Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

you are the moon that breaks the night

 It’s under a full autumn moon, on a log at the lip of Seaglass Lake, that Keith is going to tell Lance he loves him. The night is crisp with grey clouds drifting slowly across the sky like pirate ships sailing across the open sea. The only real light is the dim one coming from the cloud-veiled moon and Keith’s little camping lantern from home seated at his feet.

Keith is sitting on a log—their log—waiting for Lance to arrive and he throws a couple of stones into the lake for something to do. His nerves are getting the better of him and he’s twitchy, his hands restless.

There were times that Keith told himself he would never tell Lance, that he would just let his feelings fester and die within him—anything to keep Lance in his life, to keep his best friend.

But that was before Lance was hospitalized.

“What happened to him?!” Keith asks Veronica, almost crashing into her when he finds her in the waiting room. It was Veronica who called him, told him Lance was taken to the ER for serious injuries.

Being in love as he was, he drove his motorbike as fast as he could to the hospital, his chest burning all the while.

Veronica grabs onto Keith’s shoulders and he holds onto her elbows. Keith and Veronica have known each other since Keith was a toddler and she’s one of the only people in the whole world he trusts, along with all of the other McClains. They’re family.

Veronica looks Keith dead in the eye with her crystal blue eyes that are so like her brother’s and gives his shoulder a squeeze. “He’s okay, Keith. It looked bad there for a minute, but he’s—the doctors can’t explain it, but he’s getting better every minute.”

Keith lets out a sigh that’s almost a sob and crushes Veronica against him. She wraps her arms around his chest and sniffles, quiet and singular. Veronica, while not the oldest, is probably Lance’s most responsible sibling, shouldering the weight of some unassigned burden at all times. She’s the one who remains calm under pressure and keeps a clear head, but Keith can feel the heft of that crushing her now.

They separate after a few moments; compared to Lance and the rest of his family, Keith and Veronica aren’t very touchy-feely with others, so they don’t linger in the hug. Veronica lifts up her glasses and brushes away the small bit of water that gathered along her lashes and sniffles again.

“What happened?” Keith asks again, gentler this time.

Veronica sniffles as she attends to her other eye. “We’re not 100% sure, but it was an animal attack of some kind. He was out last night—god knows why—in the forest by our house. He managed to hobble his way back to the yard and luckily, the dog woke mom up so she was letting him out and…”

Veronica sucks in a sharp breath and Keith waits patiently. “Lance was in bad shape, Keith. Real bad. Mom’s traumatized. Apparently, he looked like something out of a horror movie. Mom said it looked a bear had tried to rip him to pieces but only got halfway through it. Whatever it was, it didn’t permanently damage any organs or anything. The main concern was just all the blood. But luckily he’s got plenty of possible donors…”

Keith’s face is pale as he tries to imagine the grizzly incident, but he has to stop because he’s going to be sick. Trying to imagine Lance on the brink of death, limping his way back to his house with a trail of blood behind him was too much.

Lance, of all people, is the last one who deserves something like that.

Lance’s recovery after that was nothing short of remarkable, according to the doctors. His wounds began closing at about ten times the normal human rate and he only missed a total of two days of school for it. Keith had barely signed the “get well soon” card before he got well.

It baffles them all. It should have taken Lance weeks to even walk again, but he’s fine, never better. They’re all glad but they also can’t help but wonder. Mrs. McClain thinks it was a heaven-sent miracle—that Lance was blessed and had a guardian angel. Veronica is sure that there’s a scientific explanation for it, somehow, and the household is split between those two theories.

For Keith’s part, he doesn’t care. All he cares about is that Lance is still alive, healthy and thriving in their senior year of high school.

The scare has put things in perspective for Keith. He’s experienced a lot of loss in his life and he remembers the way it feels, but nothing could prepare him for Lance’s death. They’ve known each other since before they could walk—they learned how to ride bikes together, walked to school every day together, and snuck out of their houses together. Keith can’t imagine his life without Lance which is why—

Which is why he has to tell him.

Lance’s attack was a grim reminder that life is as fragile as a soap bubble and could pop at any moment. After Veronica’s grim call, Keith raced his bike to the hospital. The entire drive all he could think was I never told him. I never got to tell him.

When it all settled down, Keith was resolved to tell Lance, no matter the outcome.

Keith shivers as a cold breeze rolls by and he zips up his black leather jacket to his chest. Lance is late and he’s usually pretty quick to come to their spot. Keith sighs, nerves buzzing throughout his body at what he’s about to do.

It’s gonna change our relationship forever, good or bad.

He knows Lance, though. He can’t drop Keith anymore than Keith can drop Lance—it’s just not possible. They’re too intertwined, too bonded to truly cut off ties and they’ll work through it, even if Lance rejects him.

More like when he rejects me. He likes Allura. You know that.

Keith shakes his head. Those are the exact kind of thoughts that will convince him to chicken out.

Lance is Lance. It’ll be okay. He’ll be cool about it, no matter what.

Lance is too kind sometimes. Even when he was at death’s doorstep, he kept fussing over other people, especially his mother. He apologized profusely for sneaking out that night, (though he didn’t remember why he had been) and tried to be the perfect son in the following weeks. He did his chores without whining, picked up extra ones to lessen his mom’s load, and studied harder than Keith had ever seen him study before.

Lance was shaken—Keith could tell. He looked over his shoulder more often, had bags under his eyes when he picked Keith up in the mornings, and he was more affectionate with everyone. Keith secretly didn’t mind the extra hugs and touches this afforded him, but still, he worried for Lance. It must have been truly awful if he couldn’t remember it at all.

Keith gave Lance a month to recover and for him to gather his courage, then he set a date. And tonight is the night.

He takes in a deep breath of night air, lets it cool his throat and energize his nerves. His chest is beating faster than it does on his morning runs and he places his hand over it—a comforting gesture he hopes will make it slow down, but it doesn’t.

Keith looks at his phone and it reads 11:11 PM.

I wish...I wish it goes well.

He’s not a superstitious person, but years of being Lance’s best friend has him wishing on the time out of sheer habit. With as many times Lance has yelled at him “Oh! Eleven-eleven—make a wish! ”, it’s in his bones now. He always struggles with choosing what to wish for, usually opting for something boring like an A on his chem quiz or that they’ll be serving chicken strips at the cafeteria the next day, but he wishes all the same, not really caring about the outcome.

Which is why his wish tonight doesn’t seem strong enough; he cares about tonight’s outcome probably more than he cares about anything. He panics to find the perfect phrasing in his mind before the clock changes and hurriedly, he thinks I wish he feels the same.

And even in his mind, the wish sounds like a whisper.

The 11:11 on his phone switches to 11:12 and he sighs, grateful to have made it. Wishes have no impact on whether Lance likes him back or not, but Keith needs all the luck he can get.  

And where is Lance?

He’s nearly fifteen minutes late and Keith just wants to get it over with, but he can’t do that if Lance isn’t here.

He’s about to get off their log and start pacing when he hears rustling in the forest that surrounds the lake. Keith’s heart jumps to his throat and his fingers twitch at his sides. Shiro and Lance’s parents had both forbidden Lance and Keith from sneaking out past dark after what happened to Lance (and in truth, they really should be listening to them), but they both loved coming here on temperate nights like tonight. When Keith had suggested the idea, Lance nearly jumped at it, shaking Keith by his shoulders and promising to bring a six-pack. Who was Keith to deny him?

Still, he knows that the animal that attacked Lance is still out there in the forest somewhere, and he thumbs the folding knife in his pocket. Just in case.

There are some leaves shivering in the northern bit of forest and Keith’s throat goes dry. He stands and unfolds his knife, readying himself in a defensive position because if there’s anything his dad taught him, it was that you can never be too prepared.

Though all his preparation is unnecessary as Lance’s comes tumbling into the clearing, a pack of Blue Moon beer dangling from his hand.

“Keith!” he shouts, holding up the pack. He’s as bright as ever—cotton candy pink t-shirt, an unbuttoned denim overshirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, black skinny jeans, friendship bracelets stacked on either wrist, and a dazzling smile. He’s the picture of an ASB president, the kind of guy that is in so many clubs it would be quicker to list off the ones he’s not in, and most people are surprised to hear he’s Keith’s best friend. Their wardrobes alone indicate that they should be in completely separate cliques, let alone their demeanors, but for whatever reason, they’re glued to the hip. Even if Lance has been trying (and failing) to get Keith to go to The Gap since they were thirteen.

Though Keith wouldn’t be caught dead in Lance’s clothes, he can’t deny Lance knows how to dress himself. He’s cute.

Keith smiles despite himself. “You’re late.”

“Uh, were you planning to stab me for it?”

“What?”

“Your knife, genius.”

Keith looks down at his hand brandishing the knife and quickly pockets it. Lance is always so distracting that he forgot he was holding it all together.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Why do you even have it out?”

“Just, y’know...probably not the best time for us to be in a forest in the middle of the night.”

Lance grimaces at him like he’s stepped in something foul. “Ugh, man. Don’t bring that up tonight. I don’t know why, but I feel awesome! No bear attack talk—it’s off limits.”

Keith shifts uncomfortably and scratches at the base of his neck. The last thing he wants to do tonight is upset Lance over his attack—in a way, tonight was meant to be a big middle finger to that night, a step forward in Lance reclaiming who he was before. His friends and family had been so careful with him after, and Keith knows Lance hates that.

“Sorry, Lance.”

Lance smiles and approaches him, shoving the case of beer bottles into his chest. “No worries, dude. Let’s just try and have fun, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, returning the smile. Keith turns to sit on the log and expects to see Lance joining him but instead, he’s still up, looking out to the still, glassy lake. He stretches his arms high above his head and lets out a groan as a bone pops somewhere. Keith’s gaze drifts down to the thin strip of skin his hiked up shirt displays and he swallows.

Lance’s arms come down, snapping Keith from his shameless staring, and Lance jogs in place like Keith caught him in the middle of a run.

“Uh, Lance? What are you doing?”

“Exercising! I just got a lot of energy, like I feel like I could run a 5k right now,” Lance says, transitioning into high kicks.

That’s... odd. Keith invites Lance on runs constantly but Lance just quotes Parks and Recreation at him—“ I know it keeps you healthy, but God, at what cost?! ”

“Uh, are you high?”

Lance scoffs at him as he does torso twists. “No! Can’t a guy just release some endorphins?”

“I mean, sure, but your idea of releasing endorphins is Ben & Jerry’s and a Riverdale marathon.”

“Hey, it’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.” Keith gives him a pointed look. “Okay, it’s bad, but still.”

Keith shakes his head and grabs a Blue Moon. “Whatever, Lance. Are we gonna drink these, or what?”

“One sec!” Lance calls and immediately launches himself into a cartwheel. He pops back up and lets of a loud, “WOO!”

“Got it out of your system yet?” Keith asks, rolling his eyes and twisting the cap off the amber bottle with a hiss.

“Nope!” Lance calls as he bounds back to the log and plops next to Keith, getting his own beer. He twists off his cap like it’s nothing (it’s usually a little show watching Lance twist off a cap with his bare hands but, somehow, he’s done it easily) and raises the bottle towards Keith. “Cheers.”

Keith brings his bottle to Lance’s until the necks clatter against each other. “Cheers.”

They both take long swigs and Keith’s nose crinkles at the bitterness. They say beer’s an acquired taste and Lance and Keith are both determined to acquire it, though Keith has an easier time.

“Eugh,” Lance says, looking at the bottle. “It’s supposed to have hints of citrus. At least cider actually tastes like apples.”

Keith snorts. “Sweet tooth,” he hisses out, like it’s an insult.

“Not the only thing sweet about me, bay- bee,” Lance says shamelessly with a flirty wink. Keith hates it when he does this—it’s the only form of teasing Lance can dole out that will leave him utterly speechless. Keith takes another swig instead of replying.

They drink in silence for several minutes, both gazing up at the sky and the moving clouds. Keith’s phone told him it’s a full moon tonight, but he hasn’t seen it once, just a vague white glow from behind a large cloud. It looks like the cloud is inching its way across the sky fast enough that she’ll be revealed soon enough, though.

It’s unusual for Lance and Keith to visit Seaglass on full moon nights, both of them more partial to new moon skies so they can see as many stars as possible, but Keith doesn’t mind the change of pace. Time spent with Lance is never time wasted.

Keith’s heart stutters. I have to tell him.

He looks down and his half-finished bottle trembles ever so slightly in his hand. Nearly fifteen years of friendship has lead to this moment and Keith feels sick with the weight of it. Once he says what he needs to say, “Lance and Keith” will be changed forever, better or for worse.

You said you would do it, he tells himself. You’re going to do it.

Keith takes in a breath and it’s frustrating how shaky it is, how much his throat is tightening up.

He’s about to say something—what, he doesn’t know—when Lance speaks first.

“I missed this,” he says, and it’s achingly soft, so soft that Keith can imagine that’s how Lance would say I love you to someone. Keith taps a finger at his thigh.

“What?” Keith asks—a whisper.

“Hanging out here,” Lance says, looking up at the blurry white glow. The end of the cloud has almost reached to the moon’s edge. It’ll be visible soon.

“Oh.”

“With you,” Lance tacks on and the air leaves Keith’s lungs like someone’s cracked a bat against his back. Lance angles his head back to smile at him and Keith is glad his lantern isn’t very bright because Lance would surely tease him for the blood rushing to his cheeks.

“Oh,” Keith manages.

Keith’s heart is pounding so hard in his chest, he’s worried Lance can hear it. Keith opens his mouth to say something, anything because this is the moment, isn’t it? When will he ever get a better opportunity than a full moon night in front of a lake while crickets chirp them a lullaby?

And then the moment’s gone, swept away by a little breeze that brings Lance’s attention back up to the sky.

“Moon’s coming out,” he says, taking another drink.

Keith deflates and raises his head too, cursing his own cowardice.

You still have time.

Yes, he has time, but does he have the guts.

The cloud is just covering the moon, a little sliver of her peeking out in a tease. Lance hunches over, his forearms resting on his thighs as he lets out a huff.

“You okay?” Keith asks.

Lance straightens. “Yeah, I’m good. Just got...uh, I dunno a cramp or something.”

Keith studies him for a moment; Lance’s free hand is clenched tightly on his thigh and his whole body seems tense.

“You sure?”

“Y-yeah. Been happening on and off since I got out of the hospital. Just gimme a second,” Lance says through gritted teeth. He sucks in a sharp breath and Keith starts to worry. The cloud above shows half the moon now.

“Lance, maybe we should go home.”

“No, I—” Lance is interrupted by, what Keith assumes, is another wave of pain as he doubles over, clenching the bottle so tight his knuckles go white. “AUGH!”

Overhead, the moon is nearly exposed.

Lance lets out moans that get steadily louder, less and less contained and Keith is completely blanking on how to help. He tries placing a gentle hand on Lance’s back, but before he can, Lance lets out another terrible scream and Keith watches in horror as he smashes the beer bottle in his hand like it was as easy as crushing an aluminum can.

“Lance!” Keith cries, dumbfounded.

Abruptly, Lance stands, grasping at his arms, and tries to run back where he came from, perhaps driven mad by the pain plaguing him. Keith calls out to him again.

“Lance, no! Stay here! I’m gonna call 911, just hold on,” Keith says as he fumbles to get his phone from his jacket pocket.

And, because he’s Keith and nothing can ever be easy for him, he drops his phone. Cursing under his breath, he moves to grab it, but then Lance lets out the most bone-chilling cry and it stops him in his tracks. He calls out Lance’s name again and runs over to him, not noticing that the moon is fully revealed, casting her light on them.

Lance has doubled over on the ground, writhing in place like he’s been possessed, letting out awful, pained groans that gets Keith near tears. Panicking, Keith kneels beside him and hesitantly reaches his hands out towards him. Lance has turned over in the fetal position with his back to Keith and as Keith’s hand gets closer to him, they shake.

“Lance,” Keith says, nearly sobbing the name. “Lance, what’s happening.”

Lance’s breathing has become a ragged, rhythmic sort of thing, like some massive dog panting in the summer, and Keith is terrified he’s dying. His hands are just about to touch Lance’s arm, to reassure him Keith is there and he’s not alone, when Lance’s body snaps in Keith’s direction.

And the face that Keith expects to see, the face that should be Lance’s face on what he knows is Lance’s body, isn’t there at all.

Lance’s face is gone. Replaced.

Looking up at Keith, full of hunger and pure, undistilled rage, is a monstrous face—the nose has become a half-snout with angry folds on the bridge and the eyes, while still blue, glow. When the face lets out a horrific, blood-chilling roar, it’s clear it has fangs as long as nails too.

Keith lets out a cry and stumbles backward, falling on his backside and holding up his arm in a pathetic defense. His heart, which has been racing all night, goes into overdrive, his whole body filling with a cold fear he’s never experienced in all his life.

Lance—or whatever is left of him—stands, icy blue eyes never once leaving Keith, and towers over him, growling all the while.

It happens in slow motion (or it feels like it happens in slow motion); Lance’s body, hunched and arms out at his sides, grows and transforms while he moans and howls in what looks like excruciating pain. The face fades less and less human-like and more and more like a predator’s with sharp teeth and an elongated skull. His spine, too, cracks and breaks, until Lance is no-longer a bipedal creature, but a quadrupedal one. Lance’s clothes rip and tatter clean off his body and are replaced by thick, wooly hair the same grey color as the clouds above.

When the transformation is complete Keith can see what the creature is, illuminated by moonlight—a wolf the size of a minivan.

