Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

A shower was supposed to help. It was one of the only gimmicky techniques he learned in dbt that had ever turned out to be remotely useful. He can still remember the lady saying something about temperature being a natural reset button, which actually made sense to Keith and is the only reason he didn’t scoff in her face when she said it. 

The only definitive proof anyone has that they’re still alive lies in how reactive our bodies remain, forever diligent in the effort to regulate itself according to its environment no matter how detached we are from it. When you go into shock, you get really cold. When you burn energy, you sweat. 

And when Keith feels like his skin is much too tight to be his own, he’s supposed to be able to wash away the wrongness with water just shy of scalding. Or at least, he should be. The mind apparently doesn’t possess the same fail-safe that our bodies do, then again, it could just be Keith’s that doesn’t. His brain doesn’t do a lot of the things it’s supposed to.

It was something he’d always known and didn’t need a shrink to confirm. Growing up in the foster system taught him how to carry that knowledge and accommodate accordingly. Nobody ever wants a kid who throws tantrums, that’s what the consensus was at the end of every adoption fair, after the termination of another failed placement, under the scrutiny of each new disgruntled case worker.

He was seven when he learned to stop letting himself emote any big feelings he’d have, the impossible ones he felt like he was too small to withstand. Nobody seemed to like the way he handled them, so he accommodated. It had worked for a while. He vaguely recalls things looking promising with one couple when he was still young enough to be considered. Something had gone wrong though. He isn’t if sure anyone ever thought to tell him what, or he might’ve tried to fix it too.

Adults entered the revolving door of his sad life like clockwork after that only to find some new irredeemable thing about him within a month or two and then pass him off to the next sad bastard. The ground beneath his feet never felt particularly stable with the mattress under his pillow constantly changing. He only remembers a handful of them being kind and even less having the brain capacity to identify Keith’s issues for what they were and not as a ploy for attention.

That’s why he learned how to hold his sobs in, a pillow or a hand to help him hold his breath until his chest hurt too much to support the hysterics since group homes usually stuck several kids to one room and alerting foster parents of any situation that wasn’t immediately dangerous was never preferred. They had questions and hands that grabbed at everything. And sometimes they’d be angry when they were woken up and had swinging fists. It was easier to partially suffocate himself in worn cotton instead.

And then he was nine, and still nobody wanted him. Years of never staying in the same place for very long passed him by in a blur until one day he just seemed to blink and find himself twelve with repressed everything spilling out of him in sharp words and wild fists. The timeline is so hazy he can’t even estimate when exactly he had given up trying to be good enough for someone to want, supposes it just all caught up with him at once, the realization that he never would be there as if it always had been. 

Keith is wiser now. He knows how stupid it is to give a shit about something as ridiculous as someone wanting him, but his apathy to the concept never stood a chance against Shiro back at the Garrison—and now, not even remotely against Lance either. 

What he had with Lance was simple, but Keith’s brain was complicated. Everything with him was different. The easy advances that seemed more genuine than anything he’d ever imparted on Allura, the tentative gaze that lurked under every lopsided grin or played up scowl, the way he made Keith feel too small to withstand the weight of how much he was in fact wanted.

But Keith, he was immune to healthy coping mechanisms, even more so to openly communicating much about anything asides from his feelings for Lance. Those were irrefutable, he couldn’t doubt them if he tried—but caring about someone else didn’t make him magically care about himself. It didn’t erase the amount of time he’d spent believing he was worthless because no one wanted him, not just because someone did now.

That’s the only hang up he has about it all though. Lance wanting him should help fill some of the empty parts of him. On a good day, it did, but the shower was doing fuck all because his skin still felt so innately wrong. It couldn’t even be described as bad really, more of an insatiable need for something else thrumming beneath the tissue, something that wasn’t this feeling and there was no tangible way to either get there or get rid of it.

It happened a lot actually, that he didn’t feel much of anything in particular. Never enough of a single emotion to latch onto and nail down as the catalyst. No despair, to overwhelm him, no rage to convince him he’s real, just frustration that he couldn’t tip the scales of his inner turmoil and finally get relief.

So he had come to favor his big emotions again. When he could name it, he could handle it accordingly. Here, he could channel his anger into pulverizing the training bots when ever it coiled around his lungs, re-directing it once more to his fists and not stopping when they bled now because his opponents no longer did and split knuckles were easy enough to hide with his gloves. And when unyielding frustration gave way to tears he could steel himself away to cry out every pitiful ounce of sadness when it built so he could be over and done with it as soon as the tears stopped falling or he dehydrated himself.

The real challenge came with what he’s gotten used to labeling as lows because it wasn’t just that there was not enough heat to have him boiling over, there was not enough of anything. 

Keith only ever hurt himself then, when he was overcome by the need for something else and the desperation to feel something—anything other than an awful nothing. When he found himself as achingly numb as he was right now, a thick fog separating his body from his mind like a partition of scar tissue that served to protect him from himself.

But his reflexive attempting at shielding himself from psychological hurt always inadvertently welcomed it physically.

There was no gauging how long he had been standing there already, absently letting the spray pelt down on him while mulling over everything and nothing. The water had gone cold enough to have goosebumps pricking up all over, but he didn’t shiver until he draped his towel across his hips and the rough fabric brushed his scarred thighs, because all he could focus on after that was how the subtle reminder made his skin crawl, the sensitivity tempting him like an itch he needed to scratch.

