I'm currently writing this while having a stomachflu, so excuse me if this chapter is a little bit slurry🤢

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Keith had been pushing himself through Avatar looking aliens for at least one hour now, with no general direction of where to actually go. He couldn't settle for standing in one place, so he was a little bit everywhere. He even considered returning to the castle without informing the other's, but the thought of getting a really prolonged lecture from both Allura and Shiro - and possibly having sleep being taken away from him even if this had nothing to do with Query Quest -  what stopped him from doing just that. Instead he wandered around from spot to spot, wanting to punch something. Or more preferably someone. Just Lance.

He didn't even know if he had the right reason to, but he didn't care. He kept on pushing himself forward, through the crowd of blue. People were starting to give him stares, but he didn't care about that either. Maybe it was just his imagination, but the music around him had grown louder, and he wanted to take the band members instruments and snap them all in half, so they wouldn't be able to play anymore. His thoughts had become brutal, and that was another thing he didn't care about.

Something he spotted several meters ahead of him stopped him in his tracks, standing completely still in the middle of the ballroom. The piano increased in speed, or maybe it was just his pulse creating chaotic sounds in his head. The music went faster, but the processing in his head went so incredibly slow, alongside with everything moving around him. It all almost stopped, until the only action left was the one in front of him.

And there he was, the blue paladin himself, eating up a Farglan girl's face like he'd gone starving for weeks. They stood amongst every other dancing couple, or where they even dancing anymore? Everything had seemed to stop, except the little movement further away from the kissing duo. There was Allura, turning her head in that direction, just as Lance was getting all in for the kiss, and Keith could swear he could hear him pant in excitement from over here.
Lance had landed a girl, Allura was only just glancing at it all.

It was official. He had succeeded in his plan.

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He ripped the band aid out of his hair, throwing it on the training deck floor with a grunt. Hi hair fell down in more tamed curls around his face, after being put up for almost two hours straight. He felt ridiculous in a ponytail like this, even if it would keep his hair out of his face now that he was about to train his frustration away. He rolled up the sleeves of his black shirt, until they both reached his elbows, and he experimentally clutched his fist, to see if there would be any tightness from the clothes. The fabric pressed into the crease of his arms, but nothing he couldn't bear. He took a hold of his bayard and started the training sequence, setting it on level five.

When he started moving, his anger was being extinguished dreadfully slow, like everything else around him. The slowing effect hadn't left him yet, and it increased his annoyance just a notch. Or maybe several notches. Maybe a whole set of notches.

Over the clangs of his sword meeting the metallic gladiator, there was another sound, a little bit far off, but definitely there.

"There you are! How long have you even been here for?" Lance's chirpy voice cut through the noise Keith's weapon was giving off. The red paladin spun around, gawking at the strutting boy appearing in the room, his hands stuffed in his jeanspockets, a pleased look on his face. His hair was ruffled, looking the opposite of how it had been when they had just arrived in Fargland, and there was a very apparent, deep blush on his face. He sighed happily, looking up at the ceiling as if to thank any powerful source up there for giving him such a blessing.

Keith growled, took the head of the running gladiator in his hands and pressed him between his side and arm to put him in place, before piercing his sword into it's chest, sending it lunging down to the floor and under it. All that without even looking. He turned around to fight off the incoming three gladiators, serving them their surrender much quicker than before Lance had arrived. Huh, maybe just seeing his face was enough to shed him the power he needed to battle properly. He felt like he could take down an entire Galra fleet by just thinking of his disturbing persona.

"What are you...doing...here?" Keith grunted in between every swing of his bayard, feeling how his shirt was getting a little bit too tight over his arms, and how it was scraping over his sweaty skin. The friction was turning intolerable.

"The real question is what are you doing here?" Lance retorted, but the usual disdain in his voice had turned into pure bliss. "You just disappeared, and we had to come up with an excuse as to why you couldn't be there for the leave-taking. We had prepared a nice speech and everything." He slumped down to the floor, back pressed against the wall, his legs pulled up and his arms resting on his kneecaps. "Did you even notice us taking off? We left Fargland like, five minutes ago."

The raven haired boy momentarily stopped. He hadn't noticed them taking off at all. Maybe he was just that far up in his head.