Keith is so frightened his body has frozen up completely and he can’t seem to breathe, can’t seem to move. He can only stare at the thing that used to be his best friend, used to be the boy he loved.

The transformation has the beast momentarily distracted as it howls once and sniffs the air.

Run, Keith tells himself. You need to run.

Yet he can’t. His legs simply won’t listen to him and there’s a distant voice in the back of his head that whispers but what about Lance?

Keith takes too long to take action as the wolf remembers him. The eyes lock back onto Keith, searching at first, but then its brow furrows and its lips curl in a menacing growl. The wolf barks at Keith, so loud and powerful that he can feel the vibrations of it through the ground, and it’s finally enough to get Keith up and running.

Now, Keith is a pretty good runner, compared to your average joe. He wakes up early every morning and jogs five miles and he does ten on weekends, but all the training in the world couldn’t train his legs for this.

He runs into the forest, hoping the trees will make it harder for the massive wolf to navigate, but forgets how hard the forest will be for him to navigate—it’s dark except for the moonlight, his lantern is back by the lake and he dropped his phone near the log. He’s screwed. He’s totally, totally screwed.

What’s worse is his lungs aren’t functioning ; he’s barely in the thick of trees before he’s panting and what’s doubly worse is he knows the wolf is right behind him.

He runs hard, despite his protesting lungs. He pushes through it and wills each hard step into the soil, projecting him forward. His calves burn like he’s already run seven miles, but he ignores it as his mind repeats the command “run” on a loop.

A howl, trilling and dark, sings behind him and it’s close. Too close. Like, this thing is going to kill him close.

Fast as Keith is, he’s no match for this thing. He needs to hide and fast.

Keith looks to either side of him, searching for any sort of cover he can dive into, and by some divine intervention, he sees it—a blackberry bush. He heads right for it without hesitation and submerges himself, his palms and face getting scratched by thorns as he does. He nestles himself in as snug as he can, trying to only move when necessary. He’s lucky that it’s only early October and the leaves and fruits haven’t died yet, so he’s covered a respectable amount.

It wasn’t a moment too soon because mere seconds after he gets into the bush, Keith can see a massive grey figure stalking through his little patch of forest. He can hear loud, rhythmic huffs, so loud that he swears he can feel the breath of them on his face. The sniffing sounds come next—sharp and quick in succession.

Keith’s heart leaps into his throat. He can smell you.

Desperate for a plan, Keith looks around himself and zeroes in on the faint outline of the berries. He carefully, but quickly, picks two and squishes them between his palms, getting his hands wet and sticky with the juice. He rubs the juice all around his face and when he’s done, he grabs two more berries. He squishes these too and spreads the juice on his hands like he’s washing them under the sink. He has no idea if this plan will work, if the berries’ scent is strong enough to conceal his own, but it’s the only plan he’s got.

The wolf just keeps sniffing and at some point, it growls, rumbling and low, shaking the earth, and Keith wonders if it’s frustrated. And it whines. Actually whines, like a dog begging for scraps at the table. Keith closely monitors his breathing and tries to control it so it’s as quiet as possible. That thing has big ears and all the better to hear him with.

Keith can see the faint outline of the wolf, his nose to the ground, and he’s about ten feet away. He’s not making any obvious advances towards Keith’s hiding spot, so he stays low and waits for an opportune moment to dash off to his motorbike while the wolf is distracted. He’s familiar enough with this bit of forest that he knows it would only take him about two minutes to get to his bike if he sprints.

As Keith watches and waits, he takes in how devastatingly large the creature is—neck as thick as a trunk, paws the size of vinyl records, and shoulders so broad he has trouble maneuvering through the gaps in the trees.

The wolf looks up and whines, frustrated again and sniffs a tree, his hind legs facing Keith.

This might be my only chance.

With the most careful, slowest movements, Keith backs out of the bush, his heart racing inside his chest.

Nice and slow and then run as fast you can once you’re out of earshot, he tells himself. He just has to get to his motorcycle and he’ll be safe. Not even that thing can keep up with Red.

He takes a baby step back. And another. And another. He doesn’t breathe.

The wolf moves on to smell a different tree and now it's in profile to Keith instead of facing away from him. Keith’s chest clenches in fear and he takes another step back, this time hastier, spooked.

SNAP!

Keith feels it before he hears it—a twig breaking in half beneath his shoes, but the sound blasts out in the quiet forest like a gunshot. Keith’s body freezes, but his eyes widen and his mouth slowly falls in horror at what he’s done.

The sound makes the wolf snap its enormous head in Keith’s direction and it lunges toward him. Keith can’t even begin to muster up a plan because it’s too late—the wolf has seen him and it’s already leaped off the ground, hurtling at Keith with bared teeth and wild blue eyes.

It only takes one massive paw to pin Keith to the hard earth, to knock the wind out of him, and he knows it’s useless, knows this is where he dies, but still he struggles. He writhes and twists, trying to do whatever he can to get it off, but the wolf presses the pad of its paw harder into him. Keith lets out a gasp.

He looks up then and stares the beast right in the eyes—right in Lance’s eyes. Because in all the terror and fleeing, Keith forgot that part, that somewhere, underneath all that fur and teeth is Lance. Lance.

Lance is the one snarling and growling at him now and somehow, Keith’s fear fades away...fades away into something deep and mournful. He realizes now that his perfect moment to tell Lance by the lake was the moment and now the moment is gone. Lance will never know. Because Lance is going to kill him. Keith’s time has run out.

He’s oddly calm in the moments before death, though this should be the scariest part, but he’s just so sad. If Lance ever transforms back, he’s gonna be heartbroken and wracked with guilt and Keith won’t be there to tell him that this isn’t his fault.

Because Keith and Lance love each other. It might not be in the same way, but it’s true and Keith knows that better than ever now because his life is flashing before his eyes. Lance’s growl is growing louder and there’s only seconds before he’ll tear Keith’s throat out.

And Keith hasn’t told him.

Keith knows it might be kinder to just let it go unsaid because the admission will bring human Lance (if he even still exists) more sorrow in the aftermath, but in Keith’s final moments, he has to say it. Even Keith, wretched as he is, deserves his last words.

Keith’s hand moves to the paw and the fur there is softer than he imagined—wooly and long. It startles Lance and he stops growling, makes him stare at Keith curiously, his head tilting.

“I love—”

Pain—searing, hot pain digs into Keith’s left wrist like he’s being branded and he cries out. The heavy weight on his chest is removed but Keith hardly notices because his wrist is burning so intensely he’s losing his vision. He clasps his opposite hand around it, but it does nothing, the pain still just as hot and just as cutting. Keith removes the hand to get a look at his wrist, but it’s too dark to see if there’s a wound. He feels the area but there’s no bumps or abrasions, just the horrible feeling that’s making him writhe and moan.

Then, very suddenly, it settles and stops, like someone’s turned off the switch. Keith’s breathing is labored as he squints at his wrist, trying to understand what has happened, but it’s fruitless because Lance’s big nose gets in the way and starts sniffing it wildly.

It’s not hostile, just curious and Keith is too stunned to move, so he lets him sniff his fill. When he does, he lifts his head, tongue flopping out of his mouth like some big, dopey dog and sits beside Keith. Lance throws back his head and gives a mighty howl to the skies. When he’s done, he stands back over Keith, framing him between his four legs and looks down at him, tongue still hanging out and his hot breath hitting Keith’s face with every pant.

Fear finds its way back to Keith’s bloodstream and he starts shaking, waiting for Lance’s next move. There’s something significantly less aggressive about the creature now, but he’s nowhere near convinced he’s safe.

Lance’s snout jabs itself into Keith’s face and sniffs around his neck, over his mouth, his cheeks, and forehead. Keith stays very still, heart pounding against his chest like a fist banging against a locked door.

He’s expecting teeth, sharp and jagged, to puncture him in his collarbone, over his skull, or the claws of the wolf’s paws to dig across his chest like a rake in sand, but what he doesn’t expect is tongue. Wet, leathery hot tongue. It slides across the right side of his face in one quick swipe and Keith does a double take before he lets out a disgusted “EUGH!”

The wolf is hovering over him with a happy, hanging jaw and he looks nothing like the rabid animal that was coming for Keith before, but a docile Siberian Husky instead.

“Lance?” Keith asks and at the sound of his name, the wolf whines and then circles over him, almost like he’s about to—

“OOF!”

Lance flops on top of Keith like he’s a pile of blankets, his huge chin resting over Keith’s whole chest and he huffs, satisfied. His big blue eyes look up at Keith’s and his tail starts wagging. Keith’s neck is craned to look back at the animal and he blinks at it, tentatively placing a hand on his head. Lance’s eyes lid at the touch and when Keith starts scratching they lull up into his head before his lids shut completely.

“Uh...good boy?” Keith says and Lance lets out a tired huff. It’s mere moments before his breath evens out and he falls asleep, his body so heavy on Keith’s chest it’s hard to breathe.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he wheezes out.

Keith figures his best course of action is to just let Lance sleep since he seems to recognize him now and rousing him might very well invoke his ire again. That and Keith can’t move, even if he wanted to; Lance weighs a ton.

Absently, Keith keeps stroking the top of Lance’s head and he seems peaceful and domestic—the complete opposite of the Lance only minutes ago.

What do I do? Keith wonders. He’s ruled out waking Lance, so that throws escape plans right out the window. Does he just lie here until Lance wakes up? Until he transforms back? Will he transform back? Keith shivers. What if this is just how Lance is now? A huge stinkin’ wolf that can’t speak or be seen in the light of day without causing mass panic.

This line of thinking is too overwhelming and it makes Keith’s chest constrict with anxiety. This can’t be it. Their conversation tonight can’t be their last conversation ever. Keith couldn’t bear it.

He doesn’t get a chance to further spiral, however, as the weight on his chest lightens. Keith gasps and looks down his chest to see the sleeping wolf shrinking—the skull gets smaller, the hairs shoot their way back into the body, and, most sickeningly, the bones start cracking back into place. Lance’s face is twisted in pain and he groans through it, but he doesn’t wake up, just melts back into the boy he used to be.

Lance is feather light compared to how he was before and Keith stares at the top of his head in shock. Instincts kick in and Keith scrambles out from underneath Lance, grabbing him by the shoulders and lying him flat against the ground.

Keith’s eyes are adjusted enough to the dark now that he can see the outline of Lance’s familiar face—peaceful and covered in dirt. He’s breathing, but Keith thinks he’s not just asleep, but passed out, not at all roused when Keith turned him over.

He’s also...stark naked.

Keith’s face heats, but he holds it together, takes off his leather jacket, and drapes it over Lance’s lower half for both their sakes.   

Next, he checks over Lance, searching for any sign of serious injury, and sighs his relief when it looks like he’s unharmed. Keith takes his hands away from Lance’s shoulders and sits back on his knees, pinching the bridge of his nose.

As soon as he does, Lance starts writhing and making little distressed noises in the back of his throat. Keith shoots forward, placing a hand on one of Lance’s shoulders and the other at his cheek to get him to look at Keith. “Lance! Lance, what’s wrong?”

Lance doesn’t answer, but instead his face smooths, his previously tight brow loosened. Keith lets out another defeated sigh.

What am I going to do? he asks himself again. His first idea is to take him to the hospital, but how would he explain? “Yeah, my best friend just randomly turned into a wolf, but he transformed back and is obviously in pain. Do you take Medicare?”

Okay, so hospitals? Out of the question for now.

Keith closes his eyes and tries to think—what are his options? He definitely needs to get Lance out of this forest and somewhere he can sleep without being bothered. He could take Lance to his parents’ house, but they would undoubtedly ask questions and Keith really doesn’t want to explain to Mrs. McClain why he’s returning Lance to her naked and passed out.

Gonna have to be my place, Keith thinks. He lives in a two bedroom apartment with Shiro who, luckily, is gone for a week to do a training simulation with Garrison East. Lance can spend the night and they can figure everything out from there without any interrogations tomorrow since it’s Saturday.  

With a huff, Keith stands and scoops Lance into his arms bridal style, his face puffing with the effort. Lance isn’t too heavy, but carrying him back to his car like this is going to be murder on his arms. He briefly contemplates getting him in a fireman lift, but in Lance’s current...state, Keith thinks better of it.

His biceps already burning, Keith heads to the stretch of highway that his motorcycle and Lance’s car are parked. It’s only about a four-minute walk, but with no light and how heavy Lance is in his arms, it takes an eternity. He takes careful steps, scared of falling over and taking them both down, and every few seconds he has to adjust his grip. Keith worries his arms will give out and he’ll drop Lance, but he presses on and right when he feels like he’s at the breaking point, he can see the headlights of a car as it drives down the lonely highway they parked on.

Oh, thank god.

When he sees Lance’s car—a hand-me-down, blue, 1996 Chrysler minivan—he sighs with relief, but immediately sucks the air back in with a gasp.

I don’t have the keys.

He lays Lance down in the outskirts of the forest where he won’t be seen by any stray cars driving by and adjusts the jacket so he’s properly covered. A breeze rolls by and Keith is reminded it’s autumn and too cold for Lance to be so unclothed right now.

I don’t have a choice. I don’t even have my phone right now.

“I’ll be right back, Lance,” Keith says, for all the good it will do him. “I have to find your car keys.”

He stands up and as soon as he’s let go of Lance, he starts tossing and turning again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’ll be back soon, I promise!”

Before he can feel too guilty, he starts sprinting, though cautiously, through the forest to the lake. Lance’s keys are always fastened to a belt loop on his pants by a carabiner which means they must be wherever Lance exploded out of his clothes. Hopefully, he’d find both of their cell phones too.

Doing his best to keep his promise, he gets to the lake fast and immediately goes for his lantern that sits unbothered by the log. Finally having light already takes a massive weight off his chest as he starts scrounging around for their lost items.

He finds his phone first as it was right where he dropped it by the log, but Lance’s phone and keys are much harder. He finds more scraps of Lance’s clothes than he knows what to do with and even sees a couple pieces of fabric floating on top of the lake’s surface.  For one horrible second, he worries Lance’s phone and keys are sunk at the bottom of the lake, but he catches a flicker of light from between some grass ahead of him—a notification from Lance’s phone.

He scoops it up and looks at it, relieved to find it undamaged. Ever since Lance cracked two phones within weeks of each other, he resigned himself to heavy duty phone cases with screen protectors (and lamented his lost aesthetic), and it’s served him well this time.

Now, the keys, Keith thinks, sighing, and his original fear that they’re at the bottom of Seaglass resurfaces. Still, he lifts up his lantern and combs through the grass until his light makes a glint of silver show through the fauna.

Keith snatches them up and inspects them to make sure the important ones are still there, which, they are—that and a good chunk of fabric from Lance’s pants with it. Keith discards the extra fabric and hooks the keys to his own belt loop, then pulls out Lance’s phone. He types in the passcode (0904—Beyoncé’s birthday), goes to messages, and pulls up a conversation titled “mamá ♡♡♡”.

Me [11:47 PM]

mama!! sorry i left in the middle of the night but keith was havin some anxiety and shiro’s not there rn so im spendin the night to calm him down! love u! ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Keith doesn’t feel great about forging a text from Lance to his mom, but after everything she went through in the past month after Lance was attacked, he thinks it might be kindest to keep her from worrying (even though, in all honesty, she probably should be worried).

He hopes the text message is convincing enough. He’s texted enough with Lance to be able to mimic his heinous style (the guy’s never heard of a comma in his life) and Lance has sneaked out of the house to help Keith through anxiety attacks before so, he hopes it at least will keep her from freaking out when she finds Lance’s bed empty tomorrow. Whether or not Lance will get grounded, Keith can’t say.

Keith pockets the phone and runs back to the highway, a task that is a thousand times easier with his lantern lighting the way. He gets there in record time and finds Lance right where he left him, but still squirming in pain like he’s being electrocuted.

“Lance!” he cries and kneels beside, his hand cupping his cheek again.

And, like magic, Lance stills, like all the pain has somehow been sucked out of his body by Keith’s touch.

Maybe...maybe I should take him to the hospital.

Keith removes his hand and all the pain floods back into Lance’s face. Keith puts his hand back and it’s gone.

What?

Keith shakes his head and feels Lance’s skin underneath his thumb. It’s cold.

I don’t have time to figure that out right now.

With a small “sorry” underneath his breath, Keith gets up and opens the passenger side door to Lance’s car. He quickly gets back to a writhing Lance and carries him to the seat, then adjusts it so he can lean back.

“Sorry, I’m gonna have to let you go, okay? I wanna see if you have an extra pair of sweats or something in the trunk,” Keith says before he darts to the back to sort through all the junk Lance has in the back. It’s a Friday so he should have brought his gym clothes home to wash, but whether or not he’s already taken them out of the car is the issue.  

Luckily, the gym bag is on top of all the weird miscellaneous mess that’s made its way to the trunk—board games, towels, a couple pillows, dozens of empty cream soda cans, snorkeling gear, flip flops, an acoustic guitar—and Keith digs into it. He holds his breath at first, but Lance washes his gym clothes twice a week (unlike Keith who...definitely does not do that) so there’s no horrible smell. If anything, it smells like Febreze.

Keith finds a pair of blue basketball shorts in the mix and is quick to shut the trunk door and jog back to Lance. He’s still struggling, but it seems to have calmed down a bit now, though Keith’s touch works as an instant medicine.  

Keith does his best to slip on the basketball shorts in the least intrusive way he can—keeping the jacket over Lance as he shimmies the shorts up his legs. It goes pretty well and Keith drapes his jacket on Lance’s shoulders to give him even more coverage.