This reaction was Keith’s fail-safe, his reset button. He hates how much sense it makes that his mind’s most desperate effort to ground him is something destructive. That in order to anchor him back to his body, or at least somewhere even close to what is real, to what is present he had to make himself bleed. 

He hasn’t blinked in a while and he only knows this because when he finally does, he’s at the sinks with months of backlogged emotions spilling out in dull pinches and shallow pants. He’s too far away from himself to feel the zap of rolling the skin on his arm between his finger tips and that needed to change, it needed to have changed yesterday.

Keith hadn’t been seriously addicted in years, though he’d be lying if he denied the handful of times he relapsed since Shiro first intervened, the majority of it occurring after he’d left the Garrison since Kerberos kind of absolved him of his promise to stop. And even though he had somehow managed to not intentionally hurt himself in space thus far, he’d been looking at his scars a lot lately and found himself wanting to make more.

He isn’t sure whether a promise still stands when it’s been broken so thoroughly by both parties, if the bounds of space are out of the realm of jurisdiction for a promise made on earth, only that he was about to fuck up again. 

The thought settles so abruptly his mind was forced to clear for a second to unpack it. Not here, he realizes distantly. He shouldn’t do it here when anyone could walk in at any moment, it was way too risky. But with how agonizingly empty he felt, devoid of all feeling except the urge to do something that might divest his body of the awful nothing that was swallowing him whole, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to help himself this time.

He was impossibly still for a while and when he moved next, it was robotically, his eyes unfocused as he dug the razor he uses to shave from the depths of his toiletry bag. It was disassembled in seconds.

“Fuck,” he huffed, voice small and shaking. It sounded foreign in his ears and he almost spoke again to make certain that it was his own. 

He hunched over the counter instead, breathing choppy and uneven as he stared at how the blades glinted in his hand, determined to look at anything other than his own reflection. He was sure that if he did, he would see the small boy with a chipped front tooth that he always sees when he’s like this, hair shaggy and wild with a ratty t-shirt that’s much too big for him hanging off his boney shoulders.

That was boy that no one had ever ended up wanting, the one that was too sensitive, and misbehaved, and got violent when pushed too far because no one ever chose to have a child with a head case and a temper, a kid like that was unloveable.

Blinking rapidly, he set the blades down with too much care for how he was about to handle them, like he was afraid a false twitch would catch his fingertip. The gentleness stirred something in him, winding his nerves up into a coil so tight it had no option other than to explode. Keith was anything but gentle, there was no point in feigning such a trait now.

The change was as swift as a flip switching, one slow blink and he was moving in autopilot, his weary mind falling into a routine he knew all too well. The familiarity of it the most soothing thing he’s tried to calm himself with yet.

At some point he had dropped his towel on the bench and shrugged on a clean pair of boxers and sweatshirt, his body moving on its own without any consult from him. The glimpse of old marks held his attention for a beat as he stepped through his gym shorts. They were mostly thin and pink, some white and fading, others raised and angry. The majority of them lay parallel to each other, only a few straying from the otherwise neat arrangement.

His heart lapped expectantly in his chest, the desire to hurt himself feeling more like a compulsion now, like nothing else would possibly help the way picking up the razor would. He knew it was his disordered mind making him think this linearly, this rationally irrational, but he couldn’t see a reason to believe otherwise through the haze of being not quite present, not entirely there. 

And through a part of him recognized that turning back to his worst habit was him betraying a sort of progress he hadn’t intended to make, the spike of feeling that bubbled up with the realization was a fleeting one and his hands were already moving to tuck the leg of his shorts up before bringing the razor down with an unwavering grip.

A ripple of nerve endings sparked in odd places almost immediately upon contact, pinching sparks of pain flaring down his leg and up his back as he dared the blade deeper with each line. He caught the blood as it dripped with paper towels, occasionally pressing against the wounds to gather what beaded before it fell and squeezing harshly to see more.

It still shocked him how easy it was to fall back into it, how quickly he became desperate for more. He stared down at the red mess that had become his thigh, a pleasant hum running through his veins now that his brain was making the connection that his body was hurting, which was a start, but he wanted to feel the dizzying malaise he got from going deeper.

The tease of it was far too tempting and he would’ve continued if not for the only sane hemisphere of his mind taking account of the fact that he had to be able to get himself the infirmary without leaving a blood trail and considering the state of his thigh already, he wouldn’t be able to if he did any more damage to it.

Stopping there was the obvious and rational conclusion. But his logic was tainted by need because Keith still didn’t feel quite right and he needed to do something about it, so stopping wasn’t exactly an option. He pushed the waistband of his underwear down on his right hip instead.

The skin there was taught and smooth. He’d cut there before but it hurt worse and the angle was horrible. Whatever he managed also took longer to heel because it’d constantly open back up which meant that nothing more than a few thin white lines remained.

His chest hitched with a tearless sob. He wanted to feel the pain even after it was over, wanted something there that he could aggravate to remind him he was still a person for when he felt like he wasn’t. Anything so that he didn’t have to feel like this any longer. And so he pressed the razor down, the bloody towel from before falling to the ground as he took a new one to his hip. Red began painting his leg in thin trails, a small puddle of it gathering at his foot, but he couldn’t find the energy to bother worrying over the mess yet because, fuck. 

As soon as he started on his hip he sort of knew he’d fucked up because the high came so quickly, his mind traveling somewhere else, somewhere he didn’t see himself ever stopping. It hurt just like he knew it would. His legs were beginning to feel heavier, like he’d been floating and was coming back to the ground, slowly getting reacquainted with the weight of his body. But even fear was welcomed at this point, he let it wash over him, let it swirl and fester because at least he could fucking feel again.

