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He ran a hand through his hair as he gazed at the stars. He wanted to sob; he wanted to scream;he wanted to do a lot of things, but he had already beat himself( or in his case training bots) to exhaustion. The only reason he wasn’t asleep right now was all thanks to his ever recurring nightmare.
“Why did he have to leave again?” he hummed into his knees, now pulled up into his chest. He knew he shouldn’t be this devastated. He knew if anyone Allura should be the one choking back sobs in the castle atrium or whatever this place was called, but she wasn’t. She had stayed stone faced through it all, and keith couldn’t understand how. He felt like giving up. He felt drained.
“Oh, um, sorry…” Keith heard a surprisingly soft apology from Lance. He couldn’t remember hearing the door open, but obviously it had.
“What do you want?” He snapped at the Blue Paladin. He couldn’t bare to listen to Lance’s whining and badgering right now, and though he hadn’t meant to sound so rude, he wasn’t about to say sorry for it either.
“I--are you okay?” Lance’s voice was again softer than he expected as he slowly made his way over to Keith. “Honestly? I know you were close to Shiro. Do you want to talk about it?
Did he want to talk about it? Yes, some part of him needed to let it all out and just vent. Did he want to talk about it with Lance, the notorious flirt and funny guy? Not Really. So he didn’t; he just fixed Lance with a look that said “Fuck off”.
“Okay then, I guess not…” Lance let out an awkward laugh and stayed put ( much to Keith’s annoyance).
They didn’t talk about it. They didn’t talk about anything at all actually for a couple of minutes, but lance couldn’t help himself. “Sometimes I wish this had never happened. That we never found the Blue Lion, or that the mission on Kerberos hadn’t failed.”
If Keith wasn’t already dead beat tired, he was nearly positive he would be strangling Lance right now.
“What the hell?” He grumbled at him, still glaring at the boy sitting beside him.
“Look, I came up here to do what I do every night, vent at the stars. You being here isn’t going to change that. Feel free to join in if you want.” His words weren’t mean or annoyed; they were quiet and gentle and firm, and Keith felt taken aback. This wasn’t the Lance he knew.
“I miss home,” he continued and Keith decided to listen. “I miss my family, my house. I miss waking up to the sounds of my family downstairs. I miss the drama and the hugs. It hadn’t been bad at the Garrison, but now? There is no telling how far away I am from them. It makes you wonder. What if I hadn’t snuck out that night? What if i hadn’t joined the Garrison in the first place?”
Keith watched as Lance continued to question the present with what if’s from the past. He watched as the boy he thought was all shits and giggles poured out his soul and laid out his insecurities for him to see, and he felt guilty.
“ I wonder that too.” he whispered. Half certain Lance hadn’t even heard him. Lance stopped talking and turned to face Keith. He had heard and his eyes were the softest blue Keith had ever seen. Keith had to turn his head away in order to continue talking. “ I wonder about all those things. What if Shiro hadn’t gone on that mission? What if my father hadn’t left us all those years ago? But sometimes those ‘what ifs’ become too much. Sometimes they become so loud, that they are all I hear, and it makes me want to scream.”
Keith was on the verge tears once again that night but somehow this time he felt okay with it. Here he was letting his guard down, telling Lance everything, and he couldn’t understand why he didn’t care, and he couldn’t seem to stop. “I hate how I am like this though. How here I crying while Allura stays completely put together. If I were her I would have… I would have…”
He was cut off with a sudden pull from Lance, and before he knew it, he was sobbing into Lance’s Pajamas. He felt absolutely pathetic,but he couldn’t seem to find the urge to pull away. It was nice to be held for once. It was so utterly different than his nights spent alone in the desert. So he pulled Lance closer and held him tighter and cried just a bit harder.
Lance didn’t seem to mind at all. He resituated himself so they could both be more comfortable then slowly raised his hand to Keith’s head, waiting for any signs of disapproval before treading his hair through Keith’s hair.
They stayed like that all night. Lance whispering sweet, comforting words into Keith’s ear as Keith cried into Lance’s crested and took full advantage of all the affection Lance was giving him. Before long they both fell asleep without a single nightmare between the both of them.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It became their nightly routine. They’d meet in the atrium( Keith had decided to call it that whether it was or wasn’t an actual atrium), and they’d vent or rant or swap secrets like nine year old girls. It always ended in them falling asleep, always together, always warm. Then morning would roll around.
It was always back to normal whenever everyone else was up. It was like their talks hadn’t even happened, and Keith was ok with that. His days were separated from their nights. It made it feel private. It made it feel like it was special. They had those moments alone all to themselves, and Keith wanted to keep it that way.
What truly bothered Keith about the morning was Lance. He was learning how he worked every night. He say him grow soft and kind and quiet. Normal Lance wasn’t any of those things. He was brash and flippant and loud and not true Lance at all. The real problem with mornings. The real problem with the normal hours of the day was that Keith got to watch Lance act out a play everyday. He was forced to watch Lance be someone he wasn’t, and it killed him because he knew the fake Lance wasn’t nearly as wonderful as real Lance.
“Why do you do that?” Keith had asked the question before he realized one night.
“Do what?” Lance fell back with his hands behind his head as if he was the coolest man in the world.
“That. Cut it out.” Keith laid back with him, making sure he bumped his shoulder into Lance’s to help knock some sense into him. “You are putting on an act, and it’s stupid.”
It was quiet for a long moment. Lance was especially so. The lack of noise made Keith panic. He had fucked up. He quickly hurried out an apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--”
“No...no, you’re right. I do put up an act, but so do you and Hunk and Pidge and Allura and even Shiro. What I do is no different from what you do.” Keith was shocked at Lance’s sharp tone. He had struck a nerve, he wasn’t so sure he should poke around any longer. Turns out he didn’t have too. “I’m sorry. I’m just so used to it. Not being taken seriously. I love making others laugh. I love seeing others be happy, and I guess my fault was that I was willing to do anything to see someone smile. Acting like an idiot, acting like a flirt was just an easy way for me to do it. It was fun at first. I got giggles and smiles all the time, but soon that became all I was good for. Anytime I’d try to be anything other than happy-go-lucky, It was like I was the boy who cried wolf. People think I am incapable of so many things now that I have just become a replacement.”
Keith was in shock. He was in shock at how absolutely blind he had been towards Lance. At how he had been one of those people. At how Lance hadn’t snapped at all of them, hadn’t told them off for being so damn stupid.
Keith couldn’t find any words to match the ones Lance had just let out. How could he? Her was a boy so far from home, so lost, feeling abandoned and looked over by all his friends. Keith couldn’t find any word, but truthfully, he never could, so instead he pulled Lance into a hug, holding him tighter than he ever thought possible. He never wanted to let this boy go.
“ Lance…” He started, but it was lost as Lance began to cry into his shirt. He wanted to tell him that he wasn’t a replacement, that he wasn’t just his jokes, that he was a person just like the rest of them and he was allowed more than just one setting. He wanted to tell him that he cared for him. He wanted to tell him that he loved him, but he didn’t because that was not what Lance needed. Not now. He needed a shoulder to cry on and someone who understood, and Keith was happy to be just that.