The Real Enemy [Klance]

Chapter 9

Lance gave out directions lazily, yet accurately. He made Keith put him down about half way there, but ended up leaning heavily on him the whole time. When they finally entered the large round room with strange circles in the middle of the floor Pidge and Hunk were already down to the skin tight black suits under their armor.

"You look rough Lance." Pidge said as she began to take off the top of the black suit. Keith averted his eyes out of politeness and helped bring Lance over to the side of the room where the other Paladins were standing. There were tables and shelves full of small bottles and gauze and space-band aids that looked like they were pulled right out of the wall.

Lance stuck his tongue out at Pidge and didn't bother looking away. "You can look at her Keith." He said loud enough for Pidge to hear. Keith directed him closer to the table and didn't respond as Lance sat heavily on it.

"Yeah, I'm wearing a sports bra. Don't worry about it dude. At least you're polite." She directed the end of her words over to Lance.

"Good lord Lance. Where is all of that blood coming from? I didn't see it earlier..." Hunk gestured to Lance's armor where blood was dripping from where he removed his helmet. Hunk seemed almost nauseous.

"That's because I wiped it off and covered it up." Lance muttered under his breath almost as if he was annoyed. None of the others heard. Well, of course no one but Keith.

"Let me see." Keith interrupted their banter. Lance was going to need this cleaned now.

Lance huffed out a complaint but said nothing more. Keith turned Lance's head to the side with the wound gently, pushing his chin to the left and scanning his messy brown hair for the source of the bleeding. About six centimeters above his right ear was a long horizontal gash which ran from the edge of his hair line to just past his ear. There was crusted blood dried in his hair along with a line of free flowing blood. Keith couldn't be sure how deep the cut was exactly but it was pretty bad.

"How did you even get this? You're going to need stitches and with how much blood you've lost I'm surprised that you're even conscious right now."

"Oh my god." He heard Pidge gasp from somewhere behind him. He glanced over out of instinct. She was standing with one hand over her mouth, the top half of her suit hanging on her hips and dark green sports bra covering what needed to be covered. On the shoulder of the arm hanging by her side was a large black and blue bruise that ran down to her elbow.

"It was from when I pushed you out of the Particle cannon's radius wasn't it." She said quietly, her voice shaking.

Pidge didn't strike Keith as the kind of person who would cry at any given point. Or even show any kind of weakness at that. Seeing Lance like this and assigning herself the blame was affecting her very strongly, and not in a good way.

Lance cast Keith a dirty look and suddenly Keith understood why he had wanted to wait.

"It wasn't your fault Pidge." Lance tried to calm her.

"Yes it is, I remember. You took you helmet off for a second because the voices were breaking up and you couldn't handle how loud it was. You took it off and got distracted and almost got hit by the cannon." She took a breath and forced the unshed tears in her eyes down. Hunk stood beside her awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

"It wasn't your fault. I should have kept the helmet on." Lance said slowly. He was beginning to run out of steam again and if they didn't wrap up this conversation soon he was going to pass out.

"I pushed you out of the way as best I could." She whispered.

"And you saved me. You know," Lance gestured to her shoulder. "I think we're even. Bet that hurts like a bitch."