lance alvarez (powpowpow) wrote in valloic, @ 2023-03-25 14:34:00 |
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Waiting.
But nothing compared the anguish of waiting when it came to injuries. Waiting to see whether someone he cared about would pull through was about the worst form of torture Lance could think of. That god awful anxious and helpless feeling in the pit of his stomach, the worry, the constant what if that cycled through his thoughts that raced and raced.
He'd been forced into cleaning himself up, someone had shoved food at him that he'd taken about three bites that he then promptly threw up, someone else had cleaned and bandaged up the latest round of injuries. All the while lost in a haze, the events that preceded the waiting playing on a loop and leaving him disconnected from the rest of the world.
So disconnected he hadn't even heard Shiro saying he had to go check in with Kipp moments before and spent a good minute looking around Keith's bedside for him. Keith was still out and it made Lance's stomach turn. He knew he'd barely gotten Keith out in time. But Kosmo… Lance pressed a hand tight to his mouth, trying to keep from completely breaking down at the thought.
Whether it was Lance’s healing abilities, his own accelerated Galran healing, or a combination of both, Keith managed to survive their encounter with Melog. They hadn’t known, when they had come across the cat, that they had been thralled yet. The news hadn’t been known to everyone and Melog was a friend, so of course Keith had stupidly reached out to greet them. It was sheer bad luck that he hadn’t seen Melog’s eyes and the obviousness of the thralling.
That had been the fatal mistake, letting his guard down.
The attack had been quick and fierce and if it hadn’t been for Lance and Kosmo, Keith would have died. But the shock of the attack and the sheer brutality of it had knocked him out and Keith didn’t know what happened in the aftermath. Because now, as he lay recovering in his makeshift recovery room, Keith could only remember Kosmo teleporting in to try and drive Melog off, while Lance focused on healing him. He had felt his wolf companion in his head, had felt all his confusion and fear, and the dawning realization that Melog was no longer in charge.
The last thing he remembered was pain. His own and Kosmo’s.
Blearily, he opened his eyes as wakefulness finally came back to him. He didn’t recognize the room he was in right away, but he knew Lance. “What happened?” He croaked out, voice barely a harsh whisper from disuse and the healing wounds on his neck.
Lance's attention immediately snapped to Keith as he heard him speak and he almost tripped in his hast to move from the chair he'd been sitting on to the one Shiro had vacated closer to Keith. Carefully he reached for Keith's hand and clasped theirs together - not sure if was more to ground Keith or ground himself, or maybe just the both of them.
He knew he probably looked like hell. Face bruised, fresh cuts, eyes red from stress and the crying he wouldn't even deny at this point.
"We - uh - Melog attacked us," he started, voice cracking. His own just as hoarse from when Atreus had made his way to the outpost and the other what happened question had been answered with a complete breakdown.
"They were thralled, we didn't realize until…" Lance trailed off, his other hand pressing hard against his temple. "Until they'd attacked you and it was too late. It was bad, Keith, it was so bad.. I thought…" Lance let out a shaky breath, trying desperately to to completely fall apart again. "I thought you were going to…" He swallowed a sob at that. "I managed to get you away, I was trying to keep you from dying right there and Kosmo…" Kosmo trying to cover them, to give Lance half a chance to keep Keith alive.
He couldn't keep it together at that. A quiet sob as his whole body started to shake. "Keith, fuck.., I'm so sorry, Keith. I should have…" he didn't even know what he should have done. Been quicker, been better. "Kosmo, he didn't…"
Keith was uncomprehending at first. He couldn't focus on what Lance was saying, too busy feeling all the pain he hadn't been processing until he started to wake up more fully. His body hurt, his face hurt, and the pain around his shoulders and neck was a dull, overwhelming ache. Pure stubbornness and whatever they had given him for the pain was the only reason he hadn't passed out again immediately. But then he heard Lance's words, searched for the connection he had with his best boy and...
It was gone.
It wasn't like how they had lost the connection with the Lions because they were still around, just not active. His connection with Shiro, thankfully, wasn't completely severed. But the warm, constant presence of Kosmo in his head was gone and Keith laid there, hand limp in Lance's too tight grip, refusing to believe it.
He had felt it being severed, their connection, as he was bleeding out, but he hadn’t remembered until now. Not until Lance told him in not so many words.
“Tell me you’re lying,” Keith finally said, voice choked up and tears gathering in his eyes. “Don’t…don’t tell me that, Lance. Please.” He hadn’t believed it about Cobb either, when that had happened.