He runs to the other side of the car (“sorry, sorry!”) and settles himself in as fast as he can to put a hand over Lance’s wrist. Backing out is a bit difficult with only one hand available to him, but the highway is so deserted that he has little to worry about.

He notices that something’s on his left wrist that wasn’t there before—a thin band that’s tattooed on him like a tight bracelet. It’s too dark to get a good look at it, but he pushes it aside to deal with later.

The drive back is quiet with only some golden oldies station playing Etta James and Ben E. King on low, the station Lance must have been playing last and Keith is too scared to change it because it means letting go of Lance for a second. Instead, he holds Lance’s wrist tighter to remind him that he’s there and he’s real.

It’s in the serene drive through their dark little mountain town with old, soft love songs playing in the background that the weight of everything hits Keith like a mudslide. All of it is absolutely impossible, the stuff of horror movies, but it had happened. Keith can’t convince himself out of the huge beast that chased him through the forest and pinned him to the ground, and even if he could, he has no explanation for why he ended up trudging a naked Lance through the woods.

Am I hallucinating?

Maybe, but he doesn’t believe that. The fear when he was running was too real, Lance’s wolf tongue swiping up his face was too real, the sharp, hot pain in his wrist was too real. And the realest of it all is Lance’s pain, which still is only kept at bay by Keith’s hands.

He moves his thumb back and forth over Lance’s wrist in a steady rhythm and swallows. There’s water forming in his eyes but he blinks them back; wiping them away means letting go of Lance and he can’t do that.

It’s a twenty minute drive from Seaglass to Keith’s and Shiro’s apartment, but Keith feels like he’s in a timeless alternate dimension with how quiet and peaceful it all is, despite the horrors he’s witnessed tonight. His heart is still beating too fast and he counts out his inhales and exhales—in, 1, 2, 3, 4, hold, 1, 2, 3, 4, out, 1, 2, 3, 4.

He’s about to start round two when there’s a twitch beneath his hand before a startling gasp breaks the quiet atmosphere of the car. Keith steals glances from the road to Lance and sees that he’s awake—wide-eyed and panicking.

“Where am I?! What happened?! I—” He looks down at his body. “What am I wearing?!”

Keith squeezes Lance’s wrist again. “Lance! Lance, it’s okay. You’re in Blue. I’m taking you back to my place.”

“But why? The last thing I remember is we were having a couple of beers at our spot and then I—” Lance starts, then goes quiet and Keith thinks he might be trembling. “Did I pass out and...I dunno, make a mess of myself?”

Keith winces. How in the world is he supposed to tell him?

“I—no, Lance, not exactly. You did pass out, but that was after we were on the log. Do you—do you not remember anything after that?”

“No. No, only the dream I had.”

“What was the dream?”

“I—just stupid...nightmare stuff I guess. I don’t know…” Lance says and he sounds shaky, scared. Lance is the first person to tell everyone when he’s had a weird dream and its unlike him to call them “stupid” of all things.

“What was it?” Keith asks, gently.

“Why haven’t you let go of my wrist?”

“Because you’ll be in pain if I do.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Lance, tell me what happened in your dream.”

“I—Keith, no. I can’t,” he whispers. “I can’t hear you tell me my dream wasn’t a dream.”

Keith is silent for several seconds as Stand By Me underscores their conversation. Keith takes a deep breath, but when he says Lance’s name it’s almost inaudible.

“Let go,” Lance says wrenching his arm from Keith’s grip, but as soon as he does, he howls in pain.

“Lance, no!” Keith says and he reaches for Lance’s wrist again. As soon as he finds it, Lance immediately melts and sighs at the touch. He looks down at Keith’s hand over his wrist and stares at it.

“Keith,” he says slowly. “What happened to me?”

Keith winces again, but sucks in a breath. “You turned into...a wolf.”

“A wolf.”

“A wolf,” Keith confirms. “Like, a really big one.”

“A wolf,” Lance echos before bashing his head against the window and leaving it there.

“Yeah, and then you kind of chased after me and uh, tackled me, but then you fell asleep and transformed back. I brought you back to your car and here we are.”

Keith can feel Lance staring at him, but he keeps his eyes stubbornly on the road. What if after everything, Lance thinks he’s crazy?

But Lance only sighs and buries his head in his free hand.

“That’s what I was afraid you were going to say,” Lance says, defeated.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sure this isn’t a dream?”

“I’m pretty sure, yeah.”

Lance sucks in a breath through his teeth and Keith is certain he’s trembling now. “This can’t be happening.”

“Lance…look, I know this looks really bad—”

“Looks?!”

“Is! Is really bad, okay? But we’re gonna figure this out.”

“How? How are we ever gonna figure this out, Keith?! I turned into a freakin’ monster and who knows when I’ll turn back into one. We can’t just Google this!”

“I know that! I know, but—I dunno, we can go into town and go to that weird occult bookstore and do some research. You can’t be the only one, right?”

“But I tried to hurt you!” Lance says and it sounds more tortured than the noises he makes when Keith isn’t touching him. “I could have killed you. I shouldn’t be anywhere near you right now.”

Keith adjusts his hand so he’s holding Lance’s. “You won’t hurt me. I know you won’t.”

“How can you be sure?” Lance says, barely audible. He’s still shaking, but he squeezes Keith’s hand back.

“You stopped. In the forest. I don’t know why, but at some point I think you recognized me or something, and then you turned into a big, stupid dog,” Keith says with a tentative smile. Lance doesn’t take the bait, but holds on to his hand tighter instead.

“You’re not hurt?”

“Nah. Might have a couple bruises in the morning from where you pinned me, but it’ll go away.”

“I’m sorry.”

Keith shrugs. “You did worse when we were ten and challenged me to race down that big hill.”

“Wasn’t my fault you fell off your skateboard and broke your arm!” Lance says and it sounds like him again.

“Your mom seemed to think you were partially to blame.”

“I was unjustly grounded!”

“Sure.”

“I was!”

Keith laughs—it’s small and low, but nice just the same and even better when he catches Lance smiling.

“It’ll be okay, Lance. I promise.”

The car goes quiet again except for Let’s Stay Together playing on low. Lance takes in another sharp breath and then intertwines their fingers. Keith’s breath hitches in his throat, but gives Lance’s hand another reassuring squeeze and marvels at how warm and smooth his hand is.

“I love this song,” Lance says, quiet and sad.

“Yeah,” Keith says, a rush of affection filling his chest. “It’s a good song.”

“Yeah.”

They pull up to Keith’s apartment without another word and it’s not until they’re parked that he remembers they’ll have to seperate to get out of the car.

“I can climb out on your side,” Keith offers.

Lance shakes his head. “No. Just...I can deal with it for a second. I might have to start getting used to it.”

Keith’s stomach drops at that. What if Lance is stuck with this pain forever? Keith doesn’t exactly hate the idea of Lance sticking close to him, but it would be debilitating. For both of them.

Not knowing what to say, Keith nods and opens the car door. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

Taking a deep breath, Keith lets go of Lance’s hand and runs to the other side of the car. Lance already has his door open and he’s clearly in pain with his eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritted. Keith reaches for him instantly and intertwines his hand with Lance’s. The effect is instantaneous—Lance’s face relaxes and he lets out a low whistle.

“Dude, you’re magic.”

Keith helps him out of the car and shuts the door. “Come on.”

It’s strange bringing Lance back to his empty apartment in the dead of night hand-in-hand. Keith had fantasized such scenarios plenty of times, but the circumstances were always so much more romantic, not... this. He’d imagine soft kisses in between stupid smiles that made it all that much harder to kiss, but also all that much better. He saw Lance with lidded eyes and flushed cheeks and sweet words.

It’s useless to think about that now, but the images fill Keith’s mind like they were memories anyway.

That doesn’t matter right now, Keith thinks, willing himself to focus on the task at hand. It doesn’t help that the task at hand is getting to Keith’s bedroom to find Lance a change of clothes. He says a little prayer to himself and tugs Lance along to his bedroom.

Lance is silent as Keith rifles through his drawers with one hand, finding him a pair of sweats and a t-shirt to sleep in, while getting a set of his own.

“Okay, how we doin’ this?” Keith asks, holding out the clothes to Lance.

“I don’t know, just keep your hand on my back I guess. Think that’ll be easiest.”

Blood rushes to Keith’s cheeks and he coughs. “Oh, um, you don’t want some privacy?”

“Dude, we’ve been in the same gym class since we were twelve and since I’m wearing nothing but my gym shorts and your leather jacket, I’m thinkin’ you’ve already seen the goods.”

“I haven’t! I covered you right away!” Keith exclaims, his face running even hotter. Lance laughs and rolls his eyes.

“What a gentleman,” Lance says as he starts shrugging off his (Keith’s) jacket—

(And oh, Keith’s just now realizing he’s wearing his jacket and it’s doing weird things to his stomach.)

“It’s fine, man. Just look away if you’re uncomfortable. You know there’s like, zero shame in my household. Can you move your hand?”

Keith does, quickly putting it on the small of Lance’s back. Lance winces at the brief loss of contact, but quickly recovers and pulls the shirt over his head. When he reaches for the waistband of his pants, Keith pointedly studies a small grey stain on his wall.

Keith knows it’s over when a warm hand palms the small of his back in return. Keith looks back to Lance, but his head is already craned as far away from Keith’s direction as it can.

“Okay, your turn,” he says and for some reason, he sounds much less confident than before. Keith doesn’t gain his lost confidence however, because Lance’s hot hand placed where it is makes Keith’s stomach flip so much, he’s worried he’ll puke. Still, Keith is lucky that he actually has boxers under his pants, so he doesn’t have to completely strip. He kicks off his boots and changes as fast as he can, and when he’s done, he takes Lance’s wrist from his back. Lance slots their fingers so they’re intertwining again and Keith is despairing at how easy and natural it feels after doing it for less than thirty minutes.

“Um, so,” Keith says, looking down at their hands, “what now?”

“Well, first I need to text my mom and—” dread washes over Lance’s face like someone’s died. “Oh no. My phone!”

“Oh! No, wait,” Keith says and picks up his discarded pants. He was in such a hurry to change he completely forgot about Lance’s phone in his pocket. He pulls it out and hands it to Lance whose face brightens in relief.

“God, Keith, I love you so much,” he says, looking at the screen. Keith, of course, goes red.

He should honestly be used to it already; Lance says “I love you” to everyone constantly, but he’s never said to Keith while they’re holding hands. Keith clears his throat and tries to calm down.

“I texted your mom already telling her you’d be here. I figured coming here would be easiest since we...y’know, have it to ourselves.”

“Yeah, no, good call dude. Mom would have flipped if you would have brought me back like that,” Lance says, scrolling through his phone before his face turns wide-eyed and impressed. “Dang, that sounds exactly like me. Also, remind me to change my passcode.”

Keith shrugs. “You’ll just tell me it when you want me to change the song in your car again.”

“...point.”

“That’s what I thought,” Keith says before scratching at the back of his neck. “So, do you wanna eat or watch Netflix or…?”

“Naw, I’m beat. I just wanna crash.”

Oh, god. Sleeping.

“Um, okay. Well, I guess...I mean, we’ve shared my bed before so…”

“I don’t have to. I can sleep on the floor and hold your hand there or—”

“What? No. I’m not gonna make you sleep on the floor. It’s fine.”

“I mean, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Um, okay. Then, yeah.”

“Cool,” Keith says, flicking off his bedroom light as Lance turns on the light from his phone.

Keith leads Lance to his bed—God—and gets under the covers with as little fuss as possible. They’ve had sleepovers at each other’s places countless times so there’s no reason for this to be a big deal. None whatsoever.

Lance slinks in beside him and there’s as much distance between them as possible—Keith presses his shoulder to the wall and Lance is on the very edge of the queen-sized bed. It takes Keith less than a second to realize he won’t be able to sleep like this. There’s just no good sleeping position for long-distance hand holding.

Keith sighs. “Lance, I think I’m gonna end up shaking you off like this.”

“Yeah, I was thinking that too.”

“Maybe we should just…” he scooches over and opens up his free arm. Keith’s room is dark, but the light from Lance’s phone illuminates his face enough that Keith can tell his eyes have gone wide.

“You want to...cuddle?”

Blood rushes to Keith’s face. Because, yeah. He does.

Still, he doesn’t want to take advantage of the situation. “Sorry, nevermind. Stupid idea.”

“No no no! Not stupid. I was just surprised. You usually don’t like people clinging to you.”

“Yeah, well. You’re not people.”

Stupid! Keith yells at himself and goes several shades darker.

“O-oh,” Lance says and he almost sounds embarrassed. “Alright, then yeah, sure! I sleep better with a teddy bear anyway.”

Without anymore preamble, Lance swoops in and wraps his arms around Keith’s torso. Keith feels death lurking in the corners of the room as he returns the embrace and Lance rests his head on his chest.

“Comfy?” Lance asks, yawning.

“Mm-hm,” is all Keith can manage during his mental breakdown. Sure, they hug when they meet up and lean against each other while watching movies but this is level 5 cuddling and Keith is freaking out.

Lance turns off the light on his phone and reaches behind himself to put it on Keith’s bedside table. He shifts back into Keith’s arms like it’s as natural as breathing and Keith prays his heart isn’t pounding too hard in his chest for Lance to overhear.

They’re both silent, Lance warm against his chest as their breath starts to sync up—a steady rise and fall together.

And it’s too much and not enough.

Keith has dreamed about this—literally dreamed—about being with Lance like this. Like they’re a couple. Soft and easy and secure. Lance fits into Keith’s grooves like they’re puzzle pieces manufactured to clasp perfectly and it hurts. He wants this to be real and not brought on by some horrible life-changing event that basically puts Lance at gunpoint to be with him.

He’s not at gunpoint, Keith’s mind counters.

This wouldn’t be happening if he wasn’t turned into some wolf-monster thing.

Or maybe, if you just told him how you felt, this is exactly what would have happened, he argues again.

Keith flexes the arm around Lance’s shoulder and presses him a fraction closer. He can’t tell Lance right now, not when Lance doesn’t really have an escape, but Keith is starting to understand how much the secret is taking its toll on him and how sweetly cruel this situation is.

“Were you scared?”

The question snaps Keith from his thoughts and he angles his head to look at the top of Lance’s. “What?”

Lance doesn’t move, his eyes still focused on the wall and pointedly not at Keith. When he speaks again, it’s quiet, like he’s ashamed to ask. “Were you scared? Tonight?”

‘Of me’, Keith realizes.

He takes in a deep breath, stalling to give himself a chance to answer since it’s a tricky question. Keith can tell by Lance’s tone he wants an honest answer, but after the night he’s had, Keith doesn’t want to make him feel worse.

“I—yeah. It was scary. But it wasn’t—I don’t—you’re not to blame, Lance.”

This doesn’t stop Lance from being upset as he tightens his hold on Keith. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

“Shh,” Keith hushes. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“I almost killed you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I could have!”

“Honestly, Lance, that wasn’t even the scariest part.”

“Then what?”

“It was...it was the fact that I didn’t know if I could get you back or not. Like, I had no idea if you were gonna turn back. I was worried I’d never get to speak to you again. So, I don’t—I don’t really care about the other part.”

Lance stiffens and doesn’t say anything after that. Keith wonders if he went too far, revealed too much and now Lance is uncomfortable. This isn’t how they normally speak with each other—the everyday is loud, fast, scathing banter that keeps them on their toes, but this is all hushed voices and vulnerability. Not unheard of, but rare.

It takes a moment for Keith to realize there’s tears falling delicately down Lance’s face.

“Whoa, hey, hey—Lance, it’s okay,” Keith says, gripping his bicep. Lance brings up a hand to palm away the tears.

“Sorry, sorry. I just didn’t—it’s all catching up to me, I think.”

“I mean, tonight was...nuts, so I think that’s fair.”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

Lance sucks in a breath. “No. But I will be.”

“Okay.”

“Keith?”

“Yeah?”

“Um, thank you,” Lance starts, pulling himself up so he can look at Keith directly, despite the dark. Keith keeps a hand on his arm to keep contact. “That sounds super lame when I think about everything you did, but thank you. I can’t tell you—what you said—it’s hard to process a little.”

“What is?”

“That you…” Lance hesitates, but he takes a deep breath. “That you care about me enough to do what you did. Anyone else would have just run for their lives and I would have, I don’t know, ended up waking up naked and alone in the forest, terrified out my mind.”

Keith shivers at the image.

“Maybe you’re just, like, the best kind of guy or something and you’d do it for anyone, but either way, I don’t know how I could ever pay you back. So, thank you.”

Stupid, Keith thinks. Stupid. As if I’d do it for anyone but you.

“Lance…” he says and desperately wants to cup his cheek to wipe away the tear that’s rolling down his face, but he holds himself back. “It’s not something you have to pay back. It’s just one of those things, y’know? You’d do the same for me, right?”

“Of course I would,” Lance says automatically and Keith’s stomach flips to hear it.

“Then that’s enough. I got your back, you got mine.”

Lance lets out a singular huff of laughter. “You’re making this way simpler than it is.”

“And you’re making it more complicated.”

“Maybe,” Lance says shrugging. “Still, I just want you to know that I don’t take this for granted. Like at all, okay? And I’m really lucky we’re best friends.”

Keith rolls his eyes and opens his arms to Lance again. “C’mon, let’s go to sleep. You’re getting mushy on me.”

Lance clicks his tongue, but settles himself in Keith’s arms again. “We were having a moment,” he grumbles.

“Yeah, and it was going on for too long. I’m tired,” Keith says, sighing and closing his eyes. “Night, Lance.”

