After seeing James every day since Keith had returned to earth, the guilt was beginning to settle in the pit of Keith's stomach. He could hardly sit in the same room as his boyfriend without the image of James's father getting stuck in his mind and triggering an onset of nausea. That was why he decided, on a miserable Wednesday afternoon after James's classes, to tell him the truth.

They sat down on James's bed. James reached out to take Keith's hand, sending him a concerned expression but Keith just jolted away as if the touch was fire. "We need to talk."

As soon as the words left Keith's mouth, James swallowed and shuffled backwards on the bed. His eyes glossed over for a millisecond but, by the time that he blinked, the sparkle had vanished. James always had been great at hiding his emotions, having years and years of experience after his father. That was what made him and James such a good pair. "It's okay, Keith. I think I understand." James pulled himself onto his feet and turned away from Keith. He used one of his quivering hands to wipe away one of the tears trailing down his face. When Keith didn't say anything but reached out to latch onto James's left arm, his demeanour faltered. "You're breaking up with me. Is it Lance? Do you still-"

"No, no, I'm not breaking up with you," James slowly sat back down, eyes not leaving the tears gathering in Keith's. The fact that Keith had avoided James's question by interrupting him felt heavy in the air; especially when James was sure Keith still had some internal feelings for the blue paladin. "There's something I need to come clean about... your dad..."

James's face washed over with an emotion that looked more like trepidation than the sadness it once was. He started to furiously shake his head in conjunction with both of his hands. "I don't want to talk about him. He's gone now and I can't-"

Keith let out a soft sigh and placed his hand onto James's thigh in an attempt to calm his breathing down. Keith didn't need any scientific equipment to see that James was experiencing heart palpitations that would probably make any heart monitor explode. "No, I have to tell you. It's tearing me apart..." Keith took James's silence (other than his heavy breathing, of course) as a sign to continue. "That night... after I found you and called the ambulance... I went to see your dad." Keith was already sobbing and he hadn't even reached the main part of the confession.

"That was the night he went missing," James's face went blank for a second as he contemplated what Keith was insinuating. "I thought it was my fault, Keith. Were you the last person to see him?" James spoke softly but there was fury camouflaged in his tone like a chameleon camouflaged in its surroundings.

"It was my fault. I shouted at him and blamed him because it was his fault," Their was a sudden pique of spite in Keith's tone, suggesting that he still stood by what he had done. "He pulled a knife on me." With trembling hands, Keith lifted up the hoodie he was wearing. It had the Spider-Man spider logo on the front; not something he would have chosen for himself but it belonged to James (and it was really soft). James had a ridiculous addiction to Marvel superheroes which Keith didn't quite understand. The three scars on Keith's side were faint against his pale skin but James made them out as he leaned closer. James's hand traced the top scar, almost as if he was checking whether it was really there or not. "I tried to run from him but I couldn't get away so I had no choice but to fight."

James seemed to have already connected the dots in his head but he wanted to make sure. He didn't want to throw accusations around when he didn't know the facts. Maybe Keith was on the verge of pulling a horrific plot twist that would change everything.

"He pulled out a knife and- and I was scared. I didn't know what to do and I didn't want-" Keith cut himself off with his own sob, hunching over to bury his head into his hands. His entire body was trembling as one specific image was frozen inside his mind, haunting him like a ghost would haunt an old house. James's dad might as well have been standing in front of him in ghost form, scars glowing as his own blood dripped down his body in a way that was almost rhythmic. Keith could picture him- wearing that same navy blue suit and black tie that ended up being tye-dyed red- and he almost recoiled away from him. "I didn't want to die," His voice came out no more than a whisper, so much more fragile and broken than before. "I managed to get the knife off of him but he still didn't stop so I- I-"

"Did you stab him?" James asked, raising his head to finally look Keith in the eye. He could see the guilt and trepidation swirling around like a witch's potion behind Keith's purple irises. Keith could only nod.