The deepest gashes on his leg throbbed and bled freely as he fixated on the opening skin of his hip, his lines becoming rushed and sporadic as he fixated on producing as much of that feeling as possible, only stopping when he went so deep his eyes literally watered and in seconds was clamping the towel over the wound before he saw the blood well from it. A part of him knew that if he did he’d have wanted to see more of that much pink.

“Fuck, fuck…” he managed through ragged gasps.

The high was intoxicating. With his body light and his mind quiet, the adrenaline rush was more intense than what he felt during battle. He struggled to analyze how that was even possible as it grew harder and harder to form a coherent thought through the haze. He knew he should get cleaned up. That if he felt like doing more, he could later, but he just really needed to not be openly bleeding with a razor in his hand the next time someone needed to pee, so he tried to blink through the blur and really look at the condition of his leg.

Blood dripped in several continuous streams that met around his ankle and pooled at his feet, the main bleeders deep enough to elicit another small spark of fear in his gut.

He almost laughed. He turned the sink on instead and watched the red dissipate from the tiles until the majority of it had flowed through the drain in the floor. Moving around made his head swim so he figured he should probably take care of the bleeding sitting down and threw the dismantled razor back into his bag, the death grip he had on the edge of the counter the only reason he was able to glance down at his leg without tipping over.

The sight of his thigh was almost as mesmerizing as the glinting metal of the blades. It stung and pulsed as blood both beaded and gushed from several cuts still. His side pretty much fared the same, although the pressure from the waistband of his shorts and the quickly dampening bunch of paper towels on the wounds was almost worse. Both pains made his heart lurch pleasantly still. He felt at ease despite his body sort freaking out over the blood he was still very much losing.

Keith couldn’t tell why he was shaking but decided the answer wasn’t good as he pressed more towels to his thigh, focusing on keeping as steady a pressure as he could muster so they’d clot and he could go back to his room. But soon his head started to swim without him moving at all, the tiles shifting before his eyes in a nauseating swirl while he lowered himself to the ground more carefully than he really cared to be. The bunch of towels he’s holding limply in his hand were soaked through and he didn’t think he could get back up for more without passing out.

He breathed in, and then back out, resolving that he would just put pressure on his leg until it stopped bleeding and he felt less dizzy.

It was eerily peaceful as he sat there while his body buzzed and his skin burned. It’s the most present he’d been with himself in weeks and he thought the nagging pang in his chest was sadness since this is what it took to feel like that. To feel anything at all. He registered briefly that he could cry if he considered it any longer, so he just pressed harder on his thigh and drew his elbow in closer to his hip.

Time felt weird after that. There were moments he remembered feeling incredibly alert as his heart pounded and his head pulsed angrily. Others where the darkness boardering his vision encroached dangerously and at times succeeding where he’d jolt up after slumping forward like he’d caught himself nodding off in class at the Garrison.

Keith didn’t know he’d closed his eyes again until they were shooting open, but this time at the whoosh of the door to the bathroom. He tried to get up but moving hurt and made him feel even more floaty, so he settled back down with a small whimper that he couldn’t properly stifle when his throat felt like sandpaper.

“Keith? Is that you?”

Lance. 

Of all people, of course it was Lance. 

He wasn’t sure wether to be relieved or not, because it could’ve been someone worse like Hunk or Pidge. Or Shiro. But it was also Lance.

“We’ve been looking everywhere for you man. You missed dinner—Keith?”

The way his voice broke when he rounded the corner and took in what must have been a sight almost broke Keith as well, but he was riding a disorienting high after doing what he did and couldn’t find the energy to feel more than the faintest twinge of shame.

“What the fuck.”

Lance stood frozen for a moment. Eyes wide as his mind wrapped itself around what he was seeing. And then his demeanor shifted entirely as he strode toward Keith’s prone form.

”Hey, you with me? What happened?”

He knelt in front of his sprawled legs and studied the saturated towels that lay over his thigh. The small pool of blood beneath him. Keith wanted to laugh again. He almost did. But the way his eyes were flitting over the mess, the horror in them—

“Keith.”

That shouldn’t be why it’s different now. It shouldn’t be why he actually regrets his actions and not just getting caught. But it is. The horror on Lance’s face will probably be burned into his retinas for the rest of his life. 

“I—” Keith stammers when he tries to answer him, finding his throat stuck and no words coming to mind that could possibly serve as explanation. He wasn’t even entirely sure there were any that could, but he figured if anyone deserved an impossible answer it was Lance. When he tried again he had to cough to make his voice work.

”I fucked up.”

A pang of anxiety blooms in his chest as he admits it, the weight of the words hanging on his tongue while his mind processed just how unfortunate it was that he’d been found like this, just how fucked it was that it took all this for him to realize he had. Lance’s brows wrinkled at that statement until he looked at his other thigh and saw scars. Old scars.

“Oh,” he blanched. “Well, shit.”

Keith’s lazy eyes met Lance’s worried ones for a moment, each boy waiting for the other to push one way or another. He was fairly certain he’d be more embarrassed if he didn’t feel so heavy.

“Can I help you?” he caved, breaking the magnetic silence that sat between them. His voice was as gentle as Keith ever recalled hearing it.

