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Chapter 1: Table of Contents (You are here!)Chapter 2: "Can I touch your scar?" - Keith & Shiro, 825 wordsChapter 3: Nightmares - Pidge & Shiro, 865 wordsChapter 4: Food Poisoning - Keith & Coran, 999 wordsChapter 5: Whumptober 2019: Shaky Hands - Keith & Hunk, 988 wordsChapter 6: Whumptober 2019: Explosion - Keith, 585 wordsChapter 7: Whumpmas in July 2021: Sleep - Keith & Lance, 762 wordsMore content on its way!
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“Can I touch your scar?”Keith froze, the smile on his face suddenly stiff and wooden. Leave it to a kid to be blunt enough to ask something like that. And with the number of kids at the meet-and-greet for the Voltron paladins that the Garrison had set up, one of them was bound to ask something along those lines at some point.“Um…” he said, not quite sure how to answer. The little boy looked eager, bright-eyed and curious, and he wanted to indulge him, but he also wasn’t fond of unfamiliar fingers on him, especially on his face. Especially now.He took a breath to say so, but the boy interrupted him with a, “Pretty pretty please?”, complete with a wobbling lower lip, and Keith found that he couldn’t say no. “All right,” he said slowly, lowering himself to one knee. “But be gentle, okay?”The little boy nodded and reached out to brush his hand along the scar cutting across Keith’s cheek. Keith bit back a wince at the coldness of the little fingertips and how odd the pressure of them felt against the scar tissue. “Whoa,” the kid whispered. “It feels weird.”“Yeah,” Keith said. “Feels, uh, feels weird to me too.”“Yours is bigger than the other guy’s.”Keith frowned. “The other guy’s?”“The white-hair guy,” the boy said, and he pointed. Keith turned his head to see Shiro, standing nearby, definitely within earshot. He looked to be engaged in conversation with another group of meet-and-greeters, and Keith wasn’t sure whether or not Shiro had heard this exchange. “He’s got one on his nose,” the kid continued, “But it’s smaller than yours.”“Yeah, it is,” Keith said. There was really no other comment to make about that.“How’d you get your scar?”Something icy settled in the pit of Keith’s stomach as he turned back to the kid. At the corner of his vision, he could see Shiro’s back and shoulders stiffen. Yes - Shiro was definitely hearing the conversation.“My dad said you were fighting bad guys in space,” the kid continued. “Is that how you got it? Did a bad guy give it to you?”“Well, um - it - uh - ” Keith stammered.“Did it hurt a lot?”Keith took a deep breath. “Um, at - at first, yeah. Not anymore.”“Must have been a pretty bad guy,” the kid said with a knowing nod. “You gotta be bad to wanna hurt someone’s face a lot.”Shiro turned away from the group he was talking to, his face pale, and Keith saw him mouth ‘Excuse me’ before starting to walk away. “No,” Keith said firmly. He raised his voice, not enough to be yelling. Just enough to be sure Shiro heard it. “No, no, it wasn’t a bad guy. It was just… an accident. It - it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Just an accident.”“What kind of accident?”“Oh, you know.” Keith shrugged. “There was just, um, a lot going on. Things got out of hand for a bit.”“Were you roughhousing?” the kid asked.“Something like that.”“You shouldn’t roughhouse. Mom says that’s how furniture gets broke.”“She’s right,” Keith said with a nod. “I should be more careful.”“I got a scar from an accident once. Wanna see?” Without waiting for a response, the boy leaned down to roll up his pant leg and point to a speckled series of white scars on his knee. “You know what happened? I flew out of a swing and I got my knee all scraped up.”“Ouch,” Keith said.“It was bleeding and stuff. So my big brother gave me a piggy-back ride back to the house and sprayed stuff on it and put a band-aid.”Keith smiled softly. “It’s good to have your big brother around when you get hurt, huh?”“Uh-huh. You got a big brother?”“…Yeah. I do.”“Was he the one you were roughhousing with?”“Well…”“You should tell him not to do that anymore.” The boy turned and looked behind him. “He’s gonna break a nice lamp. I’m gonna go back to Daddy now.”“All right,” Keith said. “Tell him I said hello.” By the time Keith finished his sentence, the boy had already turned and vanished back into the crowd, as fickle an attention span as any kid that age. Keith crossed his arms, and glanced to the side, where Shiro was lurking. “You hear that, Shiro? You’re not allowed to roughhouse with me anymore.”Shiro gave him a small, sad smile as he approached. “He wasn’t wrong though,” he said quietly. “I'd… hate to break anything.”“Hey,” Keith said, his own smile falling. “You never broke anything, Shiro. I’m not broken.”“That’s not what I was saying,” Shiro sighed. “I just - ” He cut himself off and his gaze roamed from Keith’s eyes to his scar. “No more roughhousing, little brother,” he finished quietly.“…Right,” Keith muttered. “No more roughhousing.”
