I finally finished a project I've been dealing with for like, one year now, so I can finally sleep in peace knowing it's done! Therefore, the chapter MAY come more frequently??? Pff, ok, who am I kidding, it will take as long to update, especially when I have upcoming national tests.

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This felt just like before, running through the thicket to see him, only now my heart was somewhere in my head, and I hadn't breathed out since I'd started sprinting, and it felt like I could explode with all the oxygen gathered in my chest, wanting to come out.

My feet were working unwittingly, jumping over rocks and fallen tree branches like they could do it while I was sleeping. I didn't know how many times I'd ran through this path, but I knew it was many enough for me to be so skilled in it. Only now, there would be another destination.

To think that I was only nervous over my own actions was an underestimation. I was absolutely, utterly, freaking out over it; this was another stage of lunacy, and I knew that, but still my feet were moving on their own, my hands darting out to push aside every looming branch that tried to block my way. Maybe this was the forest's way of telling me to stop, and to turn around, but this were my body's way of contradicting, and to bustle my way through.

The cave looked awfully inviting as I pushed away the last branch to reveal the sight of it on the other side, and it was like it was beseeching me to come inside, to meet him there. But the stillness I felt, even from outside, was my sign that he wasn't there, and that this certainly wasn't my destination, for this time. I slowly walked forward again, just to pass it, continuing through the endless abyss of green and brown. The branches seeming got fewer the further away from the cave I walked, and it put my heart at ease. 

I didn't know how long I wended for, and for how many trees I passed just to make me wonder if I had already passed that tree, and then throw a quick glance over my shoulder just to see I wasn't completely lost. Maybe I was walking the complete wrong way, and Keith was somewhere completely else, several kilometers away from me.
But then, like some kind of aplomb, another sound broke through the silence the forest was radiating, and it didn't really sound cautionary, more like an easement, and my legs caught another wave of zeal, and I lurched forward, a grunt caught in my throat as I tried to steady my staggering feet. The sky bared itself more and more I ran, and the closer I got to the source, I could hear the sound taking a bigger form, hitting the shells of my ears and traveling up to my brain. 

It was water. No, more specifically, a waterfall. It was soft in a chaotic way, and it was right before me, as I tumbled through the last few leaves that was like a barrier between me and my destination. 
My chin fell down, and it almost hurt from how wide my eyes were, and I just stared,

stared at the big pond in front of me, the little mountain above with the teeming waterfall, falling down like water from a tap into an overflowing sink, the sun - looking like a yolk against the warm sky - resting on the horizont and lighting up the glimmer of the water rays in a way that made it seem unreal. The mountain was covered in moss and lichen, the rock of it almost hidden completely behind.

It was like a big basin in the middle of the forest, the air around me turning more humid and chilly, and I could feel how incredibly small water droplets collided with my skin and danced around me, tucking themselves in my hair and tousling it, fluffing it up. I put my arm up, looking down at how the few short strands of white hair stood up as a layer of goosebumps formed on my body. 
I looked up again, my arm still in the air, and further ahead, I noticed something else in the constant moving water, something that wasn't in fact water, but exactly what I searched for.

There, behind the fog of the water droplets, partly under the spurt of the waterfall, stood Keith, eyes closed as he intently washed his hair, his nimble fingers running through the obsidian strands on his head, and even from here, I could see how his skin pulled and strained over his muscles underneath, and how his chest was displayed like a purple landscape, the bumps and swells of every mountain and cliff. How much did this guy train~

I lowered my hand, or, more correctly, dropped it down at my side again, the hair in my neck standing straight up, but this time it wasn't because of the cool air around me. My mouth flopped, and my breathing turned erratic. Rather than backing away, turning around, or anything to prevent myself from seeing the sight of him in front of me and cause another nosebleed, my legs moved me forward. I mentally screamed at them to stop, to turn around, but it frightened me when I saw the scene itch closer and closer to me, until he was in the focus, several meters ahead of me, but still close enough for me to see; the glitter in his chest from the droplets, the scars in front that I hadn't had time to study thoroughly on the call last time, and how the pond he stood in reached just above his hipbones, shrouding a more private part of his body that - King Groggery the infirm forbid - if I were to see, would surely make me pass out and lay in my own puddle of epistaxis. It was too much loss of blood for one day, thank you very much.

