SOOoo, ehm...yeah, heh...let's just forget about the part that I suck at updating regularly and continue with the story???

PS:

I'msorryI'msorryI'MSORRY 😖 Life is just too busy, y'all

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Lance was touching his scar, and Keith didn't know how to feel about that.

It was a tender touch, like he was afraid that Keith's arm would splinter under his fingertips if he pressed too hard, but Keith could feel it so eminently, like he was adding force from the start. His fingers were dry and cold, but as soon as they came in contact with the other's arm, they instantly heated up and damped just slightly, but enough for Keith to feel it. His skin crackled, and the sparks within immediately made him pull back his arm, drawing it back from Lance's soft grip. It was pure instinct, but Keith couldn't understand why he regretted it directly afterwards, as his eyes flew up to look at the boy in front of him, skin sputtering and heart crepitating in his chest so loudly he feared Lance would hear it. 

But he didn't seem to notice it, since the brunette was too busy freaking out himself. His eyes widened, and he immediately withdrew his hand, so quickly the movement was seen in a blur. His mouth hung open in surprise, and his eyebrows almost reached the ceiling. He grimaced afterwards.

"AH, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Does it hurt?" Lance wheezed like he was the one in pain, and he backed away from Keith as much as the bed would let him, his face wrenched in agony.

His reaction was completely unexpected to Keith, and his brain short circuited for a second or two, unable to process the whole situation properly. Was Lance worrying if he was in pain? Was that what it was about? Had Keith understood correctly? Probably not, so he ended up just stuttering out a outdrawn "Uhh..", staring dumbfoundedly at him, his skin still pulsating from the occurrence of Lance's very light touch.

"It hurts, doesn't it? Man, I'm sorry about that." Lance brought his hand up to scratch his neck, looking down at the mattress, a diffident little smile on his lips. "I guess the healing pod didn't complete it's full job, huh?"

His words were getting to him, but still not completely, like there was just that thin layer around his conscious that prevented him from seeing the whole picture. Could he tear it down in just a span of seconds? Probably not, since it clearly must have been evident most of his life, or most of the time around Lance, at least. He could still feel the shadow of his fingers on his scar, like it was a reminder that it had happened, and would be for a while. But why was it affecting Keith so much? It wasn't any different from when they had to hold each other's hands during Query Quest...
Except it was. This touch was different; it wasn't forced, and most importantly, it was soft, barely there at all, like his fingers were ghosting over Keith's scar. It was so unusual to him, that it put him out of place. He quickly had to fix the expression on his face and the malfunction in his brain before speaking again,

"I'm...fine..." His words came out unsure, like he couldn't be fully certain about how he was feeling himself "But... But why'd you touch it anyways?"

Lance dropped his smile immediately, and his hand stopped scratching, instead hanging there in the air for five silent seconds, before falling flat on the bed beside him. The thud of it sounded like a goddamn explosion in the momentary silence, and for the first time, Keith didn't welcome the stillness, not this one; the one that was a million voices screaming in his head, before Lance spoke again and dispelled all of them.

"Well, you know..." His eyebrows were wrenched, and he looked frustrated as he intently stared down at his lap, fiddling with his fingers, pulling on each one of them like he was planning to dislocate them from his palm, but never did. Keith was relieved that he didn't. "It just comes... naturally, to car..." He stopped midsentence, squinting down at his hands, and started over instead. "As I mentioned earlier, my nephews always got injured, so I always... treated their wounds with care, you know... caressing it, just to soothe them. It's completely automatic. I do it with almost everyone, so don't feel special." He clasped his hands together, glaring down at them, like he could see Keith's face in them. Of course he'd turned it into an insult directly after, and Keith had a vague perception as to why; this was his way of maintaining his amour-propre, since this clearly must have been a touchy subject to him, and bringing it up to Keith, his rival - who he must have thought would make fun of him or something along those things - probably made him want to quickly set his pride high and boost up his attitude. But what he didn't know was that it wasn't Keith's intentions at all, and has never been. Not if necessary; not if Lance didn't fuck with him too much and basically asked for Keith to treat him like that.

So he took his risk, took the dangerous path, threw any sign of caution and discretion out of the way, let his mouth run free, not connecting it to his better judgments. "You... really do miss your family, huh?"
Fuck fuck FUCK, go back! He repeatedly tried to push the stop button to this whole moment, but it wasn't working, and it was already too late;

Lance head shot up, like someone had called his name in the middle of a crowd, and his eyes were the size of two moons, ogling Keith in a way that made his whole face sting, and his expression was nothing more than just pure stupefaction, making every muscle in his face loose, letting his mouth fall open again as he gaped at the raven haired. The silence around them was chaotic in Keith's head, the worst kind of cacophony, and Lance's astonished face didn't make it any easier, only made it louder. Keith didn't want this kind of silence, not the one that made him want to delete his whole existence and wanted to delete every words he'd uttered these past few years. Not the kind of silence that was so loud.

