^^^ (Edit) OK so I changed the drawing up a little cuz I can't seem to remember to draw Altean ears on Lance, apparently.

But hey guys!!

Soo, a quick update on how life is going:

Terrible.

These past two weeks has been a hell for me, and it has not only affected me mentally, but physically too. I have never endured this much stress before, and I'm like??? Plz stop?

In other words, it has been very hard to get this chapter out, but I finally finished a project, one were I write about Voltron for English lessons (sounds fun, I know, and it was fun, until it all went downhill) and I can finally give you the chapter you deserve after my long disappearance and slow updates.

So I'm currently writing this after I had waited for almost 3 hours at the airport for my grandma that never showed up and she didn't answer our calls and I was worried as hell but she had just missed her flight and her phone didn't work but my heart was exhausted after that.

But for those still sticking around even if I take way too long to update, bless you ❤️🙏🏻

And bless everyone for actually reading this? Like, thank you so much??? I really can't thank you enough for that 💕💕💕

۝ ۝ ۝

I had listened to him, listened to the words that I didn't even know were real.

I wouldn't be able to sleep even if my life depended on it, so this task was fairly easy, waiting for something that may never come, staring intently at the ceiling as the soft fizzle of the machines surrounded me in a annoying, but also comforting, manner. My hand were sprawled across my chest, counting the beats of my heart. They had started off being erratic and frantic, like something was clutching my heart firmly and squeezing; Maybe it was just that steadfast anticipation, the expectation that he would appear from thin air, just like he had done in Lotor's cursed spaceship. But it had gone, what... two vargas of me just awaiting something to happen, and my heart was starting to realize that that something would most likely not come, and I was working myself up for nothing, so my heartbeats had started to simmer down now, settling for just a bleak thumping against my ribcage.

And it didn't help that whenever the image of him materialized in my head, my heartbeats picked up its pace again, until it hammered inside my chest painfully. It was everything from his athletic arms, slim waste, how the dark suit sat even more tightly on him than before, the conniption that burned in his eyes for my well-being, to his words that left his mouth in a warning snarl , so low and gravelly. I quickly had to think of something that would snatch the excitement away from my body, which ultimately came to the memory of when Coran had showed me his "titillating clothes", which really consisted of a too tight navy blue drawer, something that looked like a white camisole, and a sky blue collar-vest that did a poor attempt in making the whole outfit proper - could you even call that an outfit?
And if that wasn't enough, Coran had decided to throw on a pair of brown, shiny loafers on. I shivered whenever I thought about it, but it did a pretty good job at calming my heart down, though.

I sighed. This was useless. What was I even waiting for anymore? For an illusion I had created when I was desperate and concupiscent for someone I would never get, could never get? It was just best if I went back to sleep, or at least attempted to.
I rolled over to the side, just as something flashed bright, like my face had been inches from a camera lens, and flinched violently, my reflexes too slow to process what was happening, and the next tick - through the green and orange spots that appeared in my view - I was staring right into a pair of black and yellow wolf-eyes, and I opened my mouth to scream,

But a hand firmly cupped the lower half of my face, and this felt all too familiar, the smell, the rough material against my lips, the way I felt my voice hit his palm, saw how his gaze ushered me to be quite, felt the taste of smoke prod at my taste buds, and it made me gasp, freeze in place.
Smoke. Never had I been this jubilant about a savor before, never felt like I could crack up just at the memorable smell of it, of him, after two vargas of waiting. Maybe I had fallen asleep after all, but I was too tired to care. If this was a dream, it was a hell of a dream, and I wanted to stay, even if weren't real.

"Keith", I whimpered, but it never came through, since his hand were so firmly pressed again my mouth. "Keith..." I tried again, and said boy lowered himself to one knee, so he was in level with my eyes. This way, I could see him perfectly, see how the suit lit up his face just right, defining his features impeccably. I couldn't even pay the wolf that was shamelessly sniffing my bed any attention when Keith looked at me like that, and I wondered why I was dreaming of his very intimidating - but cute - pet. Only if it didn't eat me up, it was good to stay here.