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"Pidge?" Shiro grunted as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, staring down at the other paladin. She had coming knocking on his door in the dead of night, and now stood in his doorway in her pajamas, sans her usual glasses, chewing at her lower lip, a blanket draped over her shoulder. "What are you doing here?""I, uh - " Pidge said. She dug the toe of one slipper-toed foot into the floor before shaking her head. "Actually, you know what, this is - this is stupid. Sorry I woke you up, Shiro…""Hey, hey, wait," Shiro said, reaching out an arm to take her by the shoulder. "You didn't wake me." Okay, that was a lie, but since Shiro was such a light sleeper these days, he usually woke several times during the night anyway. "What is it that you needed?"Pidge sighed. "Well, uh, see, I was sleeping and - and I started - I started dreaming and, um…" She cleared her throat. "Do you - would you mind if I - ?""Pidge," Shiro cut her off. "Do you want to sleep in my room tonight?"Pidge gave him a sheepish attempt at a smile. "If you don't mind?"Shiro stepped aside. "Make yourself comfortable.""Thanks, Shiro!" Pidge darted into the room and was on the bed in an instant, spreading her blanket out over Shiro's comforter before pausing and looking back over to him. "Wait, uh, you'd be okay with me, like, sharing a bed with you, right? It's just - it's just, back at home when I'd get nightmares, Matt would… he would…""Yeah, yes, it's fine," Shiro said hastily. He dimmed the lights and went back to the bed, climbing under the covers and patting the space beside him to invite Pidge in. "I've shared a bed before."Pidge wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, with your fiancé. I don't really want - ""Not just with Adam. Keith had a couple of bad nights back at the Garrison. Sometimes having someone beside him helped.""Oh." Pidge stood a moment longer as if thinking the option over, then slowly slid into the bed next to Shiro, nestling up against him. "I didn't know Keith got nightmares.""Mm. Don't let him know I told you.""I won't."They were quiet a moment, and Shiro felt Pidge rise and fall where she was pressed to his side as she breathed, before he softly asked, "Pidge? If you don't mind me asking… what were you dreaming about?"It took several ticks for Pidge to answer, and when she did, it was in a voice scarcely above a whisper: "Dad. And Matt.""Ah," Shiro said. He probably should have guessed."Yeah. I - I try not to think about - about what might have happened to them and… during the day it's easy not to, but - " She took a shaky breath in. "But when I'm asleep, I can't really control where my thoughts go, and I can't distract myself, and - "Her breath hitched, and Shiro brought his hand around to soothingly rub her arm. "I know," he said softly."I dreamed that we found them. I was dreaming that we were raiding one of the Galra ships and we found them, but - but we were too late. And I woke up and…" She sniffed. "Back at home, when I'd have nightmares I'd go to Matt. Obviously, that's… that's not really an option right now.""… What would Matt do when you had nightmares?""Well, he'd just… he'd let me into his bed and let me cry it out."Shiro nodded. "Anything else?"Pidge sniffed again before quietly replying. "When, uh, when we'd go back to sleep, he'd sorta keep his arms around me and hold me so I could… so I could feel his heartbeat.""Like this?" Shiro asked. He draped his arm over side and slipped the other one under her and pulled her close to his chest, the way he would have done with a big stuffed animal when he was a kid."Yeah," Pidge said. "And then he'd sort of, like, tuck my head under his chin, and so I would be kinda using his shoulder like a pillow, like, um, like this…" She demonstrated, nestling into the crook of Shiro's neck. "Is this okay?" she asked."It's more than okay," Shiro answered. "Are you comfy?""Yeah. Yeah, I am. Thank you, Shiro.""No problem. Hey, Pidge?""Mm?""We're going to find him. We'll find Matt. And we'll find your dad, too. They're gonna be okay.""… I know we will.""But in the meantime… if you ever have nightmares again, you can come to me, okay? I can be your temporary, substitute Matt.""… Thank you, Shiro," Pidge whispered again."You're welcome. Good night, Pidge.""Good night."They went quiet then, the only sound each other's breathing. Pidge was still for long enough that Shiro was certain that she had drifted off to sleep, until she spoke up one last time: "Shiro?""Yes?""Matt also used to make me midnight sandwiches and give me foot massages, so - ""Go to sleep, Pidge."