“Night, Keith,” Lance says hushed and sweet.

And for a moment, Keith forgets all the circumstances that led the two of them here. The embrace no longer feels like a means to an end, but sincere like there isn’t another place either of them would want to be. Keith knows he probably shouldn’t let his hopes get to high, but for tonight—just tonight—he lets himself believe that he just might have a chance after all, and that no matter what, Lance loves him (at least, in some capacity) and he takes that as a win.

He falls asleep more easily than he would have liked to.

“Up!”

Keith doesn’t register someone is talking to him at first, just that he feels warm and comfortable and he doesn’t want to move.

“Keith! Lance! Oh, honestly…”

His neck is hot from something like a furnace blowing warm air there and he hums in response, stubbornly denying the voice pleading for him to wake. The voice sighs in heated exasperation.

“Come on, already!”

With a swift, decisive tug, the blanket covering Keith is swept away from him and his eyes snap open, senses hurtling back. Keith looks around the room in a daze and locks eyes on a figure standing at the foot of his bed with their hands on their hips.

“ Allura!? ”

“Mm, whatzzit?” says a muffled voice too close to his ear and he looks down.

And it all comes back to him.

He shouts and let’s go of Lance, scooching back from him in embarrassment.

“Ow! What’s happening?” Lance says, his eyes blinking awake. He sees Keith and tilts his head in confusion, then turns to face what Keith is looking at. As soon as his eyes fall on Allura, they go wide in recognition and he screams.

“Lance!” Allura admonishes him, like he’s in trouble.

“What are you doing here?!”

“What are you doing here?” she asks back and Keith can see his flush.

“That’s—that’s none of your business.”

“Actually, it is. Come on, get dressed. We have much to talk about. You can follow Coran and I back to my house in your car.”

Keith narrows his eyes at her. “Allura you can’t just break into my home and then demand we go with you to some second location. How did you get in?”

“Keith, I’ve had a rough night and I’d appreciate it if you’d just cooperate,” she says, ignoring Keith’s question.

“ You’ve had a rough night?! I’m sorry, but you have no idea what our night was like,” Lance exclaims, his brow furrowed in hard lines.

“Yes, I can imagine,” she says looking them both up and down, and Keith’s face bursts into flames. “And Lance, I happen to know exactly what kind of night you had last night. Did things happen to get a little hairy?”

Keith looks to Lance and the color has drained from his face as he stares at Allura with nothing less than pure shock. “How do you—”

“I will answer all of your questions, Lance, I will, but not here. Just trust me. I want to help you. I’m the only one who can help you.”

“I—” Lance starts before he sucks in a breath and winces. Keith realizes he’s not touching him and immediately puts his left hand on Lance’s forearm. Lance relaxes and lets out a sigh.

“You okay?” Keith asks.

“Yeah, I’m good. Believe it or not it’s actually better.”

“Oh,” Allura says, staring at Keith’s hand. “Oh, oh, oh. I see. Of course.”

“Allura, what are you talking about? Do you know why Lance turned into... that last night or not?” Keith asks, annoyed by her.

“Yes, I know, but again, I will not be talking about it here so if you would kindly get ready, I would appreciate it.”

“Why can’t we talk here?” Lance asks, swinging his feet off the bed anyway.

“I don’t trust that enemies—yes, Lance, enemies. Don’t interrupt. I don’t trust that enemies aren’t listening to this conversation.” She takes a breath and steeples her hands, composing herself. “Look, I can help you. I know we haven’t known each other long, but Coran and I came to this town specifically for this purpose, to make this transition easier on you because it’s...quite difficult. I’m willing to bet last night was one of the worst of your life and I can make sure that it’s never that bad again,” Allura says and all the indignation has left her face; instead, it looks sincere.

Lance’s eyes widen and he turns to Keith, his eyebrow quirked in question.

He looks from Lance to Allura, assessing and shakes his head.

“It’s up to you, Lance, but I haven’t got a clue how to help with your problem, so...maybe we can hear her out?”

Lance considers him a moment and nods before addressing Allura again. “Only if Keith can come too.”

“Oh, I insist Keith comes,” Allura says with a knowing smile. “This involves him just as much as it involves you.”

“What does that—”

“I’ll explain, I’ll explain. For now, get dressed.”

Allura lives on the outskirts of town, tucked away in the mountains and miles away from any neighbors. It’s a lengthy drive by town standards and Keith is behind the wheel of Blue again, his hand resting on Lance’s wrist.

“Hey, if you need a break or something, you can let go. It’s not as bad today,” Lance says. He’s dressed in more borrowed clothes and it’s been distracting Keith all morning.

“I’m fine for now,” Keith says because even if the pain is better, he knows it’s not gone.

“Okay, but if you want a break—”

“I’ll let you know.”

It’s a little past 8 AM as they cut through downtown to the highway and the sun is beating in on Keith’s side through the window, warming up his shoulder. They’re following Allura and her guardian Coran in their sleek, white Mercedes-Benz which makes Keith feel a little better about the whole thing. He’s glad they have their own ride to freedom if this little meeting doesn’t go well.

Keith is honestly not sure what to make of Allura and her declarations. They don’t know her well; she only just transferred into their high school a few weeks ago and she just shows up at Keith’s apartment claiming to know things? It’s weird.

I don’t see any other options though.

And that’s true enough. Lance and Keith are both way in over their heads with the wolf stuff so it doesn’t feel like they have much of a choice.

It doesn’t mean Keith has to like it though, but he’s less sure if that’s because he doesn’t like the situation or he doesn’t like that Allura is involved.

From what he knows of her, Keith likes Allura just fine. She’s smart, clever, and seems to be an overall good person, but he has a couple personal reasons for bristling around her.

“Do you think I have a chance with Allura?” Lance asks, sitting down his tray at the cafeteria lunch table Keith’s at.

“What?” Keith asks, not bothering to look up from his cold spaghetti.

“ Allura, Keith. Do you think I have a shot?”

Keith shrugs, icicles prickling in his chest. It’s only been about two weeks since Lance was attacked and his crush on the new girl has already escalated to him seriously considering asking her out. It reminds Keith that if Lance hasn’t shown interest in him yet, after knowing each other for years, then he probably never will.

“I don’t know, Lance.”

Lance sighs, exasperated. “Dude, c’mon. Honest opinion.”

Keith’s honest opinion is he hates this.  

“You guys seem to get along okay. But I don’t know—she gives me weird vibes,” Keith says, poking the jello on his tray. It’s not just his blatant jealousy that compels him to say this; he felt like something was off the moment she was introduced in Mr. Holt’s class. She was so proper, like a princess out of a storybook or something and clearly from money.

“You’re just saying that ‘cause she’s European.”

“ No. I’m saying it because she gives me weird vibes. Like, she feels...inhuman.”

“Keith, that’s just rude.”

“No, no! I just mean...I don’t know, she’s got this aura, like she’s from Narnia or something.”
“You think she’s from Narnia?” Lance asks his face turned in a mocking grin.

“Ugh, no!” Keith says, scoffing. “I think I just mean I feel like she’s hiding something.”

“So you don’t think she’s a trustworthy person, is what you’re saying?” Lance asks with a frown.

“I mean, I guess.”

“It feels like you’re trying to find something to dislike about her.”

“I’m not.”

“But you never like the people I have crushes on.”

Keith’s face heats and he knows it’s true, but he can’t let himself get caught.

“That’s not true! I like Allura. You’re right, she’s cool. I just think she’s hiding something, that’s all and you asked me to be honest.”

Lance watches Keith for a moment and then sighs. “You got a point. Sorry. But Allura is cool.”

“She is.”

They’re silent for several moments, both of them picking at their spaghetti as an odd tension fills the air.

The silence sets Keith on edge and he’s desperate to fill it, but because he’s a glutton for punishment, he asks, “what do you like about her?”

He curses himself as soon as it’s out of his mouth. He knows the answer will only hurt him, but a morbid part of him is curious what it is she has that Keith doesn’t. He knows it’s not just because of the difference in gender since Lance came out to Keith right after he did two years ago. It’s one of Keith’s most cherished memories—Lance smiling a sweet, supportive smile and hugging him, and saying how happy he was they had each other through it. Keith idly wonders if that’s when he knew.

Lance considers the question, looking up at the ceiling as if the answer is written there. “I guess...I like that she’s stubborn. She’s not afraid to go toe-to-toe with me. She’s honest and will tell me what she really thinks. She’s nice just in general, but then she’ll do something that makes me think she’s actually really kind. Like it’s not just for show, but actually how she is, y’know? Makes me wanna be a better person…” Lance trails off, staring off into space and a small, sad smile curls gently on his lips. “Think I have a type.”

Keith’s insides churn. It sounds like he really likes her. Keith tries to keep his face as neutral as possible when he asks, “what do you mean?”

“Just that...the last person I really liked was like that too. But in different ways. I don’t know, they were similar, but also really different,” Lance says, not looking at Keith.

Keith tilts his head in confusion. Lance has liked a lot ( a lot ) of people over the years, but Keith hasn’t ever heard of someone he’s described in this way.

“Who was that?”

“Oh,” Lance says, shifting in his seat. “I...actually never told you about him.”

“What? Why?” Keith asks, trying not to sound hurt, but it comes across that way anyway.

“It wasn’t—it’s not that I didn’t want to. It was just like...a scary crush, y’know? I’ve never liked someone like that before. I’m not really over it, to be honest. I don’t know if I ever will 100% but,” Lance rolls his eyes at himself, but Keith can see the longing in them and it’s deeper, more crushing than the look he gets when he talks about Allura. Whoever this person is, they’re the real threat.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lance. Uh, do you...want to talk about it?” Keith asks and internally winces. Apparently, he hasn’t finished throwing his heart in a woodchipper today.

Lance absentmindedly picks at his fingers, unwilling to meet Keith’s gaze. “I’d rather not, if that’s okay?”

“Oh, yeah, no. We don’t have to,” Keith says and he couldn’t be more relieved.

“And what about you?” Lance asks, bright and enthusiastic again, like the last couple of minutes of conversation hadn’t happened.

“What about me?”

Lance scoffs, exasperated again.

“C’mon man, you never tell me about your crushes. Is there someone you like?”

“Yeah, for a while actually.”

Keith has no idea why he said it. He’s been determined to keep his feelings for Lance a secret until he’s dead and buried, and this is the exact opposite way of keeping a secret. He curses himself and his too quick mouth.

“Y-you do?” Lance asks, like the answer caught him off guard.

“Uh, yeah…” Keith says, scratching at the base of his neck.

“How long?”

“Um, hard to say. It just kinda...happened one day without me really knowing.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Lance asks, a little wounded, a little defeated.

Keith shrugs. “Same reason as you. Scary crush, didn’t know how to talk about it.”

“Oh,” Lance says, still down. “Well, I mean, if you ever want to talk about it—”

“You’ll be the first person I call.”

But, of course, Keith hasn’t said a word about it since.

Looking back, Keith had definitely been right about Allura having something to hide, especially if she knows anything about Lance’s transformation. Normal teenage girls don’t usually end up breaking and entering their classmates apartments and demand they come to their homes, but what did Keith know about teenage girls?

“Keith? Did you, uh, get a tattoo?”

Keith shakes his head and blinks, unsure if he heard Lance correctly. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Your wrist.”

Keith looks at his left wrist as he drives and sees a piano wire thin line of blue wrapping around it. In all the excitement and heavy talks since last night, Keith completely forgot about it.

“I—I think it happened last night when you…” Keith trails off, not sure how to complete the sentence.

Lance’s eyes have narrowed in on his wrist with laser-like concentration and his brow is furrowed in a tight line. “Didn’t you really hurt your wrist at some point? I remember you holding it and screaming.”

“Yeah, I dunno. It was right after you uh...started being nice again. Felt like I was being branded.”

Lance rubs at his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose in one fluid motion. “Okay, this is super freaky.”

“I think we’re well past that,” Keith says, frowning. “Maybe Allura knows something about it.”

“I hope so because I really have no idea what to make out of spontaneous ink.”

“I have no idea what to make out of any of it.”

“And what about Allura? Can we trust this?” Lance asks and Keith can hear the veiled edge of worry in his voice.

“I don’t know,” Keith says with a shake of his head. “If you want to turn back, we can, but I don’t know where we’d go from there. Pretty sure Allura is gonna be a better resource than some scam occult bookstore.”

Lance chews at his bottom lip and faces out to the windshield before sighing. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Ugh, I’m just—Allura started talking about enemies and that got me thinking. Like, are there people who hunt down things like me, y’know? Like cryptid hunters or something? What if Allura’s taking us to her house to kill us?”

Keith sneaks a glance at Lance and his face looks more tired than he’s ever seen it. It’s not like Lance to be suspicious or untrusting, but Keith supposes a lot of things are different now.

“She won’t kill us, Lance. If she really wanted to hurt us then she wouldn’t have insisted we take your car to her house in broad daylight. It’d be hard evidence to get rid of. We have our phones and she has no idea if we told someone where we were going, so if she was planning on murdering us she’d be the worst murderer ever.”

“The fact that you just know this is concerning.”

“It’s common sense, Lance.”

“Yeah, if you only ever watch true crime shows like some 70-year-old man then I guess it would be.”

“Hey, don’t act like whenever I put them on you’re not watching intently.”

“They’re fine every once-in-awhile, but it’s all you watch.”

“Well, it’s better than Riverdale.”

“Ugh, again with Riverdale!”

Allura’s house isn’t a house. It’s a mansion.

A full-blown, spiral staircases, chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, so many rooms you don’t know what to do with them mansion.

She greets them warmly and introduces her guardian Coran, who might be the weirdest person Keith has ever met in his life with the biggest mustache he’s ever met in his life.

“Can I get you boys some tea? A nice lemonade? Oh, Lance would you like a steak? I can make it good and rare for you! I’m sure you’re gonna prefer your meat much redder now,” He says with a laugh as they enter the foyer—yeah, the foyer—and Allura slaps his shoulder.

“Coran! We’ve talked about this.”

“Sorry, sorry! Can’t help myself!”

“Uh,” Lance starts, unamused with the joke. “I’m good.”

“Me too. Can we just...get to the point?” Keith asks, the grandeur of the mansion making him a little nervous.

Allura nods. “Of course. I’m sure you both want answers. This way.”

She leads the way through a large, expensively furnished living room to a study with walls lined with filled bookshelves. At the center of the room is an ornate, wooden desk set up for serious work to be done on it—there’s fountain pens, a green banker lamp, and a small, bronze bust of George Washington and all of it looks like it costs more than rent at Keith’s apartment.

“I hope you don’t mind we go to my office. I have a couple things in there I’d like to give to you,” Allura says, approaching the desk.

“Um, are we not in your office?” Lance asks, looking around the room.

Allura just smiles and places her hand on the top of the bust. “We’re not even on the same floor.”

And with that she tips over the bust like she means to knock it to the floor, but it just dangles over the desk, like it’s still attached. To their left, there’s a loud groaning noise like an old, heavy door is opening and when Keith looks over to find the source of the sound he has to blink rapidly to ensure he’s seeing what he’s really seeing.

There, angling out on its own, is one of the bookshelves revealing a downward staircase.

“You have a secret passageway? How rich are you?” Lance asks, voice getting higher.

“Rich enough. Come on,” Allura says, already disappearing into the passageway and Coran following after her.

Lance and Keith share a worried look, but Keith shrugs and they head after them down the staircase.

“So, uh, this doesn’t lead to the dungeons or anything, does it? No torture chamber or anything?” Lance asks, turning on the light from his phone. The passageway is dark and made of stone, but it seems to be fairly clean which surprises Keith for a secret tunnel. He hears Allura’s laugh from up ahead.

“Lance, I assure you, there’s nothing to be afraid of in my alchemy lab. It’s just a bunch of herbs and mortar and pestles. Well, alright, I do keep my bow and arrows and staffs down there, but they’re locked away. You won’t even see them.”

“Why doesn’t that make me feel better?” Lance whispers to Keith.

Keith doesn’t answer and keeps walking; sometimes it’s best not to encourage Lance, especially when a part of him is nervous too.

They reach the bottom of the stairs and in front of them is a finely carved mahogany door with a large iron handle. Coran opens the door and gestures for everyone to go first politely, a pleasant smile still tacked onto his face.

“Lance, just be warned, the smell might be a little overwhelming for your developing senses. I have a lot of strong scented herbs and plants down here,” Allura says, disappearing into the room.

Lance quirks an eyebrow at her. “Uh, sure.”

It becomes apparent what she means though because as soon as Lance walks into Allura’s “lab”, he presses a hand over his face to pinch his nose.

“Eugh! Allura, what is that? I think I’m going to be sick!”

Keith doesn’t really understand since the room just smells like a farmer’s market to him filled with herbs, spices, and flowers. It’s pretty subtle and pleasant though, so he has no idea why Lance would have such an extreme reaction.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lance! Hold on,” Allura says as she goes to a section of wall with several shelves of different plants. She plucks a couple of green leaves from one and then comes back to hold them out to Lance. “Here, peppermint. Just chew on it and it should help dull the smell. It’ll freshen your breath too!”

Lance eyes the peppermint leaves suspiciously for a couple beats before he takes them from her and pops them in his mouth. He chews on them slowly, but after a bit, he lowers his hand from his nose and visibly relaxes.