The soggy grass under me gave out sloshy sounds as I walked closer, and I could only pray that Keith wouldn't hear it with his abnormal purple ears, and that the noise of the waterfall was high enough to drench the sound of my footsteps. Keith's eyes remained closed, so I counted that as a win.

What was I doing though? I was supposed to walk backwards, not towards him, but still I couldn't make my legs to stop. The droplets bounced on my arms, made my hair disheveled, and I couldn't help but to shiver. Because of the chilly air or the sight in front of me? I couldn't know. The sight of him got closer and closer, until I could pinpoint every scar, every little scratch on his body, and how in this light, his skin got a lavender tone to it. It was fascinating, how many different shades of purple his body could vary from, depending on the light around him, and how many times my heart would stop from it.

My head was spinning, the tip of my ears was starting to heat up, and I could feel a hard pressure on my whole face, and my eyes landed on his arms. Quiznack, those swelling biceー

My foot slipped, and I tumbled down, water engulfing me and pulling me down. 

It was a chock, the sudden impact, and the sudden fall, and my arm flung forward, floundering around, to either grip something, or push me upwards, but I wasn't so sure of which one. My feet were kicking desperately, and I made the mistake to gasp, inhaling a scoop of water into my mouth. Everywhere was blue around me, my hands looking blurry and fuzzy, and it stung in my eyes from having them so wide open underwater. I closed them, trying to place my feet on solid ground, but it felt like I was spinning, doing involuntary somersaults which would have been fun to do as a kid, but not now. Not when I had tripped into the water because I'd been gawking at a hot Galra boy taking a shower in a pond.

My lungs were stinging, and I needed to get up to spit all the water out. The pull in the water slowed my arms down, and it made my muscles ache. Just as I was starting to give up and let my body go slack, I felt myself move, upwards and upwards. There was a pressure against my right arm this time, but I didn't pay much attention to it, until my head felt lighter again, a new kind of cold nibbling on my skin, and my nose stung. My eyes flew open, and I still saw through a blur, but this time it wasn't just blue. I opened my mouth, to scream, to laugh, I didn't know, but a strain against my throat prevented me. A silhouette emerged over me, and I could only pinpoint the colors of it; Purple and black, that was all. My ears felt clogged, unable to hear anything around me except for my pounding pulse in my head.

The silhouette moved, and the next tick, my chest were pushed down, like pumps, and it felt like my ribs would crack, one by one. But it helped with the pressure on my throat, at least, and I could feel it getting lighter and lighter, until it released completely, as I coughed up all the water that had been stuck, leaning to the side as I tried to free my windpipe from the remaining liquid. My whole body shook with each cough, and I could feel how the muscles in my stomach squeezed painfully. When I finally coughed up the last bit of water, my body relaxed, flopping back down on my back, blinking my eyes into a more clear state.

Keith stared down at me, and I was too tired to even move. His face was unreadable, or maybe it was just me that was too dizzy to understand his emotions, and his hair stuck to the sides of his head in a way that would look ridiculous on other people, but not him. He could even pull through with a wet mullet. Was there something he couldn't do?

I had to blink a little bit more, only to distinguish the concern that overtook his facial features in a way that just made me want to run my hand over his face to soften it up. I think I emitted a groan, because my throat vibrated, and the sound partly reached my ears. I swallowed just to make them pop open again.

Keith liften his hand, and it pushed my hair away from my forehead, lingering there. My whole soul stung, but it didn't really matter when he looked down at me like that, and treated me with that very unnecessary tender touch. I watched in awe as his narrowed irises widened again, turning round as he must have sensed I was alright. I could only gape as he smiled down at me, the droplets on his face making it shimmer.