“I get it if you want nothing to do with me right now, I probably wouldn’t either, but you seem a bit out of it. So is that okay? I could get Shiro if you want—”

“Don’t get Shiro,” he rushed, his words slushing together lazily. “There’s no reason to worry him about this. M’fine, really.”

The words felt false even as he said them, mentally cursing himself for not being able to get out a full sentence without stuttering. His entire body was trembling, the pleasant buzz slipping farther and farther away as the overwhelming feeling that something was actually wrong made itself more apparent. Which made sense. The bleeding hadn’t let up much and he’d seen a good amount of blood disappear down the drain.

It was probably worse than his hazey mind was letting him perceive it to be, evident in the way his eyes started to flutter shut again, too heavy to keep open for very long.

“Keith, hey.” Lance shook his shoulder lightly, his bottom lip already raw from where he was worrying at it.

“Hm?”

“Well, I was just gonna say how I think you need a refresher on the definition of ‘fine’, but if you really don’t want me to get Shiro, I won’t. I am going to get a first aid kit though, which is non-negotiable by the way.”

“Right, sure, just no Shiro.”

“Yep I’ve got it, no Shiro. Don’t uh—don’t go anywhere before I get back.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

Lance’s disapproval of his joking was lost on him as he closed his eyes once more and let the warm buzz under his skin be the only thing at the forefront of his mind. It was only when the other boy was shaking his shoulder that he opened them again.

Keith wasn’t sure why he kept falling asleep, he wasn’t bleeding out or anything, but his body felt so light and weak that keeping his eyes open was a chore. It was probably a mix of things. He hadn’t slept much at all that week and had trained twice that day, barely eating before the group session in the morning and not having much after his individual spar either. He’d also hurt himself worse than he’d like to acknowledge in that moment, so he kept his gaze focused anywhere other than down after Lance roused him.

“Some of these are pretty bad.”

He noted it as more of a statement than an admonishment. A fact. Not a demand for why, or a way to pass any judgement that he harbored. Lance was easy like that, he didn’t expect answers or force Keith to explain himself, not that he even had them to give. He was a grateful for it, the unspoken understanding comforting him however marginally.

Lance took away the towels on his leg and pressed thick squares of gauze against the deepest wounds, pouring some clear solution on another sterile pad before bringing it down on the lesser ones all while strangely calm for stumbling across something so jarring. Keith was in awe of how effortlessly he was compartmentalizing, how he just naturally had the willpower to not freak out yet before doing what needed to be done.

“Sorry,” he offered when he saw Keith’s face twitch up, “probably stings.”

It did, but he didn’t mind and only hummed in response, not seeung the point in wasting his energy by talking when he was already so tired.

Lance peaked under the quickly saturating squares and frowned, sitting back on his heels with an exasperated sigh and using the middle of his arm to wipe the sweat on his forehead because his hands were too bloody.

“Some of these need stitches.”

Keith decides that this was the demeanor Lance must save for when he has to be a protective older brother, his tone stern but soft, eyes large and serious, too stoic to be Lance’s normal persona, but also too warm and blue to be anyone else’s. 

“I really do get not wanting me to tell anyone—“

“Glue,” Keith huffed, his mouth feeling like it was stuffed with as much gauze as the gashes on his leg.

“Heh?!”

“Glue,” he repeats, firmer this time. “Like super glue.”

Lance gulps down the lump in his throat that was threatening to break his composure.

“Did I hear that right? Super glue, as in want me to glue your skin shut?”

“Course not. I would.”

If he didn’t look mortified, Keith would’ve thought the bewildered scrunch to his face was sort of adorable.

“M’just a little dizzy, but I can do it.”

He moved to sit up more, wincing when the cuts on his hip pulled and gushed. The world tilted and static filled his ears. If he wasn’t so close to passing out he might’ve realized that his new position revealed the small puddle that had been gathering at his side and that Lance looked ten seconds away from hurling.

“Oh god. What the hell is that from—stop it, you have to let me see.”

The harsh order didn’t match the gentle hands that covered his own, easily detaching the useless appendages from the hem of his sweatshirt. They were too stiff to coordinate, he couldn’t have put up a fight if he had even wanted to.

Smears of red trailed up his side and back from just below his boxers. Lance swallowed hard.

“Can I—uhm, can I move this?”

The edge to his voice softened as he rattled his question off worriedly, the urge to tell Keith he shouldn’t hurt himself like this for whatever reason—because no reason he’d give would be good enough—passing as quickly as it arrived. It was replaced by a more pressing worry over what was beneath the alarmingly darker patch on what should be plain grey boxers shorts.

Keith nodded, squirming when the other boy released the tension on the elastic to slide the blood soaked towels out. The wounds pulsed with vengeance as the pressure was lifted. Lance drew Keith’s eyes to his own once more.

“Gonna move this down a bit further where it’ll stay.”

Keith whispered a barely audible ‘kay’ in response, his glassy eyes fluttering shut as he leaned his head against the wall. Lance struggled to stifle his shock at the sight that was his hip as he uncovered the even worse mess, pressing a thick wad of gauze to it before allowing himself a moment to panic.

The wounds there were different. They didn’t follow any discernible pattern of organization like his thigh, hardly any were parallel or of the same depth and length, some just scratches, others showing so much pink Lance had to repeat to himself multiple times that it was just tissue and not bone. He didn’t know how to begin going about cleaning them when they were so wide, the skin so tight over his hip that the cuts stretched apart and stayed open.

“Keith…”

Lance had never said his name like that before, as a concession, his placative facade finally losing its confidence.

