Soulmates - Klance fanfiction {Voltron Legendary Defenders} Lance x Keith Laith

Ch24 Red

This picture breaks my heart..

.

Keith is lightheaded and delusional. He feels weak and cold. His vision fades in and out.

First Keith sees Lance floating limp before him. Lance's skin is red and blistered from the lack of oxygen. His eyes are frozen like glass, his lips blue and chapped like shaved ice. The sight is horrifying.

Keith's heartbeat finally begins to pick up as he reaches towards Lance desperately. Then Keith blinks and finds himself lying in the yellow lion. He no longer feels light, his body is heavy and fatigued. He tries to cry out but his throat is dry and soundless. His blood is boiling after being in space and his head is pounding from the sudden rush of oxygen. He wants to see Lance...but his eyes are so very tired.

Then Keith awakes with a jolt as he stumbles out of a cryopod into the healing room. His knees buckle weakly and he falls to the ground.

"Lance...?" Keith wheezes, looking around the empty room.

It is night time. It is dark and cold, just like the depths of space, only this time...Lance isn't coming to save Keith. A wave of panic washes over Keith. He feels so alone and afraid.

"Lan-ce..." Keith tries to push his quivering voice, causing his throat to crack. "La..nce...L-Lance."

Images flash through Keith's mind. Images of Lance diving into space to save him. Images of Lance suffocating right in front of his eyes. Images of Lance's cold and blistered body floating lifelessly.

Keith begins to hyperventilate as his eyes frantically search for the boy he so desperately needs to see. "Lance. Lance!"

Keith's gaze falls open the healing pod next to his, his eyes widening in horror.

"Lance..." Keith whimpers, tears spilling from his wide-brimmed eyes as he crawls to the cryopod.

Lance is unconscious inside. His skin isn't blistered anymore but it is still red and scarred. His smooth, tan skin...his beautiful skin, Keith thinks sorrowfully. He clamps a trembling hand over his mouth to muffle his sobs as a flood of tears begins spilling down his twisted face. Keith is relieved to see Lance alive, but he still can't stop shaking fearfully. This is all his fault...

Keith couldn't hold back anymore. He screws his eyes shut as he cries his heart out, wailing into the empty room.

Keith's mournful cries had awoken Allura and Coran, who's rooms are closest. Allura falls to her knees beside Keith and rests her hand on his gently. Keith gets startled at first but then he turns to see Allura's calming eyes looking at him sorrowfully. He grips her hand tightly as he continues to cry.

"I know it looks bad Keith but he will heal, it will just take some time..." Allura comforts him.

It was then that Shiro ran in on alert. His worried eyes soften at the sight of Keith. Shiro sits beside Keith and Allura and pulls Keith's head into his chest to calm him down, just as he had done when Keith mourned his father.

"Shh, calm down Keith...it's okay." Shiro whispers.

Coran tears up at the sight. He swoops down and wraps his arms around both Shiro and Allura, squishing Keith in between the two. Pidge and Hunk come running in next and gladly join the group hug to console Keith. Pidge jumps onto Shiro's back and stretches her arms around him and Keith while Hunk manages to easily wrap his arm around the whole bunch, hugging them tightly with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Keith feels less alone in the crowded embrace of his team but he can't help crying harder, because Lance should be here hugging them too. His friends stay there until he has cried himself into exhaustion. Until he has no more tears and no more strength. Then, Shiro carries Keith to bed.

.

Keith's eyelids flutter open and he finds himself staring at the ceiling of his bedroom.

I see...it was all just a bad dream, Keith thinks to himself. A horrible, twisted nightmare.

Keith stumbles out of bed and into the kitchen. It is a tense atmosphere, Keith recognises this immediately. Everyone is sitting at the table silently. Everyone except...

Keith searches the room for Lance, but instead finds his gaze settling on Hunk.

"Morning Keith," Hunk says gently. "I made milkshakes."

Keith looks down at the tray in Hunks hands, supporting a number of milkshakes. Fear clenches down on Keith's heart as he counts the glasses,

One. Two. Three. Four..five...six.

Where's seven?

Keith looks up at Hunk painfully before turning to run out of the room.

No...It can't be—

Keith sprints into the healing room and stops dead in his tracks at the sight of Lance. He falls to his knees and slams his fists on the ground.

"nnoooOOOO!" Keith cries out angrily.

How could he? How could he?!

Keith remembers the desperation in Lance's eyes as he reached towards him with Shiro's helmet. Why would that idiot jump into space without a helmet for himself? After all that fuss about Keith sacrificing himself, after how upset and angry Lance got about Keith throwing away his own safety, Lance did the worst thing imaginable.

"You goddamn hypocrite—How could you?!" Keith hits Lance's cryopod weakly, dragging his hand down the glass afterwards.

Keith wants to feel angry, it's easier than feeling sad. So instead of mourning over Lance, he gets angry at himself. He hates himself for letting this happen.

The rest of the team hurries into the healing room. Lance's condition had come as quite a shock to Keith and he showed some vulnerability to them last night, but that won't happen again. He has no right to be sad when it is his fault.

"Keith, calm down, h-have a milkshake." Hunk says nervously as he holds out a glass.

"Leave me alone!" Keith yells as he smacks the glass away, smashing it on the floor.

Everyone is staring down at Keith, as if he is weak or something, he hates it. Keith wipes his eyes as he gets up off the floor.

"I-I need to be alone!"

Keith keeps his eyes locked on the ground as he pushes past his teammates and storms out of the room.

"Keith don't push us away!" Shiro says sternly.

The doors slam shut behind Keith and the room falls silent.

With each step Keith takes away from his teammates, he begins to feel lonelier. But he pushes that away. He doesn't need to be babied. He doesn't deserve to be comforted either—this is his fault.

Keith rides his zip line down to the hanger of the red lion. Once he is alone, he will finally have a clear head. Maybe then his heart will stop aching. He wants to fly far away, deep into space, and leave this all behind. But at the same time...the thought of being alone in space terrifies him.

Keith strides towards his lion strongly, trying not to think of the icy, black abyss awaiting him. The infinite monster itching to claim its next life. Keith's heart is pounding. Finally, he reaches his lion, when all of a sudden Red's force-field appears, causing Keith to smack right into it.

"Red? What's going on?" Keith questions angrily. "Open up!" He demands as he bangs on the force-field. "It's me, Keith. Open, I said!"

Keith pounds harder and harder, boiling with rage.

"ARGH! Fine then!" He yells as he gives the force-field one final kick. "Be that way, I don't need you either!"

Keith paces the edge of the force-field and runs a hand through his hair. A literal wall has been put up—the epiphany of rejection. Why is it that everyone Keith gets close to leaves him? Tears well up in his eyes as he thinks of Lance. Keith grips his hair tightly and bites his lip to hold them back.

"Get a hold of yourself." He whispers. "Stop crying when this is your fault..."