was not perfect. Keith knew that. A pod would have sealed the injury in minutes, left behind smooth skin and maybe a scar if Lance got unlucky.

Instead there was this. Bandages. A bathroom covered in blood. The lingering tremor still hidden occasionally in Lance’s hands whenever he thought Keith was not looking.

Keith sat back slightly on his heels to inspect his work. Or at least that had been the intention. Instead his gaze snagged almost immediately on the exposed stretch of Lance’s back. Warm brown skin disappeared beneath the white bandages in clean uneven lines, freckles scattered lower than Keith had expected across his shoulders and spine alike. Tiny things. Easy to miss unless someone was already looking too hard.

Keith was absolutely looking too hard.

The muscles beneath Lance’s skin shifted subtly when he breathed. Lean definition moved under warmth and freckles and the faint sheen of sweat still clinging to him from pain and adrenaline.

Keith stared. And stared. His mind emptied with alarming efficiency.

Because this—

This felt unfair somehow.

Lance had always been beautiful in the obvious ways. Loud grin. Bright eyes. Easy confidence. But this version of him, quiet and exhausted and sitting shirtless on the bathroom floor with Keith’s hands still warm from touching him, felt infinitely more dangerous. Keith did not realize how long he had been staring until Lance glanced over his shoulder with one eyebrow raised slightly.

“…You listening?”

Keith blinked.

“What?”

Lance huffed softly. There was still exhaustion threaded through the sound, but most of the sharpness from earlier had faded into something quieter.

“I said,” Lance repeated slowly, “thanks. For the bandages.”

Oh.

Keith coughed lightly and forced himself to lean backward, giving Lance space to move.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Sure.”

Smooth.

Lance pushed himself carefully upright with a wince. Keith watched immediately despite himself. Every movement seemed slower now that the adrenaline had finally burned out of him. Tiredness dragged visibly at the lines of his body. His curls hung damp around his face, slightly flattened where sweat had dried at his temples. The fresh bandages starkly contrasted against his skin every time he shifted beneath the harsh white lighting.

Lance stepped carefully around the scattered medical supplies, gathering pieces of his discarded under suit and armor from the counter with his good hand. Keith stayed exactly where he was on the bathroom floor.

He probably should have left.

The logical next step here involved standing up, saying something awkwardly practical about changing the bandages tomorrow, and getting the hell out of Lance’s room before his brain fully caught up to the fact that he had spent the last hour half-kneeling between Lance’s bare shoulders with his hands all over him.

Instead he remained there motionless. Pinned. Something inside him refused to leave. Maybe it was the memory of Lance clutching the doorway with terrified eyes and shaking hands. Maybe it was the softness that had settled over him afterward, the quiet trust of letting Keith touch him without fighting anymore. Maybe it was the horrible realization that Lance genuinely believed he had to earn his place on the team by bleeding for it.

Whatever it was, Keith could not make himself walk away from it yet. Lance moved around the bathroom quietly gathering things without looking directly at him. Keith noticed that too. Not avoidance exactly. More like caution. Like Lance assumed the silence meant Keith was still thinking about the pod thing. Still waiting to push. Still trying to figure him out.

And honestly? Keith was. He kept replaying the moment in his head whether he wanted to or not. 'Please don’t make me'. The fear in Lance’s voice had lodged somewhere under Keith’s ribs and stayed there. Everything about tonight sat wrong inside him now. The wound. The recklessness. The way Lance spoke about himself like he was temporary.

Keith frowned harder. He always seemed to come back to anger eventually. Like his emotions circled endlessly until they sharpened themselves into something easier to hold.

But this anger felt different. It was restless. Uneasy. It sat in his chest and made his pulse too noticeable. Made his thoughts race too quickly. Made him want to grab Lance by the shoulders and shake every self-destructive instinct out of him permanently. The problem was that underneath all of it lurked something Keith was much less willing to examine.

Fear.

Not mission fear. Not battle fear. Personal fear. The possibility of losing Lance had cracked something open tonight, and Keith still did not know what to do with the aftermath.

Lance picked up the last of the bandages from the counter.

“Guess I should probably sleep before Coran notices I lost half my blood volume,” he muttered lightly.

The joke sounded practiced. Automatic. Keith hated it instantly. Because there it was again, that smile Lance wore over everything. That effortless little shield he pulled back into place whenever things got too real. And Keith suddenly realized with painful clarity that he did not want Lance to leave the bathroom and disappear behind that expression again.

He did not want the walls back up. Did not want the lying. Did not want Lance shoving him away like none of tonight had happened.

Keith reacted before thinking. Which, admittedly, explained most of the bad decisions in his life. Lance had just stepped past him toward the doorway when Keith reached out abruptly and grabbed his uninjured arm. Harder than intended. Lance stumbled backward slightly with a startled breath.

“Keith—?”

Keith stood too quickly, the movement clumsy from sitting on the tile too long. The bathroom suddenly felt far too small around them. Lance looked up at him immediately, confusion pulling his brows together. Keith knew that look. Lance thought another argument was coming. Another lecture. Another fight.

Keith could practically see the question forming already at the edge of his mouth. And maybe Keith should have let him ask it. Maybe he should have thought for one goddamn second before acting.

Unfortunately, Keith had never been particularly good at that. His impulses always outran his judgment by several catastrophic miles.

So instead of speaking, Keith pulled him closer and kissed him. Fast. Hard. Entirely without planning. Lance made a small startled noise against his mouth, the unfinished question dissolving instantly into warmth and breath.

And for one terrifying second Keith’s brain simply stopped functioning.

Because oh.

Oh.

Lance’s lips were warm.

Softer than Keith expected somehow despite the sharp inhale of surprise between them. Keith could still taste faint traces of adrenaline and exhaustion on him beneath the sterile bitterness of medical disinfectant lingering in the air.

Keith’s hand tightened instinctively around Lance’s arm. This was a mistake. A massive one. He knew that immediately. Because they were exhausted and emotionally wrecked and Lance was injured and Keith had apparently decided the perfect response to all of that was to kiss him without warning like a complete idiot.

But the worst part, the truly dangerous part;

Was that it felt right anyway. Not sensible. Not smart. Just right in the awful instinctive way some truths arrived before thought had the chance to interfere.

Lance stayed frozen for exactly one heartbeat. Then Keith felt him breathe. Felt the sharp tension leave him all at once in a shaky exhale against Keith’s mouth. And suddenly Lance was kissing him back. Not cautiously. Not uncertainly.

Hungry.

The force of it startled Keith enough that he loosened his grip automatically, only for Lance to close the distance himself immediately afterward. His good hand caught against the front of Keith’s armor, fingers curling hard into the black material like he needed something solid to anchor himself to.

Keith’s pulse went violent. The kiss deepened almost instantly after that. Messy at first. Too much emotion and not enough coordination.

Lance kissed like he argued: all intensity once he committed to it. Frustration and relief and exhaustion tangled together into something hot and overwhelming between them.

Keith barely realized he had backed Lance against the counter until the edge of it pressed softly against Lance’s lower back. The movement pulled a quiet pained sound from him. Keith broke the kiss immediately.

“Shit,” he breathed.

Lance’s eyes looked dark when Keith pulled back. His lips were flushed slightly swollen already, chest rising unevenly beneath the white bandages crossing his shoulder. For one disorienting second neither of them spoke. Keith became abruptly aware of everything at once. Their breathing. The closeness. The fact that his hand had somehow ended up spread against Lance’s waist. The fact that Lance was still gripping the front of his armor tightly enough not to have let go.

Keith stared at him. Lance stared back. And somewhere underneath the exhaustion and adrenaline and lingering fear, something warm unfurled slowly inside Keith’s chest for the very first time.

Keith braced one hand hard against the counter beside Lance’s hip to keep from collapsing fully into him. The metal dug cold and unforgiving into his palm. Everything else felt hot.

