Not a Participation Game

Midnight Snacks

Although he felt like he could sleep for a week when he went to bed, Lance woke up at the equivalent of 2:30 am to his stomach growling. Slightly angry and still half asleep, Lance stumbled out of his room and towards the kitchen to get a snack.

Lance was mostly awake by the time he got to the kitchen. He grabbed some leftovers of whatever alien thing Hunk baked and made his way back to the room. He tried to ignore how spooky the lighting of the castle was when it was in its night cycle. He was no longer tired enough to ignore it.

As Lance was walking, he saw a bright light coming from one of the halls. His curiosity got the best of him and he went to see what it was. He soon found out that the light was coming from the training deck.

He opened the doors to find Keith fighting several Gladiator robots. Lance sighed. He should have known that Keith would just go back to training.

"End training sequence," Lance yelled, and as a result the robots disappeared, leaving a stunned and confused Keith in the middle of the room.

"Hey, what was that for?" Keith asked angrily.

Lance put his hand on his hip and said "You said you were going to bed hours ago. You shouldn't be pushing yourself over your limits like this, especially when you're sleep deprived."

"Who are you, Shiro?" responded Keith in a mocking tone. "I'm fine. I know my limits."

Keith walked over to Lance to make his point clear, but he tripped on his way. Luckily, Lance was close enough to catch him. Keith was almost passed out.

"Yeah, you're exhausted." Lance said. "I'm taking you to your room and you're sleeping the rest of the night." Keith didn't respond. His eyes were only slightly open. After ten seconds, Keith nodded.

Lance looped Keith's arm around his neck and let Keith rest on him as they walked. When they left the training deck, Keith's stomach growled loudly and Lance shook his head in disbelief. "Come on man, didn't you at least grab something to eat first?"

After taking a few seconds to process the question, Keith shook his head. Lance sighed and took them to Keith's room. When they got there, Lance gave Keith the snack he took for himself earlier.

"Eat this," Lance said, "then go to sleep. We'll talk about why you can't train until you pass out after you wake up." Keith nodded slowly in response, then took a bite of the pastry. Lance could tell that he was starting to nod off. He left Keith's room.

Lance went back to the kitchen to grab himself another snack and went back to his own room. He hoped Allura would be kind enough to let everyone sleep in a few hours in the morning. He knew that Keith needed it.

He pushed aside the part of him that wondered why he cared so much about Keith's wellbeing and focused on going to sleep.