•Crowns And Arrows• [Klance]

We Had A Bonding Moment

Keith's eyes focused at the touch, as if he was waking up from some sort of trance. He'd almost fallen into a warm and comfortable dream, where he didn't have to worry about anything. But he couldn't sleep yet.

Lance.. He was somewhere. He was here.

The frosty winds were halted a little by something warm around his shoulders. And the fire, it was burning! Lance had lit the fire. Great.

He shrunk back from Lance's touch instinctively and raised a hand to his frozen face, rubbing his eyes to keep them from closing again. His lips felt cracked and stiff, and it was difficult to talk.

"Hey," he breathed, seeing the small cloud of warmth from his breath evaporate in the air. Time to be a Prince again. He must look pathetic, all blue and shivering.

"I see you've made a fire. Good. We should-" He closed his eyes and yawned involuntarily. "We should preserve our warmth."
How we're they supposed to do that? Cuddle? No way. Keith had just used up all his strength fighting the pain of being touched, and that was just by two hands. If he and Lance had to lay side by side... Keith wouldn't be able to take it. He wanted to scream in frustration, but didn't have the energy.

"Are you injured?" he asked, trying to change the subject, and also genuinely worried. If Lance died... Keith wouldn't know what to do.

Relief washed Lance's biggest worries away when the prince responded. He wouldn't know what to do if he fainted.

Preserve their warmth, sure. But he wouldn't be able to do that. Everything, including their clothes, were still inside the bags attached to the horses, so there was only one available winter cloak to keep the warmth on their bodies. And of course it was the prince who needed it most.

The hunter already felt his remaining temperature dropping and he shivered more and more, but Keith would be fine, that's what mattered. Was he injured? Yes, everywhere.

"N-no... I'm- I'm good," he stuttered through his chattering teeth, you know, like a really bad liar, while crawling to lay his back against the den to hug his knees. At least he'd stopped bleeding, perhaps due to the cold, but each hit he'd recieved made him see the stars, and the dry blood on his damp clothes was now visible.

"Are you? What- what did they do to you..?" he asked the prince, glancing to meet his characteristic purple eyes. He'd obviously been crying. They'd either tortured him physically or mentally, but he seemed alright for the most part. Had they... Touched him? How far?
Just imagining those men's hands on his delicate skin made him want to throw up, and his blood boil with massive anger.

Keith knew he looked horrible. Lance must thing he'd been tortured brutally, burned, cut, beaten. What was he supposed to say? 'They touched me really hard'? God, he wasn't a five year old.

So he softly shook his head, having trouble sitting up straight and looking at Lance. There was something red on his clothes. Was that blood? Lance said he was alright, right? He was too cold to think properly.

"I.. They didn't do anything to me," he breathed. "They just touched me a little." He should be thankful. They didn't even hurt him, physically.
But in the back of his mind Keith knew he would have preferred to be beaten. He could handle that. He'd rather they actually hurt him, than that cruel touching. It was worse, because it was inside him, in his mind. And there was nothing he could do about it, no matter how much he despised it.

He stayed quiet for a while, and then he spoke again, his voice weaker and shakier than before.
"I- I thought.. I thought you were de-dead. I thought they'd killed you."

His bit his frosted lip and wrapped his arms around himself, scootching closer to the fire. It didn't do much, the wind blowing it flat against the wood. Keith was afraid it'd die as soon as they went to sleep. The worst of the storm was clearly still coming.