Fragile | klance

15. Coran / Keith

Coran walked down the halls with his hands held behind his back. He felt like he was in a dream. His feet were moving, but he had no idea where he was going or why he was going there.

He felt sort of like he was floating. Soon though, he found himself standing in front of the blue paladin's door, and he sighed. When he knocked, it only took a few seconds for the door to open.

Lance stood there in his nightwear and blue lion slippers with his arms crossed. "I figured you'd come" he said, "so if you're here to give me a lecture about not telling you guys can you save it? I've already heard it enough today." He looks off to the side.

"Actually I wanted to ask how you were doing." Coran stated. Lance looked at him and smiled sadly. "Should've expected that from you. Well I guess I'm doing as good as I can be. Thanks though. For asking."

Coran shuffled his feet. "Are you- are you ready? To you know? Leave us?" He asked. Lance snorted, "Coran you can die. There really is no sugar coating it. I am going to die."

"Well yeah" a pained look passed across Coran's face, "but don't you still have stuff you want to do? There has to be something!" Lance's eyebrows scrunched together tightly.

"Of course. Of course! See, I always sort of knew that I might not make it back to Earth. And although I missed my family, I was content with it. Because they didn't have to know that their son was fighting in a war and died because he had cancer. And then Keith came along. And I wanted to take him places. But I never ever thought he would like me back. And now that he does?

I wanted to take him on dates. Be all soft with him. Breakfast in bed, take care of him when he was sick. Be there for him. Marry him! God, I wanted him to meet my family. And now that I know that he actually wants me, too? How am I supposed to be content with that?

He doesn't deserve to love me only for me to leave him just like everybody else in his life. He's always blamed himself for people leaving. I wanted to tell him 'no its not your fault.' and 'no, not everyone you love will leave.' But look at me. I don't want to put him through that again."

Lance had been talking with his body, lowering his arms when he was finished. He was now shaking with teary eyes. He seemed to be folding in on himself. "Am I j-just being selfish..? Should I have not loved him? Should I have made sure that he didn't love me? It's just so unfair, Coran. It's so unfair."

Lance was now sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. Coran walked over before sitting down next to him. "I know, my boy. I know. I'm sorry." Lance threw his arms around and started crying quietly. "I'm gonna miss you.." Coran swallowed the lump in his throat before responding. "As will I."

When Coran walked out into the hallway again, he was shocked, but not surprised to see Keith sitting there. He was against the wall with his legs held tight against him, and his head between his folded arms that rested on his knees. "I am assuming that you heard all of that?"

Keith didn't answer, but got his answer when Keith let out a loud, shaky breath. He knelt down beside the red paladin. "I'm not going to say it's going to get better. We've heard that enough to know that, sometimes, it isn't true. But you should spend time with him while he still has time left." Coran gave his shoulder a firm squeeze before standing once again and walking away.

Keith looked up slightly and winced at the bright lights of the hall. How long had he been sitting there? How long had Lance and Coran talked? It felt like hours. He didn't mean to eavesdrop. He really didn't. But when he went to Lance's door and heard raised voices, his interest was piked.

(okay so maybe he meant to eavesdrop just a little)

But what he had heard had broken what was left of his heart. He squeezed his eyes shut. You could close your eyes, so that you didn't have to see what you saw, but you couldn't close your heart to what you don't want to feel.

Trust him, he knew. Keith definitely didn't want to feel what he was feeling. He felt so god damn helpless. Lance was the person that pulled him out of his own mind and turmoil. He was the one that gave him a meaning in life.

Keith never felt pressured to act a certain way, or to not act a certain way, when he was around Lance. Lance could always put a smile on his face, even on the darkest of days. Whenever he was upset, Lance always somehow knew how to give him space, yet at the same time, be there for him.

Lance makes him feel wanted. Feel loved. Lance was his everything. And now he was leaving him. Just like everyone else, he thought. But he stopped that thought from going anywhere else. Because that wasn't fair to Lance. He knew that it wasn't his fault or choice.

Suddenly, Lance's bedroom door opened and Lance looked at him with a small smile on his face. His hair was disheveled and his eyes were rimmed red. A mirror image of himself. "So, are you coming in or not?" Lance asked him. Keith startled, "How-? I didn't even knock." Lance smiled again, bigger this time.

"Yeah, I know, but you think very loudly." Keith's face fell. Had he accidentally said something out loud? "And you shuffle around a lot. The floors were creaking and creaking for like ten minutes straight. It was driving me crazy."

"Oh. Uh, yeah, thanks." Lance moved aside for him to come in. Keith immediately headed towards Lance's bed and lay down on his side, facing the wall. A few seconds later, Lance slid against the wall and stared at him. "So was there something you wanted to say or-"

"Yes." He said a little too quickly. "But not right now," he added hastily, "right now, I just want to be near you. We don't have to say anything." Lance nodded like he understood, which he probably did, before scooting closer to Keith, and laying his head into the crook of his neck.

"Yeah, me- me too." Lance whispered quietly below him. Keith ran his fingers through his hair softly, hoping to lull him into a peaceful sleep.

The first time I met you, Lance Mcclain, I realized that you would stay with my until the end. I will love you for the rest of my life. 

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