“Thanks,” Lance says and Allura smiles sweetly at him. Keith turns away from the sight to look at the basement in more detail. It’s a large, oddly shaped room with greenery in every corner. There’s a wooden workstation that’s filled with vials, covered clay pots, mortals and pestles and above it, branches of herbs like lavender hang upside down on some sort of holder that is attached to the ceiling. There’s another workstation filled with coils of metal wire, small hand tools, and rows and rows of miniature drawers and Keith assumes is all to make jewelry. In one corner of the room is a big bolted, metal armoire that Keith wouldn’t be surprised kept a couple of bow and arrows.  

“Uh, Allura, what is this place?” Keith asks.

Allura walks over to the workstation with herbs and examines a sprig of thyme from the hanging planter. “This is where I get most of my work done. I brew potions, cast spells, enchant objects…”

“So, what? You’re like a witch?” Lance asks, dubious.

“I prefer alchemist, but essentially, yes,” Allura says, raising herself up to sit on the workstation. “There’s much more science and well, botany involved than anything, but I can’t say I’d be able to do anything if I didn’t inherently have magic within.”

“Whoa, okay you’re already losing me. You have...magic? Like, Harry Potter and the whatever, whatever magic?” Lance asks.

Allura scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Not a good example, but yes. Though my magic isn’t nearly as boundless as that. My magic is more like lighter fluid—it’s there and essential to create fire, but if I also don’t have the mechanisms to create the spark, then it won’t light. Again, it requires me to know the properties of various elements and other skills for it to work.”

“Okay, okay, no we need to take a few steps back. Magic exists?”

“Of course it does, my boy!” Coran says, like Lance’s question is ridiculous. “There’s magic in everyone and everything.”

“Well, it’s far more present in some people than others, but Coran’s right. In fact, Lance you happen to have quite a bit of magic within you.”

“I do?” Lance asks. “But I’ve never done anything magical in my life.”

“That’s because you were just a bunch of lighter fluid without a sparker before,” Allura says. “But you wouldn’t have survived Sendak’s attack if you weren’t particularly gifted.”

“What do you mean, ‘Sendak’s attack’?” Keith asks with intent eyes and crossed arms. “Lance was attacked by a bear.”

Allura smiles sadly at him then looks to Lance. “Was it a bear, Lance?”

Lance shifts under the weight of everyone’s eyes on him and scratches the back of his head. “It was dark and I...I don’t know. I kind of thought it was more like a wolf, but wolves aren’t that big and I—”

Lance shudders cutting himself off and Keith puts his hand on Lance’s wrist which calms him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Keith says and addresses Allura. “Who’s Sendak?”

Allura takes a deep breath, preparing herself and looks Keith square in his eyes. “He’s the werewolf that turned Lance.”

Keith feels Lance tense in his hand and he too holds tighter to Lance’s wrist. They’d both been very careful to avoid the “W” word, but now that Allura’s said it, they can’t go back—Lance is a werewolf.

“The attack was on September 24th, right? On a full moon? The only sure way to turn someone into a werewolf is for another one to bite its victim in the full moon light. Of course, the light of the full moon is a powerful source and it’s also what will trigger the first transformation,” Allura explains. Lance twitches beneath Keith’s fingers. “Sendak’s been traveling the states, looking for possible candidates to bite under the full moon for the past couple years. It seems like he’s trying to build a pack of sorts, but to what end, we’re not sure. Sometimes I think he’s hoping to turn as many people as he can, hoping that each person he bites will bite ten more and so on and so on, but whatever the reason, we’re determined to stop him.”

“So, this was something someone did to me?” Lance asks, voice low. Keith’s chest aches to hear it.

“I’m afraid so, Lance and I’m so sorry, but there is good news,” Allura says and Lance raises his eyes to meet hers. “Lycanthropy can be one of the more treatable forms of magical afflictions. At least after some months of practice. I know hundreds of werewolves who go on to lead mostly normal, happy lives. The same can’t be said for everyone.”

“Yes! Just look at vampires! Poor sods have to go to butchers and ask for blood by the gallons and can only go out a night. Can’t ever go to a farmer’s market again!” Coran says, stroking his chin.

“Vampires?! Okay, no, whatever. Look, Allura, are you telling me that I’m always gonna turn into that thing on full moons or whatever? Because I almost killed Keith last night and I don’t know what I’d do if I hurt him or someone in my family,” Lance says.

“Yes, of course. That’s why I brought you here, Lance. I’m hoping you’ll allow me to help you through this transition. On a full moon night the transformation is inevitable and painful, usually causing werewolves to become manic and violent, but if you’re able to control your power, transform yourself throughout the month you’ll have full agency.”

“You want to...train me?” Lance asks.

“Yes! The transformation is incredibly hard on your human body, so you end up in a good deal of pain afterward, but if you train your body to it, you’ll build that muscle. It’s hard and arduous to learn how to control your transformations, but once you get the hang of it you’ll be much less afraid of the full moon,” Allura says, her tone gentle.

“And you’re just...gonna do this for free? What’s in it for you?” Keith asks.

“Allura is an heiress to a long, noble line of monster hunters,” Coran says proudly. “A line my family has served for generations. This work is her sworn duty and birthright.”

“Who you calling a monster?” Lance asks and Keith finds himself bristling at the word too.

“Please,” Allura says, hands up in a submissive gesture. “No one was calling anyone a monster. Coran is referring to the old ways. I don’t consider myself a hunter and I don’t consider any magickals to be monsters. My family used to find magickals and hunt them, but my father, Alfor, realized there is a better way and he passed that passion on to me. He and I believe in diplomacy first. I won’t lie, sometimes we have had to ‘hunt’ before, but our primary objective is to keep the major population safe, so if we can do that without violence we absolutely will.”

“And how do I know you won’t get violent with me?” Lance asks.

“Lance, I don’t expect to have to resort to that ever with you.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re friends,” she says, smiling. “Coran and I came here because we heard word that there had been a suspicious attack in this town so we immediately investigated. I enrolled in your school so I could get to know you. A werewolf’s disposition when they’re transformed is dependent on their human personality. When I met you, Lance, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. You’re going to be more Golden Retriever than wolf.”

Lance watches her for a moment and combs his finger through his hair, stressed.

“I wasn’t exactly a puppy last night, Allura.”

At that, Allura looks down and frowns. “I apologize, Lance. Coran and I had every intention of being there last night to help you through, but there was...an incident. But either way, I do want to emphasize that it was your first transformation and first transformations are the absolute worst. Even without me helping you, you’ll be in more control every month, but if you train with me, we can expedite that process.”

Lance doesn’t say anything as the others watch him and Keith keeps his grip on Lance’s wrist strong. It’s overwhelming for Keith, so he can’t imagine what hearing all this is like for Lance.

“I could have hurt him,” Lance says, so low Keith isn’t sure if he’s talking to the room or just himself. “I could have hurt, Keith.”

Keith’s chest stops at the confession. He knew Lance felt guilty for attacking him, but it’s even more striking with Lance’s look of utter dismay.

“I’m sorry, Lance. And to you, Keith. We had every intention of coming to help, but as it was...well, we can talk about that some other time. But I do want you to know, that Lance, you will never hurt Keith,” she says and her smile is bright and beautiful, like this is what she’s been dying to talk about.

Keith’s neck gets a little hot and the question makes Lance look uneasy.

“What do you mean?”

Allura is trying to hide the smile on her face (and doing a poor job of it) as she looks between them. She scoots off the workstation table and crosses to the jewelry making station, checking a couple drawers. The drawers vary in size—some are the size of bread boxes, others are matchbox-sized, but most are the size of ring boxes. She pulls two articles from little drawers and one from the larger ones and places them in the center isle. There’s three items—a necklace with black fabric for the chain and an amber pendant, a small gum tin, and a sheathed hand knife.  

“We’ll get to that. First, I have some presents for you,” she says, taking the amber necklace and stepping forward to place around Lance’s neck. He lets her and touches the pendant once it hits his chest. “You’ll love this since I know how much your clothes matter to you. Amber has transformation qualities, while lavender promotes healthy hair; combined with a particularly complex transformation spell, this necklace will allow you to transform back and forth without shredding your clothes. When you transform, it will activate the fibers and thread them with your fur. Then, when you transform back, they’ll be just as you left them!”

Lance’s eyes widen as he examines the pendant between his fingers. “Whoa.”

“It’ll come in handy,” she assures. “Werewolves can go bankrupt trying to keep up with all the clothes they burn through, but that’ll be a life saver.”

“Thanks, Allura.”

She smiles. “Of course. Now, next, I have…” she trails off, picking up the tin. “dittany gum infused with aloe vera and turmeric (and peppermint for flavor, of course). This is for when you transform back and your body is sore. You just chew on one of these and the pain will dull. Though…” she trails off again and there’s a mischievous glint in her eye. “Keith is a far better pain reliever.”

Keith and Lance look at each other, both of them wearing confused (slightly panicked) expressions. They both already know Keith’s touch seems to be a cure all for the pain, but they haven’t got a clue as to why, but for whatever reason, it tickles Allura.

“Why can I make the pain go away?” Keith asks, afraid of the answer.

Allura can’t hide her smile at all this time as she says, “you’re his tether.”

Keith shrugs and gestures for her to continue because he’s not catching on and her smile just beams brighter.

“It’s rare. Very rare. There’s about a thousand werewolves I know of across the world and I think I’ve only met about ten who have a tether, but Lance you found yours the very first day.”

“Okay, great, but what is it?” Lance asks, sounding as annoyed as Keith feels.

“A tether,” she says relishing the word, “is a soul bond between a werewolf and an important person—two souls whose red string of fate is knotted together. They help tether a werewolf back to his humanity. Their touch instantly makes the transformation pains disappear, they can calm down the werewolf they’re bonded to if they’re on a rampage, and they can even enhance the werewolf’s powers. It’s an incredible, compelling connection that so few are lucky enough to have and you have Keith.”

Allura’s hands are clasped close to her chest and there are sparkles in her eyes as she talks. Keith’s face turns from pale to pink to beet red in the span of two seconds and when he sneaks a peek at Lance, they catch each other in their peripherals and jump apart. Keith whips away his hand from Lance’s wrist and Lance whips away his wrist, their gazes in the opposite direction of each other.

So much blood has rushed to Keith’s face that the room starts to spin. He can’t have heard what he thought he heard because it sounds like Allura is saying Keith and Lance are soulmates or something. That they’re bonded.

And as embarrassing as it is, there’s a second underlying emotion that bubbles underneath the initial shock; he’s happy. Too happy. There’s something comforting in knowing that, no matter what, he’s connected to Lance.

“Allura,” Lance starts, voice low. “What does that mean for Keith?”

He’s frowning and watching the ground, thinking something through with a deep line forming in his brow. Keith’s mood sinks as he realizes that Lance hasn’t found any sort of comfort in the news at all.

“What do you mean?” she asks and her bright, starry-eyed look is gone.

“If he’s...I don’t know, tied to me, does that mean he has to stick with me or something? Could he get hurt?”

Keith’s mood flutters up again. He’s worried about me.

“Oh,” Allura says, dragging out the sound. “I see. No, no. The tether is more or less an aid to you and don’t really suffer any side effects from the bond other than being someone their werewolf absolutely can’t harm. There is a fairly painful mark that shows up the first time the tether touches the werewolf’s fur, but other than that, there’s no real consequences. He’s not going to be compelled to be by your side anything.” She shrugs. “But he’ll want to be.”

Keith is embarrassed again and Lance is too as his cheeks grow dark and he rubs at the back of his neck. “Okay. That’s...good.” His face shifts and grimaces like he’s deciding on whether or not to say something, but eventually he decides in favor of it. “So, uh...are tethers and werewolves usually meant to...is it like…” Lance gesticulates through it, but Keith isn’t picking up on the meaning, just that it’s hard for him to say.

“What?” Allura asks.

“Is it...a romance kinda thing?”

Oh.

“Oh,” squeaks Allura and the half-hidden smile comes back. “Most that I’ve encountered are, but not all. I’ve met brothers and best friends. Don’t worry you two there’s no obligation that comes with this. Neither of you has signed a contract.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, good. That’s good,” Lance says and Keith’s stomach drops, hard and cruel.

Guess that answers that question, Keith thinks, pain aching and spreading across his chest.

Allura seems confused by the way the conversation has gone as she looks between the two of them. Keith is pretty sure she thought they’d be happy to hear this, not awkward and forlorn as they are now, neither looking at each other.

“So that’s uh, what this is?” Keith says finally, holding up his left wrist with the thin blue line. Allura perks up and take his wrist in her hand to examine it.

“ Yes,” she says. “It can take any kind of form. I’ve seen animal silhouettes, intricate patterns, but this one is so simple. Pretty color too.”

“Does it mean something?”

“I suppose it does, but there’s no real way to know. I’ve read theories that the color is representative of the wolf and the form is descriptive of the kind of bond, but there’s no way for us to test that.”

Keith hums as he looks at the tattoo. Yeah, blue seemed like Lance, but Keith can’t imagine what the line is symbolic of.

“That’s cool,” he says.

“Well!” Allura says letting go of Keith’s wrist and heading back to the last item on the station. “What’s important for you both to know is that Lance won’t ever harm you while he’s in wolf form. He physically can’t. And that Keith will be able to get you out of pain the most effectively. Speaking of, Keith, if you let me take a bit of your hair, I’d be able to weave it into a bracelet which will also be an effective pain reliever for Lance when you’re unable to be near each other.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah. That’s...fine. However I can help.”

“Thank you. And now,” she says picking up the sheathed knife. “I have a present for you too.”

“For me?” Keith asks, taking the knife and unsheathing it. The metal is pristine, silver, and clear with ornate, intricate carvings lining the edge.

“Aw, what?! Keith gets a knife and I get gum?” Lance asks, offended and Allura rolls her eyes at him.

“It’s made of a rare metal and infused with wolfsbane, rye, and mistletoe, so it’s deadly poisonous to werewolves. Don’t even let Lance touch this or he’ll get sick, but I wanted you to have it in case Sendak came back, so you’d have at least a little defense.”

Keith observes it, looking it over at every side and sheathes it again. “Thanks, Allura.”

“Of course,” she says, smiling at him.

“Sendak,” Lance says, nearly spitting the name. “Do you think he will come back?”

Allura looks to him and her face drops, troubled. “I think...I think we have to be prepared for the possibility. What I’ve learned about Sendak from hunting him these years is that he’s unpredictable. He could do anything.”

“Would he target Keith?” Lance asks, that edge of worry coming into his voice again.

“I’m sorry, Lance. I don’t know.”

“Well, great,” Lance says and Keith winces at the tone, so unlike him. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

Allura straightens, preparing. “Of course.”

“The way you talk about this.. My condition. You make it sound like it’s something I just kinda have to live with, right? Is there a cure?”

The room goes deathly silent and suffocating. Allura looks down at the ground, her incredibly blue eyes shining with sympathy and it’s all the answer anyone needs.

“Alright, cool. Well, this was great Allura, thank you for explaining the horror that is my life now, but I’m gonna go,” Lance says with a passive aggressiveness that Keith knows is aimed at the situation and not Allura herself, but her face is still colored with hurt as he leaves the room and up the staircase. Keith watches him go and then turns to Allura.

“Sorry, he just—”

“Needs time. I know. That was actually one of the better talks I’ve had, believe it or not. You go. We can talk more later,” Allura says with an encouraging pat on the shoulder.  

Keith nods, mutters a small “thanks”, and chases after Lance.

Lance is already waiting out front, leaning on the passenger side door and he looks like he’s aged ten years. The usual light-hearted aura Lance always radiates is gone and is replaced by one full of grief that rolls off of Lance so violently, Keith feels it hit him in waves.

Keith doesn’t say anything as he unlocks the door and slides in to the front seat. Lance does too and he hooks his phone up to the charger.

“We should pick up your bike. Mom wants me home soon,” he says, lifeless.

“Yeah, sure. Are you okay to drive?”

“Yeah. I’ll be okay. If it starts to hurt too much I’ll just...try Allura’s gum or whatever. See if it works.”

“Oh...okay. Well do you want me to…” Keith reaches out to touch him, but Lance moves his hand to his lap.

“No, it’s fine. I don’t want to keep forcing you to touch me or whatever.”

“I’m not being forced.”

“Feels like you are.”

Keith sighs. “Well, I don’t feel that way. We don’t have to but just...you can always ask, okay? You don’t have to suffer through it or whatever. You know—you know I’m here for you and if I can help make this crazy thing easier then I want to.”

“Thanks,” Lance mumbles but it’s a word that’s walking a tightrope of genuine gratitude that could easily fall into misplaced anger. Keith can see it bubbling in him like an overflowing pot—it’s usually so easy for Lance to be nice and accommodating, but right now, he’s holding back from snapping at Keith. He hasn’t, though, and Keith is pretty impressed by that. If it were him, he probably would have said nasty, horrible things to Allura and Lance that would have hurt them both.

Keith starts the car and Lance rolls down the window, folding his arms over the pane and resting his chin on them. The drive from Allura’s mansion is beautiful—they’re surrounded by a forest of trees that are all turning burnt Autumn shades and a clear blue sky. Keith hasn’t bothered to turn on the radio and Lance hasn’t so much as glanced at it, so the drive starts out in a tense silence so thick a butter knife  could slice right through it.

It’s unbearable. Keith knows he needs to say something, to comfort Lance somehow (as Lance has done for him time and time again), but nothing is coming to him. He’s not like Lance; he’s bad at this stuff. But what do you say to someone who just found out they’re gonna be a werewolf for the rest of their life?   

It’s when they’re driving along the gorge—a huge plot of evergreens and firs with a river running through it—on the cliff face when the damn finally breaks.

Lance sniffles.

It’s small. So small that Keith can tell Lance is trying to hide it, but he knows.