“Can you bring the med kit closer?” Keith asked casually, eyes lidded.

Lance slid it within arms reach so he could rummage through it, doing so for not even a full minute before pulling out a large bottle of more clear liquid.

“Wound wash. It’s not harsh like straight up disinfectant, but it needs some of that too. Press down hard after I get everything cleaned out, okay?”

He waited for Lance to nod. His face had paled considerably, but he did. Keith couldn’t blame him. This was so fucked. All of it. He had to work to push the guilt building in his stomach down over how he’d put this impossibly traumatic experience on him without warning, just the shock of finding one of his best friend’s like this, the shock of it being him when they were them. He almost relished in the seering pain that followed as he flushed the wounds on his side, humming in approval when Lance quickly clamped his hand over it.

Both boys took in heaving breaths once it was done, the tension in the air taught with a flurry of bitter emotions Keith didn’t think he could even begin to comprehend then.

“I’m—shit, Lance.” The levity in his voice was almost scary until it shifted into something darker as he continued, “I’m so sorry you had to—“

“Don’t. Whatever you’re about to apologize for, just don’t.”

Lance was serious again. His gaze fixed on the rapidly reddening gauze beneath his fingers.

“No, I have to. It’s not fair of me that you have to do this,” was he all he managed before he had to stop and let the blood rush dissipate, blinking through rumble in his eardrums as it settled slowly.

“I’ll compromise,” Lance offered with a snort once he saw what had halted Keith’s unnecessary apology.

”You can save it for when you feel less like shit, but you have to shut up for now and let me help or I will go and get Shiro.”

The way he set his jaw told Keith he wasn’t bluffing. He couldn’t even be mad about the blackmail, it was a valid move,  but he could hate how his heart genuinely swelled over the amount that Lance gave a shit. The boy was officially going to be the death of Keith, that is, unless Keith didn’t get there first.

“That’s what I thought,” he huffed dryly, dragging the med kit closer to shuffle through the contents like he knew what he was looking for, though it was clear he had absolutely no clue when the shuffling continued long enough for Keith to notice despite his temporary time blindness.

“Blue glass,” Keith breathed, his eyes pressed together tightly, “rubber stopper.”

The searching hands stilled and Lance’s lips parted in momentary disbelief.

“I- so we’re gonna put a pin in why you just know that off the top of your head alongside a rapidly expanding list of other things we’ll be discussing later.”

Keith hummed, his eyes still closed. The headache that had been dulling made a miraculous return over the course of the search and stole what remained of his energy. 

“This stuff smells vile by the way.”

“Breathe through your mouth then.”

There was no heat in the delivery, but Lance seemed to flinch at his sentiment anyway.

“Hand it to me while I hold it closed,” he ordered, again without much edge, his words slow and overly emphasized as he tried to make the way he would occasionally slur less noticeable.

Lance didn’t let himself react, just unscrewed the glass bottle and watched Keith’s hands tremble once they held the sides of one of the deepest gashes on his leg together, strength only wavering when he switched his grip to receive the stopper. 

“Oh fuck.”

Blood seeped through his hold on the wound and prevented the glue from adhering correctly. He wiped away the goo with a frantic groan, not really getting there in time, and hissing when it burned a new sort of fire into the sliced flesh.

“Just let me do it—“

“I got it.”

“I really don’t think—”

“I can do it myself, Lance.”

“Keith, I—”

“No. You’ve already done more than enough.”

“Stop,” Lance seizes Keith’s shaking hands before he could cut him off again and pulled them into his lap. He was breathing like he’d just finished sparring with a training bot.

“Look at me.”

He said it with a softness Keith felt he didn’t deserve, not when he was all sharp edges and impulses. Lance didn’t seem to hold the same belief as he scanned Keith’s bleary eyes like the ferocity in his own could get the distant gaze to focus on him with sheer force of will.

“Let me do it.”

A lack of resistance was the only confirmation Lance would get as Keith cursed himself silently for not being able to summon tears until that moment. They fell without his permission, meeting at his chin to continue down his neck after further obscuring his vision. Lance didn’t comment, but he also didn’t try to hide the glassiness of his own eyes. The two were silent after that, Lance working diligently while Keith fought to keep his impending hysteria at bay. 

It wasn’t as bad as he imagined, playing nurse. His initial disdain was probably because of how nonchalantly Keith had suggested it, like he’d done it plenty of times and it was nothing. The knowledge that Keith believed as much was crushing, but so was every time they moved to another uncloseable wound, their hands working together to keep it shut until the glue hardened. They repeated the process dozens of times until his leg and side glistened unevenly under the puckering glaze where smaller, less severe marks stood out a stark and puffy red between swathes of shining blue.

By the end of it, Keith could barely keep his eyes open, body buzzing visibly, his breaths rushed and shallow. A firm squeeze to the hollow of his collarbone routed his attention back to Lance whose mouth was moving as if he’d been speaking to him for a while. He hummed lazily when a second followed.

“Stay with me for like 5 more minutes while I figure out how to bandage this and then we’ll work on getting you to your room. Okay?”

He let out a noncommittal noise at the prospect, and then an annoyed puff when warm hands propped his leg up against an equally warm leg, Lance’s leg, before proceeding to wind a stretchy wrap around a thick layer of gauze with a layer of medicated salve underneath. Keith eyed the dressing warily.

“What’s wrong, too tight?”

Shaking his head and mouthing ‘no’ was apparently not good enough of an answer.