"Oh, and by the way, Allura is super mad at you for disappearing like that. She said that she would take away ten minutes from your sleep, unless you weren't like on the verge of dying, which you clearly aren't, so that sucks for you, buddy."

"You still haven't... answered my... question..." Keith drove the sword deep into the gladiator's chest, right into the non-existent heart. It fell, but another quickly followed, and Keith wasted no time in destroying it too. He was beginning to come into a rhythm, and all thanks to Lance's aggravating voice.

"Um, have you forgotten? Query Quest? Querio Questio? Allura sent me here to fulfill today's round."

Of course she had. The princess probably increased the amount of answers they had to gather to at least ten more. Keith wouldn't be able to put up with that, especially not in this state of anger.

"So are you like... I don't know... going to stop whatever the hell you're doing so we can begin?" Lance asked from the wall.

Keith didn't answer, hoping that his silence would tire the other boy enough for him to leave.

But of course it didn't. "Well, that's fine! Keep on fighting if you want. We can talk like this, without the handholding shit, and I'll tell Allura about your lack of cooperation so she'll understand. And I'm too happy to be bothered by your idiocy anyway." Over the clings and clangs of Keith's sword, he could hear Lance's little happy gasp. "Speaking of Allura...! Please tell me you saw her watch me and that girl make out just now. Oh man, that alien girl really fell for me, huh. I can't believe it happened! She was such a good kisser..."

He continued to ramble on, but Keith couldn't hear anything. No matter if the music was out of reach, it still pounded in his head, in a different kind of crescendo. He stabbed gladiator after gladiator, letting out a battle roar so loud his throat stung. His sweaty hair was sticking to his forehead, and he had to flip it out of his face with a stiff movement.

"Shut...up!" Keith yelled, more to the noise in his head than to Lance, who he almost didn't even hear at this point.

"...she tasted like... blueberries. Yeah, like blueberries dipped in honey. Man, that sure was a good taste. Is it normal to be this light-headed after a kiss? It feels like I could go into cardiac arrest any second because of this... euphoria. Have you ever felt like you could just fly? It's a marvelous feeling. It feels like I could take off any second..."

"SHUT UP!" The piano in his head was like a tumbling mess of chords, and Lance's words was what encourade it to play so fast. Keith turned around abrubtly, hearing a number in the background, but he paid no attention to it, instead veering his eyes to the sitting, lovesick boy on the floor, his whole being itching. While he wasn't fully aware of his surroundings, he didn't have time to notice the approaching sound, thudding its way over to him, before the impact came. It was almost like some kind of whiplash, making his head bobb in a way that couldn't be safe, before he collided with the floor, his hands instinctively flying forward to shield his head from of meeting the hard surface first. But while the sharp side of his sword was still angled up, it had time to just lightly brush his left forearm, before he rolled over to his back to prevent it from going even deeper. And to stop the running pieces of metal from killing him, that too.

Just after he shouted at the training sequence to end, and his programmed opponents halted to a stop before disappearing, could he really pay attention to his new wound. He hissed at the pain in his whole body after that heavy fall, trying to lift his torso up by supporting his weight on his elbows, but fell back down as soon as his left arm protested in agony. He let himself lay down there for a moment, waiting for his adrenaline to go down and for his pulse to go back to default mode. 

The edges of his field of view was continuously blurring out as he stared up at the ceiling, and he wondered if it was his anger playing tricks with his consciousness or if the crash had really rattled up his head like this. It was most likely both.

"Woah, Keith, you okay? That was a pretty hard fall there..." Despite the circumstance, Lance had it in him to sound derisive, but Keith was too exhausted to even make a comment about it. He kept staring at the ceiling until the other's face popped up in his view, smirking down at him. He opened up his mouth to make a snide remark, but then his eyes fell down and he let out a pitchy, short scream, gripping his shirt with his one hand and pointing at the wounded boy with the other. "Oh God oh GOd, you're bleeding, oh God..."

Huh, so the injury was that bad. Keith didn't know if Lance was just overreacting or if it was really a big amount of blood. Knowing Lance, it was probably the first option, but then he turned his head to the side to glance at his arm and he realized it was really the latter. Matter of fact, the blood was already starting to slowly trail down his skin, dripping down onto the floor. He hissed, letting go of his bayard and carefully sitting up, not sure what to do.