As the room lapsed into silence, both were surprised that the other couldn't hear the sound of their own heart beating. James blinked, mouth falling open but closing again every few moments. How are you supposed to react when your boyfriend admits that he killed your dad?

"Say something, please." Keith begged, desperate. He reached an arm out to latch onto James's coat but retracted it when James shifted away.

"You... You killed him."

"I'm sorry. I had no choice and- and-"

"And what?"

"You almost died because of him! You were my best friend. I just wanted to tell him to back off... I didn't mean to- I didn't think-"

"I think I need some space." James pulled himself up, swallowing thickly as his gaze dropped to his feet. For once in his life, the sight of his favourite Thor socks didn't make him feel better. If anything, it made him feel worse. His life sucked compared to that of a superhero.

"I'm sorry... please don't go..." Keith's voice wobbled as if he was a kid that had been denied ice cream on a hot summer's day. He reached out and grabbed James's hoodie, holding onto it as tightly as he could. James pulled away harshly enough to break the grip before running out of the room.

Keith didn't move from that position for hours. He just let himself cry... he deserved it.

-

"Come on, dude," Lance moaned, pressing his forehead against the cold wood of Keith's door. It wasn't even close to being a comfortable position but he was beginning to grow desperate. "You need to come out of your room and get some food or something. It's not good to lock yourself up like this." When there wasn't a single sound being emitted from Keith's room, Lance took it upon himself to start knocking. And knocking. And knocking. He didn't stop until Keith threw the door open, sent him a glare that seemed to be on the edge of a death threat and dragged him into the room. He had thick bags beneath his eyes and was wearing the exact same black shirt that Lance saw him wear a few days previous when he had last seen him. "How can you live here?"

Lance had never been a tidy person but even he could recognise that Keith's room looked more like a dump than a living space. James's hoodie was sat in a bundle on top of Keith's pillow where he had clearly been cuddling it (even though Keith would never have admitted it). His covers were lazily strewn across his bed where he had clearly been laying before he opened the door for Lance. Multiple glasses were sat on Keith's bedside table, all having different capacities of water. It was clear Keith hadn't been eating anything as there weren't any food wrappers anywhere but at least he was drinking... even if he hadn't done any washing up in awhile.

"I don't want to talk to anyone." Keith murmured, turning and lying back down on his bed in a position he had probably been stuck in since his last conversation with James. He pulled his bed covers over himself, hiding his face and the fact that he had latched onto James's hoodie again. Keith knew he was on the verge of insanity but he could have sworn it hadn't lost the smell of James's aftershave. He buried his nose into the material, breathing in James's scent.

"You can't hide yourself away forever," Lance sat down on the end of Keith's bed, frowning at his friend. "You and James really need to talk."

"No, we don't. James hates me. I hate me."

"He's just upset which is... understandable," Lance shifted his sitting position as he contemplated the next thing to say. He was skating on thin ice, afraid to say the wrong thing and fail at his plan of giving Keith hope. "He's obviously going to need some time to get his head around what happened. It's a lot to take in."

Keith grunted or maybe he said something- Lance couldn't tell because it was muffled by the lump of covers on top of him. The room lapsed into a heavy silence until Lance leaned forward and placed a hand on where he presumed Keith's side would be. "Get off of me."

"Not until you go and have an actual conversation with your boyfriend. He needs you right now."

When Keith continued not to say anything, Lance began to poke Keith with his index finger. He knew he was at his final resort but it was worth a try. If he couldn't get Keith out of bed with his words, maybe he could annoy him into leaving his room. Poke. Poke. Poke. "Stop it."

"Go," Poke. "Speak," Poke. "To," Poke. "James."

Keith jolted his head out from under the bed covers so he could thin his eyes into a sharp glare. "If I speak to him, will you stop being so annoying?"

"Yup." Poke.