“It’s okay if it is, I can always loosen it—”

“It’s fine. Seriously.” 

Blue eyes bore into violet ones, the former narrowing dubiously before flitting away. It really was fine, Keith simply wasn’t used to having the injuries he’d given himself tended to like this and would rather it wasn’t there at all. His usual protocol of waiting for the blood to dry enough for it act as a premature scab would have definitely been vetoed though, so he didn’t bother trying to advocate for it.

He stared at the sterile white wrapping for a long time. It was strange how seeing his leg covered like that made him feel raw, almost exposed, when the damage was literally hidden from sight.

“I think it would be easier if you laid down.”

When Keith only blinked back at him, Lance pointed to his still exposed hip. The wounds that hadn’t needed glue were bleeding sluggishly and tended to reopen with even the slightest movements, so maneuvered himself slowly, head coming to rest in folded arms as he rested on his side so his hip was presented more accessibly.

He’d have probably been more embarrassed to be so bare if it wasn’t Lance and his entire ass cheek practically being out was the least of his sources of shame or regret in that moment. Not for what happened because it would’ve regardless, but for having been so stupid to get caught. He didn’t posses the energy to spiral over that fact then though, he hardly had enough to remain awake.

“I know I just had you lay down, but try not fall asleep.”

“Mhmm.” Keith was already drifting.

“And uh, sorry if I’m shit at this, I really have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.”

“S’alright.” He managed even though he was more alseep than he was awake.

You were perfect, is what he wants to add, but he’s dozing off before he can be so stupid, only vaguely aware of Lance tugging his waist this way and that as he cleaned and covered, his mind falling into a void where his thoughts tapered pleasantly until the burning on his side brought him back with a slight start. 

Lance’s apology is filtered through the fog, his voice distant and garbled as he murmurs something about cleaning the area again because of all the blood, his hands gentle in scrubbing at what had already dried around the wounds highest on his side. He applies the same medicine before packing gauze on top and taping the edges down, overlapping the first set of strips to ensure it’d stay before pulling his shorts over it. The trembling was so bad once everything was done that Lance thought he might be able to hear his teeth chattering if he listened hard.

“I’m gonna go pack up your stuff. I’ll be right back.”

Keith mumbled something unintelligible into his arms and brought his legs up to his chest, the cold tile beneath him only aiding his inability to stop shaking. The sting of his wounds stretching was duller now, only a difference in the normal heat of his skin over the area reminded him they were there.

He felt bone dry of every ounce of adrenaline that had came with the high from before and wanted nothing more than to crawl under the covers of his bed and sleep until he grew tired of sleeping. Concentrating for very long was hard and the daze that addled him prevented his racing thoughts from bearing much coherence, which is probably the only thing that kept his mounting anxieties contained. He’d only partially nodded off when Lance was shaking him again.

“Give me your hands.” He held out his own, lowering himself into to a crouch, Keith’s towel around his neck and shower bag over his shoulder.

Getting his feet under him was a challenge, but Lance’s grip on his wrists was firm, unrelenting strength allowing Keith to supplement his fatigue with Lance’s stability. He pulled him up slowly, watching the deep set grimace on his face carefully and readying himself for the inevitable falter.

Lance saw the color drain from Keith’s face as he staggered to stay upright, the new orientation making him a whole new type of woozy. He gasped when Lance’s hands on his back were pulling him close before his legs could fully buckle.

“I’ll be okay in… a minute… just… nghn.”

“Take your time.”

Keith isn’t sure what makes it impossible to smother his groans as he fought both swirling nausea and the urge the crumple back to the ground, whether it was Lance’s disarming attitude, or the absolute lack of ability to expend the effort to quiet such sounds, he didn’t really care, he was too exhausted to feel embarrassed.

“Dizzy?”

He nodded into Lance’s shoulder, his grasp on his arm tightening when the vertigo had him dangerously close to losing what little he had in his stomach. Another minute passes before he could lift his head without seeing spots.

“Kay. We can go.”

Lance held Keith away from him by his shoulders, wholly unconvinced of his ability to stand on his own, let alone walk. He stepped away briefly to come around on his other side and pick up the arm hanging limply at his side. Keith didn’t even twitch when it was slung around Lance’s shoulder, just rumbled his displeasure because actual words were too much effort.

The pair made their way careful and slow. Keith’s legs were leaden and difficult to will forward, so Lance followed the pace he set, taking more and more of his weight as they went. He felt like a live wire, his limbs both numb and bristling with terror over someone approaching them before they made it to his room, but willing himself to go any faster would have been disastrous with how lightheaded he was, so he just pushed the nerves away. He could deal with them later when he didn’t feel like death.

The incessant pounding behind his eyes was surprisingly efficient at stamping down his distress, he didn’t even notice Lance was shifting against him to reach the keypad with how preoccupied he was with the ache, the door of his room whooshing open just as his burning muscles shuttled to the forefront of his attention. He wobbled, legs suddenly feeling too much like jelly to bear being left to support his own weight. Thank god for door frames and what little control he had left over his fingers.

“Jesus fuck, Keith.”

The beginning of what sounded a lot like the word ‘sorry’ was shushed and ignored, a lithe arm snaked around his shuddering shoulders, another hovering over several places on his stomach like he was trying to find a position that wouldn’t cause any hurt before hoisting. They took an experimental step forward once his hands were thoroughly tangled in the material of Lance’s shirt, the arm around his middle all that kept him standing this time.

