Chapter Text
Keith burns.
From the cuts that litter his body, burning as the healers pour their salves into them. From the small metal razors that scrape the sweat and dirt from his skin, burning against his oversensitive nerves. From the blood that hasn’t leaked from his wounds making its way to color his face, burning in wounded pride.
Keith burns, he burns, burns.
His wounds are wrapped, his body washed, and then he is alone in the shit excuse for an infirmary, legs chained to the bed as if he had the energy to try and escape. He can still hear the distant roars of the crowd as the more advanced single combat matches begin above him, the room shaking sometimes as onlookers stomp their feet in anticipation.
Keith’s head hurts.
He closes his eyes, raising his heavy arms to rub his hands down his face as if simply by hiding behind his hands he will vanish from the world.
He hasn’t lost a match in a long, long time, and conflicting emotions duel each other in his chest until he feels like he’s going to burst. At its core, humiliation and embarrassment at having to be saved by the thumb, not even counting the fact it was the Altean’s thumb that spared his life. He could see how much the Officiator wanted to see him, the representation of “Balmera,” die and secure the victory of the Empiric soldiers. Die to please the Emperor, when the reenactment hadn’t gone quite they way he had planned.
Part of him wants to die, to finally be free of this ruthless kill-or-be-killed life he was forced into, to be free of the nightmares that plague him until he wakes with the scent of burning flesh in his nose and the one-eyed man’s laugh ringing in his ears.
But then, he also wants to live, if only as a great fuck you to the gods who willed him here, to the one-eyed man who surely didn’t expect him to live as long as he has. To be there for Shiro, who he has already lost once. To earn his freedom and track down and avenge his father and village.
The conflicting emotions duke it out in his chest, his mind at war with itself for an amount of time Keith can’t place. It can’t have been too long after he was left alone, however, because soon enough there’s a commotion outside of the infirmary door. He turns his head, a scowl settling deep onto his face in the hope that whomever it is causing that ruckus will see he does not want to be disturbed, and leave him to sleep away the aches in his muscles.
The door opens, and Slavemaster Thace sweeps into the room, followed closely after by--
“What are you doing here?”
The Altean sniffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “Thank you for saving my life, Your Grace,” he says in a bad imitation of Keith. “I’m oh so thankful to be alive, I’m forever in your debt. Oh please, that won’t be necessary,” he switches to his normal voice, waving his arms in an over-dramatization of his generosity. “It was the least I could do, you owe me nothing.”
Keith blinks. “That sounded nothing like me.”
“It was a perfect imitation, what are you talking about.”
“Red Lion,” Slavemaster Thace interrupts, catching Keith’s attention. “His Grace Lord Lance wished to speak with you. Will you accept his request?”
Keith flicks his gaze back to Lance, whose eyes are fixed on the bandaged wound on his thigh with an unreadable expression. “Would he leave if I said no?”
“No,” Lance says, locking eyes with him. “No, he would not.”
Keith closes his eyes, his body sinking further into the rough straw cot with a heavy sigh. “Very well.”
“If you wouldn’t mind leaving us,” Lance says to Slavemaster Thace.
“With all due respect, I cannot allow a significant figure such as yourself to be alone in a room with a barbarian such as this.”
“The man can barely lift his head, I think I am in no danger at all,” Lance points out, and Keith can’t help the breath of a chuckle that escapes his heavy chest. “If it would make you feel any better, I’ll have my personal guard stand just by the door in the event where there is any trouble.”
Slavemaster Thace purses his lips a bit but acquiesces, backing out the room and gesturing so that the Altean’s guard, a tall, dark-skinned man with an intricate sword at his hip may enter. The guard closes the door and stands in front of it, leaving Lance and Keith in relative solitude.
Lance pulls up a bench and sits himself down on it. “Are you alright?”
“Why did you do that?”
Lance blinks. “I don’t follow.”
Keith’s fist clenches a handful of straw, his muscles, still exhausted and battered, trembling with the effort. “Why would you save me.” Thank you for saving me, says his mind.
“A thank you would be nice,” Lance huffs. Keith levels another glare at him, and he continues with a sigh. “Call it cultural differences, but I couldn’t just sit there and watch another man die.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I think I’d like to.”
And isn’t that just the cherry on top. The part of him that is grateful to be alive is quelled by the flare of anger and frustration that ignites in his chest. He turns his face away. “What is there to know.”