Lance was half-pinned between Keith and the sink now, his lower back arched instinctively against the edge of the counter while he tried carefully not to jostle the injured shoulder. One arm rested awkwardly behind him for balance, bandaged shoulder stark white against warm brown skin, while his other hand remained fisted tightly in the front of Keith’s armor.

Keith could feel every uneven breath Lance took. Could feel them where their chests nearly touched. Where their thighs pressed together. Where heat pooled thickly between them in the cramped bathroom air. The kiss had broken only seconds ago, but Keith still felt it lingering everywhere. On his mouth. In his pulse. In the dangerous way his body kept wanting to move closer instead of farther away.

Lance looked wrecked.

His lips were flushed, slightly parted from breathing too hard. His curls had fallen further into his face from where Keith’s hands had brushed against them accidentally during the kiss. His blue eyes looked darker somehow under the bathroom light, pupils blown wide enough that the color around them sharpened painfully.

And Keith saw the exact moment awareness returned to him. It happened visibly. Lance blinked once. Then again. His eyes widened slightly as realization caught up with what they had just done and what they were currently doing and how close Keith still was. His mouth opened like he wanted to say something.

Keith knew that look. Lance thought too much. Even in battle his brain never stopped moving, calculating possibilities and outcomes faster than anyone else on the team. It was one of the things Keith secretly admired most about him. Lance adapted impossibly fast under pressure, turning panic into strategy before anyone else had fully processed the problem.

But outside missions? Outside battle? That same brain turned cruel on him. Keith had noticed it long ago even if Lance pretended otherwise. The overthinking. The constant second-guessing hidden beneath jokes and flirting and exaggerated confidence.

And Keith could practically hear it happening now. The hesitation. The caution. The instinctive need to analyze this before it got dangerous.

“Keith…”

There it was. Soft. Wary. Lance’s fingers tightened unconsciously against the front of Keith’s armor as though grounding himself. Keith suddenly realized with startling clarity that he was exhausted.

Exhausted of restraint.

Exhausted of pretending every argument between them did not carry too much heat underneath it. Exhausted of carefully redirecting every moment that got too close to becoming something else.

They were in a war. People died constantly. Lance could have died today. Keith had spent the last hour with blood under his fingernails and terror lodged behind his ribs and the horrible realization that there might never be enough time left to keep pretending he did not want this.

Did not want him.

Fear had dictated too much already. Keith was done obeying it. Lance opened his mouth again, probably to say his name one more time in that cautious uncertain tone—

Keith kissed him before the thought could fully form. Harder this time. Not startled anymore. Intentional. Lance made a deeper sound against his mouth immediately, something soft and rough pulled from the back of his throat by surprise and heat all at once.

Keith’s hand tightened sharply against his waist. He could feel warm skin beneath his palm, smooth and alive and impossibly soft compared to the cold metal counter supporting his other hand. The contrast sent a shiver violently down his spine every single time Lance shifted against him.

And Lance did shift against him. Careful of the injured shoulder, but still meeting him halfway despite the caution.

Keith kissed like he fought: direct, intense, all-consuming once committed.

Teeth scraped briefly together in their urgency. Keith leaned forward further without thinking, forcing Lance backward into the sink with a breathless little gasp that immediately went straight to Keith’s bloodstream.

Their thighs pressed fully together now. Armor against under suit. Heat against heat. Lance’s pulse fluttered wildly beneath Keith’s hand. Keith became devastatingly aware of every inch of contact between them. The flex of Lance’s stomach when he inhaled sharply. The warmth of his mouth opening under Keith’s. The way Lance’s fingers curled tighter and tighter into the chest plate of Keith’s armor like he could not decide whether to anchor him closer or push him away entirely.

Lance nudged at Keith’s chest suddenly. Not hard. Just enough to create the smallest sliver of space between their mouths. The kiss barely broke. Their breaths still mingled together in hot uneven bursts.

“Keith,” Lance muttered against his lips.

Then he kissed him again immediately afterward before Keith could answer. The second kiss felt rougher. Needier. Like Lance had stopped trying to pretend he did not want this too. Keith’s brain dissolved pleasantly for several dangerous seconds after that. His hand slid slightly against Lance’s waist, thumb brushing accidentally over warm skin near his hip.

Lance shivered hard. The reaction shot straight through Keith.

Lance pushed lightly at his chest again.This time the kiss broke properly. Barely. They remained close enough that Keith could still feel Lance’s breath ghosting warm across his mouth.

“Keith,” Lance said again.

His voice sounded different now. Breathless. Slightly shaky. Keith forced himself to look up instead of staring at Lance’s mouth like an idiot.

Blue eyes met his immediately.

Lance was studying him closely, brows drawn together in confusion and something softer underneath it. Keith could practically see thoughts colliding behind his expression at impossible speed. Keith exhaled unevenly.

“Yeah?”

Lance swallowed hard. Keith watched the movement happen. His hand slipped slightly against the front of Keith’s armor until his palm rested flat over Keith’s chest plate instead. As though trying to feel the heartbeat beneath it.

“What are we doing?” Lance asked quietly.

The words unraveled into a nervous half-ramble almost immediately afterward.

“What— Keith, what is this? Because we were literally screaming at each other ten minutes ago and now you’re—”

“Stop.”

Keith’s voice cut through the spiral softly but firmly. Lance blinked.

“What?”

Keith leaned back just enough to give them room to breathe properly. Not enough to truly separate.

“Stop,” he repeated more quietly. “Thinking so much.”

Lance frowned immediately. Keith could almost pinpoint the exact second hurt flickered across his face. Like he thought Keith meant stop talking. Stop ruining this. Keith shook his head quickly before the expression could settle there.

“No,” he muttered, pulling both hands away entirely so he could actually speak without grabbing Lance again. “That’s not what I mean.”

The sudden lack of contact felt horrible immediately. Keith ignored that too. He dragged one hand roughly through his hair instead, pacing half a step backward before stopping himself. Because there was nowhere to pace in this tiny bathroom. Nowhere to escape the truth once it had already started spilling out.

“I’m tired,” Keith admitted.

Lance stared at him silently. Keith laughed once under his breath, humorless and exhausted.

“I’m so fucking tired of acting like this doesn’t exist.”

The words hung heavily in the air. Lance’s eyes widened slightly. Keith kept going before fear could stop him.

“I’m tired of overthinking every single thing around you,” he said roughly. “Tired of worrying about screwing things up every time we get too close to each other.”

His throat tightened painfully.

“But mostly I’m tired of being scared.”

Lance looked stunned now. Keith could feel his own pulse hammering violently under his skin.

“If I got this wrong,” he said quickly, “if I completely misread everything, then fine. I’ll leave right now. We never talk about it again if that’s what you want.”

The words tasted awful. But Keith forced them out anyway.

“We can go back to normal,” he continued. “Back to fighting and annoying each other and pretending none of this is happening.”

Lance still had not spoken. Keith searched his face desperately for something. Anything. Then admitted the part that mattered most.

“But that’s not what I want.”

The confession came out quieter than everything else. Honest in a way Keith rarely allowed himself to be.

“I’ve been terrified to do anything because I thought I’d ruin whatever this is between us,” he said. “And then today happened and—”

His breath caught briefly. Keith looked away for one second before forcing himself back.

“I was more scared of losing you than I was of ruining this.”

The silence afterward felt enormous. Lance just stared at him. Completely motionless. Keith suddenly became horribly aware of everything he had just said. Too much. Way too much. He had absolutely destroyed any chance of pretending this was just impulse now. Panic started clawing slowly up the back of his throat.

He should back away. Say something else. Fix it. Keith shifted backward slightly already preparing to retreat when Lance finally inhaled shakily.

“I'm scared too,” he whispered.

The words barely existed. Just breath and honesty and something unbearably vulnerable underneath. Keith looked up sharply. And then Lance grabbed the back of his neck and kissed him hard enough to erase every coherent thought from his mind.