He must’ve made another pitiful sound while he struggled against gravity, because without another moment of consideration Lance tossed Keith’s things to the side and bent low enough to hook his arms behind the crook of his knees, the rest of Keith flailing over his shoulder.

“Ow! Pinch all you want, it’s already happening.”

Lance completely tuned out the weak protests and gently deposited an incredibly flustered Keith onto his bed.

“That was unnecessary.”

“I don’t care. How do you feel?” Lance asked seriously, his features set like stone as he sat at the end of the bed and searched his friend’s face for any sign of further discomfort.

“What do you mean?” Keith’s voice was small, hesitant.

“You almost passed out again.”

“Alright, that’s a bit dramatic. I—”

“Almost passed out. For like the third time tonight.”

“I’m just tired.”

“Sure you are. Do you need water?”

“Wha-no, I don’t need anything. Seriously, I’m okay.” 

“Food’s probably a good idea.”

“Lance.”

“It’ll get you’re energy back up since you missed dinner. I could go run and grab the leftovers Hunk saved, it’d take me two seconds.”

“Lance stop.”

Keith felt like he would shake apart right then and there if Lance shut up, but he complied easily, which wasn’t expected.

“Stop what exactly?” 

Keith’s entire body seemed to still for the first time in forever, the tension visible. Lance waved his hand in the air, motioning for him to continue.

“Acting like—”

“Like what? That I care if you’re okay?” The bite of hurt in Lance’s voice made Keith’s skin crawl. 

“Just because you don’t give a shit about what happens to you doesn’t mean I can’t.”

“Never said you can’t.”

“Why are you upset then?”

“Because you just… shouldn’t.” Keith’s tone was flat, emotionless.

Because it’s going to keep happening, he wanted to scream.

Because I don’t know if I can keep another promise like the one you’re probably going to ask me for.

“S’not my fault that you do anyway,” is what he says instead.

“And it’s not mine either, but I’m not about to apologize for it.”

“Wasn’t asking you to.”

“Really? Then what were you doing?”

Trying to protect you from me. 

Trying to protect me from me.

The words were right there, sitting heavy on his tongue, but his mouth was shut tight, jaw aching with the pressure. Lance looked like he might just wait until Keith lost the battle, like he wanted to know what Keith was biting his tongue to keep from saying, but he didn’t have the same discipline.

“You hurt yourself tonight and I know it’s not the first time, but you did and that fucking matters to me. It should matter to you too, but I know that I don’t know everything, and I won’t won’t try to make sense of why the hell you don’t just so it’s easier for me to deal with.”

Keith’s eyes were burning holes into his floor with how intently he stared anywhere other than Lance’s face.

“Look we don’t have to get into all of that right now, I just need to make sure you’re okay. So without the bullshit this time, how do you feel?”

The room spun as he struggled to blink back tears. Refusing to break eye contact with the ground, he answered with a simple and quiet, “shitty.”

“That’s a start. What brand of shitty are we dealing with? Still dizzy?”

He thought for a moment and nodded, his eyes crossing until they were stuck in a distant gaze he didn’t have the wherewithal to break. Dissociating was easier than being fully present for a conversation regarding how he felt anyway, even if it was only about how he felt physically.

“What else? Does your head hurt?”

More questions rolled off of Lance’s tongue after that. He was aware that he was answering them, nodding and shaking his head, but he couldn’t recall much from the interrogation. It was probably for the best.

“And on a scale of one to ten how much do you think you might pass out before I get back? One being highly unlikely and ten most definitely.”

Keith’s eyes lidded as he tried to blink back to reality. They met Lance’s for a second, still not entirely focused, before glancing down at his hands that he couldn’t really feel with how much they tingled, phantom pricks of pins and needles the only thing that convinced him they were still there.

“D’know. I feel really weird.”

That seemed to snap Lance right back into emergency caregiving mode as he moved closer to Keith and examined his still palid face, eyeing the sheen of sweat coating it with a frown he hadn’t even attempted to conceal.

“Lay down. No, on your side in case you yak—well, no not that you will, just in case you do and I’m not here.”

Lance helped him shift down, his hand dropping to smooth the tension out of the shoulder drawn all the way up to his ear after planting the very real fear of vomiting all over himself. His hands were warm, which was the only reason he realized the rest of himself was so cold. The anxiety in his stomach churched at what that meant.

“You’re okay,” the assurance seemed to be more for Lance than Keith in that moment, but both boys seemed in desperate need of hearing it out loud.

“I’ll be back soon.”

And with that Lance was leaving him again, dimming the lights as he did to ease the strain on Keith’s eyes.

God, Lance was so good.

The flutter in his chest countered that of the whirling panic struggling for dominance for all of a minute because Lance was gone, he’d left. And since Keith couldn’t physically see him anymore, he couldn’t assure himself that, yes, he was in fact coming back. His dad had simply left for work, he didn’t plan on not coming back when he kissed Keith on the forehead and said goodbye that morning. Shiro went on a mission. He sure as fuck didn’t intend on getting hurtled into an intergalactic war. Sure, Lance was just going to the kitchen, but that didn’t quantify as something of reassurance in Keith’s scattered mind.

His warring panic won in record time. Even when he pressed his eyes closed he couldn’t escape the sensation that he was spinning, the room tilting as he rocked back and forth to calm himself down and replace the phantom feeling with actuality. The rocking was hard to maintain though with how tense his muscles were as they spasmed, his breathing becoming more labored as all of it dragged on, mounting and morphing into something he couldn’t escape on his own.