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All anomalies, no matter how small, were worth investigating, as Coran had long learned from his nights of patrolling the Castle of Lions, and the fact that the light in the communal bathroom in the new paladins’ living quarters was currently on in the middle of their night cycle was no exception. Sure, in all likelihood, one of the paladins had simply had too much water to drink before bed, or had left the light on by accident before heading back to their room, but just in case…He approached and rapped his knuckles against the doorframe. “Anybody in there?” he called into the bathroom. No response. “Paladin?” he asked. Again, silence. He reached further through the doorway to swipe his hand at the lightswitch.The moment the bathroom went dark and Coran turned to return to his patrol, now with just a little less electricity being wasted, he finally got a response in the form of a soft, low moan.This time, after he hurried back and turned the lights back on, he entered the bathroom fully, looking for the source of the sound. It didn’t take him long to find it: out from under the swinging door of the toilet stall poked the red and black of two familiar boots.Coran crossed the room, tested the stall door to find it unlocked, and pushed it open only to nearly trip over the prone figure curled up on the tile floor. He stumbled into the stall and knelt down for a better look. Keith was fully dressed save for his usual jacket, his arms and face covered by a sheen of sweat that was plastering his shirt to his chest and his bangs to his forehead. His face was pale, eyes closed, cheeks flushed, and one arm was wrapped around his stomach, the other thrown limply out to the side.“Number Four?” Coran asked in a hushed voice. “Keith, are you all right?!”Keith’s eyes scrunched further closed before slowly blinking open and looking dazedly up toward Coran. He let out another soft groan as he curled his legs inward. “C’ran?” he said.“Yes, yes, my boy, it’s me,” Coran said. “What’s happened to you?”“Mm?”“You look like you’ve taken quite ill.”“… ‘m not sick,” Keith mumbled.Coran almost laughed at that. “Oh, I’m sure you’re not,” he said. “I suppose, then, that you simply found the bathroom floor more comfortable than your own bed?”Keith let out a huff of breath before rolling over and managing to partially lever himself up onto one elbow. “It’s noth’ng,” he said. “I’m just… jus’ a little…” He pulled himself up further, and then his eyes went wide and he lunged for the toilet, reaching the bowl just in time to start heaving into it.Immediately Coran was right behind him, rubbing his back as he retched. Not much came up but a string of bile, although after a dobosh or two when Keith finally collapsed back, Coran could spot a few small stains on his shirt that suggested that this wasn’t the first time tonight that Keith had been throwing up. Well, the fact that he was camped out here in the bathroom rather than his own room certainly made sense now.“You got a hold of yourself, there, lad?” he asked as Keith sat back and wiped the back of his arm over his mouth. “Shall we see about getting you something to take for your stomach?”“… Medicine, y’ mean?”“Looks like that would be ideal, yes.”“Don’t need it. Not sick.”Coran sighed. “Healthy people don’t vomit through the night, Number Four. You’re sick.”“I’m not,” Keith snapped. “I’m just… somethin’ I ate didn’t - didn’ sit right, I think…”Coran frowned thoughtfully. As far as he knew, Keith had eaten the same things that all the other paladins had eaten, and even though Coran had done the cooking, Hunk had supervised and taste-tested everything. A few of the ingredients he’d used were known to have adverse effects for some species - the kolvosie spice toxic to Aigantu, and Galra had trouble digesting the juice of otheia berries - but all should have been fine for humans. None of the other paladins were lying prone and feverish on the bathroom floor.“All right, so you’re not sick,” he said. “But you still don’t seem well. Let’s at least get you back to bed, okay? You might feel a little better if you sleep somewhere more comfortable.”Keith sighed. “Fine,” he mumbled.Slowly and clumsily he clambered to his feet, leaning against the rim of the toilet for support. Coran helped him up, wrapping his arm around the boy’s waist and taking most of his weight. “You - you don’ need to do that,” Keith said. “I c’n walk.”“Of course, I don’t doubt it,” Coran said. “But surely it will be faster if I help, yes?”Keith chewed his lip before giving a reluctant grunt, and they started out of the stall, Coran half-dragging Keith as they went. “Now,” Coran said. “I’ll get you a bowl to vomit into when we get back to your room, then we’ll get some cool towels to try to cool you down a bit.”