Though thought had already abandoned him somewhere between Lance’s shaky confession and the feeling of Lance’s fingers sliding into his hair. Everything afterward became instinct. Heat. Motion. Keith’s hand returned immediately to Lance’s hip, fingers spreading wide over warm skin before pushing him backward with enough force that Lance hit the counter again with a soft startled grunt.

Neither of them broke the kiss. The sound only made something low and desperate tighten in Keith’s chest. Lance leaned back against the sink awkwardly, injured arm carefully braced away from pressure while his good hand tangled deeper into Keith’s hair. His fingers curled there with surprising strength, nails scraping lightly against Keith’s scalp as he tilted his head instinctively to let the kiss deepen.

Keith took the opening immediately. A rough sound escaped him as he pushed forward again, mouth sliding harder against Lance’s.

God. He wanted. That was the only coherent thing left in his brain now. Wanted Lance flushed and breathless beneath his hands. Wanted every sharp inhale and every shiver and every tiny sound Lance kept trying unsuccessfully to swallow back into silence.

Keith kissed like someone starving. There was no restraint left in it anymore.

His hands roamed desperately over Lance’s torso, palms dragging over warm skin and lean muscle with barely-contained urgency. Everywhere he touched felt hot. Alive. Lance fit under his hands so perfectly it made Keith feel almost dizzy.

One hand slid up Lance’s side, thumb brushing against the curve of his ribs while the other gripped firmly at his waist to keep him close. Careful of the shoulder. But everywhere else—

Everywhere else Keith touched him with rough hungry need. Like he had spent months restraining himself without realizing how close to breaking he already was. Lance made another breathless sound when Keith pressed forward harder, thighs slotting fully between his as the kiss turned messy again. Teeth scraped together briefly before Keith’s tongue pushed insistently against Lance’s mouth.

Lance opened for him with a soft noise pulled helplessly from deep in his throat. That sound nearly killed Keith on the spot. Heat surged violently through him as he deepened the kiss immediately, tongue sliding against Lance’s in slow desperate strokes that made Lance’s grip tighten sharply in his hair.

Keith groaned softly against his mouth. The sound vibrated between them. Lance responded instantly. His head tipped back slightly against the counter as he pulled lightly at Keith’s hair again, and Keith felt the reaction all the way down his spine.

Their legs kept brushing together with every uneven movement, friction building steadily between them until Keith could barely think around it anymore.

Lance was warm everywhere. Warm mouth. Warm skin. Warm breath spilling against Keith’s lips every time they paused for air before crashing together again. Keith realized dimly that he was pressing Lance farther and farther backward with every kiss, forcing his lower back into a sharper arch against the counter.

It should not have been physically possible for someone to bend like that. And yet Lance somehow managed it anyway, body yielding beneath Keith’s hands in a way that felt dangerously addictive.

Keith could not get enough. He wanted closer. he wanted more.

They finally broke apart only because breathing became necessary again. Keith’s lungs burned. Lance looked equally wrecked for air, chest rising sharply beneath the white bandages crossing his shoulder. His lips were flushed dark now, swollen slightly from kissing, curls completely ruined where Keith kept grabbing at them.

Keith barely gave either of them time to inhale before his mouth dropped immediately to Lance’s neck. Lance gasped. The sound punched straight through Keith. He kissed just beneath Lance’s jaw first, slow open-mouthed kisses against warm sensitive skin while Lance’s head tipped backward instinctively to give him more room.

Keith took that too. His lips dragged lower. Hot. Wet. Needy. He kissed along the line of Lance’s throat with growing desperation, teeth grazing lightly over skin whenever Lance made particularly good sounds beneath him.

And Lance made a lot of good sounds. Sharp little gasps. Breathless exhales. Half-swallowed noises every time Keith sucked lightly at a sensitive spot beneath his jaw. Keith’s hands locked firmly around Lance’s hips to hold him steady when he arched hard against the counter.

“Keith—”

The name dissolved into another gasp when Keith bit gently at the side of his neck. Lance’s fingers tightened painfully in his hair. Keith groaned against his skin in response.

God.

He could stay here forever. Lance flushed beneath his mouth while Keith kissed every inch of skin he could reach. His freckles became impossible to ignore at this distance. Tiny scattered constellations across his shoulders and throat and collarbone. Keith wanted all of them. Every single one. He was absolutely going to kiss every freckle on Lance’s body eventually. The thought arrived with startling seriousness.

Lance let out a shaky breath.

“It’s not— ah— fair,” he managed weakly.

Keith was too busy kissing his way down toward the curve of Lance’s shoulder to process the words immediately.

“Hm?”

Lance tugged harder at his hair this time until Keith finally lifted his head. They both looked thoroughly ruined already. Keith could feel it in himself, breathing uneven, hair a mess, thoughts reduced entirely to Lance Lance Lance.

And Lance,

Lance looked devastating. His lips were kiss-bruised and parted. His face flushed warm all the way down his throat. His eyes looked hazy and dark with want beneath furrowed brows struggling desperately to stay coherent.

“It’s not fair,” Lance repeated breathlessly.

Keith blinked slowly at him, still gripping his hips.

“What isn’t?”

Lance’s mouth curved suddenly into something dangerously pleased. Then he tugged meaningfully at the front of Keith’s armor. The realization hit Keith all at once. Lance was standing there in nothing but under suit pants and bandages while Keith remained fully dressed in paladin armor like an idiot.

“Oh,” Keith breathed.

Lance’s grin widened slightly.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

Keith stared at him for one suspended second longer.

Then asked quietly, “What do you want?”

Lance did not hesitate even slightly.

“Take it off.”

The words shot straight through Keith’s bloodstream. A rough laugh escaped him before he could stop it.

“Yes, sir.”

Lance made a startled noise somewhere between a laugh and a gasp as Keith immediately started tearing armor pieces off himself with absolutely no patience whatsoever.

The chest plate came first. Keith yanked it loose hastily enough that it nearly slipped from his hands entirely before clattering loudly against the bathroom floor. Neither of them cared. Lance’s hands joined in immediately afterward, fingers fumbling eagerly with clasps and straps while Keith kissed him again between hurried movements.

Everything became messy after that. Too many hands. Too much urgency. Lance’s fingers slid beneath the edge of Keith’s under suit while Keith struggled one-handed with shoulder armor clasps because he could not stop kissing him long enough to focus properly.

Their mouths kept reconnecting every few seconds like separation itself had become unbearable. Lance laughed breathlessly against Keith’s lips at one point when Keith nearly got tangled in his own armor trying to remove it too quickly.

The sound made Keith grin helplessly into the next kiss. Warm hands slid over his waist. Across his stomach. Underneath the edges of his under suit. Keith shivered violently. Lance noticed immediately. His smile turned devastating.

“Oh,” he murmured softly against Keith’s mouth. “So you’re sensitive too.”

Keith answered by kissing him hard enough to steal the rest of the sentence entirely. Keith’s armor hit the bathroom floor with a heavy metallic clatter that echoed too loudly in the enclosed space.

For a split second, neither of them reacted to it. Because Lance’s mouth was still on his. Because Keith’s hands were still somewhere between pulling Lance closer and trying to keep himself from completely losing control of the situation.

Then Lance’s warm fingers slid down to the hem of Keith’s under suit. The fabric was tight, stubborn, designed for function rather than ease, and it clung to Keith’s torso in a way that suddenly felt like a personal insult. Especially when Lance clearly had zero intention of stopping what he was doing long enough to make this easier.

They had drifted away from the counter at some point during the armor removal, Keith barely remembered when, and now they were half-stumbling over discarded pieces of plating scattered across the tile floor. Metal shifted underfoot with small clinks and scrapes as they moved, neither of them fully coordinated anymore, too distracted by the other to care much about balance.

Lance tugged harder at the bottom of Keith’s under suit shirt, impatient and slightly breathless, while still trying to kiss him between movements that kept breaking apart at the worst possible moments.

Keith let out a frustrated grunt against his mouth.