"I'm going to pass out~", Lance slurred, placing his palm against his forehead, looking to the side.

"Please don't", the red paladin muttered, standing up on wobbly legs, trying not to put too much pressure onto his arm, as it was already letting out so much blood. And he really didn't need Lance's unconsciousness to deal with too. He could barely take care of himself in this state.

Keith dragged himself over to the nearest wall, spotting his band aid on the floor as we sluggishly walked, bending down to pick it up, now very pleased with it's intent. Suddenly it wasn't that useless anymore. Keith made his way to the wall Lance had just been sitting against, and dropped down into a sitting position, resting his wounded arm in his lap, beginning to wipe off the thick, red fluid with the end of the white band aid, before sloppily tying it around several rounds, making sure it was just the right amount of tight, all the while trying to blink the blurriness away. He would have thought that he would have calmed down by now, but maybe this was just a sign of blood loss.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Lance yelled, running over to him, before hunching down in front of him, firmly taking a hold of his arm to pull it closer to him, examining Keith's slipshod work. Only at the sight of the big red stain did he hesitate, gulping, his forehead gleaming in sweat.

Keith withdrew his arm, feeling nauseous. "Taking care of my wound, obviously."

"That is no way to care of a wound!" Lance shrieked, pulling his arm back. The rapid movement made Keith's head heavy, and his eyes rolled a little, not sure where to focus. Lance must have noticed, because he stilled. "Hello? Keith?Hey hey, don't pass out now. I ain't got time for your drama bullshit." It must have been all in his imagination, but Lance's voice wavered just slightly.

"Fu...Fuck off, Lance." The red paladin blindly tried to swat the other boy away, but hit nothing. That proved how dizzy he was actually feeling. "Weren't you the one... the one just feeling faint? You're no better... help." 

"I'm not the one that's barely able to talk. Just shut up for a second and let me take proper care of that cut, because I'm such a good person and prefer for you not to bleed out on this very clean floor." He stood up, and Keith let his head hit the wall behind him. He didn't understand why he was feeling so woozy; it couldn't be just solely the injury, and the adrenaline couldn't possibly last this long.

"Keith."

The stern sound of his name made his eyes fly open, and he hadn't even noticed his eyelids falling. His head rolled, in search for the owner of the voice. When he spotted it, he saw Lance, halfway out of the training room, giving him a serious look. "Don't pass out. I'll go grab some tools for that wound. Just stay here and try not to pass out. I assume you don't need me to carry you like a princess to the healings pods, right?" 

Keith pinched his leg hard, trying to steer his attention to another more soft pain located in his body than the insufferable feeling his arm was radiating. He pinched his leg so hard that his nails almost dug into his flesh.

"...Keith?"

His head shot up, looking at the boy ahead of him, seeing how he was expecting a respond. He wouldn't get out of here if he didn't get a reply. Keith was too addled to understand why.

"Whatever. Just go...", he eventually mumbled, looking down.

Only then did Lance turn around and run out of the room to collect the tools.

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Keith had been staring at the blue paladin the entire time he took care of his wound, attentively swabbing away the edges of his cut, keeping his arm close to his face to see better. Never had Keith's face relaxed; he had been glaring at the other in concentration for over ten minutes now, but never did Lance meet his gaze, and he was too dazed to do anything else than to just wait for him to lift his head.

However, when Lance turned around to rummage through the kit he had brought with him, Keith couldn't hold himself and asked:

"Why are you doing this?" 

Lance paused for a moment, but quickly regained his composure and pulled out a wad from the metallic box, splashing a generous amount of something that looked like chlorhexidine, before turning around and pressing the wad softly against his arm, and Keith wheezed at the stinging feeling. This was definitely stronger than the Earth's chlorhexidine, and it was so concentrating that Keith feared it would burn down into his skin.

"Excuse you, but I don't want to be the reason for your death, so I have to put up with all of this", Lance eventually answered, still not looking up at him, which frustrated him, for no reason at all.

"This won't kill me, Lance", he muttered, feeling how his senses was slowly coming back to him again.

Said boy shrugged, wiping away any essential blood around his wound. "You looked near dying just now. Wouldn't want to risk anything."  