“Mm,” Keith hummed.“Try to lie still once we get you into bed, it’ll help keep your stomach from being aggravated further. I can run by the med bay once you’re settled, get you something to take for the nausea. Should also grab one of the medical tablets while I’m there. This could be a case of food poisoning, yes, but Lance also once mentioned a human condition called a ‘floo’? That could be - Number Four?”He glanced down when he realized that Keith’s weight was now entirely on him, and realized that the paladin had fallen asleep. Tutting softly and shaking his head, Coran lifted the boy all the way into his arms. “Not sick, my left buttock,” he muttered before continuing on his way to carry Keith to bed.
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“Keith! There you are!” Hunk raced toward the spot of bright side he’d spotted among the rubble, heart in his throat. When that Galra artillery craft had blown, they had been near enough to be caught right at the edge of the blast zone. Hunk had managed to get his shield up just in time, but Keith had been farther out than him, and Hunk wasn’t whether Keith had been able to withstand it as effectively.Relief flood Hunk as he drew closer and saw that the red shape seemed to be moving, so at the very least, Keith was alive and conscious. “Keith!” he shouted again as he skidded toward where Keith was sprawled on the ground. “Keith, oh, man, thank god you’re okay. Are – are you okay?”“Yeah,” Keith grunted, and his voice was strained, but not deathly feeble. Another relief. “Yeah, I’ll be all right. Mostly just winded.”“Okay, phew. Good. Good, so, we can get back to the Lions now?” Hunk glanced nervously over his shoulder. The craft exploding had been a good distraction, but the soldiers who had spotted them in the base and chased them out this far were probably still in hot pursuit. “You need any help walking?”“Nah, legs are fine. Let me just – ” Keith began to adjust himself and scrabble upright, but cut himself off with a strangled yell that made the hairs on the back of Hunk’s neck stand up.“Keith?”“It’s, um – my arm’s kinda – “Hunk blinked down at the arm in question, and the source of Keith’s distress quickly became obvious. A shard of shrapnel was jutting out from between the rerebrace and couter, right into the crook of Keith’s right elbow, pinning it to the hard dirt ground beneath. “Oh god,” Hunk said softly, a bout of dizziness hitting him at the sight. “You just said you were okay!”“It didn’t hurt that bad until I tried to move it!” Keith snapped. He turned his head to look more closely at the wound, then, gritting his teeth, he grabbed the end of the chunk of shrapnel with his left hand.“What are you doing?!” Hunk cried. “You’re not supposed to take things out of stab wounds! You’ll bleed all over!”“I don’t really have a choice, Hunk! Either I get this thing out, or I’m stuck here.” Keith adjusted his grip and tugged at the shrapnel. Immediately his chin began to wobble, and nausea raged in Hunk as the shrapnel moved, bringing a flood of deep red out with it. The sound of Keith’s strained, agonizing yell rang in his ears, until suddenly he stopped, the scream replaced with panting, and his hand dropped.“Keith?” Hunk said, noticing how pale Keith had gone, and not sure if the sheen of sweat on his forehead had been there earlier.“S’nothing,” he mumbled. “Just tough to get a grip.” He brought his hand up again, and it slipped along the shrapnel before he managed to get a proper hold.“Wait, Keith,” Hunk said. He gulped and put his own hand over Keith’s on the shrapnel. “You’re not, like, steady, right now. You’re gonna wind up tearing your whole forearm off or something.”“Well, it’s not like we have much of a choice!”“Yeah, but – ” Hunk took a deep breath and looked back one more time. He could see the silhouettes of those soldiers getting closer. “How about – how about I pull it out for you?”Keith’s brow furrowed as he turned his gaze to Hunk. “You sure?” he asked.Hunk nodded even as his stomach screamed at him to turn away. “Course I’m sure,” he said. “You need help.”“It’s gonna be bloody. Like, really bloody.”“I know. But not like I’m the one who’s gonna be hurting.”“… Okay.” Keith seemed to slump as he gave in, and Hunk lifted his own hands toward the shrapnel.He tried not to think about the blood, or about the pain he was soon to cause Keith, but it was hard. Too hard. His hands shook as he reached the shrapnel, and he took a few seconds to grip it. When he did, Keith let out a whimper of pain; Hunk had apparently been shaking the shrapnel in its place.