“Wait—”

Lance did not wait. Of course he didn’t. Instead, he used the moment Keith shifted his grip to help him tug at his own shirt to slide his hands higher along Keith’s torso. Warm palms pressed directly against bare skin as the under suit rode up unevenly, exposing more and more of Keith’s chest and stomach inch by inch.

The contrast hit Keith immediately. Lance’s hands were warm. Almost too warm. Caramel-colored skin against pale under layers of exposed muscle, fingers spreading over him like he was trying to memorize the shape of him through touch alone. Keith shivered sharply. It was immediate and involuntary. A reaction so obvious it made something in his chest tighten painfully.

And Lance noticed. Of course he noticed. Because Lance noticed everything when it mattered. A faint, pleased sound slipped from him at the reaction, barely audible, but enough to make Keith’s focus fracture completely for a second. And while Keith was distracted trying to get the shirt over his head, Lance took full advantage.

He dropped lower. Not fully kneeling yet, not quite, but enough that his mouth found Keith’s stomach through the shifting fabric. Keith froze. Then sucked in a sharp breath. Because Lance kissed him there. Open-mouthed. Slow. Warm. The sensation alone was enough to short-circuit every remaining coherent thought Keith had been trying to hold onto.

Lance did it again. Teeth grazing lightly against skin through the last barrier of fabric before Keith finally gave up entirely on restraint and yanked the under suit up and over his head in one rough motion. The shirt came free with a sharp pull. Keith tossed it somewhere behind him without looking.

It landed with a soft, irrelevant thud. For a moment, there was nothing left between them but space and breath and heat. Keith stood there half-bare in the middle of the bathroom, chest rising too fast, skin still tingling where Lance had just been kissing him like he had no intention of stopping anytime soon.

And Lance—

Lance made a small sound of approval that went straight through him. He was still half crouched in front of Keith, hands resting lightly against Keith’s thighs for balance, looking up at him like he had just uncovered something he very much intended to keep.

Keith’s skin flushed under his gaze. He hated how obvious it felt. Lance leaned forward again like he was about to continue—

And Keith snapped. Not angrily. Not harshly. Just suddenly. Instinctively. He reached down and grabbed Lance by the hair. Not painfully. But firmly enough to halt him mid-motion and tilt his head back. Lance let out a sharp breath of surprise as his neck arched, curls slipping through Keith’s fingers while he was guided upward.

Keith felt it instantly. The way Lance’s entire focus snapped back to him in an instant. Blue eyes met his. Half-lidded. Wide with heat and something dangerously soft underneath it. His cheeks were flushed now, color high across his cheekbones and down his neck, lips parted slightly from breath and movement and the interruption of whatever he had been about to do next.

Keith stared. Really stared. Because Lance looked—

Fuck.

Lance looked gone in a way Keith had never seen before. Not reckless. Not joking. Not performing confidence like armor. Just open. Wanting. Breathing too fast, fingers still loosely gripping Keith’s thighs like he needed something solid to keep him grounded.

Keith’s grip on his hair loosened slightly as something in his chest twisted hard. He moved his hand down instead. From hair to jaw. Guiding Lance’s chin up gently until there was no choice but to keep looking at him. Keith exhaled shakily, then pulled him up.

Lance rose easily with him, unsteady only because of how close they were, because of how quickly everything had shifted from teasing heat to something slower and heavier without either of them fully noticing the transition.

As soon as Lance was close enough, Keith kissed him again. This time differently. No rushing. No teeth. No frantic urgency trying to outrun fear or thought or consequence. Just— Warmth.

Keith’s lips pressed to Lance’s slowly, deeply, like he was trying to communicate something he did not have words for. Something that had been building since the moment Lance had said he was scared too. Since the moment Keith had admitted he was terrified. Since the moment everything between them had stopped being something they avoided and became something they could not ignore anymore.

Lance made a soft sound against his mouth. Not surprised this time. More like relief. His hands slid upward from Keith’s thighs to his chest, resting there flat against bare skin. His touch softened immediately, fingers spreading gently as though anchoring himself there.

Keith felt it everywhere. The contact. The trust. The fact that Lance was not pulling away anymore. The kiss deepened slowly on its own accord, not rushed this time, just steady and deliberate. Keith felt Lance melt into it in real time, tension draining from his shoulders as he leaned closer instead of away.

Keith kept one hand at his waist, steadying him carefully. The other stayed near his jaw, holding him in place like something precious.

For once Keith did not feel like he was about to lose control of everything. He felt like he was choosing it.

Choosing him.

Keith didn’t ease into it this time.

Whatever fragile softness had settled between them only seconds ago shattered the moment impatience surged back through him, hot, immediate, impossible to contain. The careful gentleness of the kiss dissolved into something sharper, needier, almost frantic in its intensity as Keith shifted his grip on Lance’s jaw.

His hand slid lower, fingers curling at the side of Lance’s neck, thumb pressing lightly there in a way that made Lance inhale sharply against his mouth.

His other hand tightened at Lance’s hip, firm enough to anchor him as Keith guided them both across the cramped bathroom. Metal armor clinked faintly under their shifting steps where it lay scattered across the floor, forgotten in messy pieces. Keith didn’t care about any of it anymore. There was only Lance, warm under his hands, breathing unevenly into his mouth, moving with him even when he didn’t fully have balance to spare.

The wall came up behind Lance abruptly. Keith didn’t slow down. He pressed him back against it with a controlled but forceful motion, enough to pin him there without hesitation.

The kiss broke on impact. A sharp sound escaped Lance immediately, half gasp, half yelp, instantly wrong in tone, instantly different from everything that had come before.

Keith froze. It was like someone had snapped a cord inside his chest.

His mouth pulled away immediately, hands loosening at once as if he’d been burned by the realization. His breath came out uneven as he stepped back just enough to look at Lance properly, eyes scanning him in a sudden, sharp panic that cut through everything else.

“Shit—” Keith muttered, voice low and rough with alarm. “Lance, I—are you okay? Did I—”

His eyes dropped instinctively to Lance’s shoulder before Lance even had to say anything. The bandages. The injury. Keith’s stomach sank.

Lance was pressed against the wall, one arm braced awkwardly, his expression tightened in a brief flash of pain before he forced it back under control. He turned his head slightly, jaw clenched, as if checking the angle of the injury himself.

Then, exhaling through his nose, he gave Keith a look that was half annoyed, half strained.

“It’s fine,” he said, though his voice didn’t quite match the words. “Just—maybe don’t try to redecorate the bathroom with my spine until I’m not half-mangled, mullet boy.”

Despite everything, there was still that familiar edge in his tone. That attempt at humor, even now. Keith let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Relief and guilt twisted together in his chest so tightly it almost hurt.

“Yeah,” he said quickly, nodding once, too fast. “Yeah, okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t— I wasn’t thinking.”

Which was, unfortunately, the truth. His hands hovered for a second like he wasn’t sure where they were allowed to be anymore. Like the sudden shift from urgency to caution had left him temporarily unanchored.

Lance shifted slightly against the wall again, testing his shoulder carefully before letting out a quiet breath. Keith noticed everything. Every wince. Every controlled movement. Every attempt to hide discomfort.

Keith swallowed.

“I’ll be more careful,” he added, quieter this time.

Lance gave him a look like he was deciding whether or not to believe that. Then, after a beat, he just sighed.

“Yeah,” he said again, softer. “You better.”

Keith nodded once more, and before he could overthink it, before the hesitation could rebuild itself, he leaned forward and pressed a slow, careful kiss to Lance’s bandaged shoulder.

It was gentle. Intentional. An apology without words. Lance’s breath hitched slightly anyway.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, voice less sharp now. More real.

Keith stayed there for a moment longer than necessary, forehead almost brushing Lance’s shoulder before he finally pulled back.

His hand returned cautiously to Lance’s waist, lighter this time, more mindful. The other braced against the wall beside him, not pinning, just steadying himself.