"Hey there", he murmured, and I felt like choking again, only this time it would be on plain air. "So eager to see me, you'd drown in water for it?" His tone revealed that he was half joking, half serious.

"Unintentionally...", I hissed, my voice raspy and throaty. It hurt to speak, and it hurt to even breathe.

"Was following me all the way here also unintentionally?" he teased, his thumb wiping away the beads of water under my eye, and my throat wrung itself, making my breath hitch.

"I hope your mullet was unintentional too", I muttered, my senses starting to come back again, and I felt how my clothes was sticking wetly against my skin. I wanted nothing but to just tear it off of me, but I could barely move, let alone pull through with that action. I could only breathe and calm my heart down when Keith chuckled 

"Insulting me again, I guess you're more than okay, then." He leaned back, but his hand lingered on my face. There was a glint of something jokingly in his eyes. "Careful though, I might just push you back down in to the water."

"Please don't", I whined, feeling like it was time to sit up now - even if I was very reluctant to feel the loss of his touch - since it was starting to get cold and I probably looked awful laying down like this. Keith must have thought something similar, because his hand on my face disappeared, and instead appeared on my arm, tugging.

"You're shaking Lance", he noted, pulling on my arm, and I grunted, wanting to lay down just a little bit more - something about nearly drowning in shallow water made one exhausted. But where was the ground when I needed it? It couldn't have been that shallow if my feet never met something solid. "Sit up, and we'll go warm you up in the cave." Keith kept trying to haul me up, but I knew he wasn't using his full strength - he could carry me with his pinky finger, if he wanted to, looking at those muscles -, probably because he knew about the weak state I was in.

"Mm, sitting by a fire now does sound nice", I slurred, letting Keith yank me up. I had time to sit in the cave to get warmed up for a little bit, before I quickly had to return home and fake sleep until Allura decided to wake me up. But considering the enervation I was feeling now, it wouldn't be much to fake. It felt like I could drift off into an endless sleep right here and now.

But then, every trace of exhaustion was swept away as my eyes wandered downwards, and I straight up squealed, clumsily backing away and lifting a heavy arm to cover my eyes, turning my head to the side. 

"OH MY QUIZNACK, OH MY SWEET ALTEA, YOU'RE NAKED, AAAA..."

"Lance", he snapped, and I backed away further more. "Stop screaming..."

"...AAAAAHH OH MY ALTEA YOU'RE NAKED, RIGHT NEXT TO ME! WHY ARE YOU NAKED RIGHT NEXT TO ME?"

"Stop screaming", Keith tried again, and I screeched when I felt his hand on my arm, trying to tug it away from my face. "And you didn't exactly give me time to get dressed, since, you know, you decided to show up so unexpectedly and fall down into the pond."

"THAT DOESN'T GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO BE NAKED! NEXT TO ME!" My heart was thumping, and the same pressure in my face appeared, and I was afraid I would get another nosebleed, so I quickly had to steer my thoughts onto other things to distract myself. Think of Hunk's smiles, Hunk's hugs, Hunk's amazing food...

"It's not like I want to be naked in front of you!" Keith said, his voice turning up an octave, cracking in that way it does when he speaks loudly. "But you didn't give me much of a choice. I was taking a shower, after all, so what do you expect? I don't know about you, but I prefer to take a shower naked, or does Alteans not do that? Or maybe you're just too royal for that."

"I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR WITTY REMARKS, KEITH!" Hunk's smiles, Hunk's hugs, Hunk's amazing foood... "Just... please get dressed!" My poor nose can't handle much more of this. 

"Can you just calm down first?" I heard him sigh, but I refused to look at him, and instead kept my head turned and my arm pressed hard against my eyes, cramming the thoughts of Hunk's greatness in my head. "Just... stay turned around and I'll dry myself up and get dressed, okay?"