"Lance, hey", he whispered, his eyes searching into mine, his voice faint, almost unreachable. His face neared mine, so close I could espy everything that I had missed out on for what felt like deca-phoebes, could perfectly distinguish the curve of his lips when he opened his mouth to silently utter: "I need you to be quite for me, so the guards outside won't suspect anything. And I need you to sit up, too. I'll take you somewhere where I can explain everything..."

His hand still remained over my mouth, just to make sure, but now his other hand landed on my arm, trying to pull me up. I let him drag me upwards, but only because it would be easier to cuss him out that way, to take a good look at the situation, not to actually follow him. I couldn't be fully sure if I was dreaming or not yet, and I didn't want to risk anything like last time. Even if he looked so goddamn real...

"Keith...", I started to say, but I glared when I remembered that his hand was still preventing any sound of mine from escaping. I lifted my hand to tap at his wrist, signalizing for him to let me speak, but he didn't comply to my command. Instead I enclosed my fingers around his arm, trying to tug it away, but damn, the only possible explanation for him being even stronger must have been that he had been working out ten times a quintant since we'd parted ways. "Keith, let me go", I warned, although it just came out as incomprehensible mumbling, and I sat up straighter, pinning him with an admonitory look. "I swear to Voltron, Keith, let me go, or so help me..." Great, now I would be kidnapped by a awfully hot pipe dream of him, that would lead me directly to Lotor and then crumble away into shimmering dust. That purple bastard-prince hadn't even bothered to add that sweet smell to his magic powder.

"I'll explain everything", he murmured, seeming unperturbed by how I was trying to tear his arm out of his socket. The wolf stopped in its action, cocking its head towards its owner in question, sensing something was happening again. The movement distracted Keith for a tick, and he turned to look at his pet, taking the hand that was resting on my arm to place it softly in the dark fur, the animal immediately reacting well to the contact, nuzzling its nose against the underside of its owner's wrist. I tired to seize the opportunity and wriggle my way out of his hold, but as soon as I shuffled, Keith's eyes darted back towards me, his other hand coming to grip my arm again, holding me in place. I was full on roaring into his hand, but it all still just came out as a muffled hum. The last time he had kidnapped me was nicer than this - he could at least make it comfortable for me.

I squeaked as Keith yanked me out of the bed, my body colliding into his, my legs brushing something incredibly soft, which could only be the soft fluff of the wolf's fur, but I was too frantic to get Keith's hand away from mine and at the same time flustered over the sudden proximity to him to get scared by how close the animal was to me. It frustrated me that his hand was still on my face, that I couldn't fight back, break free from his grip. This wasn't the real Keith, this was the Keith that would now forcefully take me to Lotor before fading away as soon as it had completed it's mission, and I would be back at that ship with the same food and the same devilish grin from the generals and the same pain in my chest.

But who had saved me that time?

Keith's head came closer to mine, just like last time, before placing his lips even closer to my ear, whispering "Brace yourself", and then I was floating again, that same powerful impetus moving my body around, and I tried to close my eyes, tried to see anything else but this blinding white, tried to cling onto what I hoped was a solid object beside me.

But it didn't take long before it all came to an abrupt stop, until my body halted so violently it felt like I received a light concussion. My vision was unfocused for a while, and the only thing I could see where the occasional flashes of white behind my eyelids, or just plain brown and orange, all bright enough to give me a headache. I was sweating in an excessive way that wasn't lost on me, my forehead pounding in a way that made me squint my eyes, trying to gain my focus again, seeing how something all too familiar was taking form before me. Fifteen blinks later, and I could pinpoint where I was located, and it made my heart squash itself into a tiny sponge in my chest.

The cave. I had appeared here in mere ticks, and it all felt too conversant, the tang of the log that was set up just in front of me, the craggy, shiny walls, the warmth that instantly engulfed me. The memory of us, sitting here. It was a small remembrance, but enough to spear me.
But this time, I didn't try to fight it off, I let it linger in my head, because this time it was different. I turned my head to the side, just to see, just to make sure.