Lance exhaled slowly as Keith began trailing his mouth upward again. This time, it was different. Slower. Deliberate. Keith kissed along the edge of Lance’s shoulder carefully, avoiding the injured side entirely, letting his lips travel along untouched skin instead. The freckles there caught his attention again, soft, scattered across warm brown skin like something deliberately placed rather than accidental.

Keith paused against one of them for a second longer than the rest. Then continued upward. Lance’s breathing shifted almost immediately, less sharp now, more unsteady in a different way. His head tipped slightly to the side as Keith moved, giving him access without even thinking about it.

Keith felt something in his chest tighten. Not hunger this time. Something steadier. Something that made his hands slow instead of tighten. He kissed the line of Lance’s neck carefully, taking his time now, learning rather than rushing. The earlier desperation was still there, simmering under his skin, but it no longer controlled him the same way.

Lance made a small sound when Keith lingered just beneath his jaw. Not loud. Just honest. Keith felt it like a pulse under his own skin. His grip on Lance’s waist tightened slightly in response, grounding himself.

And then, inevitably, impatience crept back in, but this time it wasn’t chaos. It was focus. Intention sharpened into action. Keith pressed a little closer again. Just enough that Lance shifted against the wall. Just enough that the space between them disappeared again. A breath caught in Lance’s throat.

Keith kissed the side of his neck again, slower now, more controlled, and felt Lance’s fingers thread back into his hair instinctively, gripping lightly. The sound Lance made this time when Keith sucked gently at a sensitive spot beneath his jaw was unmistakable.

Heat flared immediately, sharp and clean.

Lance’s breath broke on a shaky inhale, his head tipping back further against the wall as Keith continued, kissing down and then back up again like he was mapping him out slowly, deliberately. Every reaction Lance gave him felt like information Keith wanted to memorize. Every small sound. Every shift in breath. Every tightening of fingers in his hair. Keith exhaled against his skin, almost disbelieving how responsive he was.

How honest.

He could feel Lance’s pulse beneath his mouth now, fast and uneven, and it made something inside Keith twist sharply with wanting. Keith moved higher along his neck, kissing just under his jaw again, slower this time, lingering there until Lance let out another broken breath that sounded almost like his name.

Keith felt the tremor that ran through Lance’s body before he heard the soft, choked-off gasp. The sound was a delicate thing, barely more than a warm breath against the shell of his ear, but it ignited something primal and deep within Keith’s chest.

He’d been mapping the column of Lance’s neck with a dedicated, almost reverent focus, his mouth a brand against the heated skin. Each kiss was a question, each flick of his tongue a search for the specific coordinates that would unravel the composure Lance was so desperately trying to maintain.

The spot he’d just discovered, where the strong line of Lance’s jaw met the vulnerable dip beneath it, was a masterpiece. Keith lingered there, sucking gently before letting his teeth graze the skin, a subtle threat and promise all at once.
The reaction was immediate. Lance’s breath hitched, turning shallow and hazy. The hands that had been loosely tangled in Keith’s hair tightened their grip, fingertips digging into his scalp in a silent plea. Another breath, and then his name, Keith, exhaled on a sigh that was all surrender and want.
Keith closed his eyes, committing the sound to memory. He could get drunk on the way Lance said his name like that, each syllable softened and warmed by those flushed, rosy lips, as if it were a secret or a prayer meant only for the dark space between them.

Driven by a hunger that was equal parts tenderness and need, Keith moved upwards, his lips tracing a slow, burning path along the exposed line of Lance’s throat.
He took his time, savoring the pulse that fluttered wildly against his mouth, learning the landscape. He sought out the spots that made Lance’s breath catch, the ones that caused a full-body shiver to ripple through him, the ones that forced a tight, needy little noise from the back of his throat that Lance instantly tried to swallow back.

God, how Keith loved those noises. They were raw and honest, a stark contrast to Lance’s usual, performative bravado. A thought, dark and thrilling, curled in his mind: what would he sound like if I really let go? Would he be loud? Keith hoped so. He wanted to drown in the sound of Lance coming apart for him.

Patience, a virtue he’d never truly possessed, finally snapped. The wondering wasn’t enough. He needed to know. With a low growl that vibrated against Lance’s skin, Keith sealed his mouth over a point high on his neck, sucking hard, marking the territory as his teeth pressed in a claiming bite, his tongue soothing the sting. At the same instant, he shifted his stance, pushing his thigh firmly between Lance’s legs, grinding up in a slow, deliberate roll of pressure.

The effect was instantaneous and devastating. A soft, surprised moan was punched from Lance’s lungs, a sound so beautifully involuntary it sent a shockwave of pure heat down Keith’s spine, making him shiver with the force of his own desire.
But the victory was short-lived. Almost as fast as the sound had escaped, Lance’s free hand flew up to clamp over his own mouth, muffling any follow-up. His other hand tightened painfully in Keith’s hair, a conflicting signal of don’t stop and I’m embarrassed written in the tension of his fingers.

Keith could see the brilliant, telling flush of pink spreading across Lance’s cheekbones and down his neck, visible even in the dim light. The shyness, the attempt to hide, it was a spark to tinder.

Keith’s lips found the incredibly soft spot just under Lance’s jaw, kissing it gently even as he felt the undeniable, thrilling evidence of Lance’s arousal pressed hot and heavy against his thigh.
He pressed his leg forward again, increasing the friction, and was rewarded with another moan, this one stifled and strained behind the barrier of Lance’s palm, a ghost of the sound it wanted to be.

A fierce frustration surged through Keith. This was bullshit. For all Lance’s loud, proud proclamations and flirtatious confidence in the light of day, here in the shadows where it mattered, he was trying to silence himself.
As if his pleasure was something to be ashamed of. As if the sounds he made were not the most beautiful music Keith had ever heard. Keith was having absolutely none of it.

The hand that had been braced against the wall, holding them both upright in their secluded corner, moved with purpose.
It wasn’t rough, but it was firm and unyielding as it closed over Lance’s wrist and pulled his hand away from his mouth, pinning it back against the cold surface beside his head.

Keith never broke contact, his lips still moving against the damp skin of Lance’s neck as he spoke, his voice a low, gritty murmur that was meant for Lance’s ears alone.

“I want to hear you,” he breathed, the words more felt than heard. “Don’t hide from me.”

A full-body shudder racked Lance at the command, a tremor so profound Keith felt it in his own bones. Seizing the advantage, Keith kept Lance’s wrist pinned against the wall, intertwining their fingers for a moment before settling into a firm grip.
Then he pushed his thigh up again, a harder, more deliberate grind that stole the air from Lance’s lungs and pulled a sound from him that was everything Keith had been craving, a loud, sharp gasp that melted seamlessly into a long, helpless moan, utterly unrestrained and beautifully clear.

Fuck.

The word echoed in Keith’s mind, a blunt testament to the wave of desire that crashed over him. He wanted to hear it again.
He wanted to learn the entire symphony of Lance’s pleasure, to memorize every gasp, every sigh, every broken cry that he could draw out with the right touch, the right pressure, the right whispered word.

Driven by this singular need, Keith bent his knee, shifting the angle so the pressure against Lance’s groin was more direct, more insistent.

Lance’s head fell back completely against the wall with a soft thud, his eyes squeezing shut as a ragged, breathy curse was torn from him. “Fuck, Keith—ah!”

The sound was choked, halfway between a moan and a sob, and it was the most potent thing Keith had ever experienced. A slow, wicked smile curved his lips against the sweat-damp skin of Lance’s neck.
He placed one more open-mouthed kiss there before pulling back just enough to murmur, his tone dripping with feigned innocence.

“Hmm?” He followed the teasing question with another deliberate roll of his hip, grinding his knee upward.

Lance’s pinned hand twisted under his, not to break free, but in a spasm of overwhelmed sensation. His body shifted, arching and then trying to curl in on itself, a dance of conflicting urges.
Between sharp, ragged inhales, Lance found his voice, though it was strained and airy.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” he gasped out, the words lacking any real heat, saturated instead with a desperate kind of wonder. “You know… you know exactly what you’re doing.”