The air around him was starting to feel chilly, probably because he had been sweating so fiercely just seconds ago, and now his body temprature was sinking from it's height. Everything in him pounded and sparked, especially those places Lance touched his skin. He was probably just that touch-starved.

"You seem to know what you're doing", Keith stated, without really intending to do it. Something about this whole situation was removing the filter in his mouth.

This time, Lance took the time to glance up at him, only for a microsecond, before returning to his task. His eyebrows twitched in a way that was unusual, and left Keith even more confused. "Well, duh! Of course I know what I'm doing. If you have such an adventurous family as mine, you need to be prepared for at least one person to injure themselves and take care of their wounds. I should know, my nephews always came up to me with a scratched arm or a bruised leg." 

Both boys fell silent, and Lance's hands turned slower, like he was drifting off into one of his memories. Keith, however, was very much present now, and he pursed his lips together, hating where this conversation had turned; to the family area, which he never responded well to, and looking at Lance now, he knew he had a lot to tell, which Keith wouldn't be able to relate to at all, and he would just a be sitting question mark, receiving all this information with no chance of interpreting it right. This also seemed like a very important subject for the other boy, and Keith didn't want to see his reaction if he accidentally said the wrong thing. Anything he said in this kind of situation could be read as wrong, really.

"Are you done anytime soon?" he snapped instead, feeling how all his body parts was turning heavy again, but still light as feather. Feather of lead, or some Shakespeare shit like that.

Lance slightly flinched at his tone, but was quick to cover up his surprise with a glare. A deathly glare. He was upset. Great. But Keith would rather have that kind of upset, than if he were to poke at the deepest of his feelings, and something worse could come out of it all.

"Drop the attitude, I'm actually doing you a favor", the brown haired boy retorted, this time quickly turning around to pull a new roll of band aid, tearing it straight, rolling it around Keith's arm rather too fast, and too hard.

"I didn't ask for this", Keith pointed out, wiggling his fingers as he felt how his arm was starting to numb. It crackled under his skin, and he didn't know if it was because he had sat so still for so long, or if Lance was twirling the band aid that hard. Suddenly he jumped, almost hitting his head against the wall behind him in the process. "Lance! Soften it up a little! You're tying too hard!"

Lance reacted upon the warning, and he blinked, looking up, his eyebrows raised. For a moment, he had just the slightest hint of regret in his face, but it was gone before it could even be considered as a proper apology.

"Not so tough now, huh?" he said smugly, easing his grip a little, this time carefully tying the rest of the band aid around his arm.

Keith didn't say anything, because his energy dropped down too many levels, and there was no words to utter anyway.

"Didn't think so", Lance mumbled with a grin when the other boy kept quiet, and he tied the last bit before clapping his hands together, backing just slightly on the floor to examine his work. His smile grew. "Man, is there something I can't do?"

Keeping quiet, apparently, Keith wanted to say, but he just couldn't. His stomach was bubbling in a weird kind of way, and whenever he exhaled, a wave of nausea washed over his whole body.

"Hey, you okay?" The concerned voice was back again, and he couldn't even pretend to be fine anymore. "Keith... You there, buddy? It think it's best if I take you to the healing pod after all." He couldn't protest, only let himself be pulled up to his barely functioning legs, wanting to desperately fall back down again. "You sure must have... lost a lot of blood to be like this..." He felt how he was slowly dragged to somewhere, and when he looked up, he could see the exit approaching, the floor under them moving.

He didn't know what hurt and what was spinning anymore, and he certainly didn't know what was happening to him. The edges of his view was closing in on him again, black dots gathering in the middle. The next second there was thuds and crashes, a floor coming so close to his face, and then nothing.

"Keith?!"

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I'm stressed, I'm depressed, but most importantly, I'm pressed.

So um, haha, I don't know what's going on with my body right now but I feel like shit 😃

And oh, almost all the Voltron content on Instagram is gone and I'm panicking. VoltronOfficial hasn't posted since 31 December and everybody is just ready to move on with their lives whilst I'm here still kicking and animating a Klance scene because I'm starved and season 8 didn't really give me good enough food.

Oh, and then there's school. That too.

I hope this animation turns good enough so I can maybe post it on one of my books🤔 But by the time I'll be done, you all will probably already be gone :') So ya... Life is great!