He soon found himself on the cusp of crying yet again. The exhaustion he felt was bone-deep, but he tried to keep himself awake anyway. If he fell asleep before Lance got back he would worry, so it didn’t matter how much he wanted to forget tonight, to forget the sadness etched into the stoic frown lines on Lance’s face. But even though he wasn’t trying to fall asleep, the frustration of not being able to physically relax, of not being able to stop trembling for one goddamned minute, pushed him over the edge of everything.

The tremors that racked his body were born from hysterical sobs after that, a gnawing itch spreading across his body then, one that made him want crack his chest open and crawl right out to not feel it anymore. He doesn’t know if he’s ever felt more tired in his life, just that he wants desperately to not be there when Lance got back, to just evaporate like he’d never even been there in the first place. The only thing that would make it easier was to sleep, because when you sleep, you don’t feel shit. But he can’t sleep because of Lance. He’s not even sure he could manage it with how keyed up he was then if he tried. 

Keith soon lost himself in overdue feeling, each disjointed and barely comprehensive thought igniting a new nerve ending to push his panic further that he was soon he was burning from it all. He was fairly certain he was wailing then, back arching and chest pumping as he tried to gasp between cries, the latter only making him more disoriented as he fought his rapidly dulling senses. It was like he’d been possessed by himself, his body ridding the emotion he’d been subconsciously repressing any way it could despite what he did in effort to stop it.

The lights turned on without warning and he cried out even louder, each breath he took closer and closer to a wheeze, neither the tears nor his thrashing letting up even though he’d blown well through his energy reserves.

“-ith! Keith! What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

He couldn’t make out who the voice belonged to after he made the connection that it was not Lance, but he couldn’t open his eyes to check with the lights still on.

“Shhhh, c’mon you’re okay. Breathe, bud.”

The person’s hands were on his shoulders now, his body still shuddering and hitching mercilessly, so whoever it was probably missed the way he flinched. He could barely hear their assurances over the ringing in his ears and the sounds of his chest working.

“You’re alright, I’m here. I’ve got you—“

But he did hear the door when it whooshed opened the next time.

“Shiro? Oh fuck.”

That was decidedly the worst thing he thought could happen while he tried to regain his composure, Shiro hearing him and finding him like this.

He needed to get away from his hands as they tried to soothe him, he didn’t want to be soothed, he wanted to disappear. He writhed on the bed and he fought to turn himself onto his back, hands grasping at his chest when his breathing became more ragged.

Shiro was insistent though, he didn’t know that this wasn’t the usual freak out, that he didn’t want to be touched, not when he might feel the bandages. Keith kicked his leg over so he could curl onto his other side where it was easier to breathe and stay away from grabbing hands, but he’d misjudged how bad it would hurt, the scream that tore from his throat was shrill as he re-opened several of the wounds on his hip. He could distantly hear Shiro agonizing over not knowing what the fuck was happening as Lance cursed.

“You idiot! Shit. Crap. On your stomach, come on,” Lance ordered, prying Keith’s legs away from his chest and pulling on his hips so that he rolled back over.

“Lance,” Shiro breathed cautiously. “I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t, like I really can’t. It’s not my, uh, place but he also didn’t exactly tell me either, so it’s not like I could if I wanted to. He’s okay, though! Well, relatively, I guess.”

Lance actually winced at the death glare Shiro gave him when he finished.

“Alright! I went to get him water and something to eat, but he was fine when I left, I think he’s a little overwhelmed is all. Had a pretty bad headache before,” Lance added as he moved over to the switch and turned the lights down once again, grateful for the distance between him and Shiro who looked about two missteps away form throttling him.

“This is more than just being overwhelmed, Lance. He sounded like he was having a nightmare, but he’s not even asleep,” Shiro pressed, retracting his hand from where he tried to rub the middle of Keith’s back when he shrunk under the touch, whimpering lightly and stuttering breathy apologies into the pillow he’d shoved his face into.

Lance eyed his side with concern when Shiro looked back to Keith’s trembling frame. His heart was aching. The kid was practically his brother and he couldn’t tell him what had happened, he wasn’t sure Keith would ever speak to him again if he did.

“You’re right, but you’re gonna have to press him yourself. I would enjoy keeping all of my digits.”

“I will be the one removing your digits if you don’t tell me what the hell—wait, Lance is that-is that blood?”

“Mierda. Keith… ugh. I’m sorry, man,” Lance ushered and reached for his friend’s hand when Shiro forwent all courtesies to roughly pull him over onto his other side, hands searching wildly.

The sounds Keith made once he knew what was happening threatened to bring Lance to a similar state, the distress as he pleaded and clumsy hands scrabbled over Shiro’s with desperation. A series of strangled ‘no’s spilled out, but the only time Shiro faltered was when he said ‘please’.

“Please don’t. Lance, p-please, t-tell-tell him n-tell h-him not t—”

But it was too late, there was no stopping Shiro as he hiked up his sweatshirt and stared for a moment before spotting the hint of white tape peaking out from where his underwear rose up. Lance wrung his hands out nervously while he watched Shiro peel the edges of the bloodied bandage up.

“Oh.”

No one spoke while Shiro processed what he was seeing, the only sounds were Keith’s pitiful cries as he covered his eyes in the crook of his arm, clamping the other over his mouth to try and quiet his sobs.

“You told me before I left that you would stop.”