Keith shook his head slowly, his nose brushing Lance’s hair as he moved to a new spot, high on his neck, perilously close to his ear. He sucked the skin there gently, feeling Lance jolt, before murmuring against it, his voice a low, vibrating hum.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The lie was delivered with a kiss. Then, he pushed his knee up again, a slow, relentless pressure that promised no reprieve.

This time, the sound Lance made was a wet, broken whimper that seemed to come from the very core of him. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated need, and it ignited a matching, frantic hunger in Keith that threatened to consume his last shreds of control.
The shyness was gone, burned away by the escalating friction. Lance’s voice, when he found it again, was stronger, laced with a raw frustration that was also an admission.

“You’re—ah—such an asshole,” he repeated, the words tumbling out between gasps, his hips moving in an involuntary, tiny grind against Keith’s leg. “Toying with me… fucking toying with me…”

Keith just held him there, against the wall, in the space they’d carved out for themselves, listening to the beautiful, unfiltered truth of Lance’s pleasure, and knew he would do anything to hear it forever.

Keith's mouth found Lance's once again. He would never get tired of his neck, but he had missed the warmth of Lance's lips against his own, the particular way they fit together like puzzle pieces made from heat and longing.
And fuck, had he been right to return. As soon as their mouths collided and Keith's thigh pressed harder between Lance's legs, Lance let out a moan that vibrated directly into the kiss, a sound that Keith felt in his teeth, in his chest, everywhere. Keith was discovering so many things in this moment, things he had only imagined in the dark privacy of his own mind.

He had always known he would enjoy hearing Lance come undone, he had fantasized about it enough, but discovering that he could swallow those sounds, that he could take them into his own mouth and keep them, hoard them like treasure? That was an entirely different revelation, one that made his blood sing.

Keith's tongue pressed between Lance's teeth, insistent and demanding, forcing the other boy to open his mouth and let him in. Keith had dreamed of this for so long, had wondered if the reality would ever live up to the fevered imaginings that had kept him awake during late nights on the Castle ship.
He had wondered if it ever happened, would it be just like he imagined? The answer was devastating in its simplicity: it was ten times better.

The heat and the wetness of Lance's lips, the heavy, needy, hungry kisses that crashed teeth and mouths together in Lance's bathroom, the way Lance's body arched into his like he was trying to merge them into one being, it was everything they were, fiery and impulsive and desperately passionate. Keith swallowed every noise Lance made each time he ground his leg upward, each sound a confirmation that he was doing this right, that he was giving Lance exactly what he needed.

And now that Lance had found his voice again, he was not going quiet. He cursed at Keith between kisses, his words coming out broken and breathless, insults that held no real venom, just desperation wrapped in bravado.

"You—fucking—you're such a—" Lance gasped as Keith rolled his hips just so, his head thunking back against the wall before he forced himself forward again, chasing Keith's mouth. "You're doing this on purpose, you bastard. You know exactly—fuck—you know what you're doing to me."

Keith nodded against Lance's jaw, his stubble catching on soft skin as he pressed open-mouthed kisses to the corner of Lance's smile, the hollow of his cheek, anywhere he could reach.

"Maybe," Keith murmured, the word half-swallowed by Lance's neck, his voice rough and unrecognizable even to himself. "Tell me what you want, Lance. Use your words."

It was cruel, perhaps, to ask this of him when Lance was already struggling to string syllables together between moans, when his breath was coming in ragged gasps that made his chest heave against Keith's. But Keith couldn't help himself, he wanted to hear it, wanted Lance to say it out loud so there would be no doubt, no room for second-guessing later in the quiet aftermath.

Lance snapped at him, but there was no heat behind it, just a wild, frantic energy that made his hand, still pinned above his head by Keith's firm grip, flex and curl into fists.

"You—asshole—you already know what I want," Lance managed, his voice cracking as Keith shifted his weight, pressing their hips together in a way that made Lance's eyes roll back. "You know, and you're just—you're just toying with me, you—you—"

"Say it," Keith urged, grinding against him harder, letting out a soft, teasing hum that vibrated against Lance's collarbone. Lance made a soft pleading noise. "What was that? I didn't quite catch it."

He was lying, of course. He could read Lance like a book, could see the need written in every line of his body, in the way his legs had spread wider to accommodate Keith between them, in the way his hips chased friction even when Keith tried to hold him still. But Keith wanted the words.

He wanted Lance to be as bare in his speech as he was in his desire.

Lance's head tilted back against the wall once more, his breathing coming out in heavy, desperate pants that fogged the mirror somewhere behind them.
He insulted Keith again, calling him a smug bastard, a tease, a son of a bitch, but the words were dissolving into whimpers, into pleas that sounded like they were being torn from his chest.

"Please," Lance finally breathed, and the word was so raw, so honest, that it stopped Keith's heart for a half-beat. "Keith, please, I need—you know what I need—"

Keith pulled back just enough to look at him, to take in the sight of Lance with his hair mussed and his lips swollen and his eyes half-lidded with a hunger that matched Keith's own.
Lance was unraveling at his hands, all that confidence and bravado that usually armored him slowly dissipating like smoke, leaving behind something vulnerable and aching and beautiful.

"Good boy," Keith murmured, the praise falling from his lips before he could think better of it, and he watched Lance shudder, watched his eyelashes flutter at the words. "You're doing so well."

He moved the hand that wasn't pinning Lance's wrists to the bathroom wall, sliding it down to grip Lance's hip, his fingers pressing into the soft skin above the waistband of his under suit.
He urged Lance forward, guiding him with slow, deliberate pressure, showing him exactly how to move against Keith's thigh, how to roll his hips to find the friction he had been wordlessly begging for.

Lance's moan when their under suit pants made contact again was loud and broken, and Keith swallowed it once more with a hungry, open-mouthed kiss, drinking in the sound like it was sustenance.

Lance moved tentatively at first, his hips rolling in small, experimental circles, but Keith tightened his grip, pulling him closer, showing him that he didn't need to be careful, didn't need to hold back.

"That's it," Keith whispered against his mouth, his own voice rough with restraint, with the effort of not taking everything all at once. "Take what you need. I've got you."

Lance's rhythm grew more desperate, his movements less controlled as he chased the sensation, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps that ghosted across Keith's lips.

"Keith," he chanted, the name becoming a prayer, a curse, a plea all at once. "Keith, Keith, I—fuck—This is ah!—"

He couldn't finish the sentence, his head falling forward onto Keith's shoulder, his teeth catching on the skin between Keith's shoulder and neck as he groaned, long and low and devastating.

Keith could feel him, could feel the heat and the hardness of him even through the layers of their clothes, could feel the tension coiling in Lance's body like a spring being wound too tight.
He wanted to touch, wanted to get his hands on skin, to feel the weight and heat of Lance without the barrier of fabric between them.

Keith’s mouth found Lance’s again with almost embarrassing urgency. Like he had already gone too long without it. The second their lips crashed together once more, Lance moaned into his mouth, low and wrecked and completely unable to hold it back this time, and Keith felt the sound straight through his chest.

That was going to ruin him.

Because hearing Lance was one thing. Keith had already discovered, very quickly, that he could get addicted to the noises Lance made when he lost control for half a second. But feeling those sounds against his own mouth? Swallowing them down between heated kisses while Lance gasped into him?

That was something else entirely. Keith kissed him harder immediately. His tongue pushed between Lance’s lips with impatient hunger, forcing Lance’s mouth open wider so he could taste him properly again.
Lance let him in with a breathless sound, his grip in Keith’s hair tightening hard enough to sting pleasantly against his scalp.