He was ready to retreat from the battleground that was Lance's feelings he'd managed to throw himself into, but then the other blinked, his mouth twitching like he'd just remembered that it was there, and his hands went slack in his lap, just laying there in a tangled mess of fingers. 

"I...Y-yeah...yeah, I do miss them..." He looked forward, like he'd just realized where he really was, and he eyed the wall intently in front of him, his eyebrows twitching. "A lot... An awful lot. I can't... I can't stop thinking about them..." Now he was letting his gaze drop downwards, staring at his hand again, but not with the same kind of animosity as before. Now it was just... dejection. Keith continued to repeatedly smash the button in his head, hoping for progress, but none came. He was still stuck here in his room, with Lance, wistful about a subject that Keith had zero experience in, whatsoever, and couldn't do much about it, really, than just risk messing it all up and ending on worse terms with him than he already was. Keith didn't want to challenge his luck and end up upsetting Lance in a way that would make him despite him forever and ever, making the situation they were even harder. And that meant not trying to escape this moment, and just let it pass naturally, hoping that it wouldn't defy his wishes completely. 

But he didn't want to seem inviting either, like he wanted to listen. It wasn't just about Lance, it could be with anybody. This subject always tended to take his mind into dangerous places, always left him confused and frustrated in the end. This was something he would never understand; what a family was like. This wasn't something he could stay up during the whole night to study for, there wasn't any answers written for him to read, not a language he could translate. This would forever be a mystery to him, and that's what made him hate it the most. Not being to ever know.

So he didn't say anything, just quietly waited for something to happen, and Lance must have seen that as his cue to continue, so he did. "I always wonder how they're doing back on Earth, what they're thinking of... my disappearance. If they... if they ever regretted letting me attend the Garrison, you know, stuff like that." He started to move his fingers again, emitting a little sigh. "But sometimes I have to comfort myself thinking that I least got to say a proper goodbye to them before I left, and maybe that makes this all easier if I hadn't but... it's still not...enough. I just wish I could send them a signal, a message, anything to let them know that I'm alive, I'm okay, and that I'm also out in space kicking purple cat alien butts in a blue mechanical lion." He snorted with the smallest smile on his lips, fondly looking down at his intertwined fingers. "My nephews would think it's so cool, and they'd keep asking me to take them flying with Blue...", he trailed off, and just as fast as his smile had appeared, it was gone even faster, and he just looked despondent again, his voice wobbling in the slightest when he uttered the next few quiet words, "I miss them all so much..."

Keith couldn't form any sentence in his own head, let alone say any of them. Everything in him had temporarily frozen to ice, only that it was unbreakable, like big cubes in his mind that was heavy enough to push his whole conscious down into the darkest pits of his bewilderment. His head felt weighted with hefty thoughts, trying to get used to the Lance he was seeing in front of him, trying to fit his words into his crammed head. He couldn't. Maybe it was just a too big picture for him, a too unrealistic one; Lance talking about his saddest thoughts with Keith, showing up this vulnerability to him that Keith had never witnessed before, making him look more human than ever, and not just like a broken record that kept sputtering out insult after insult, trying to one-up him in any possible way. Maybe that's what surprised Keith the most, rather than the actual topic itself.

Just when he began to think that Lance was too teary to continue, he opened his mouth again, "Don't get me wrong, I love being able to save the universe and be the one so many counts on, but...I didn't sign up for this. None of this. It's all so unexpected. One moment I was out past curfew in the Garrison, ready to hit the town and meet pretty girls, and the next moment, I'm chosen as a paladin of a big lion-man robot, living in a castle thousands of lightyears away, with two aliens and four mice, additionally, one of them also being really hot~" Keith couldn't help but to roll his eyes, despite the plight."...but I never wanted this. Or it's not like I ever thought of this. I couldn't even get myself prepared for such a thing. It's a lot to handle, just being thrown out into space like this, getting such a heavy burden and liability on your shoulders. If I'd just get the option to brace myself for it..."

"But would you do it, then?" The red paladin surprised them both in talking, and he didn't think he'd ever open his mouth in this moment. But one ice cube in his head melted, words running like water out of his mouth. Lance's gaze flew up again, looking at him. "Would you have done all of this, if you'd know what was to come?" 