Keith merges the car onto the nearby lookout—a place for tourists to take predictable instagram selfies in the day, a private place for teenage couples at night. For now, it’s serving as the site of Keith’s intervention.

“What are we doing?” Lance asks and his voice is almost convincing, almost sounds like he hasn’t been crying. Almost.

Keith puts the car in park, unbuckles his seatbelt, and pivots his body to face Lance. Lance is stunned and looking at him now with wide, barely-red eyes—a clear sign of the tears. Keith stares back with hard concentration, his brow tense and furrowed, before he wraps his arms around Lance’s shoulders and crushes him to his chest.

“What are you—”

“We’ll figure it out,” Keith blurts.

“Huh?”

“We’ll figure it out. This werewolf thing. Together.”

For several, long horrible seconds, Lance doesn’t react at all. He’s just limp and weak in Keith’s arms and Keith is worried that maybe he went too far, that he’s pushing too much.

But Lance holds him back; he squeezes Keith’s middle tight and buries his face in the crook of Keith’s neck.

“I can’t do this,” he mumbles and Keith’s collar bone feels a little damp.

He rubs circles into Lance’s back. “You can. Allura said you were magical, right? There’s nothing you can’t do.”

Lance scoffs into his neck. “I could hurt someone.”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you won’t let yourself. You’re gonna take Allura’s offer, you’re gonna learn how to control it, and you’re gonna learn how to beat it.”

Lance lets out one, nearly inaudible sob into Keith’s neck and Keith holds him tighter.

“Remember...remember when my dad died?” Keith asks and the question makes Lance tense. “Well I remember I told you pretty much the same thing, that I couldn’t do this. But do you remember what you said? You said that I could because I didn’t have to do it alone. That if I had nightmares, I could call you, even at three in the morning. If I had a panic attack all I had to do was send you a text and you’d be over. Or if I needed a hug, I could just ask and I’d get one. So, um, that...that’s a two way street. I don’t know if I’ll be as good at talking as you or give as good of hugs, but either way I’m here. Just like you were. So...I know things look bad now, but Lance they’ll get better. We have each other’s backs.”

There’s another choked, muffled sob and a sniffle, but other than that, the cab is silent again. Keith worries he’s overstepped his boundaries, that he’s rambled and made things awkward or uncomfortable for Lance, but the way Lance’s hands cling to the back of his shirt makes him think maybe it’s not as bad as he feared.

“I love you,” Lance breathes, quiet and sweet, and easier to miss than a dandelion seed caught in the wind.

Keith’s heart swells and plummets because for one blissful, merciless second he thinks it’s a confession, but reality pours over him like a bucket of ice water when he remembers Lance’s relief that tethers didn’t have to be romantic. Yes, Lance loves him, just not the way Keith wants him too. But that’s fine. This is enough, even if it hurts.

“I love you too,” he says back, because it’s true.

They decide together that Allura is trustworthy, partially because of how sincere she seemed and partially because she’s the only person in the world they think can actually help. If what Allura says is true, then Lance will be transforming again and neither of them want him to be uncontrollable.

So Lance trains.

Every day after school they head to Allura’s mansion and Lance practices turning into a werewolf in her expansive, private backyard that gives him all the space he needs.

The first week of werewolf lessons is mostly breathing and visualization exercises. She has him meditate, leads him through trainings where he has to see with his mind’s eye, tells him to imagine himself turning into the wolf. It sounds easy enough but it triggers panic attacks in Lance every so often and Keith is the only one who can calm him down when it happens.

Keith puts a tentative hand on Lance’s shoulder and his shallow breathing evens every time.

“You okay?” he asks as he kneels next to where Lance sits.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so,” Lance says, though he still seems spooked.

Allura steps over to them. “Lance, do you know what it is that’s bringing on these attacks? Are you reliving a memory of some sort?”

“No,” Lance says, shaking his head. “It’s weird...like sometimes when you walk me through these I feel like I’m not just imagining it, but I’m actually transforming.”

“Ah, so you’re pulling back and panicking because you feel like you could accidently slip into a transformation,” Allura says, rubbing her chin.

“I guess.”

“Here, this might help,” Allura starts and before he can register what she’s doing, she yanks out one of Keith’s hairs.

“ Ow! ”

“Close your eyes, Lance,” she says, kneeling in front of him and pulling out two vials from a satchel connected to her belt. Lance listens to her as she takes Keith’s hair and ties it to the amber necklace she gave him. “I’m just going to put some lavender and chamomile oil on your temples and neck.”

She dabs some of the oil on her fingers and presses them to each temple and to either side of his neck. There’s an irrational heat that gathers in Keith’s stomach as he watches Allura touch Lance so gently. He stops watching.

Lance likes her, he remembers, a bitterness he hates clawing up into his throat. Jealousy is an ugly emotion and he doesn’t like feeling it, especially when Allura’s done nothing but help them. Besides, Lance hasn’t so much as winked at her since this whole werewolf thing started, but Keith isn’t sure that means anything.

But you’re his tether, he reminds himself and he shakes his head.

He’s not mine, he thinks. He can like whoever he wants. He has no obligation to me just because of some weird wolf bond thing.

When Keith looks back, Allura is mumbling some sort of spell underneath her breath and with each word, the lines in Lance’s face soften and relax.

“Let’s try it now, okay? All you have to do is listen to the sound of my voice until the meditation is over and if it ever gets to be too much you can always ask to stop,” Allura says, standing up.

Lance nods. “Yeah, okay.”

Lance gets through the end of the meditation and Allura praises him. Apparently he’s a fast learner.

That night, before Keith goes to bed, he gets a text message.

Lance [11:34 PM]

hey man do u think i could come over tonight??

Me [11:34 PM]

Why?

Lance [11:35 PM]

cant sleep

Me [11:35 PM]

Okay. Shiro’s here though so park down the street and come in through my window.

Lance [11:35 PM]

k

Not even ten minutes later, Lance is jumping through Keith’s window, yelping as he bangs his head against the lifted window sill and giggling when Keith starts shushing him.

“This still okay?” Lance asks, but they’re already wrapping their arms around each other, like it’s the 200th time they’ve done this, not the second.

“Yeah,” Keith yawns. He’s settling himself so his head acts as a rest for Lance’s chin and his nose is buried in the crook of Lance’s neck; he smells like flowers. “‘S’fine.”

“I just kinda felt like I’d feel less anxious here…”

“Then you should be here,” Keith says and he quietly admonishes himself for how obvious he is. Lance could sleep in his bed every night for the rest of their lives as far as he’s concerned.

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to, though, so any time you’re not feeling it—”

“I get it, Lance,” Keith says, another yawn escaping him. “I don’t mind though.”

That’s an understatement, he thinks.

“Okay, well, just...I might ask to do this again. In the future...y’know…once or twice,” Lance says, his words slow and strained like he’s barely able to stay awake.   

Keith hums and tightens his arms around Lance’s middle. “Sounds good.”

He falls asleep in a matter of seconds.

Lance only visits once that week.

The second week of werewolf training is harder than the first. Allura asks Lance to use the visualization he’s been working on to transform one finger, nothing else.

“The transformation can be a slippery slope as I’m sure you could feel last week when you were just imagining. But you can train yourself so that your transformation is never involuntary, never anything but your choice. We’ll start small and work our way up.”

Lance’s face is a little pale, but he nods. “Just one finger?”

“Just one finger,” Allura confirms. “Now visualize, see just your finger becoming a claw and let your body do the rest.”

Keith stands near Lance, ready to help him through the pain at any moment. He watches Lance inhale and close his eyes, his hand in front of him like he’s waiting for payment. Lance’s face scrunches up near the brows, but nothing happens.

“I can’t—”

“Because you’re holding back too much. Trust yourself more,” Allura says.

Lance nods and tries again, but he gets nowhere.

It’s not until the middle of the week that he transforms at all.

He’s in the same spot in Allura’s expansive backyard as he has been for the past few days and Keith can tell just by the tension in his shoulders that he’s frustrated. He’s yards and yards back as Keith and Allura watch him from afar, Allura coaching him.

“Come on, Lance! Let go!” Allura says and there’s an edge to her voice, a strictness that’s been growing each day with no progress.

“I’m trying.”

“Well, not hard enough. We have exactly two weeks until the full moon and you’re not any closer to a controlled transformation than you were last week. You’re being too restrained. You have to let go.”

Lance grimaces and closes his eyes again, but still, nothing happens.

“C’mon!” Allura eggs on. “You’ll never be able to control this if you don’t accept it. It’s who you are now, Lance. You’ll transform eventually whether you want to or not. At least this way, it’s your choice.”

“I know!” Lance snarls out and it doesn’t sound like him.

“You can’t protect anyone if you don’t master this.”

“Stop.”

“We can’t. This isn’t something you can opt out of because if you do, people could die.”

“Allura,” Keith interjects, feeling that she’s gone too far.

“Stay out of this, Keith,” Allura says, her eyes only on Lance. “You know I’m right, you know what you’re capable of if you don’t control this. I need you to try harder.”

“I am!” Lance all but yells.

“Then prove it! If you don’t you could be a danger to everyone around you—”

Lance lets out a cry that’s half a shout, half a growl. The hairs on his arms look thicker.

“Allura, enough—” Keith starts, stepping closer to Lance.

“Your mother, your father, your siblings. You have children visiting the house often, don’t you?”

Lance’s blue eyes glow and are locked on Allura and Keith is pretty sure his fingernails are sharpening to points.

Allura doesn’t stop though, she almost looks pleased with her work, like this is what she wanted. “You could hurt them, Lance. You could hurt them, and your friends, and you could even hurt Kei—”

Lance cries out and it happens so fast that Keith is barely able to process it—Lance jumps into the air and his whole body grows and transforms into the giant grey wolf he was only weeks ago. He lands on the ground with a solid thud and growls at Allura with bared teeth before he starts running at full speed.

Keith doesn’t have time to hesitate so he steps in front of Allura with his arms outstretched in a defensive stance. She’d contradicted herself earlier by saying Lance could hurt Keith, but he remembers she also said he couldn’t, so Keith prays his hunch is correct.

“Lance, stop!”

The wolf barrels towards them still, but when his blue eyes catch Keith’s, the hard lines of anger fade into recognition. He stops in front of Keith, bowing his head and looking at him like he’s just been caught tearing up the couch. He whines low in his throat and lets Keith scratch at the base of his neck.

“It’s okay,” Keith says, soothing as Lance sits on his haunches.  

“Good job, Lance!” Allura says from behind Keith. “I think this will be easier.”

Keith turns on her, blood pounding in his ears. “What were you doing?! I thought you wanted him to be able to control it, not, y’know, the opposite.”

“I’m sorry, Keith. I just figured, since Lance was so afraid of transforming fully, that it would all be much easier if he did. Exposure therapy and all that. Now, it should be much easier for him to succeed in the exercise since he doesn’t have to worry about transforming into a wolf,” she says before looking at Lance. “I apologize to you too, Lance. I was getting a bit frustrated and I won’t do it again. But since you’re here why don’t you try transforming one claw back into a finger?”

Lance grumbles at her, still annoyed but no longer seeing red, and looks down at his paw. He closes his eyes and the fur between his brows folds together in concentration. Allura and Keith watch Lance’s with bated breath until, slowly, one claw’s fur starts receding. Allura gasps quietly as the transformation continues and the claw finally transforms into a single index finger—grotesque and odd in it’s misplacement.

“You did it, Lance! Now try transforming it back!” Allura says and it’s like she’s a child waking up on Christmas morning.

Lance looks down at them both with his jaw open in a smile and his large tongue falling out, clearly pleased with himself. Lance looks back at his deformed paw and closes his eyes again. This time, his finger transforms back to his paw easily and Allura lets out another delighted gasp.

“Wonderful, Lance!”

“Hey, you did it!” Keith says, smiling. Lance relishes the praise as his huge tail thumps hard on the ground.

“Okay, Lance, I think that’s enough for one day. Go ahead and transform back.”

Lance’s eyes immediately widen and he whines as he gets up on his feet and backs away.

“Oh, come now, transforming back is the easy part. Just visualize. Keith is right there, he’ll make it easier.”

Lance makes another grumbling sound that reminds Keith of a Siberian Husky, but he closes his eyes anyway and lets out a huff of air.

He sits still for several moments, an autumn breeze rustling up the fallen leaves on Allura’s lawn and tousling Lance’s fur. Eventually, he opens his wolf eyes and they find Keith’s automatically, and his expression looks forlorn, almost as if he’s telling Keith, “I can’t do it.”

“Sure you can,” Keith whispers, bringing a hand up to Lance’s shoulder. Even sitting down, Lance is a whole head taller than him like this and it’s a little jarring, but he reminds himself that it’s still Lance underneath all that thick fur.

Lance huffs again and closes his eyes. Nothing happens for several moments and Keith is worried he really can’t change back when he feels a shift under his hand. Lance starts shrinking, the hair shooting back into his skin, and in a matter of seconds, Keith’s hand is on a human shoulder.

Lance’s eyes are shut when the transformation is done and he’s (mercifully) still clothed thanks to the amber necklace Allura gave him. Lance opens his eyes and catches Keith’s gaze immediately, a smile forming on his face that makes Keith’s heart stutter.

“I did it,” he says, full of pride and wonder.

Keith squeezes his shoulder. “You did it.”

It’s that night Keith first gets the impression someone is watching him. He doesn’t have any solid evidence, nothing concrete, but he swears he sees two eyes watching him through the window as he studies at his desk. The silhouette is gone in a flash, but Keith gets up anyway to check it out—nothing.

He chalks it up to stress and goes back to studying until there’s a tapping at his window an hour later.

The tapping almost startles him out of his chair and the muffled laughter he hears from behind the glass tells him his visitor is Lance. He looks over and sure enough, Lance is in the window and clutching his stomach in laughter. Keith glares at him, but opens the window anyway.

“What are you doing?!” Keith asks in a fierce whisper.

“Making you pee your pants,” Lance answers with a sly grin, that, unfortunately, looks good on him.

Keith crosses his arms. “You just surprised me.”

“Whatever you say,” Lance says, shrugging before he climbs into Keith’s room. “But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone if you need to change.”

Keith scoffs at him, but smiles despite himself. Lance sits on Keith’s windowsill and Keith’s heart does that fluttery thing again whenever he’s alone with Lance in his room at night. They’ve spent hours in each other’s rooms studying and watching movies, but ever since Lance’s first transformation, sleepovers have been much more intimate.

“So, any particular reason you’re sneaking in through my bedroom window without even sending over a text?” he asks, playful.

Lance’s smile fades and he looks down at the ground while he rubs the back of his neck. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I don’t really—I was just—I don’t know—I wasn’t feeling so hot and I just kind of thought of you and then, before I knew it, I was here.”

He winces as he finishes, like he’s embarrassed by his own words and if the heat rising in Keith’s cheeks is any indication, he’s embarrassed too.

“Oh.”

“Sorry, man. I should just go, I don’t know what I was thinking,” he says, already turning towards the window.

“No, wait,” he says, grabbing hold of Lance’s arm and the tension in his body relaxes. “It’s okay. You came here ‘cause you were in pain, right? Look, we don’t have to do this every time.”

“Do what every time?”

“I don’t know, act like this is some huge inconvenience for me? Like, I get it. You don’t want to make me uncomfortable and I appreciate that, but I told you, if it keeps you out of pain, I’m fine with it.”

Lance sighs and places a hand over Keith’s. “But what if you get a boyfriend?”

“Excuse me?” Keith asks, blinking at the question.

“You really like someone right? What if he asks you out and you start dating? I can’t just keep coming to your room and asking you to canoodle—”

Keith snorts.

“I’m serious. How are you supposed to be in a relationship if I sleep with you every other night?”

“Lance,” Keith says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “First of all, don’t say it like that. We’re not sleeping together, I mean, technically we are sleeping together, but we’re not sleeping together. We’re—I don’t know—having platonic sleepovers—”

It’s Lance’s turn to snort.

“ Anyway, it’s—look, I’m not getting a boyfriend anytime soon, okay? I told you, the guy I like...doesn’t like me back so, whatever. If I ever do get one we’ll deal with it then, but for now I’m a free agent.”  

Lance looks down at their hands and squeezes Keith’s. “I just...I hate that this whole thing has to affect you too. Like you’re giving up so much time to be with me at werewolf practice with Allura when we have midterms coming up…”

“Yeah, I guess, but I also don’t turn into a giant wolf in the moonlight, Lance. Whatever I’m going through, it’s like, eight hundred times worse for you. The least I can do is be there,” Keith says and Lance smiles at him.

“No,” he says, eyes soft and shining. “It’s definitely not the least you can do.”

Keith shakes his head and remembers everything Lance did for him when he was thirteen. It absolutely is the least he could do.

February is cold that year. All the warmth seemingly warped away along with his father, killed in a house fire, of all things.

He’s been unruly, at least that’s what the social worker said to her boss on the phone, but what is he supposed to do? Be polite and do whatever she says? Pretend his life is some business transaction that needs to be made as smoothly as possible? No. His life is hell and he doesn’t have any plans of making things easy for anyone.

Keith doesn’t have any blood relatives so they want to put him in the system, send him to a completely different state, uproot him from his friends, his entire life. He won’t do it.

At least, not without a fight.

He ran away when no one was looking. Shiro and the social worker—Mrs. Mullinder—were talking over some boring schematic stuff and told him to play in the yard like he was some kid, so he took off. Ran.

Just started running. Running and running until he got to...Lance’s house.

He’s not sure why he ran here—sure, Lance is a good friend, but he doesn’t want to see anyone or do anything. He just wants to be alone.