Keith had imagined kissing Lance before. Too many times. Usually late at night when the Castle had gone quiet and Keith’s brain betrayed him with thoughts he did not want to examine too closely.
He had imagined heat and sharpness and tension. He had imagined Lance talking too much even while kissing him. He had imagined himself losing patience within seconds.

But reality was worse. Or better. Dangerously better. Because Lance kissed like he did everything else: completely. No hesitation once he committed to it. All warmth and reckless energy and desperate hunger that matched Keith’s own so perfectly it almost hurt.

Their teeth knocked together at one point when Keith kissed him too hard, but neither of them cared. Lance just made another broken sound into Keith’s mouth and pulled him closer by the back of his neck while Keith pressed his thigh harder between Lance’s legs.

The reaction was immediate.

“Fuck—” Lance gasped against his lips, voice cracking slightly as his body jerked under the pressure. “Keith—”

Then he rolled his thigh upward again just to hear Lance lose whatever argument he had been trying to make. Lance’s mouth fell open with another broken sound.

There it was again, that unraveling Keith was becoming obsessed with watching.

All of Lance’s confidence melting into something softer and needier the longer Keith touched him. The sharp edges of his usual bravado dissolving into flushed cheeks, half-lidded eyes, and breathless little pleas he clearly did not mean to let slip out loud.

And Keith—

Keith loved it. Loved being the reason Lance looked like this. Lance’s chest rose and fell rapidly beneath the white bandages crossing his shoulder, curls damp slightly at the edges now from heat and exertion. His neck already carried faint marks where Keith had spent entirely too much time with his mouth.

Beautiful.

Absolutely fucking beautiful.

Keith kissed him again. Slow at first. Then deeper the second Lance melted into it. Lance made another helpless sound into Keith’s mouth as Keith shifted closer, and this time Keith broke the kiss just enough to murmur against his lips:

“What do you want?”

Lance glared at him through hazy eyes.

“You already know.”

Keith tilted his head innocently.

“Words, Lance.”

That earned him another breathless curse.

“You are insufferable,” Lance muttered, voice rough.

Keith nodded immediately. Then pressed upward again. Lance’s answer dissolved completely into a moan. Keith nearly lost his mind over it.

“There you go,” he murmured approvingly, voice low and rough now. “Much better.”

Lance looked wrecked. Just undone. Like Keith had somehow managed to peel past every layer Lance usually hid behind and found this underneath instead, someone reactive and honest and unbearably expressive when he stopped trying to stay in control.

“Good,” he murmured against Lance’s mouth. “That’s it.”

Lance’s breath hitched sharply when Keith urged him forward against his thigh again. The movement stole another moan from him immediately. Keith swallowed it down with a hungry kiss before anyone else in the entire universe could hear it.

Lance moved again more desperately once the friction pulled another broken sound from his throat.

“There you go,” Keith repeated softly, almost soothing despite the heat in his voice. “You’re doing so good for me.”

Lance whimpered quietly against his mouth at that. Actually whimpered. And then immediately hid the sound by kissing Keith harder like that would somehow erase it.

Keith let him try. He kissed Lance deep and slow while guiding the movement of his hips with steady pressure against his waist, letting Lance set the pace once he caught on.

The bathroom had gone warm and unbearably small around them.

All Keith could feel was Lance.

And maybe Keith should have felt embarrassed by how badly gone he already was over it.

Instead, he only wanted more.

And clearly, Lance wanted more too.

Because his grinding on Keith's thigh became something close to frantic.
Keith didn't have to guide his hips anymore; Lance was doing all the work himself, half-involuntary, searching for that desperate need of friction against Keith's thigh.

And Keith was happy to let him. He would enjoy the hazy look in Lance's blue eyes, the way his dark curls pressed against his forehead with sweat, or the way the bathroom lights made the freckles on his naked torso more visible, scattered like constellations across caramel skin.
The white bandage over his shoulder injury stood in stark contrast against the warm tone of him, a reminder of battles fought and survived, of the fragility and strength contained in this one person who was currently coming apart under Keith's hands.

Keith used the moment to trail his hands along Lance's naked torso, drinking him in, admiring the work of art that was Lance fucking McClain as he grind desperately against Keith's thigh.
And to think that Keith had believed his feelings to be one-sided. The needy look in Lance's eyes said the complete opposite as he begged Keith with every movement, every breath. Keith wasn't too sure what Lance was begging him for, he thought that Lance himself wasn't too sure either.

Lance had that desperate, needy look on his face, pupils blown wide and lips bitten red, and Keith was more than willing to give him whatever he needed, if only he used his words to ask for it. Keith was not a mind reader, though the way Lance was clutching at him, the way his body was speaking in a language older than words, was doing a pretty good job of translating.

Keith's mouth went back to Lance's neck, sucking and licking and kissing, and Lance whimpered and moaned and moved against Keith's thigh with frantic need, like he needed more, like he needed everything.
But Keith wasn't done with him yet; he was going to enjoy every freaking second of this, was going to memorize every sound and shiver and gasp because he didn't know when he would get this again, didn't know if this was a one-time explosion of years of tension or the beginning of something else entirely. Either way, he was going to savor it.

Just as Lance let out a choked gasp, back arching when Keith pressed his thigh harder against Lance's grinding groin, Keith's lips moved lower, going for Lance's pectorals.
Another row of pleas escaped Lance's mouth as he grabbed Keith's hair tightly, fingers tangling in the dark strands and pulling with a desperation that bordered on painful, like that would be enough for Keith to figure out what he needed.

Either way, it would have to wait because Keith had a different objective in mind, a different part of Lance he wanted to claim. He trailed kisses over Lance's chest, feeling the rapid rise and fall of his breathing, the thunderous beat of his heart beneath skin and bone, until his tongue found Lance's perky nipple.

The loud gasp that escaped Lance's mouth was completely different from everything Keith had been listening to so far, higher, sharper, broken in the middle like a glass dropped on concrete.
It was followed by a grunt and Lance's hips moving faster, stuttering in their rhythm as if the sensation was too much and not enough simultaneously.

So, sensitive nipples. Keith tucked that information away in the back of his mind, already cataloging all the ways he could use this knowledge in the future, all the ways he could make Lance fall apart just by touching him here. For now, he was happy to suck and lick at Lance's sensitive nipples, switching from one to the other with deliberate, teasing strokes of his tongue, feeling them harden against his mouth as Lance's head tilted back and hit the bathroom wall with a loud thud, a full-body shudder running through him like electricity.

Fuck. He was really sensitive.

Keith could feel both their arousal growing hotter by the minute, the grinding and everything else making it hard to contain, hard to think, hard to do anything but feel.
But there was so much more Keith wanted to do, so many things he wanted to explore with Lance now that he knew he could, now that the barrier of unspoken longing had been shattered between them.
He wanted to touch everywhere, taste everything, learn Lance's body the way he knew his own blade, with intimacy and reverence and deadly precision.

Lance's movements were growing desperate and clumsy, his hips losing their rhythm as he chased his release, so Keith moved his hand back to his hip to help him and guide him, anchoring him even as he pushed him closer to the edge.
Ever since Keith had told Lance that he wanted to hear him, Lance had not shut up. It did not surprise Keith how vocal and loud Lance was, in fact, he enjoyed it quite a lot, found it intoxicating to know he was the one pulling those noises from the depths of Lance's pleasure, that he was the architect of this symphony of desire.

Lance was a blabbering mess of words, chanting Keith's name like a prayer, then insulting him whenever Keith bit his nipple and ground their hips together, calling him a bastard and a tease and a fucking demon, then pleading and begging Keith for more between pants and gasps, his voice raw and wrecked and beautiful.

"Please," Lance whined, the word drawn out and broken, his grip in Keith's hair tightening until Keith's scalp sang with it. "Keith, please, I can't—I need—you're killing me, you know that? You're fucking killing me." He rolled his hips forward with a groan that sounded like it was torn from somewhere deep in his chest, somewhere vulnerable and true. "Just—fuck, just touch me, please, I need you to—"

Keith pulled back from Lance's chest, looking up at him, taking in the sight of him wrecked and wanting.