His question lingered in the air, flashed them in their face, and Keith had no power to take it back, to rewind these past ten minutes. Had no power at all, just sat there powerless, the throbbing in his skin completely forgotten, the phone behind him non existent. 

"I..." Lance began to stutter, his eyelashes blinking so fast that it almost looked like they weren't moving at all. "I..."

"You wouldn't", Keith answered for him, another ice cube melting, another wave of words flowing out. "Not if it ment giving up everything you hold close to you back on Earth, not if you knew the sacrifice you would have to make. Saving the universe is a big deal, Lance, one that I don't think you'd willingly accept if you knew everything you'd have to leave behind you.

Keith knew that was risky to say, since he clearly wasn't classified for such a talk, and he'd made basic assumptions in his head, which definitely weren't planned out well enough to utter out, especially not in this situation, when it could backfire so easily and it could break Lance's pride just as effortlessly, and it showed, because Lance's eyebrows wrenched over his hard eyes, he crossed his arms over his chest, turning his torso towards the other to get a good look at him. 

"Would you?" he snapped, clearly frustrated that Keith had managed to see through him. Keith met his eyes with the same coldness as him. "Just willingly leave everything behind to save the universe?"

I have nothing to leave behind, no one to miss me if I'd die for their own safety. "Yes."

That short answer made Lance scoff, rolling his eyes and throwing his hands in the air. "Nonsense! I know for a fact that you wouldn't do that. Just, what, turn your back on everything you have? Just like that? I know you're broody and all that, but you're not cold hearted. You wouldn't just leave your family back on Earth like that, right? For something still very much out of the ordinary to us, something so unknown? This isn't a normal war. This isn't even one on Earth, this isn't World War Three, this is an intergalactic war, Keith. In space. Would you just willingly leave for that?" He threw his hands in the air again. "What about your family, Keith? Your family? Would you be that ready to leave them behind, in no way of reaching to you?"

That's when Keith froze, when the cold inside him had managed to freeze every function in his body, when that straw, that card, was being pulled. The topic he'd feared of, one that he knew he could get himself into, but decided to look past for the moment. How unwise of him; there was no really escaping it, no way of looking past it. It'd always find its way to him, after all.

Like now. "I think it's time for you to leave..." His mouth was moving, but his words sounded far away, like he wasn't really fully in his body. For the third time these recent minutes, a shocked expression overtook his features, but this was a different kind of shock than the two others. This was the kind of shock that couldn't really comprehend the situation, like your mind had been shattered to view another reality you didn't think even existed in this moment.

"Wh..." Lance eyelids fluttered like hummingbird wings, and his shoulders dropped. "Did I seriously just upset you? Come on, dude, I was just stating facts, and it's not like you were any better. I was just in the heat of the conversation, that's all! No need to get all defensive and kick me out..."

"It's not that", Keith muttered, growing frustrated. Although it was. "I'm just... really tired, that's all. I think I'm going to take a quick nap. And you should return back to the others, they're probably wondering where you are."

Keith could see clearly how Lance wasn't buying it, but right now, he really couldn't care. He didn't know how he managed to keep his cool this long, but now he couldn't anymore, didn't have the energy to. He needed his room cleared of any other existence, needed only himself and his thoughts to sort out. 

"Oh..." The blue paladin was already moving, scrambling up to him feet, the bed moving as he stood up, and Keith had no time to regret, no time to reflect over his actions. He slowly looked up to meet the other's gaze, trying to keep his face neutral, hiding how chaotic it was inside his head, and how alert he actually was. "Yeah, right..." He looked to the side, his posture rigid, his face set hard. "The banquet...", he mumbled, like he'd just remember it existed. He turned his body sideways, likes he was ready to leave, but had something on his mind that he wanted to utter so badly it prevented him from really departing. Eventually, he said: "Well...sleep well, I guess." Now he turned around completely, making his way over to the automatic doors.

But Keith didn't want it to end like this, didn't want one of them to leave upset. That had never been his plan, and he didn't want it to be something accidental. His goal had only been to escape this situation, but to snap at Lance in the process wasn't a part of his aim. That's why he went for it and said;

"And Lance?"

Said boy hesitantly turned around, like he'd expect him to snap at him again.

Keith tried to soften his voice, tried to form a small and honest smile, although it went against all his wishes. "Thanks for checking up on me."

Once again, Lance looked surprised, and Keith was ready for the snarky comments that would follow shortly after, but instead, none of that came.

Instead, he smiled, a weak but sincere smile that almost reached his eyes, before turning around and exiting his room.

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I know I know! This wasn't the most exciting chapter... but hey! They bonded, somewhat... In their own weird way, at least.

That's Klance for ya

*shrugs in bonding moment*