“I’m sorry!” he cried, dropping it immediately. “Sorry, didn’t mean to, I just can’t – ”“It’s okay,” Keith grunted. “It’s okay, just – just try again.”“R-right.” Hunk positioned his hands over the shrapnel again, but still they shook. He couldn’t grab it, not when he was like this. “Keith, I can’t – ”Before he could finish the thought, he felt a sudden weight over his right hand. Keith fingers wrapped over his own, holding it steady and tight. “Hunk,” Keith said. “It’s okay. You can do this, all right? You got this. Just breathe.”“Just – just breathe,” Hunk repeated softly, and he did. Slowly, through his nose, eyes shut. He could do this. And they didn’t have long.He let Keith’s grip anchor him as, finally, he wrapped his hands around the shrapnel, willing himself with every fiber of his being to keep steady. And he pulled. He tried to mentally block the sound of Keith’s scream as he did so, although he couldn’t avoid seeing the blood that welled up and spilled over when the shrapnel was out of the arm.For a moment the edges of his vision went white, but he was brought back to reality by the sound of Keith repeating his voice, and he opened his eyes to see Keith sitting up and staring at him. His face was practically gray, he was drenched in sweat, he was cradling his bad arm that was still gushing blood, but he was sitting up.“I did it,” Hunk panted.“Yeah, Hunk, you did it.” Keith offered him a shaky smile. “And now…”“We run?”Keith nodded. “We run.”
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Sound moved differently in outer space.Keith had known that long before he’d ever gone to space in the Blue Lion. It had all been explained in detail in his astrophysics class in the first semester at the Garrison. Space was a vacuum, there were no molecules to vibrate, so it couldn’t make sound.Battles were still plenty loud, though. There were always voices on the comms shouting directions and information from one ship to another, and every time something hit his own Lion, he could hear it perfectly, because the space inside the ship was not a vacuum. And often, they were involved in battles where he could hear the sounds of battle, of gunshots and lasers and crashes and cannons and explosions, because they weren’t far enough out from whatever planet was being attacked to have truly entered the void of space. The sound moved through the atmosphere.Naxzela didn’t have an atmosphere.When Keith sped his cruiser toward Naxzela, it was quiet. He had turned off the comms, turned off the sound of Matt’s voice seconds after he had come to the realization of what Keith was about to do, turned off any opportunity for one of the others to try to talk him out of it or scream at him or make any sort of noise that might make him hesitate, because he couldn’t afford to hesitate, not now.He also turned off his chance of getting to say any decent final words, but in the grand scheme of things, that was unimportant.It was quiet when he closed his eyes and shot toward the center of Naxzela.And it was quiet when Naxzela exploded without him.The sound didn’t hit his ship, but the blast still sent out a wave that he could feel, throwing him back against his seat and making him lurch as he held tight, his hands white-knuckled against the yoke, a sudden change in the pressure around the little cruiser like the front was going to collapse in on himself.It was quiet as he veered away.In the quiet, the full force of just what the hell had almost happened hit him with a vengeance.He shook in his seat, a ringing in his ears from the aftermath of the explosion and a screaming in his head as it started to really dawn on him how close he had just come to dying, how close he had been to killing himself, to going up in flame without a trace remaining of him, without ever having said goodbye. How long would it have taken them to notice that he had disappeared? In the millisecond between hitting the shield and dying, how much pain would he have been in? Would he ever have been able to know if it had worked?The cockpit of the cruiser felt like ice, which was ridiculous, because surely the explosion so close to him would be heating his ship up if nothing else. But he was cold, frozen in place, shivering.Alive, but it didn’t feel like it.He needed sound. He needed noise to drown out the flood of questions in his head and the self-reprimanding and the pressure in his ears and the screaming.He turned his comm back on.The noise was an instant relief, the voices, the metallic clanks and beeps coming from the interiors of the others’ ships. He made out Shiro’s voice, distinct among the jumble of sounds, addressing him in particular.“Good work, Keith.”