Keith met my eyes with a pained, yet fervent expression, and it was painfully familiar, seeing him in this light, in this environment. His eyebrows quivered in emotions, and his eyes looked sunken, sharper, like he'd get a total of four vargas sleep in one movement, but still tried to stay alert, attentive. All his features looked sharpened, or maybe it was just the shadows being stronger than before, laying like dark patches over his face, exaggerating the circles under his eyes that had definitely been there before, but looked even more evident now. He looked depleted, like he'd been thrown against walls for quintants, getting his life sucked right out of him until it only left the hollow, dull - ̶b̶̶u̶̶t̶̶ ̶̶h̶̶o̶̶t̶ - version of him. Why would I want to imagine him like this, if you looked past all the ̶a̶̶t̶̶t̶̶r̶̶a̶̶c̶̶t̶̶i̶̶v̶̶e̶ lively sides of him? Why would the wizardry powder Lotor owned form into this depressed variant of him?

Unless it wasn't an illusion.

The wolf was still here, now calmly padding its way over to lay down by the fire log, but at least now, nothing was covering my mouth, so I could scream as much as I wanted to.

So I did.

"WHAT THE HELL, KEITH?" I exploded, throwing my arms out, too outraged and puzzled to care about how the wolf instantly lifted its head from where it had been laying on its arms, drilling its eyes into me. My only focus was Keith, his eyebrows that lifted just slightly at the volume of my voice. My words hung in the air, loud and clear, and I stomped my feet down, ignoring a wave of pain that shot straight from my foot up to my thigh. "What the quiznack was that?! Just kidnapping me like that, not letting me speak? What kind of quiznackery is that? You're really unbelievable, or, you're not even you! Just a crappy illusion that has decoyed me right into Lotor's trap. Where is he? Huh?! I know this bastard is here somewhere, probably lurking around the corner!"

I turned my head to check if my theory was right, underlip trembling, but just as I did so, I felt something sturdy collide right into me, and I huffed out a ragged breath at the sudden impact.

When I looked down, I could see his chest being pressed against mine, heaving against me, and when I glanced sideways, I could see his face being steadfastly pressed on top of my shoulder, breathing harshly against it. The ends of his hair brushed lightly against my jawline when I turned my head further to look at him, and it tickled me in a way that made my breath stutter, more to the lean of a gasp than a chuckle. But I couldn't laugh, not in this moment, when the only emotion I was feeling was pure awe, too shocked about the boy that was clinging onto me, wrapping his arms securely around the upper part of my back, and around my waist. The boy that had pressed a fatal knife against my throat the first time I had encountered him. The boy that never seemed to be able to make up his mind, always telling me one thing, but then doing the complete opposite. The boy that had left without a trace, without a warning, leaving me completely out of my mind.

The boy that was now hugging me like his life depended on it, pulling me impossibly closer, until there was no strap of air left between us, until I could barely breathe anymore, until my heart was going absolutely bats in the belfry.
My jaw hung loose as I stared ahead with wide eyes, my arms hanging loose against my sides. My brain stuttered for a moment, incapable of running smoothly, and every part of me went on pause while my thoughts tried to catch up. My mouth hung down with my lips slightly parted, and my eyes stretched as far as my eyelids would let them. My head ached, like my brain cogs couldn't turn fast enough to take in the information from the current moment. My lips trembled when I parted them further, pressing out a shaky "K-Keith...?"

His arms hugged me tighter in response, and I let out a wavering exhale, my throat twisting into one big knot when the realization hit me, giving me a hard clout on the cheek. "Keith? Are you... Are you r-real? Are you really h-here with m-m-me? Are you...Have you finally come back...?"

"Lance", he uttered in a brittle voice, my name cracking on the middle, his voice fading away into a wheeze at the end. He pressed his face so hard against my shoulder that I could feel the bone of his nose dig deep into my shoulder blade, and I was too shocked to be afraid for the safety of his nose. His fingers pawed at my clothes in a frenzy, digging deep into the fabric of my nightwear. "I've waited deca-phoebes for this moment."

He wasn't even being dramatic, not when for me it felt like a millennia, like I'd gone through thousands of life's without him, only to finally find him in the right timeline, at the right moment. To be in his embrace, this close to him without having the moment teared apart the next tick. This would last forever, I'd make sure of that.