“All I know is that you’ve been doing this your whole life,” Lance says, his tone equally frustrated with Keith’s lack of reciprocation. “And it’s a vile practice that I’d like to work toward putting an end to.”
“I’m not some damsel in distress. I don’t need your false sympathy.”
“I never said you were--”
“But you’re thinking it, aren’t you?” Keith bites back a growl. “Poor Keith, doomed to the life of a gladiator and probably won’t live to see his thirtieth year, save his life and maybe he’ll repay me with a favor or crawl into my bed.”
“That’s not how I see it at all!” Lance insists, leaning forward in his chair as if it will somehow get his point across better.
“Is it?” Keith scoffs. “All you nobles are the same; won’t do anything unless they get something out of it. You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last.”
“Why won’t you just trust me when I say that I have no ulterior motive?”
“What does it matter if I trust you or not,” Keith snaps. “It doesn’t change the truth."
“I’m not sure how it works in the Empire,” Lance snaps back. “But in Altea, things are different. We don’t save lives because we expect something in return, we do it because it’s the right thing to do. Trust me when I tell you that the only motivation I had to save your life is because I couldn’t stand by a moment longer and watch men die.”
Keith can hear the sincerity in Lance’s voice, a conviction that he hasn’t heard in a long time. He releases a heavy breath, and all of his anger and frustration exits his body, leaving his muscles sore as they sink further into the cot. The burning fades into warm pulse beneath his skin.
Keith angles his face away, suddenly unable to look the Altean in the eye. The adrenaline has worn off, and now that he isn’t in the heat of battle - physical or verbal - he hears it, the heartbeat in his ears. Pumping. Alive.
“Thank you,” Keith mumbles. “For saving my life.”
Lance leans back with a relieved sigh, and Keith somehow knows he’s smiling. “You’re welcome, Red Lion.”
Keith breaths out heavily again. “Keith.”
“What?”
With a heavy grunt, Keith gathers up his energy and pushes himself into a sitting position. Lance’s hands reach out, fingers brushing against his bare skin occasionally as if trying to figure out if he needs assistance (which he does not, thank you very much).
“Red Lion is my gladiator name,” Keith continues, adjusting until he leans back against the cool stone headboard of the cot. “My real name is Keith.”
“Keith,” Lance whispers, and a shudder runs down Keith’s spine. The first person he’s told his true name to besides Shiro, a feat which had taken at least a year of trust-building, saying his name with a gentle wonder.
“Now I don’t have to keep calling you Red Lion in my head, that is such a mouthful,” Lance laughs, and Keith allows himself a smile.
“My first Slavemaster gave that name to me,” he says. “Said I bloody enemies like a lion bloodies its dinner.”
“More like red because your face is as bright as a tomato!”
Keith ducks his head, hiding behind his hair, which only makes Lance laugh more.
“I like you,” Lance decides once he catches his breath. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
What an odd thing to tell someone. Keith comes out from hiding beneath his bangs, observing the Altean’s grinning face with a passive interest. His first impression of the man had been of a meddling nobleman, and while that may still hold true, Keith is beginning to see that the true nature of the man at his bedside is perhaps not all that it seems.
A knock sounds on the infirmary door, and Slavemaster Thace renters the room. “Your Grace,” he says with a shallow nod of the head. “The Emperor requests your presence.”
The grin fades from Lance’s face. Though perhaps ‘fade’ is not the right word. The smile remains, but Keith has become an expert at detecting the slightest hint of movement, a flick of the eyes or a shift of the weight. He sees the pinch of Lance’s eyebrows, the slight tensing of his jaw, and a sudden pang flares in Keith’s chest, and it takes him until Lance is already out of the room for him to identify it.
Worry.
Keith is released from the infirmary many hours later, once he can sit up and swallow food on his own. His wounds were deemed repairable enough to heal without too much tending, since the workers who barely qualified as physicians had their hands full with healing the more gravely injured. He passes James on his way out, the man still unconscious on his cot. His torso is completely wrapped in bandages spotted in red, and Keith allows himself a quiet moment of victory in the shape of a smirk before being escorted back to the barracks with orders not to move around too much.
The games are long since over when Keith is released, slaves running to and fro as they lug away buckets of dark sand and send back fresh replacements. It’s a scene Keith is familiar with, though the post-games work in Slavan is on a much smaller scale compared to Daibazaal. The communal areas are less crowded than they were when Keith arrived, but Keith couldn’t tell you who was missing, only that some of the least experienced gladiators he had noticed on his first day are not-so-mysteriously absent. The gladiators that remain stare and whisper as he passes.