"What do you need?" Keith asked, his voice rough and low, unrecognizable even to himself. He kept his hand steady on Lance's hip, stilling his movements, making him wait, making him say it. "Tell me, Lance. I want to hear you say it."

Lance's eyes snapped open, hazy and dark with desire, and he glared at Keith with something that was half frustration and half adoration.

"You—" he started, his voice cracking as Keith rolled his thigh just so, applying pressure right where Lance needed it most. "God, you're such a—you know what I need, you asshole, don't make me—"

He cut himself off with a moan as Keith did it again, his head falling forward, his forehead coming to rest against Keith's shoulder, breath hot and damp against Keith's neck.

"I need you," Lance finally whispered, the admission sounding like it cost him something, like it was being pulled from deep within his pride, his usual defenses stripped away completely. "I need you to touch me, Keith. Please. I need you to—" He gestured vaguely, helplessly, between them, his face flushing a deeper shade of red. "You know. Please."

Keith felt something warm and terrifying expand in his chest at the words, at the raw honesty in Lance's voice.

The thing was that, grinding worked for a while, the friction building between them in a way that made Keith's vision spot at the edges, made his breath come short and his heart hammer against his ribs like it wanted to escape his chest.
But eventually, Lance was begging him for more, his words dissolving into nonsense, into pleas that were just sounds, just desperate noises that vibrated against Keith's mouth where they were still kissing, still devouring each other.
And Keith's own body was begging him for more, too, more friction, more touch, faster, harder, now. Keith felt his own heat twitch inside his under suit pants where he grind against Lance, a heavy, insistent ache that demanded attention, demanded release.
A low groan left his throat, rumbling up from somewhere deep in his chest, and Lance seemed to enjoy it just as much as Keith enjoyed every sound Lance made, because he whined in response, high and broken, and rolled his hips harder.

Lance was looking at him with heavy-lidded eyes, his mouth half-parted in a breathless moan, desire and need written all over his face in a language that needed no translation.
He begged Keith for more, his hands pulling at Keith's hair with a desperation that bordered on pain, his body arching into every touch, seeking, demanding. And Keith had never been the one to hold back, he was impulsive, he was reckless, he took what he wanted and dealt with consequences later, and neither was he going to be now, not when Lance was looking at him like that, not when every cell in his body was screaming yes, him, now.

The grinding slowed down a little bit, just enough for Keith's shaky hands to reach for the waistband of Lance's under suit pants, his fingers hooking beneath the elastic, pulling at them slightly, teasing, before he let the fabric snap back against Lance's skin with a soft sound that tore a gasp from the other boy's mouth.

They were pressed against the wall once more, Lance's back arching against it as he grind against Keith's thigh and pulled at Keith's hair and moaned Keith's name like it was the only word he knew.
Keith had one hand on one of Lance's nipples, rolling it between his fingers, feeling the way Lance shuddered and gasped at the touch, and the other hand was on Lance's back, roaming fully, mapping the topography of his spine, the shift of muscle beneath skin, teasing him, drawing out the anticipation before he was ready to pull Lance's pants down and actually get things done, before he was ready to give them both what they were aching for.

Except that, while he kissed Lance and swallowed all those pleas from his mouth, something warm and sticky touched Keith's hand on Lance's back, something that didn't feel like sweat, that had a different viscosity, a different temperature.

Keith frowned into the kiss, slowing just slightly as he tried to figure out what it was, his mind still hazy with lust, still more focused on the way Lance moved against him, the way their bodies fit together, the way Lance tasted like desperation and want. His hand patted along Lance's back, going up to his upper back slowly, his movements clumsy with the distraction of Lance's mouth on his, Lance's body against his.

However, when Keith's hand reached the bandages that covered Lance's injury on his shoulder and he felt them all wet and sticky and thick, not with sweat, not with water, but with something that made his stomach drop with sudden, terrible realization, he pulled away from Lance's mouth abruptly, his heart stuttering in his chest. Just as he did, Lance let out a pained gasp when Keith's fingertips grazed the bandaged wound, the sound completely different from the noises he had been making before, sharp and involuntary, and Keith's blood ran cold.

Fuck.

They had been too into their make-out, too focused on what was happening between them, the heat and the need and the more, that neither of them had noticed that Lance's wound had reopened and was bleeding again, that Lance had been pressing his injured shoulder against the wall and grinding against Keith with enough force to tear the healing skin.

Had Keith been too rough? Had he been so lost in the feeling of Lance against him that he had hurt him without realizing? The thought made Keith feel sick, made the arousal that had been burning through him moments before turn to ash in his mouth.

Lance had stopped grinding against him now, his hands falling from Keith's hair, his breathing coming out in heavy, pained gasps that made Keith want to kick himself.
Keith straightened a bit, feeling the growing heat inside his pants, the persistent, demanding ache that had been all-consuming just seconds ago, now feeling uncomfortable, wrong, out of place now that he wasn't grinding against Lance's own heat, now that reality had crashed back in with the copper scent of blood.

Keith focused his gaze on the wall behind Lance, his eyes widening as he moved Lance gently to the side to see that there was blood smeared all over the bathroom wall where he had been pressing Lance against, dark against the pale tile, stark and undeniable evidence of his carelessness.

He then turned Lance around sharply, urgently, his hands gentle but firm as he guided him, needing to see, needing to assess the damage.
The bandages had been completely bled through, the white fabric stained dark red, and the wound was definitely opened again, the edges of the injury visible beneath the soaked gauze, angry and raw.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Keith asked, his voice rough with worry, with guilt, his hands hovering near the injury, afraid to touch, afraid to hurt him more. "I would've stopped—I would have—we should have been more careful, I should have—"

Lance had a bashful look on his face, not facing Keith, his shoulders hunched slightly as if he could hide from the situation, from the interruption.

"I was... occupied," he said quietly, his voice still breathless but now tinged with embarrassment, with frustration. "By other... feelings. I didn't notice until—"

He cut off with a wince as Keith shifted, his hand brushing near the wound again. "It didn't hurt until you stopped," he admitted, almost petulantly, like he was annoyed at his own body for betraying him, for ruining the moment.

Keith let out a breathy, disbelieving chuckle, the sound shaky with relief that it wasn't worse, with lingering arousal that hadn't fully dissipated, with the absurdity of the situation.
He pulled at the fabric of his own pants, trying to adjust himself, trying to calm down the heat still bottling up there, the need that was slowly fading into the background but not disappearing entirely. Lance needed his wound taken care of, again; they had to stop, had to shift gears from lovers back to... whatever they were, back to responsible adults who didn't let their desire override basic safety.

Lance didn't look too happy about it either, his expression petulant, his lips swollen from kissing and his hair a mess, looking thoroughly debauched and thoroughly annoyed at the interruption.
But he allowed Keith to guide him down to sitting on the bathroom floor, his movements careful, his hand going to his shoulder with a grimace.

Now that they weren't all over each other, now that the heat of the moment had been doused with cold reality, Keith felt his own cheeks flush red with embarrassment, felt the weight of what they had been doing, what they had almost done, settle over him like a blanket. Fuck, that had been... intense.
Not that he hadn't enjoyed it, every second of it was burned into his memory, but he was a little upset that they hadn't... finished. The need was still there, a low hum beneath his skin, unsatisfied and impatient.

But when Keith looked at Lance, at the way he was cradling his shoulder with a frown, looking more upset about the interruption than Keith himself, Keith felt something tender and protective bloom in his chest. They would have time, he told himself.
They would have time to finish this, to explore each other properly, without the threat of reopened wounds and blood on the walls. For now, Lance needed him to be careful, to be gentle, to take care of him.

"Hold still," Keith said softly, reaching for the first aid kit that was still sitting on the counter from earlier, his voice gentle now, stripped of the rough desire that had colored it before, replaced by something softer, something that felt just as significant. "Let me fix you up."