"Keith...", I whimpered, because he was finally here, the juncture I'd only be able to dream about was finally before me, no longer elusive, not a snap higher than I was able to reach anymore. "You're here." My eyes were stinging, and it felt like I had scorching hot lava running down my throat. Something damp teased at the end of my eyes, and once the first tear broke free, the rest followed in an unbroken stream. I sniveled, my whole chest throbbing at the strain of me trying to stifle the upcoming sob - gosh, I cried way to much, especially over him - but eventually I let go and plopped my chin on his shoulder, turning my head to nestle my face against the side of his throat, inhaling the scent of him, lifting my arms so I could wrap them shakily around his burly body, my fingers excavating their way into the flesh of his back, clutching, pulling. I could feel how Keith lifted his hand to entangle it in the short hair at the nape of my neck, softly scratching his nails against my scalp, and my eyelids fluttered, wanting to close, but I forced them open again, straight up bawling against his suit.

"You... You disappeared...", I wept, gut-wrenching sobs that tore through my chest, and I my breath stuttered whenever I tried to speak, whenever I tried to inhale, deep emotions stirring inside my stomach with no other outlet but through the thick, warm tears that welled up from my eyes. I was shaking uncontrollably now, desperately holding onto him, like the ground was disappearing under me, and Keith was keeping me from falling, as he stood on the edge of the imaginary cliff. "You... You left so suddenly. I came here and you were g-g-gone. A-and you didn't come back... you never..."

"I know Lance, I know..." Keith whispered, his voice sounding strained with emotions, making his words come out as if he were injured, and if I didn't know better, I would say he was crying too, or at least on the verge to. Or I was just that sentimental at this moment. "And I'm so sorry about that, Lance, so so incredibly sorry. You can't imagine how much I regret it..." The sincerity in his voice didn't exactly help with my situation, and I immediately started crying harder, body wracked with an onslaught of sobs and tears, drenching his suit, but he didn't seem to mind. Instead, he just lifted the hand that wasn't scratching my head to start rubbing soothing circles on my back, and suddenly I was moving, because he let both of us slowly and carefully fall down to our knees, sitting knelt on the stony ground, hands fumbling over each other, like we'd crave to touch in all our life, trough every life.

A great tremor overtook my body, and I couldn't speak, couldn't form anything to say. Instead I just let him hold me, hold me until my sobbing was starting to cool down a tad, which took a while, if I could say, and all the time I held onto him, every part I could grip, just to guarantee that he wouldn't dissipate again. Not this time. Not ever again.

"There was never one quintant where I didn't reminisce every moment with you, didn't think of you", he began to utter silently when I had settled for just a small weep after doboshes of emptying myself of tears, and his voice actually was audible over my whimpers. His words was slightly muffled, as his face was still pressed against my shoulder, but then he moved, drilling his sharp chin on top of my head, pushing me even closer to him, until I wasn't breathing at all. "The thought of you would not only distract me from the task at hand, but drive me absolutely, utterly batty. Eventually everyone was getting tired of my slack participation in duties. Sometimes I thought I saw you, right there with me, but then I realized it was all hallucination, and I was being delusional. As if not being able to stop thinking of you wasn't enough, now I was seeing illusions of you, too."

"I-I saw you too. All the time... E-everywhere. In my dreams, in my thoughts, as h-hallucinations. Lotor, he... he sent a powder thingy into my room... one that would form into a c-certain person and lure me o-out to him and..." I took a unsteady breath. "I saw y-you, you seemed so real, you were so palpable. You lured me outside and then you crumbled a-away and I was so confused, Keith, I couldn't understand why you couldn't just be h-here..."

He had to hush me again when I was starting to bawl again, and maybe I was just tired, maybe I was feeling so emotional due to it being so late, but he was here, and I'd be damned if I didn't cry the last drop of tear out of me against him. Through my wails, I could hear something animalistic, but it couldn't be the wolf that I didn't know at all what it was doing at the moment, because the sound were coming from above me, and I could feel the rumble of Keith's chest as he must have been growling, his grip around me tightening. He let me calm down slightly again before continuing.

