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Lance is in a bit of a precarious position at the moment. The issue lies within the (only slightly) worrying gaping hole in his side.
The hand he’s got pressed over it in a lame attempt to staunch the bleeding trembles violently.
Actually, his entire body is trembling violently. The shocks it sends up the arm he’s using to swing himself through the streets of New York are not particularly pleasant. Much the opposite, in fact.
Every movement jostles his side as well as his definitely bruised, possibly cracked, ribs, and the pain has him biting back a cry every time he pulls his body forward for another swing. He can feel his blood gush between his fingers with a disgusting squelch that is painfully audible over the rushing of wind in his ears and the pounding of his heart in his head.
On the next swing, his arm locks up, sending him into a brief freefall. It’s a struggle to catch himself, and the strain forces a choked-up gasp out of him, fingers clenching unconsciously against his wound. Not for the first time that night, Lance is glad that it’s too dark to see him from the ground, even despite the ever-present light that seems to pollute the skyline.
He needs a place to pause, reassess, and let his healing factor work its magic for a few hours.
The fact that Keith’s apartment is the first to pop into Lance’s mind is something he’s going to chalk up to blood loss-induced delirium. They aren’t friends. Not really.
Sure, they hang out occasionally, but it’s mostly because of their mutual friends. And yes, Lance takes pictures for (and of) him, but it’s not like he’s doing it for free. He’s paid in the form of favors. And maybe they’ve spent the night together one or two times, but it was out of necessity. And, okay, sure, Keith was one of the first people to figure out his secret identity, but that was under precarious circumstances.
So, Lance knows he shouldn’t bother Keith with his little problem.
But he’s not really thinking when he rasps out a quiet, “Call Keith,” into the air. The interface Pidge built into his suit responds with a buzzing ringer. It goes on so long that Lance has half a mind to give up and conk out on a random rooftop.
The beep of an answered call is an embarrassing relief, and has his shoulders sagging as much as they can without sending him careening down to his death.
“...Lance?” Keith’s voice comes in tinny and thick with sleep through the receiver in Lance’s suit. He takes a moment to bask in the comfort of a voice that isn’t insulting him and doesn’t belong to a person trying to kill him.
“Lance, it’s the middle of the night. If this is a joke—”
“No—!” He says it too fast, and it forces a sputtering cough out of him. It leaves speckles of wet on the inside of his mask, and he knows that it can only be blood. Not good.
“Lance? Are you okay?”
“Mh, fine.” The effort it takes to breathe is getting uncomfortably noticeable. “Just—. Is Shiro home?”
Keith is quiet on his end. Lance can hear him breathing and tries to match his own, shaky breaths to it.
“No, he’s not. Are you hurt?” It’s not really a question. There’s the sound of shuffling and a click, and Lance knows that he’s already pulled out his first aid kit.
“Hm. I’m close by. Maybe—gh—maybe two minutes. Away.”
“Okay. I’m opening the window.” Lance can hear the slide of the latch. “How bad is it?”
He wants to lie, but he knows there’s no point. He’s already nearly at the apartment, and Keith will see the injury regardless of how much Lance downplays it.
“Lance, how bad?” Keith sounds genuinely worried, and it startles him a bit.
“I—” The words catch at the back of his throat, lodged in the thick swirl of bile and blood that clings to it. He pushes past it, resisting the itch of another hacking cough. “Bad. I’m—okay, though. ‘S fine.”
It goes quiet for a moment. Lance keeps moving. He has to, even though each swing sends searing pain through his shoulder, his ribs, his side. He grits his teeth and powers through it.
He can make it. He’s done more with worse.
It’s not as comforting a thought as he’d hoped.
Again, Lance miscalculates and misses his next swing. He catches himself, barely, the resulting jolt forcing the little breath left in his lungs out, and he chokes on the cough it forces out of him.
“Lance?”
He’s quiet, just trying to breathe. It hurts.
“Lance.”
“‘M here.” His voice is tinged with a distinct wrongness that’s obvious even to his own ears.
“I need to know that you’re okay, Lance.” Keith’s voice sounds wrong, too. He’s scared. Lance struggles to bring himself to reply.
“Talk to me. How far are you?”
Lance breathes out through his nose. “Block away. Can see your building.”
“Okay.” He can hear movement through the line. Feet shuffling, things shifting. Maybe those books that Keith keeps on his windowsill. “Okay, I see you.”
The words don’t register at first, and Lance’s eyes dart along the street, searching for a familiar mop of dark hair. He feels mildly stupid when he looks back up and sees Keith’s head poking out of his bedroom window, staring straight at him.
