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It hurts.
Every muscle, tendon, bone, tissue in his body light up in electricity, pain spreading anew like fire in his nerves. There is so much he cannot make sense of it, he can barely understand a world beyond the all-consuming flames. Blood runs from his forehead, blinding him one eye, the other swollen shut with the bones surrounding it cracked; purple spreads under the white and red armor, which crumbles like paper under the fists of his nemesis.
(in the end, your own aggression is your undoing,
your own selflessness is your undoing, in the end)
Something – someone? – is screaming his name, or so he thinks; it is hard to make send of what is happening. The creature ---
(I handed them over to it)
It doesn’t stop pounding its fists into him; they’re trapped in this carcass of a ship, that much he remembers, they can’t leave, but neither can the monster. Moreover, as long as it has his whole attention on him, everyone will be safe – it does not care about the others anyway. Just him.
(Their forces must be spread thin,
to accept a half-breed such as yourself)
(That should have hurt him more than it did, or maybe… maybe he is simply used to it by now. He doesn’t crave for acceptance anymore; he knows he can be just fine on his own –
Can you spot the lie? )
The screaming won’t stop. The begging, the voices blurring together as more red spills from his between his lips. It is hard to breathe, let alone to move. He has tried to reach for his bayard, then his blade – both arms now lay in twisted messes by his side and under him. His legs twitch with every new shock of pain, everlasting and barely interrupted; he has just enough time to try to breathe through a punctured lung and crushed ribs before the two pairs of fists come down on him again.
(Something inside him breaks ---
Keith!
He knows that voice.
(We make a good team,
I’m here for you,
Drift off by yourself,
Mister Lone Wolf)
(Another lie: He told Hunk he doesn’t know how to be coward. He knows how to be a coward; being a coward is something he does very well, in fact, but he can’t let people know that, can’t let people in. Therefore, he drifts. Loses himself in the galaxies of his face and the nebulas of his eyes. Floats in the in-between of realities because he cannot stand his own cowardice in the face of possibility)
Something – someone? – distracts the creature. He didn’t hear the faint sound of a laser gun going off, blue luminescence crossing the room and hitting the monster square in the back, but he opens his one eyes when the pain stops coming in new waves, leaving only deep hurt in its wake; it is how he knows something is wrong. The dark blue towering over him moves, screeching. Chaos erupts beyond his little world of pain.
No.
No, it can’t ---
He needs to move. He needs to stand up and fight, because his friends are in danger, the universe is in danger. He needs to move. Adrenaline courses through his veins now, makes him push his limits, but all he can do is roll onto his side, crushing his arm even further. He howls.
(Everything inside him breaks)
---
It’s the sound of Keith’s face that makes him drops his aim. For the last few minutes (for the last few existences, honestly. Never a dobosh lasted so long), there has not been a sound coming from the red paladin – not even the wheezing and coughing from when that thing first crushed his entire ribcage in one go.
(He knows he is not going to forget this day.
He is never going to forget how… dead Keith looked.
He isn’t going to let himself be forgiven for not acting earlier)
So yeah, the fact he was able to shout like that? Impressive. It’s impressive until Lance realizes he is not only shouting, but it’s a real howl. It reminds him of a ran over dog Rachel tried to help when they were kids. Hurting, guttural.
Animalistic.
Except Keith is human, right? He should not ---
He barely has time to scream himself when he sees Keith stand up, broken arms hanging from his body (and hand curled around his marmorian blade), as he then launches himself onto the creature. The knife goes between shoulder blades, and with the momentum, they both go down. Keith manages to escape from under that hulking figure, the blade once more in his left hand. More blood coats the floor, this time from the creature. His eyes blink wide, going from that thing to his (friend?) on the other side, not too far away from the temporarily downed monster. Keith breathes in gasps, hunched slightly like some undead creature himself. What calls Lance’s attention, however, are his eyes.
Yellow. The whites of his eyes have gone golden yellow, indigo eyes now eerily violet and shrunk to slits. His mouth is open too, frozen in half a snarl as he --- as he fucking grabs his arm and sets its back in place with a sickening crack. His teeth are long, even more than the (new, post Quantum Abyss version of) normal.
He howls again, dropping the knife this time as he goes to the creature again, bare hands twisting one of those huge arms before it has the chance to strike. More cracks, more screaming, and Lance knows he is not the only who has stopped trying to escape to watch.
He feels nauseous with fear.
(Fear of what? Of who?)
Keith puts both his hands into the thing’s mouth, pulling as if he is trying to break its jaw the hard way. The monster tries to attack again, moving onto its feets and trying to shake Keith off him. Lance doesn’t know if what is pooling at his stomach and climbing to his throat is relief or his last meal when he sees Keith embeds his mouth on the creature’s neck, and this time there is no resistance when he pulls ---
There is flesh between his teeth, blood incredibly red running down his chin.
As an afterthought, Lance thinks he hears Hunk losing his guts in the corner, and he thinks he should be doing the same, were he not so captured by the scene before them. The monster is finally down, but Keith is still relentless. His hands go back to inside the creature’s mouth, pushing and pulling at opposite directions until the bones holding its jaw to its skull gives, then muscles and tissues follows as the monster’s face is torn in half.
He sees Keith is tiring, though, the gasps growing less desperate and more resigned. He sees the red paladin rising to his feet, stumbling. Blood covers his arms, chest, and the lower half of his face and neck.
“Keith?”
Those ferocious eyes turn to his direction now, mouth once more curled into a snarl, showing all those teeth ---
(Yeah, we are primarily carnivore as a race…
Descended from apex predators, or something)
But all Lance does is approach him. It’s Keith. His rival, his friend, his leader, his comrade.
(He is the future)
“C’mon, man, fight is over…” Lance makes sure to not startle him (cornered animals tend to lash out, not that Keith is an animal, but he is certainly scared right now. It’s okay, Lance is too). His eyes are slowly going back to normal, he notices. Golden giving place to bloodshot. That one is the only warning he gets; the moment it rolls back into the socket, Lance sprints, his bayard dropped, and keeps Keith’s broken body from falling into the hard floor. Fingers scramble for a pulse, and he almost cries when he finds it.
Rapid, but there.
Footsteps signal the approaching of the team. From there it’s a blur. Pidge and Hunk, then Shiro --- Díos, Shiro saw that – but all he knows is that he needs to get Keith back on the Atlas. Get him safe and healed. Lance holds onto him, almost protective, but he understands when he needs to let go.
It is okay, though, because he knows he will see Keith again.
(When he opens his eyes, days later,
Lance is the first thing he sees.
There is no memory of what happened,
just the relief is there.)
(Lance knows he should ask Keith,
about what happened,
but he is getting lost in those eyes,
watching them as they fall closed
again)