Lance’s family has a big treehouse in the backyard and he plays here enough to know exactly how to get in. He huddles low underneath the line-of-sight for the windows until he gets to the wooden gate that gets to the backyard. He looks over his shoulder, looking out for any of the many McClains that could pop out at anytime, but he’s lucky and doesn’t see any of them.

He unlatches the gate, opening it and then closing it behind himself as quietly as he can. The treehouse is in the center of the yard—a big oak with a swing hanging down from one branch and the structure of the house on top of the trunk. He tip toes to the ladder nailed into the tree and climbs up, not once spotted.

There isn’t much in the treehouse. A couple of toys left forgotten, some sticks Lance and he used to use as swords, and some fallen leaves. They used to play up here all the time, but they both stopped after they got into middle school, believing they were too old to play pirate anymore.

Honestly, Keith misses it. He liked pretending they were pirates at war and trying to get the buried treasure before the other. Sometimes they’d even get Hunk and Pidge to play as their first mates. Hunk would always be Lance’s and Pidge Keith’s and once they were all done, Mrs. McClain would come out with juice and fruit for them to snack on.

Then, Keith would go home and his dad would ask him how his day was and he’d tell him all about his adventures on the open sea. His dad would smile, ruffle his hair, and tell Keith how glad he was to be home.

Keith sits himself in one corner of the treehouse and hugs his knees close to his chest. The February chill easily takes over the treehouse with it’s open windows and cracks between the wood paneling, so Keith’s already freezing, but he doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t ever want to leave this spot again because if he does, he’s gone. Shipped off to who knows where to live with a bunch of strangers. Leaving the treehouse means leaving Shiro, leaving school, leaving his friends.

But if he stays in this treehouse forever, no one can make him do anything.

He knows this will worry Shiro, and Keith does feel bad about that. Shiro, an engineering student at a nearby university, has been their neighbor for two years and he’s like an older brother to Keith now. When they first found out about Keith’s dad, Shiro let him stay at his apartment until things were settled, but now that things are settling, Keith doesn’t want any part of it. He doesn’t want to leave everything behind.

The chill in the air gets worse and Keith starts shivering but he doesn’t care. He stays put. For how long, he doesn’t know, but he knows it’s been hours because when he got there the sun was high up above and now it’s setting, illuminating everything with an orange glow.

At some point, he hears Lance’s parents leave in their car and shouting back at the house.

“Watch your brother!”

“Oh, I hope he’s okay…”

“He’ll be fine, hun. We’ll find him.”

Keith thinks they might be talking about him and for a brief moment his chest stings with guilt. Still, he stays put.

Eventually, Keith’s stomach grumbles, angry with hunger.

I can’t stay up here forever, he thinks, but he can’t move. Won’t move.

He hugs his legs even tighter to his chest, burying his face in his knees. How did it come to this? How did he get here? Familyless, cold, and hungry in his friend’s treehouse.

Keith’s so caught up in his own self-pity that he doesn’t even hear someone coming up the ladder.

There’s a gasp and then,“ Keith!”

Keith pops his head up from his knees and there, head peeking out of the ground entrance is—

“Lance,” Keith says, and his voice trembles just at speaking the name. Lance lifts himself into the treehouse fully and approaches Keith carefully, like he’s some wounded bird.

“Everyone’s looking for you,” he says quietly as he seats himself in front of Keith. Keith just shakes his head.

“I don’t care.”

“Mom said Shiro was really worried.”

“Yeah, well Shiro’s just gonna send me away with Mrs. Mullinder so, I’m not going back.”

“Okay,” Lance says, scooching closer. “Um, can I stay here with you?”

Keith shrugs, angry, but unsure why. They’re silent for several moments, Keith unwilling to even look at Lance.

“My mom...she told me that your dad died. I’m really sorry, Keith,” Lance says, gentle and kind, like he always is.

“Whatever,” Keith says, and it’s everything opposite of Lance—biting and cruel.

“It’s not whatever,” Lance breathes. “It’s really, really not whatever. Mom says you’re—you’re probably gonna have to move far away.”

Keith lifts his face up to look at Lance and sees drops of dew rolling down his cheeks. Lance is crying for him.

“Why are you—”

“And your dad was always so nice! He’d mess up my hair and give us candy and let me sleepover sometimes. And he was your dad and I’m...I’d be really sad if my dad died, so you’ve got to be sad too,” he says, sniffling and rubbing away at the tears with his sleeve. “And if you’re sad, then I’m sad.”

Keith hasn’t cried since it happened. Not once. Not a single tear. But watching Lance cry for him, tears pouring down his cheeks like it’s nothing, makes something in Keith’s eyes sting.

And he’s crying too—it starts small at first, just a couple of tears down his cheeks and then more and more until he’s choking on his own sobs. The world fades away and all he can feel is the horrible, aching pain in his chest and the warm fluids running down his face.

It’s not until his face is slammed into a hard shoulder that the world starts to take shape again. Lance is holding him hard and crying in his ear, like somehow, Keith’s pain is Lance’s.

It’s not right, he thinks. Lance shouldn’t be sad. Lance should never be sad.

But there’s nothing to be done about it except to hold Lance back. Keith wraps his arms around Lance’s middle—grabbing at the fabric of Lance’s jacket like his life depends on it—and cries. Cries and cries until Lance’s jacket is gross with it and until the sun sets behind the mountains and trees of their hometown, the one he’s being so mercilessly ripped away from.

“I can’t do this,” Keith says, pulling away and noisily wiping his nose with his sleeve.

“Yes you can. I know you can.”

Keith shakes his head, low and defeated. “I can’t.”

“You can! You’re the coolest, smartest, strongest person I know. You’ll get through this,” Lance says, and Keith just shakes his head again. “I know you can because you won’t have to do it alone, okay? I’m here.”

“You don’t get it! There’s a social worker at my apartment right now. She’s taking me away, Lance! Into foster care or whatever. We’re never gonna see each other again!”

Keith lets out another sob and Lance watches him with wide-eyed shock, but after a couple seconds, he just brings Keith in for another hug.

“No! I won’t let them. I’ll talk to my parents, I’ll—I’ll make them adopt you or something! That way we can have sleepovers every night and you can share my room, share my chores, everything! Mamá loves you, she’ll listen.”

“I don’t...I don’t think it works like that.”

“I don’t care how it works! I don’t care...we’ll figure something out, Keith. I swear.”

Keith goes silent as he returns the hug and it’s in that moment, Keith knows he loves Lance. He doesn’t know how deeply or in what capacity, just that he’ll do anything to stay by this person’s side, the boy that cries for him and desperately doesn’t want him to go.

It’s Luís that finds them eventually—hugging, crying messes in a near pitch-black tree house and almost freezing to death. There’s only more tears as Lance’s mom coaxes them down, her words barely audible over her own cries. Lance and Keith apologize over and over again, but she forgives them soon enough and hugs them both to her chest.

The worst is when Shiro shows up. His eyes are red-rimmed with dark circles underneath, like the past few hours have aged him years. And Keith can tell with just one look he’s worried him to death, so he goes to Shiro immediately, wrapping his arms around his middle and chanting “I’m sorry” as many times as he can.

Shiro says nothing, just hugs him back and does his best to hide his sniffles.

Keith explains everything eventually—how he doesn’t want to leave, how he wants to go to the same school and stay with his friends, how he wants to stay with Shiro—and by some miracle, it works out. Shiro requests to foster Keith and be his legal guardian, and the state lets him. Keith still remembers how he ran to Lance’s house, how he told him that he’d get to stay, and the warm bear hug he got in response.

“I knew it! I knew it would work out!” Lance says, pulling back and beaming.

“I didn’t think it would,” Keith says, smiling for what feels like the first time in years. “But it did.”

“It did and now you get to stay!” Lance says before suddenly getting serious. “I meant what I said in the treehouse, Keith.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you don’t have to do this alone. You can count on me, okay? You can call me anytime if you have nightmares or something. Or if you need a hug, all you have to do is ask...so, don’t try and handle this all on your own, got it?” Lance asks, giving Keith a punch in the shoulder.

Keith grabs at the affronted shoulder and gives Lance a small smile. “Yeah, got it.”

The memory makes Keith’s lips turn in a bittersweet smile and he shakes his head. “Lance, how many times have I called you in the middle of the night because I started panicking? How many times have you climbed through that window to calm me down? How many times did you get grounded for getting caught?”

“That’s not—”

“Don’t even tell me that it’s not the same thing. It is and you know it. Just...let me be as good of friend to you for once as you’ve been to me,” Keith says, his voice devolving into a whisper.

Lance chuckles at him and gently takes Keith’s hand off of his arm, holding it lightly between his fingers. “You’ve always been a good friend.”

“Not like you.”

“Stop, come on. But fine, I’ll...I’ll stop being so weird about asking for help, I guess.”

Keith smiles at him and Lance smiles back—too soft, too kind, too much for Keith to handle so he looks away. “Well, good.”

“You ready for bed?” Lance asks and the question tugs at Keith’s heart. They’re speaking only in whispers now and there’s something delicious and dangerous about it, like anything could slip out between them.

“Yeah, just gonna change into sweats.”

“‘Kay.”

Keith goes to his dresser drawers and changes into his pajamas quickly and by the time he’s done, Lance has already shucked off his hoodie and shoes, and crawled into bed, his eyes aimed at the ceiling as his hands cradle his head.

Keith approaches the bed, his stomach doing flips as he does and turns off his desk lamp and the smaller lamp on his bedside table. With the room dark, Keith slides in and into Lance’s waiting arms.

“Thanks,” Lance mumbles into his hair and the vibrations send a shiver down Keith’s spine.

“It’s nothing,” Keith whispers.

“It’s not nothing.”

“Are we really gonna fight about this now?”

“No, because I’m right. It’s not nothing.”

Keith rolls his eyes, but it’s only for his benefit since Lance can’t see it. “Fine. You’re welcome, I guess.”

“Now, was that so hard? You’re as stubborn as Allura, I swear.”

Keith tenses at the name. It sends a wave of frost in his chest as he’s reminded for the billionth time that as couply as they feel right now, as intimate as sharing a bed is, it’s all just a means to an end. Lance is doing this because he’s in pain and Keith is the only relief, not because he wants to be with him.

“Do you still like her?” Keith asks, so quiet he doubts Lance will even hear it.

Evidently, he does because he responds with a firm, “No. Not like that.”

“What happened?” Keith asks, his heart rising to his throat.

“Remember that scary crush I told you about?” Lance asks, directly in his ear.

“Yeah.”

“Came back with a vengeance,” he says, his warm breath hitting Keith’s vulnerable ear and making him squirm.

Lance rubs a thumb along the small of Keith’s back, making him dizzy. “Oh. You must really like him.”

“Mm-hm,” Lance mumbles and Keith feels a light brush of skin at his temples that he’s pretty sure is Lance’s lips.

“Y-you ever gonna tell me who it is?” Keith asks and for a moment, Keith thinks Lance fell asleep because he’s silent for so long, but then he feels hot breath in his ear again.

“Right after you tell me who you like,” Lance whispers and Keith is glad he’s lying down because if he wasn’t, his knees would have collapsed from how weak they are. Lance’s breath is warm and dewy against his skin and it has his head full with all sorts of wants—wants of Lance closing the distance and kissing along his neck, slow and attentive, wants of them moving on to more than cuddling, wants of something more. Always something more.

Keith can barely breath when he says, “never, then?”

Lance lets out a huff of laughter (“heh”) against Keith’s neck and he swears he’s seeing spots.

“Good,” Lance says, wrapping his arms around Keith a little tighter. “Means I can pretend longer.”

Keith’s heart stutters in his chest and he clutches at the fabric of Lance’s shirt. “What does that mean?” he asks desperately.

“Nothing. Sorry, just being stupid,” Lance says, and Keith feels the softest of touches against his temple and knows this time it was a kiss. His heart all but stops and his mind short circuits. “I’m tired.”

Keith doesn’t respond, just listens to Lance’s breathing and feels the spot where he kissed him burn. Eventually, Lance’s breath evens out and he’s snoring gently, but Keith is wide awake, his head too consumed with solving the riddle on Lance’s lips before he slipped into slumber.

It takes him awhile, but Keith falls asleep more confused and heartbroken than ever, but still holding fast to the boy he’s in love with.

Lance visits twice that week.

The third week of werewolf training is a mixed bag of progress and pain. Lance has been doing well with transforming parts of his body at will, but now Allura wants him to practice full transformations.

Lance is doing a few laps in his wolf form before he runs towards Allura and Keith and transforms back to his human self, crumbling to his knees. Keith goes to him immediately and puts a hand on his shoulder and another on his arm.

“Excellent, Lance! I was a little worried at first, but you’re really coming along,” Allura says, hands at her hips.

Lance looks up at her and scoffs. “Feels like I’m tearing my body apart.”

“I know it hurts, but the more you do it, the less severe the pain will be. You’ll have a much easier time come the full moon,” she says.

Lance sighs. “I know, but it’s a lot, Allura. I chew through a pack of that gum a day and I’m having a hard time focusing in class. I wear that Keith-hair bracelet every day,” he says, holding up the black braided bracelet on his wrist that has a few of Keith’s hairs woven in.

“Well, I can always make you more gum,” she says, tapping her chin. “The bracelet only will help you so much, especially when you have Keith right there. You two are almost never touching at school but that would solve everything, wouldn’t it?”

Keith and Lance both bristle and look at each other with grimaces on their faces.

“Well…” Keith starts, scratching the back of his neck.

“That would kind of make it look like we’re dating. Kinda hard to be touchy with your pal all day and call it platonic.”

“So?” Allura asks, genuinely confused.

“We’re uh...we’re not dating,” Keith says.

Allura arches a brow at him. “I know, but what’s wrong with people thinking you are?”

“ Nothing,” Keith says, scrambling for an argument. “It just—we would be—”

“Are you worried about what others think?”

“What? No. I just—”

“Then, what’s the problem? You two can hold hands and keep Lance out of pain and people will think what they want.”

“Allura, stop,” Lance says, his face serious. “He doesn’t want to, it’s fine.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to. Wait, do you want to?”

“I—I mean, I don’t mind. I just don’t want to if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t not want to.”

“Oh.”

“Then, it’s settled!” Allura says, clapping her hands together. “Keith will perform his tetherly duties at school and Lance, you can keep practicing your transformations.”

Lance and Keith look from Allura to each other and quickly look away, Keith’s face heating. This is a bad idea. This is such a bad idea.

“Okay, but what do we say when people ask how we got together?” Lance asks, his thumb gently brushing along the meat of Keith’s arm as they lie facing each other on Keith’s bed.

Lance has been over every night since he’s started practicing full transformations, practically shivering in pain at Keith’s window with big eyes that always ask “is this okay?” to which Keith always opens the window in a silent “of course.”

It’s almost starting to feel normal—sharing a bed with Lance. It’s gotten to the point where Keith isn’t sleeping as well on the nights Lance decides to stay home and that frightens him. It feels like with every passing day he’s getting in too deep and that something precious is going to break if he’s not more careful, but he also can’t stand to see Lance in pain. And if he’s honest, he really doesn’t want this to stop. Being close to Lance is nice. So nice.

Keith sighs. “I don’t know. Maybe something boring? Like, we just kind of started talking about things and decided to try dating? And it’s going well?”

“I think I must have kissed you or something. Like, I don’t think anyone is gonna buy that we just talked it out since you’re, y’know, you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a hothead who doesn’t like to talk about his feelings.”

“I am not!”

“You’re getting heated right now,” Lance says with a smug smile.

Keith glares at him and his nose wrinkles. “Fine. But if I’m such a hothead then I was the one to kiss you.”

Lance snorts. “Yeah, right.”

“I would totally kiss you first!”

“Not on your life. You’re a hothead, but you’re also a wilting flower.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah!”

Keith doesn’t take a dare sitting down and it sure as hell sounds like a dare, so he makes good on it. Grabbing Lance’s wrist from his arm, Keith kicks himself up from the bed and straddles Lance’s waist, pinning both of his wrists to either side of his head.

It’s dark, but there’s just enough light from Keith’s alarm clock and the black screensaver of his computer to see Lance is looking up at his with wide, surprised eyes. Keith smirks in satisfaction.

“Still think I’m a wilting flower?” he whispers, voice dark and husky. Lance stares at him in blank shock for several seconds, until his parted lips upturn in a crooked grin.

“I don’t know, are you?” and it’s a challenge, Keith knows it is. Lance is calling his bluff and is he...really expecting Keith to do this?

Keith’s heart pounds loudly, forcefully in his chest, like it’s trying to bust out of his rib cage. His smile fades from his face, and when it does, so does Lance’s. Lance swallows and Keith can see the outline of his adam’s apple bob down then up again and he catches himself doing the same.

There’s a couple options here. He could get his bluff called, admit defeat, and go to sleep, but suffer Lance’s smug victory. It’s probably the right call as it will keep his ridiculous pining a secret and save his mental health from the obvious fall out this could produce.

Or.

He kisses that smug “betcha-won’t-do-it” smile right off of Lance’s face. He can always blame his actions on the dare and nothing more. So, why not? He can brag about it for ages and call Lance the wilting flower until the day he dies. The more he thinks about it, the better it sounds…

So, he moves in, leaning down to get closer to Lance and as soon as he moves, Lance’s eyes get even bigger. it doesn’t stop Keith, his impulsiveness and pride barreling past rational thought and straight for Lance’s lips.