"Sometimes I would visit you, when you were asleep - I'm sorry if that is weirds you out..." I couldn't help but to succumb a strained snicker against his throat. "I would just check up on you, because at the night was the only time I actually had time to see you, for a little bit at least..."

"How'd you get into the castle unnoticed anyway?" I had to ask, my crying subdued now, but I still had my face pressed against his shoulder, because the sudden flush was creeping up my cheeks at the thought of him coming to visit me, and me not even being aware of it. So he'd been there, after all, so close, but yet so far off.

"I had a little help of a friend", Keith answered in a soft murmur, and when I glanced up from my little hiding spot against his body, I could see how he was looking over his shoulder at the lump of fur by the fire, and followed his eyes, seeing how the wolf had probably grown tired of our pity party and slept soundlessly near the cavern wall.

"He can teleport himself", I asserted, tearing my eyes off the terrifyingly cute creature and laid the side of my cheek against his shoulder, staring ahead at the exit further away. I tried to find a better sitting position, and Keith must have sensed it, because he immediately shifted, pulling me up so that I straddle his lap, my knees on either side of his thighs, and I tried to stifle a screech, which instead made me sound as if I were being strangled.

"He can", Keith answered, and I could hear the grin in his voice. I glared at the exit.

"Just continue telling", I muttered, frustrated that he was making me perturbed as usual, even in a situation like this.

He chuckled, and I was considering pinching his arm, but I knew it would have no effect for him, seeing as his body was made of rock now. Instead I just waited for that last trace of laughter to die down, even if I wanted it to last a little bit longer, and he spoke again, the same gravity in his voice again.

"You were often having nightmares when I checked up on you, would always stir in your sleep, mumble things I couldn't understand, and you always had that crease between your eyebrows. It was painful to watch you like that, and not be able to do anything about it. I couldn't do anything about it, not at that time at least.

"But one night, I came to late, and you weren't in your bed anymore. I searched throughout the whole castle for you, to see if you'd maybe gone for a late night snack, or if you'd started to sleepwalk somewhere, but I couldn't find you, you were nowhere in the castle." His hand balled into a fist at my back, and I held my breath, prepared myself for the dark turn of the story. "Later I heard the distressed message your mother sent over Altea. She said you were missing, urged everyone to keep an sharp eye if they'd somehow see you. I was outraged, angry that I couldn't know where you were, what had happened to you. I punched maybe ten walls that day, broke a couple of things, tried to let out my fury in some kind of way, but nothing helped. It took some while for me to calm down, and when I did, I immediately started to look for you.

"It took a while, but eventually I did, and that was the same day I teleported myself over to you, saw that blue bastard near you and my mind immediately set her as the villain, locked her as my target. That's why I lashed out like that, so I'm sorry if I scared you."

I bit my lip, twirling my fingers in the fabric of his hood, pinching it between my fingertips. "You didn't scare me. The only thing that scared me was the fact that maybe you wasn't real, that I was imagining you again, seeing someone else as the form of you."

"I was there", Keith said in a frail voice. "I was there, Lance. If only I'd come sooner that night. If only I'd returned from the Quantum Abyss sooner so I would have came in time to prevent you from being taken..."

"Quantum Abyss?" I questioned, perking up and sitting up straight in his lap, looking him directly in the eye, my hands coming to rest on his shoulders. I could feel how my cheeks were still wet with the previous tears, but I made no attempt in wiping them away. Keith leaned slightly back so he could see me clearly, his eyebrows wrenched in misery. "I've only heard tales about it, I... I didn't think it was possible to actually go there..."

"The Quantum Abyss is a formidable place, one that should be avoided if possible. The area around the abyss is full of warped chunks of organic debris, and the environment is always chaotic and ever-changing." Keith looked to the side, a layer of emotion laying itself over his face, like he was remembering a moment from that time. "Moreover, since time collapses so near the dark stars around, intense emissions of solar flares in the abyss that triggers glimpses of the past and future. I...I was shot by those flares more than once."