I didn't say anything, mostly because I was afraid that my voice would fail me, so instead I just kept quiet and listened as he stood up, and how he walked away from me, towards the pond. My head itched to turn around, to peek, just a little, but I cursed myself for even having an urge to. Instead, I could only groan and put my arms on top of the back of my head, pressing my faces into my lap as I doubled over, waiting for him to get dressed. The only good thing coming out of this embarrassment was that my body was heated up enough to not feel the cold that was supposed to course over my skin. I felt the goosebumps, but not the frigidity.

It seemed like an eternity before I felt something nudge the side of my leg, and when I grudgingly lifted my arms off from my head, and looked up, I could finally let out the noxious air I held in, my lungs protesting all the time. Keith crossed his arm, once again looking down at me, his suit safely covering up his body - n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶i̶t. 
His hair stood up in too many directions, no matter if he ran his hand through it in an attempt to tame it, but still he managed to maintain such an preposterous beauty to him.

"Better?" he asked, his eyebrow quirking up in mocking question.

You look even better without the suit, my mind chanted, and I mentally slapped that nasty side of myself. Instead, I just uttered a feeble little: "Better."

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I reached forward, rubbing my hands together under the heat of the fire Keith had put up as soon as we entered the cave. As soon as my body had calmed down, from the shock of both the drowning, and Keith's naked body. Good thing that I actually didn't have time to fully see the most private part of him, and only enough to make me realize that I needed to look away. Is it really that good? the ribald side of me asked, and I stilled, mentally screaming for it to shut up.

"You warm yet?" Keith asked, poking at the fire with one of the untouched sticks, his legs pulled up, arms resting on his kneecaps, one of his hands gripping one of his arms as he kept on prodding. The fire crackled with every nudge. 

"No", I lied, continuing to grind my dry hands together. But in reality, I was more than warmed up, almost sweltering, but I wanted to have an excuse to stay here a little bit more, no matter how risky it may have been. 

But still, Keith was well aware of the perils, and said: "You have to return to the castle soon. Who knows how worried your family will get if they see that you're not anywhere to be seen." Still, he didn't look at me, and I couldn't help but to sigh heavily.

"I will, I will", I grouched, my mood dropping down low. Of course I couldn't stay here longer; reality was waiting for me outside, beyond the walls of this dimly lit cave, beyond Keith and everything he was. Reality would always wait for me, no matter how much I tried to shove it away. And Keith would always try to foresee everything, and all the danger we could stand in for. Almost evrything we did, every visit we paid, could eventually lead to something horrible.

So instead, I called him, later that day, after sneaking in through the backdoors of the castle, tiptoeing to the bathroom to put my half sodden clothes in the drying machine, and quickly jump into my blue robe, lucky that the whole castle was still asleep - except for the several guards that patrolled regularly that was remarkably hard to walk past unnoticed. I'd managed to go through the day with a relatively normal behaviour, talking and smiling like I'd not watched a Galra boy shower and let him rescue me from almost drowning just this morning.

"Soon I'll be able to see you. I mean, in the cave again", I announced, pulling the blanket higher up on my legs. "Since, you know, Nyma will "be back again from her mission", and Allura thinks I'm visiting her again." I made exaggerated quote signs around the words, just to emphasize. 

It pained me when something dark swept across Keith's face at the mention of Nyma's name, and I watched as his jaw tightened, his eyes looking away. I could only stare as different emotions crossed his features, laying his face in such a deep shadow it made him almost hidden. He opened his mouth, but then closed it again. I waited with anticipation for him to speak, but it took a while before he finally, very carefully, said:

"Lance, I... there's been something I've wanted to tell you... but I always relented, but... maybe it's time to tell you that I... that I..."

He froze, very slowly lifted his head, his eyes looking at something that wasn't my face, and his mouth went slack,

The call ended, and he disappeared.

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Don't you just hate when authors pull this kind of shit?? Well, here you go!