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“Hey. Hey, Keith, stay with me. Stay awake, man.”
Keith groaned in response to the voice in front of him and the hands slapping at his cheeks - not hard enough to hurt, but enough to be annoying.
“Come on, dude, keep your eyes open! Please, hey, look at me!”
A blast sounded from somewhere nearby - or, maybe far away? It was hard to tell - partly drowning out the voice, but it kept rambling at him. Reluctantly, Keith pried his eyes open. The world swam in front of him, blue and white blocking most of his view. It took him a long moment to puzzle out that this was Lance in his armor. Of course. If anyone were going to be annoying him and keeping him from sleep, it would be Lance.
And good God, he wanted to sleep. Keeping his eyes open felt like such a monumental task, even as Lance kept babbling and more blasts rang in his ears. Something lit up the world in his field of vision in time with the blasts, too blurry to make much sense of. Fireworks, maybe. What were they doing at a fireworks show?
“Keith, you awake? You with me? Come on, hang in there, Shiro’s on his way, just stay awake until he can get here and we can get you into Black.”
Shiro… and Black… that’s right. They were out with the Lions. Which meant they were in battle. How had he forgotten that? They had been in the middle of a summit meeting on Ciuruta when the raid had started right there in the building, the paladins had all taken up arms to help. They’d split up, Allura had ordered Keith and Lance to guard the northern entryway and - and then there’d been a blast.
That part was fuzzy. It was all fuzzy. Maybe if Keith could sleep on it a bit, it would all make sense again in the morning.
But Lance didn’t seem ready to let that happen, since the hand kept patting sharply against his cheek. “Hey, hey, Keith! Don’t you fall asleep on me, got it?! Keep your eyes on me, okay? Watch me, don’t close your eyes, just watch me.”
Keith wanted to shoot back a grumpy retort, something about how Lance’s face wasn’t very good motivation to keep his eyes open, Lance wasn’t exactly his type - well, no one was his type, but whatever - but speaking felt like it would take way too much effort right now. He was just too exhausted. And his head hurt, a dull, throbbing hurt that sharpened with every distant blast.
“Keith, wake up!”
His eyes had slipped closed. He hadn’t even noticed. Slowly, he strained them open again. Something sticky, he realized, made it hard to do for the left eye. He wanted to check what it was, but gave up after lifting his hand a single inch. It was too hard. Besides, he wouldn’t be able to feel his face anyway, not with his helmet in the way.
… Wait, then how was Lance slapping his face?
With a groan of effort, he opened his eyes as wide as he could and let them rove around and sweep down until they caught the red and white that he was looking for. There it was. His helmet, lying on the floor next to Lance. It wasn’t as round as it was supposed to be, he was pretty sure. And the huge crack on its side wasn’t a good sign either.
Okay. His helmet had broken somehow. And his head hurt. That explained it. He’d been hit by something, in the head. Mystery solved.
Satisfied with his investigative prowess, he let his eyes fall shut again. The blasting was growing quieter. Maybe they were keeping it down in order to let him sleep.
That was nice of them. He could use some sleep.
“
Keith!
Shit, Keith, you gotta stay awake!”
But he was so
tired
…
Another slap against his cheek. “Keith! Keith, hey, eyes open, remember?”
He remembered. And he would open his eyes again, definitely, once he was a little less tired.
Just a little sleep, that’s all he needed. Sounds were fading, his body was relaxing, it was so obvious that his body was desperate for sleep. His head even hurt less when he wasn’t trying to stay awake.
“Hey!
Hey
, hey, Keith! Wake up!”
Later. He’d wake up later.
For now, he just needed sleep.
Just a little sleep.
Just a little…
“Keith, stay with me! Fuck, Keith, you can’t sl-
“Wake up! Keith, please! Keith!
“Keith?...”