Lance wished he could tell Keith he was lying. Wished so hard it physically hurt. With everything in him shouted out to the universe that he could say it was all a lie that nothing was wrong and Kosmo was fine. Because he knew. He knew Keith, he knew that when Keith cared he cared deeply, that when he let himself form those attachments it was bone deep. He knew how much Kosmo meant, the years on the space whale, the years after.
"Fuck… Keith," he breathed out around a choked off sob. "I - I can't, I can't… I'm so sorry."
That it never got easier, that it hurt every damn time. That every loss felt like a part of them being ripped away - well, Lance figured it was what separated them from the things they fought. Now and back in their younger years.
He hated it in moments like this though. That sinking abyss of grief, a chasm ready to swallow them whole. He held tight to Keith's hand.
It felt like losing family, knowing that Kosmo was gone. Desperately, Keith kept trying to feel for their connection, but it wasn’t there. It was as if he had lost a chunk of his heart. The gut wrenching sob that escaped him was pure grief. Kosmo had been with him for nearly half his life by this point and for him to just…be gone? It was an overwhelming feeling.
Loss wasn’t pretty. It never got any easier, but Keith never learned to handle it well. Because he had never had anyone he loved pass away easily. Of old age and in comfort, surrounded by love. Tex had died in a fire to save others. Allura, saving the universe. Countless brothers and sisters in the Blade, for the greater good. Then Gansey and Cobb and too many others...
Keith ripped his hand away from Lance so he could scramble at the IV someone had set up. “I gotta go,” he sobbed, tears obscuring his vision. “Where’s Shiro and Kipp?”
It wasn't really that surprising that it suddenly went to Keith desperately trying to leave, it wasn't their first rodeo with any of this.
Lance just moved, standing up to grab gently but still firmly at Keith's hands to keep him ripping out the IV. "Keith… hey… just… wait," he said, his own emotions firmly stashed away in favor of trying to keep Keith from running off. His voice much like his grip - firm, but not harsh.
"You gotta keep that in," he added as he straightened the IV line. "Shiro just stepped out to make sure Kipp ate something," the memory of Shiro speaking that slotting back in now that it was needed. "He'll be right back, okay?" Lance moved as he spoke, crawling up onto the bed that was, really, probably too small for two grown ass men but he was going to make them fit. He tugged Keith into a hug, mindful of the IV coming out of his arm. Personal space be damned. "Five minutes, okay? We're gonna sit here for five minutes and if he's not back I'll help you go find them." A compromise - because Keith really was in no shape to start roaming around, but Lance knew that never stopped Keith before.
Keith could have fought harder. Could have fought dirty and gotten away from Lance, but even with emotions clouding his better judgment, he could recognize that Lance was trying to do the best for him. The fight drained out of him, when Lance forced them into a hug. He could do nothing but bury his face in his friend’s chest and cling back, as sobs racked his body.
It took a long time for him to settle, but eventually he had nothing left to cry. Maybe hours passed, maybe just a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity later when Keith pulled away and half heartedly wiped at the snot and tears he had left behind on Lance.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, feeling all out of sorts as a numbness started to settle in. “I…” he closed his eyes as he pulled away to curl into himself. “He’s a good boy.” Was. “He didn’t deserve this.”
Lance just held onto Keith tight as he cried, a few tears of his own burning tracks down his face. He knew he'd come so close, too close to losing Keith that time, the memory of it still so vivid and if he clung a little tighter because of it could he really be blamed. Keith was his family, his brother in every way that mattered and the idea of losing him was terrifying.
"Don't be," he said quietly as Keith apologized. He'd never hold it against Keith. He couldn't care less about the wet spot on his shirt, soaked with tears and probably snot. All that mattered was that he could try to provide at least some comfort for his friend.
"The best boy," Lance agreed and hugged Keith a little tighter for a moment. "He didn't - you don't deserve to lose him, this is all just… really fucking shitty," he sighed it out, an understatement at best. "I'm so sorry, Keith," he said again, sorry that it happened, his own guilt burning - even if he knew there was nothing he could have done really.
“Don’t be sorry,” Keith parroted back because Lance had no business apologizing for this. “He saved us.” In his heart of hearts, he knew that Kosmo would have made that choice for any one of them, but the fact that he made that choice was indisputable. He didn’t blame Lance or, hell, even Melog for this. There was only one person to blame, as feelings started to rush back in. “I’m going to kill Interitus,” he vowed, as he clung to Lance again, a little manic looking in the eyes. “I’m going to kill him for Kosmo and everyone else we’ve lost so far.”
His eyes were drooping though, as he fought going unconscious again. Waking up after such a brutal incident and drugged up as much as he was, it was a surprise that he had been awake this long. “Gonna fucking murder him,” he said, one last time, as his eyes slipped close and his grip on Lance’s shirt loosened.