"Then fine! Just leave me alone!" Keith shot up out of bed so quickly that Lance almost catapulted to the floor. Keith was still scowling but Lance was smiling, content with the outcome of the situation. Forcing Keith to follow him, Lance grabbed his arm and tugged him out of the room.

When they arrived at James's dorm, Shiro and Adam were sat with him. Shiro was hugging James as he cried, a tear prickling in the corner of Shiro's own eye. Keith lingered in the doorway for a moment and Lance could tell he was planning on making a break for it. To prevent that, Lance gave him an encouraging shove further into the room.

"We'll leave you two alone." Adam murmured, tapping Shiro's arm. Shiro nodded in agreement before grabbing Adam's hand and pulling them both up. Along with Lance, they left, Lance shutting the door behind him so neither James nor Keith could escape the conversation.

Neither James nor Keith said anything for a long moment as they awkwardly avoided each other's gaze. Keith's shoes felt like they were glued to the ground and James's head was turned away so the tears staining his face weren't so visible. When Keith did break the silence, it triggered an onset of nausea in the pit of his chest. "I'm sorry. I get it, you don't like me anymore and-" James lifted his head up to meet eyes with his boyfriend for a few seconds before looking away again.

"I do like you. It's just difficult for me to wrap my head around my boyfriend killing my dad. It's a bit... I don't know... crazy? I don't even think there is a word in the dictionary that can describe how insane this is."

"Oh... yeah," Keith hung his head. "Sorry. Trust me, I- I'm haunted by it all the time. The police must be getting suspicious because they were asking questions about you and your dad that time they spoke to me." Keith tried not to dwell on how he had been sleeping for the last few nights, constantly tossing and turning without sleeping for any longer than half an hour at a time. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw James's dad. Little did he know, James had been exactly the same, though he couldn't sleep with the unsettling thought that his boyfriend had murdered his abusive father. It sounded like a plot straight out of a poorly written book.

"You're not going to hand yourself in, are you?"

"Well..." Keith trailed off so he could look up and meet James's teary eyes. James swallowed and wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers, making it rather obvious how nervous he was.

"Keith, I- you- you can't," Keith backed up with a single eyebrow raised, the fear in his chest morphing into an intense kind of confusion. "I don't think I could risk losing the only person I ever felt I could trust."

"You... You still trust me?" Keith was testing the water, voice so soft and quiet that it was almost a whisper. James wiped his tearful eyes with one hand and used the other to latch onto Keith's hoodie.

"I've known you since we were like... thirteen. You may be impulsive and hot-headed but you would never murder someone unless you really needed to. You cry at Disney movies, for fuck's sake. How hardcore can you really be?" James punched Keith's arm lightly which elicited a soft laugh from him. It was shaky; unsure.

"Don't tell anyone about that. It's embarrassing and I have a reputation to maintain."

"You also slept with a stuffed hippo until you were 16."

"Don't tell Lance especially. He would make fun of me forever."

"And don't forget about your imaginary friend that you only stopped talking to when you started high school."

"Don't bring that up! I had a deprived childhood and I didn't have any friends! I had to make my own, okay?!" James broke out into a smile before laughter flooded through his body. That soon elicited a similar response from Keith. They turned to each other, met eyes and were thrown into hysterics. It was as if they were kids all over again, sharing a moment together that made them feel like the world had frozen around them.

"There's no way you killed someone purposely and I can totally see my dad trying to hurt you. He was a... massive dickhead, to say the least."

"True... so... are we like... okay now?"

James nodded before wrapping his arms around Keith and pulling him closer. He pressed a gentle kiss to Keith's cheek before lying his head on his boyfriend's shoulder. When he next spoke, he had his eyes shut and his breathing was shallow, a sign of comfort. "I love you. I know it's a bit soon to say it but... I do. I love you so much."

Keith looked down at his lap and smiled to himself. James didn't comment on his reluctance to say he loved him back.