I looked at him, watched as his eyes narrowed as he looked over at where I had been looking just now, a conflict of emotions playing across his face. He had seen something, something big, and it was making him unsettled. He stilled when I grazed his cheek with my fingertips, as if he had already drifted away into his own mind-space. I waited for him to look at me, before asking:

"What did you see?"

His lips were pressed in a thin line, and his eyes looked unfocused, but I had to reel his focus back in by capturing his gaze, holding it securely in mine. His arms had gone slack now, and they laid sprawled across the ground beside him, and we were no longer embracing each other. Instead I just sat on his lap, keeping a hand on his shoulder, and the other on his face. We'd never been this close before, and it did things to my heart that certainly couldn't go unnoticed by him. But he didn't seem to pay any attention to my frantic heart, as his eyebrows lowered over his eyes.

"From the past...or the future?" he choked out, and it pained me too hear him speak like that. Whatever he must have seen, it must have hit deep inside his heart, and I didn't know what to expect of my heart if he told me.

"... Both, if you mind telling... "

He grimaced, like he'd bitten right into one of Coran's nutrient-filled dishes, and he dropped his gaze, glaring down at my thighs that were on top of his, his irises tapering into slits, in that way they always did whether he was angry or distressed, and I let my thumb come to grace the dark marks that reached just under his eye, and he instantly froze, not moving a single muscle. For a moment, I thought that he wouldn't say anything more, but then he slowly opened his mouth, said:

"I saw my parents... from the past. Saw me as an infant..." His face took on a darker shade, like it was laid under shadows, and I let my hand drop, my eyebrows raising just slightly, waiting for him to elaborate. "I'd never seen much of both of them. The only thing I remember of my time on Earth was the shack that me and my pop used to live in. I wasn't allowed to leave the shack, see much of the outside world except for the vast desert because of the way I looked. That's why I was home schooled by him..."

I watched in a stunned silence as he poured a little of his past to me, all the time keeping his gaze lowered, as if it were easier to say everything that way. I didn't expect this, didn't think his answer would turn into what I knew would be a dismal, and I almost wanted him to stop telling, just because that doleful look on his face did some nasty things to my heart, but at the same time, I wanted him to continue, to open up to me, because this was the most vulnerable I'd ever seen him.

"My dad was a fireman..." Keith immediately looked up at me, just to see my questionable look which he must have expected I'd wear, and he lowered his gaze just as fast to add "Firemeb are those who work to extinguish places that has caught on fire. They can be quite the heroes on Earth." Uh-oh, that didn't sound good. Fire could be fatal, and looking at Keith now, I knew that that element would play a big, dangerous part in this story. I could only brace myself for the worst. "He often had to be out on duty, but he couldn't, not when I was that little. But when I turned seven doboshes old, he trusted that I could take care of myself and left more often to patrol, and it often happened that he would just leave in the middle of everything, just to go save someone else, risk his life for people he didn't know. It angered me, because whenever I tried to spend some time with him, he would get that freaking signal, telling him to come and endanger himself for people who would most likely forget him the tic after they'd been saved by him. But I couldn't do anything about it, couldn't even leave the quiznacking house."

My chest tightened, and Keith paused, digging his fangs deep into his lip, so deep I was afraid his skin would burst. But before it could, he retracted his teeth, continuing his story. The crackle of the fire and our uneven breathes were the only sound around us.

"But one quintant, he didn't return, and it went long enough for me to start to imagine the worst. I waited for vargas, always ready that he would come bursting through the door, his face sooty, hair tousled and uniform wrinkled after a hard work, and then directly hitting the showers, but he never did, never came.

"I couldn't sleep, didn't plan on doing it, either. Not until he would enter that door. And I tried to make myself believe that it was just a long shift, that he would be back soon, but then I turned on the news, and I..." I heard his breath catch, and his voice trailed off, turning to a pained whisper as he lowered his head, making it impossible for me to see his eyes. He hissed a breathe through clenched teeth, and I gasped, my stomach twisting and turning to a point where I felt sick. I lifted a trembling arm, ready to interweave my fingers in his hair, but my hand stopped mid-air when he looked up again, his face flushed, eyes damp, still not crying, but damn near to. He still didn't look at me, and it was probably best so, because I knew I wouldn't be able to handle that miserable look I would receive from him. When he continued, his voice was flat, slightly wobbly at the start, but then maintaining that monotonous tone to it.