Almost as soon as Lance catches sight of him, his exhaustion hits him like a truck. “Keith,” he breathes, nearly inaudible. The window is fast approaching now, and Lance barely remembers to slow himself down before he crashes through it.
He lands softly against the sill with a quiet grunt, and he’s in Keith’s arms within the second, being pulled inside. His legs give out beneath him almost instantly, forcing Keith to let him slump gently down to the floor.
Lance lets his head fall back against the wall with a quiet thump, his hand sliding limply down from his side. It takes a remarkable amount of energy to keep his eyes open.
He lies still, wincing when the light cuts on, forcing him to squint. The silence that follows is heavy, punctuated by a sharp intake of breath that is unmistakably Keith.
With great effort, Lance lifts his head to look at him.
Keith is staring. Wide-eyed, lips parted, expression pinched in a way Lance has never seen before. His eyes are locked on the gash in his side. Right.
Lance lets his head lull forward to get a good look at it, and grimaces.
The wound starts just below his ribs and tears downward toward his hip in an ugly crescent. At its widest point, it’s maybe the width of three of his fingers. The flesh is split into uneven strips, and thick, dark blood oozes from it, gluing what little remains of the tatters of Lance’s suit in the area to his skin.
It is, however, healing. Lance can see the points where the tissue has started to rebuild itself, shrinking the wound by fractions of an inch at a time.
Keith looks distinctly horrified by it.
“‘S not as bad as it looks,” Lance tries, reaching up to pry his mask off his face. He licks his lips and tastes iron, then promptly chooses to ignore it. He tosses the mask aside, too tired to care where it ends up.
Keith’s eyes dart up to his face. They’re glazed over, and Lance is overwhelmed by just how frightened he looks. He knows, instinctively, that the pain it brings about in his chest is unrelated to his ribs or his side. Keith’s eyes drift back down, and he looks sick when he does it.
“Hey.” Lance purses his lips. “Keith, hey. I—” Another wheezing cough. This time, there's no mask to catch the stray flecks of blood that fly from his lips. “I need you here. With me. The—the first aid kit, Keith.”
That seems to get him moving. Keith surges forward, snatching up the kit and practically ripping it open. His hands are shaking. Lance notices immediately.
Keith tries to hide it by moving faster, tearing things out and lining them up in a cheap impression of order. A roll of gauze slips from his grip and hits the floor. In his haste to pick it up, he nearly knocks over the bottle of antiseptic. He’s fumbling, and it’s dangerous. Lance’s brows furrow. He doesn’t know how to help.
“Keith,” Lance tries, grimacing at the rough quality of his voice. Speaking feels like scraping the inside of his throat against a particularly cruel strip of sandpaper.
Still, Keith doesn’t answer. He’s lost, eyes flicking between the wound and then away again, like just looking at it is going to make it worse. Lance sneaks in another glance at it himself. It already looks a lot better than it did when he first got it.
“Keith–” His voice breaks off, but he doesn’t let himself cough this time. Keith tenses anyway. Then, he’s coming closer, a thick wad of cloth in hand. He crouches down in front of Lance, putting a hand to his chest to keep him steady.
“Stop talking.” He presses the cloth hard against the wound, and Lance jerks, wheezing.
After giving himself a moment to breathe, he lifts a hand and presses it over Keith’s, his touch surprisingly steadying.
“Gonna be okay,” he murmurs, leaning forward so that his head presses into the side of Keith’s. “Already feels better.”
“I hate you,” Keith whispers wetly.
“I know. ‘M sorry.”
Lance remembers the rest of the ordeal in vague flashes. Keith’s nervous, jittery touches, cleaning the wound and sewing it shut in such a way that probably breaks a formidable number of health codes.
He thinks he’s asleep when Keith is finally able to bandage him up, because he’s jolted awake by a none-too-gentle tapping at the side of his head.
“C’mon, don’t sleep.”
A glass is pressed to his lips, and Lance parts them without question. Keith tips it back, and the cold water is a welcome relief from the dry, cottony feeling in his mouth. He finishes it in record time with a mumbled, “Thanks.”
Keith nods in response. He takes the glass and sets it on the floor, then slumps down against the wall next to Lance. He lets his head fall to the side, resting it on Lance’s shoulder.
“When you’re better, I’m going to beat the fuck out of you.”
Lance lets out a breathy laugh, cringing when it irritates his injuries. He tilts his head so it rests on top of Keith’s. “You do that, samurai.”