He’s favored by the Altean Ambassador, Keith pretends not to hear.
He defied the Emperor by deviating from history, others mumbled. He won’t last to the next games.
Shiro isn’t in their shared cell when he returns, but Rolo is. He is leaned up against the wall their two rooms share, face turned toward the barred opening Rolo had introduced himself through the first day.
“Glad to see you’re doing alright,” he says casually.
Keith slumps into his cot with a pained grunt. “Thanks to you.” He’s on a roll today with thanking people, and though he has built a reputation as being cold and unfeeling, he’s not actually cruel. “I would be dead if it weren’t for you.”
“Nah, I’m sure you would have pulled through somehow.”
“James had it out for me. He wouldn’t have let me leave that arena alive.” Keith turns so that he can see Rolo through the opening. “So. Thank you.”
Rolo meets his gaze with a lazy grin. “No problem, Reddie.”
Keith makes another decision. “Keith.”
Rolo looks confused. “Who’s that?”
Keith holds out his hand through the bars with a small grin of his own. “My name. It’s Keith.”
Rolo blinks, no doubt remembering Keith’s refusal to give his name the first time they met. Then his mouth stretches wider, and they join hands through the bars in a soft handshake. “Rolo. Nice to meet you, Keith.”
How far Keith has come in only two days. And all it took was almost dying and a mouthy Altean to undo almost fifteen years of wall-building and aloofness. That’s not to say Keith is going to go shout his name from the top of the coliseum, but, he thinks as he lays back on his cot, careful not to disturb his bandages, that perhaps Shiro had a point when he ordered Keith to open up to more people.
Keith and Rolo chat amicably to pass the time until meal time and curfew, discussing past experiences in battle and their toughest victory. It moves to more mundane things, like food preferences or favorite animals (“Dogs,” Keith affirms, remembering the wolf pup his father let him keep to try and teach him responsibility. The dog’s mother had come back a week later, however, and Keith was sad to see his companion go). It’s likely one of the longest conversations Keith has ever had with someone who isn’t Shiro or his father and, perhaps now, the Altean Lance.
Shiro returns to their cell some time in the early evening hours. His chest is wrapped in cloth stained red in places. “It looks worse than it is,” he laughs when Keith frets, and changes the subject to what had happened after Keith was taken to the infirmary.
“Emperor Lotor resumed the games, but the Altean ambassador wasn’t there to watch. I assumed he went back to the palace. Keith, what… what happened out there?”
Keith can’t meet Shiro’s eyes. “He saved my life,” he says. “James had me, Rolo put him down but we were supposed to lose. It’s not a reenactment if the losing side doesn’t actually lose. So the Emperor was going to execute us but the Atlean he…” Keith swallows, remembering the nervous beat of his heart as he realized what he had done, the rush of calm as he accepted that he was about to die, the jerk of surprise when he saw not a pale thumbs down but an almond thumbs up.
“He stopped the execution. He saved my life, and now I owe him.”
“He stopped it without asking for the Emperor’s permission,” Shiro hums, looking up at the ceiling in thought. “I doubt that will go well.”
Lance definitely looked worried when Slavemaster Thace had called him away. Keith has never met Emperor Lotor in person, but he imagines that the son of the man who ordered the massacre of his people can’t be too different than his father. He can’t kill Lance for defying him and saving Keith’s life, not unless he wants to start a war with Altea, but that doesn’t ease the discomfort in Keith’s stomach.
Keith doesn’t know the reason as to why the nobles are gathered here, but he imagines that this incident will not make it any easier on Lance. A part of Keith feels guilty, even if he really has nothing to feel guilty for. He didn’t ask Lance to save his life, but his mere existence is now the catalyst for international tensions.
All he wanted was to fight, and to kill the man who killed his father, even if it meant killing himself in the process. Now he owes a man a debt, a very powerful man, and possibly built himself an impossible bulwark that he must first pass over before he can continue his search for the one eyed man.
The guards call light’s out, and the barracks are plunged into darkness as torches are extinguished. Keith turns over on his cot, wincing as he disturbs his wounds. He pillows his head in the crook of his elbow and counts the cracks on the wall. The wall of his cell, or the wall around his heart?
He hasn’t figure that out yet.