"I was scared, I didn't know what to do, couldn't go out to ask. I'd never seen much of the outside world anyway, so I wouldn't survive, especially not looking this foreign. It went quintants after he'd disappeared, and I had just about enough food stored to manage a movement, at best. Those quintants are quite blurry, probably because my brain had taken on a survival mechanism, for me to forget the trauma, but the only thing I could remember was me crying at any point of the quintant."

My throat was starting to hurt again, and my lip quivered.

"But then, as if a miracle had appeared, just when the food was about to run out and I didn't know what to do anymore, a spaceship landed just behind our shack, and as the curious and desperate kid I was, I went outside to look, and what I saw was a Galra man, telling me to come with him. He looked like me, and he was telling me he would take care of me, and that was enough for me to follow with, and that's when I got introduced to Blade of Marmora, a rebel group of Galra resistance that had tried to fight off Zarkon for generations. They raised me there, but never mentioned my mom, just like my dad never did. I didn't even know they had a connection to her until I stumbled upon her on a mission. My emotions was at a conflict, and I didn't know what to feel when I had first seen her. It was only later that I came to the realization that it must have been her sending that Galra to me, saving me. But she didn't know dad was d..." Keith took a deep, stuttering breath. "She didn't know what had happened to dad until the Quantum Abyss, and I hadn't known about her's and dad's past until then, either."

He'd rambled it all up, exposing his deepest, saddest parts of his life, thrown it all at me, and I didn't know how to react, couldn't even think to take up the right emotion for this moment. Instead I just left it all for my body to work out, and it all came to a feeble whimper as I surged forward to take him into my arms, clutching at his hair, tugging at the hood again, feeling how unevenly his heart was beating against mine, and I could hear how he was trying to even out his breathing against my shoulder, but instead it just sounded choppy.

"Keith... Keith, I didn't know... I didn't..."

"And as for the future...", he continued, his voice softer this time, but still sorrowful. Stop it stop it stop it. I didn't want him continuing, not if he would crumbled like this. "I didn't see much. Only a clock. It read 21:59, but that's all I saw. I don't even know the context of it."

"Like your device number...", I whispered, coming to a small realization. I lifted my head from his shoulder again, pinning him with a determined look. Keith turned his head to look at me too, his eyebrows raised. "It's the number of your communicating device. What could that mean?"

"I don't know", he admitted, a frown on his face, but then it immediately softened, and he pressed out a wobbly, tiny smile, so small that it almost wasn't even there on his lips. "But hey, don't worry about that now. We're still very much in the present, right? Let's keep it that way. I really like this present."

My face instantly took the shade of a rose, and I could feel how the petals were blossoming up in my cheeks, and I instantly hid my face in the crook of his neck, feeling how his shoulders shook with the deep laugh that he let out. It didn't help that his fingers were brushing my back, tapping lightly, traveling higher and higher until they came in contact with my bared skin that peeked from between the hair at my neck, and the collar of my pajamas. The hair at my neck instantly stood up, and Keith sniggered again.

"I need a shower", I stammered out, both to appear as if his touch didn't affect me - but I knew I failed miserably in doing that - but also because I was being much more aware of my body know, and the sweat that was sticking onto my skin was agonizingly disgusting.

"Yeah, you kinda do", Keith chuckled, his fingers laying flat on my neck now, and I growled, considering pinching his arm after all, giving my absolute hardest so he could at least feel something, but then he said "But I'm no better. I didn't have time to wash myself today. So let's take a bath. Together."

I choked on my own breath, taking my face out of his neck, looking at him like he had suddenly turned into a flan-bil-diplor. "What?!" I shrieked, my voice shrill. "Shower? Naked...? TOGETHER?!"

Keith visibly rolled his eyes, but the smile on his lips couldn't go unseen.

"You don't have to be naked, just keep your underwear on", he deadpanned. I couldn't help but to gulp.

Yeah...yeah, of course, no problem, I could do that...

۝ ۝ ۝

I could most definitely NOT do that.

It had only gone two doboshes, and I could already feel how my soul was slowly exiting my body. Please don't get a nosebleed again...

The moonlight danced perfectly on his skin, making droplets glitter on every curve of his body, every defined line. His eyes coruscated at the right angle from where he covered half of his face under water, looking up at me, like two fireflies were hovering over the pond behind his cave, and even if his mouth was covered, I could see how he was grinning at my embarrassed face, how the corner of his eyes twitched upwards. He even had the audacity to wink, and that was when my soul was completely gone, nowhere to be seen.

Keith rose from the water again, and the translucent liquid ran down his chest in a way that forced me to look to the side, just so I wouldn't die right here and now. I brought my hand up to my mouth, biting down hard into my knuckle, my face flushing bright crimson.

"I'm starting to think that you're not the real Keith, but his bigger, cooler, grizzled older brother", my thirstiness couldn't help but to say, and I wanted to drown myself after letting that libidinous comment slip out. The laugh I reeled out of him didn't exactly help. Man, he was laughing way too much today, and normally, it would have made me joyous, but not in this circumstance, not when he was laughing at my expense.

"I was stuck on a space whale that floated through the Quantum Abyss for two deca-phoebes, and every creature I faced there wanted to get me and my mother killed." He looked down at his own arm, examining it, and I swear I was drooling at this point. "Getting a little bit of muscles were just an additional compensation."

"Oh..." I blinked fast. "So... you... you were being serious about waiting for deca-phoebes to hug me, huh?"

His eyes shot downwards, over my body, like a hurriedly once-over that lasted for a tic, but it still made my skin heat up, and my functions were piping hot, almost shutting down completely. When he looked at me, it was as if every ounce of breath was taken from my lungs, floating into the air like midnight smoke, and my heart fluttered wildly.

"Yeah", is all he said, and left it at that.

We stared at each other for a long time, until my eyes felt dry and I desperately needed to blink, but I couldn't, wouldn't, afraid that the moment would pass me by if I did. The water caressed my skin, rippling over my arms, giving out a soft splashing sound. His eyes were two lambent orbs, flickering with a soft radiance that somehow pierced right through my senses and left my eyes gaping at him, my body experiencing a myriad of emotions all at once until I didn't know what to feel anymore, didn't know what to think of the situation. My brain was inactive, couldn't plan out anything to say, so instead I left the task for my heart instead, letting it speak freely. It came to:

"Keith, I still wonder...I still wonder what it was you wanted to tell me, but always got interrupted. You said it wouldn't change the situation, but..." I had to blink, had to itch closer to him. "But please, I need to know, I can't stop thinking about it..."

An emotion flashed across his face, so fast it confused me, but then his expression turned resolute, adamantly determined, and I was sensing something coming. His eyelashes shimmered under the droplets that had caught in the small hairs, and his gaze were searching, deep with something I couldn't place my finger on.

"See if you can read it underwater", he teased, and then he gripped my arm and pulled us down.

As soon as my head hit the water, silence clogged my ear as everything around me turned muffled. At first, I couldn't keep my eyes fully opened, since the sudden water poking at them wasn't fairly normal to me, but eventually I held them agape, looking through the slight blur at how Keith's hair floated weightlessly around him, like seaweed in a current. Even subaquatic, his eyes glowed, and I was mesmerized, couldn't stop staring. I held my breathe, couldn't even feel the pressure across my chest against the struggle, because he was moving, swimming closer to me, just so I could see, his hair slipping along like black ink dissolving in water. Submerged, I could hear my pulse clearly in my ear, obstreperous and powerful.
I let my eyes fall down to look at his lips, watching him open his mouth, starting to speak.

I could read it perfectly, as if I'd hear him utter it out loud:

"I love you."

۝ ۝ ۝

Hi, yeah, I love my oblivious, smitten, bois.

I just love throwing angst at my readers and then covering it all up with some good ol' Klance fluff :D

But like, these past 2 chapters is so long, like, what happened to me???

But anyways, kick👊🏻💜