There’s a moment, just a moment, he forgets what he’s doing. That this isn’t just some stupid late-night dare from the mischievous asshole he calls his best friend, but that it’s something secret and real between them.

Keith’s close now and his heart won’t stop racing as he closes his eyes, his lips so very near their target.

There’s a quiet gasp and the shift of bed springs beneath him.

“Y-you got me man,” Lance says. Keith opens his eyes and sees that Lance has turned his face away, clearly embarrassed. “Didn’t think you’d really go for it.”

Keith straightens, face blank as the consequences of his actions take form as invisible bear claws ripping into his chest. He curses himself for not being cautious, for not taking the safe route, especially when it’s led him here. He’s an idiot. No doubt about.

He gets off from his embarrassing perch and lays on his side, pointedly not facing Lance. Keith wishes he were anywhere else, which is odd since normally, he seeks Lance out like a shored fish gasping back to the ocean.

There’s rustling behind him and an arm wraps around his middle while a chin rests on his shoulder. Keith closes his eyes and takes a breath, wishing away the hurt that makes a home in his chest like a bird nesting in a tree. He knows Lance didn’t move away to wound him and that he shouldn’t pout while Lance needs him to keep the pain away, but these embraces are starting to catch up to him. Not that he’s going to pull away. He’s not even sure he can at this point. He just melts into Lance, like butter in a pan.

“You kissed me first,” Lance says, quiet and with a hint of a smile. “It was super romantic. There were sparks and fireworks and all those other stupid clichés. We both really knew it was something then. You kissed me first, but I asked you out first. I planned out our first date. Got so nervous I contemplated running away to Cuba.”

Keith gets the game he’s playing, knows he’s just trying to get their story straight, but the way Lance is talking is so fond, it’s like he’s reciting a treasured memory. It should make the knife in Keith’s chest twist, but it’s oddly comforting, a strange little lullaby.

“I was nervous too,” Keith joins in. “Thought I was gonna puke when you picked me up.”

“Yeah, exactly. I took you in Blue, we blasted some stupid pop songs on the radio and I took you to that fancy Italian restaurant on 4th.”

“Big spender.”

“Yeah, man. I wanted to impress you.”

“Well, I was impressed.”

Lance scooches himself in a bit closer. “Good, I was really worried I was coming on too strong.”

“Naw, it was perfect. Then what?”

“I took you to Nickel Nickel.”

“The old arcade?”

“Yeah, I thought it would be fun since we went there all the time as kids. I thought it would be like, a romantic, thoughtful gesture you know? But we ended up betting we could get more tickets than the other and it turned into an all out brawl. Air hockey got ugly.”

Keith laughs. “Oh my god that’s exactly what would happen.”

“I know,” Lance says, laughing too.

“Who won?”

“You. But barely.”

“Oof, must have been a blow.”

“Naw, you had such a big smile on your face I didn’t really care.”

Keith’s stomach drops then flutters. He doesn’t even care how much this might hurt in the morning; all he wants is to live in this fantasy world forever.

“Oh.”

“There’s one last place I take you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The lake.”

“Why?” Keith asks, but he knows why.

“It’s our spot. Where we could always just be ourselves with each other. I don’t have anything planned once we’re there. I just wanted to spend time with you. Maybe get a smooch or two, who knows.”

Keith laughs again and Lance muffles his own in Keith’s shoulder blades. “I was probably pretty okay with that.”

“So accommodating.”

“I wanted it to go well too.”

“And did it?” Lance asks and tenses against Keith.

“Yeah. Yeah, it was the best. Better than I could have hoped for.”

Which is true. He’s imagined what a first date with Lance would be like a thousand times but this version is by far his favorite.

“Glad you liked it. Does this mean I get a second date?”

“Definitely.”

Lance yawns and buries his nose in Keith’s hair.

“Well, thank god for that.”

The next day, Keith and Lance come to school, hand-in-hand.

Keith’s neck is hot as they walk across the quad to the table where they always meet Hunk and Pidge because some people are definitely staring. Lance senses Keith’s uneasiness and gives him a smile and a hand squeeze.

“Hey, who cares, right?”
Keith smiles back. “Right.”

Pidge and Hunk sit at a blue lunch table, tinkering away at some device they’ve been working on for the past month that looks like a cross between a drone and a toaster, and Keith really starts to feel sick. It’s one thing to have random people staring at you for a hot second, but quite another to tell your friend group you’re dating someone...from the friend group.

“Hey, guys,” Lance says, going in first. Neither looks up from the device.

“Hey Lance,” Hunk says, tapping two exposed wires together.

“Hey,” Pidge offers, her face practically in the device.

Lance clears his throat.

Hunk doesn’t look up. “You okay, buddy? Sounds like you’re getting a cold.”

“No, just—” Lance gives an exasperated sigh. “Keith and I have an announcement.”

Hunk and Pidge finally look up from their project, Pidge’s face flat and annoyed she was interrupted and Hunk just curious. Lance raises their intertwined hands and presents them with his other hand. “Tah-dah!”

Their jaws both hit the ground, but Pidge’s gaped expression just seems to be an elongated smile while Hunk’s is in distress. Pidge’s eyes bounce between Keith and Lance’s hands and them before she looks at Hunk and punches him in the shoulder.

“ I knew it! ”

“Oh, no, no,” Hunk says burying his face in his hands and groaning.

“Uh, Hunk, buddy?” Lance asks. “Kinda thought you’d be a little bit more supportive.”   

“Sorry, sorry! No, honestly I’m super happy for you guys, I’m just out twenty bucks and my pride may never recover.”

“Uh, why?” Keith asks, not really sure what to make of these reactions at all.

“Oh, we just had a little bet,” Pidge says, her face the picture of smugness. “And I’m the victor.”

“Don’t rub it in, Pidge,” Hunk says.

“Hunk thought you two chuckle heads wouldn’t get it together until the last month before graduation or later. I said there was no way one of you wouldn’t combust before then and I was right.”

Keith’s brain completely short circuits. Pidge and Hunk were betting on when they’d get together? Pidge and Hunk talked about the possibility of Keith and Lance having a romantic affiliation. It takes Keith approximately two seconds to go as red as his motorcycle.

“You bet on when we’d get together?!” Lance asks, his voice getting higher.

Pidge adjusts her glasses and gives Lance a crooked grin. “Sure did.”

“But why? What even made you think we liked each other? This is a brand new development!”

Pidge and Hunk look at each other, both on the verge of laughter and look back at Lance. “You’re kidding, right?” Pidge asks.

“No! What, is it because we’re such good friends or whatever?”

Hunk scoffs. “Buddy, Pidge and I are good friends, you guys on the other hand…”

“What?” Keith asks, losing patience.

“You guys are oblivious idiots, that’s what,” Pidge says.

Lance gives her a slack-jawed, scandalized look. “We are not.”

“Oh, please. If I had to watch Keith give you that sad, longing look while you weren’t looking one more time—”

“Oh, man, or Lance watching the back of Keith’s head in bio and sighing like no one else was in the room,” Hunk coos.

Keith and Lance both bristle at the charges and Keith covers his face to hide his firetruck red complexion.

“I wasn’t sighing at Keith! I was just...waiting for class to be over, that had nothing to do with him,” Lance says, shooting down the small bit of hope Keith was gathering.

Hunk gives Lance a knowing look and shakes his head. “Bud, I have a bunch of classes with you and you only do that in the Keith ones.”

“Those are the classes I hate!”

“You don’t hate Spanish.”

“Spanish is boring because I’m fluent, Hunk!”

“No, Spanish is your favorite because you get to show off.”

And it’s checkmate because Lance’s mouth gets all tense like he’s trying to think of a counterargument but can’t until he eventually just says, “that’s still not why.”

And Keith should probably just assume he’s telling the truth, shouldn’t get his hopes up like he’s done a thousand times whenever Lance gives him too sweet of a smile, but the optimist that lives deep within him is stubborn and Lance...sounds like he’s lying.

“Okay, fine,” Pidge says, clearly enjoying herself. “Then, when did you both start liking each other?”

Lance’s hand tenses against his and Keith stops breathing for a moment. This wasn’t a question they’d hashed out last night.

“Uh, well, y’know,’ Lance starts scratching at his chin. “It just kinda happened naturally. There wasn’t really a moment.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Keith agrees, coughing into his hand.   

“Oh, come on. I don’t buy that for a second,” Pidge continues. “There must have been some point that you realized you liked each other or you never would have gotten together.”

“I—I guess,” Keith stammers.

“Then when was it?”

Keith and Lance glance at each other for a moment and then look away, embarrassed. Pidge has trapped them and it doesn’t look like there’s anything they can do but answer.

He figures he should just be honest, since that would be the most believable answer, but he also worries it’ll be too obvious.

Still, Pidge is waiting and Lance is panicking, so if nothing else he has a story ready to give Lance a little extra time to think about it.

“I think it was two years ago...” he starts.

Keith has been pacing by their log at Seaglass lake for the past twenty minutes, nervous out of his mind. He doesn’t know why he so desperately needs to tell Lance now, this very day, but once he got the idea in his head, he couldn’t let it go. If he doesn’t tell someone he’s going to combust and for some reason, Lance feels like the person he has to tell first.

What if he thinks it’s weird or gross? Keith thinks, sitting on the log and rubbing his temples.

He’s not like that, he tells himself. He has a gay sister and he loves her so…

It’s not enough to convince Keith so he stands and starts pacing again. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous—Lance has been with him through thick and thin, he won’t hate him for this.

Still, his stomach is so tied up in knots that he thinks he could puke any minute.

“Crap, crap, crap, crap,” he mutters to himself then checks the time on his phone. Lance is a couple minutes late so he could show up at any time.

Keith’s going to puke. He’s really going to puke.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

Keith shouts and looks up. Lance is staring at him with an arched eyebrow, coming out from the forest with his dark blue painted bicycle at his side.

“Lance!”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” he says, dropping his bike next to Keith’s and sitting on the log. He gives Keith another long look, searching. “Okay, man. What’s going on?”

“N-nothing.”

Lance is unamused as he scoffs and kicks some dirt at his feet. “You look like you’re about to pass out and you sent me a ‘we need to talk’ text. Something’s up.”

“It didn’t say ‘we need to talk’,” Keith says, rubbing his thumb and index finger at his side.

Lance looks him dead in the eye as he pulls his phone from his pocket with a flourish. He opens it and scrolls along with his thumb until he opens the app that he’s looking for, pointedly looking at Keith when he does. “You said—and I quote—’Hey, Lance. I need to talk to you. Meet at Seaglass in twenty?’ End quote.”

“Oh,” Keith says, face growing hot. He never was good with coming off as casual in text messages. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like an emergency or anything.”

“I know. I speak fluent Keith. But c’mon man, what’s up? You’re off, I can tell.”

Keith rubs the base of his neck with one palm and grimaces. He’s sweating, despite the fact that the sun is going down on a pretty temperate summer day. Lance waits patiently, looking up at him from the log with his understanding eyes and Keith takes a deep breath.

Lance stands and places a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Keith? Is everything okay?”

Keith catches the grey-blue of Lance’s irises in his and tries to find courage there. He knew this would be hard; he just didn’t know it’d be this hard. He closes his eyes, for just a second and decides he just needs to say it.

“I like boys.”

It comes out blurted and choppy, like the words don’t fit together right and Keith winces at his own delivery. Lance’s eyes get a touch wider and he tilts his head in confusion.

“As in... like like?”

Keith bites his lip and nods, waiting for the inevitable reaction.

And Lance is smiling. It’s not a big or beaming smile, the kind he wears every day like it’s an essential part of his wardrobe, but closed-lipped and soft, a rarer kind of smile that makes Keith’s heart inexplicably go thump! It reaches his eyes which are shining and tender and understanding. Keith swallows.

“Can I hug you?” Lance asks. Keith blinks at him but nods again. Lance wraps his arms around Keith’s shoulders and Keith hugs him around his middle, his face getting lost in Lance’s shoulder. “Thanks for telling me.”

“I—so you don’t think it’s...weird, or anything?” Keith asks and Lance gently pulls out of the hug, his hands on Keith’s shoulders, and stares at him.

“ No. Keith, of course not. You’re my best friend and plus, I—” he cuts himself short, sucking in both of his lips.

“You what?” Keith asks, nervous that there’s some condition on the other end of that sentence that will ruin everything.

Lance takes a hand away to rub at his forehead. “Wow, okay. Did not expect to be having this discussion today, but, um,” he says, his shoulders coming up towards his ears. “I—me too.”

Keith stares at him blankly for a long moment. “You...too?”

“Yeah, like…I like guys too. Well, and girls...but also guys.”

“O-oh.”

“I mean, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and I guess I just kind of thought when I saw a hot guy or whatever that I just wanted to look like him and I was jealous, but, y’know, it just stopped being like that, I guess. I don’t know, it just sort of clicked one day but I didn’t really know how to tell people and I—”

Lance is rambling, looking at the ground and kicking at the dirt, while a big smile grows on Keith’s face. This is way better than any other outcome he could have imagined. They both like guys? Keith and his best friend? He doesn’t have to do this alone?

Keith returns the favor and crushes Lance against him, cutting off his rant. “Thanks for telling me,” he echoes.

Lance laughs and hugs him back. “I’m really glad we—I don’t know—have each other ”

“Yeah,” Keith says honestly, rubbing his hand up and down the length of Lance’s back. “Me too.”

They sit on the log and talk after that, Lance throwing out various male celebrities for Keith to rate “hot or not” (“Chris Hemsworth?” “I have eyes, Lance.”) and both of them making battle plans on how to tell their respective families. Keith is a little easier since he really only has one person to tell, while Lance has a platoon.

They ride their bikes home and Keith can’t stop smiling. He always has fun with Lance, but tonight it feels ethereal, like nothing can touch them. And Lance is smiling too and Keith is getting addicted to seeing it. It’s a good smile, but for some reason, Keith is seeing it in HD tonight and it’s extra brilliant, blinding even.

They wave goodbye where their paths home diverge and Keith heart breaks a little to see him go. Still, he’s light and happy and filled with a buzzing energy that makes him want to ride his bike forever, all the way across the state to the shimmering seas in the west.

He gets home, eats dinner with Shiro, does some homework, and heads to bed and as soon as his head hits the pillow, his thoughts are filled with nothing but Lance. Lance, who has a pretty smile and blue eyes and so many freckles on his shoulders that it’s like he has patches of different colored skin. Lance who likes boys.

Keith isn’t exactly sure why all of it has his head spinning and his heart soaring, but it does. He’s...giddy. Maybe he’s just really happy he told Lance and Lance accepted him. Maybe he’s just glad he’s not the only one in this small mountain town that’s his age and gay.

He’s not sure, but he doesn’t bother himself too much with the details. He feels good and that’s enough for now.

He doesn’t realize right away, but there’s a definite shift in the way he sees Lance after that. Keith’s eyes always seem to be searching for him and when they do find him, he can’t stop, like his eyes are starved and Lance is a four course meal. There’s just something enchanting in the way he traverses through space, the way his lips move when he talks, how his eyes brighten when he sees a friend coming down the hall, how strong his legs look when he’s running in gym.

Keith doesn’t acknowledge anything strange about it at first. He just chalks it up to the fact that he and Lance are even closer now and Keith is fond of him, just like he’s fond of all his friends.

It’s not until he wakes up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night after dreaming of Lance’s lips on his that he finally understands.

Oh, he thinks. Oh, no.

“Lance and I came out to each other,” Keith says, staring at the diamond-shaped holes in the table. “I mean, I think I probably liked him before that, but I think once I knew he...liked guys too, it was like—I don’t know—like it was okay to like him, so I kinda let myself in a way? It took me a while to realize what I was feeling, but that kind of...opened the floodgates.”

The table is silent for several seconds until Pidge slaps a hand at Hunk’s arm. “Two years—isn’t that exactly when we noticed something was up?”

“Yeah, no it was definitely sophomore year,” Hunk agrees.

Keith sneaks a glance at Lance, but it’s not very sneaky at all because he’s already looking—staring—at Keith, studying him.

Was he too obvious? Did he give himself away? Keith swallows and his stomach bottoms out.

“Okay, what about you, Lance?” Pidge asks, eyes bright with mischief.

“Oh, um, well…” Lance says and he looks up at Keith again and he can see the panic in his eyes. Keith tries to calm him with a friendly roll of his eyes as if to say ‘whatever is fine.’ Lance seems to get the message because he gives Keith a small smile and turns back to Hunk and Pidge of the other side of the table. “I think it was when we were worried Keith was going to be sent away.”

Pidge and Hunk both cock their heads to the same side, almost cartoonishly, in confusion.

“But that was five years ago,” Hunk says.

“Yeah?” Lance challenges.

Pidge taps her chin and looks up in thought. “That’s a long time and you’ve had a bunch of other crushes since then. I thought you would have realized it way later than Keith.”

“Yeah, well, I never really thought Keith was ever a thing that could happen so I tried to move on. Didn’t do too well though,” Lance says with a shrug. Keith stares at him, his solar plexus tight as a fist.

“Still, you knew when you were twelve?” Pidge asks.

Lance shrugs again and Keith is getting the feeling that he’s irritated. “I don’t know. When I thought Keith was leaving I got all upset and just thought dumb kid stuff like ‘no, Keith and I have to stay together forever’ and y’know, like Keith said, I didn’t realize what that meant exactly at the time, but that’s when I was starting to put the pieces together that...Keith was special.”

“Oh, wow,” Hunk says, hands clasped in front of him with stars in his eyes.

Lance isn’t looking at anyone, just staring at the same diamond holes Keith was so interested in earlier and picks at a bit of loose plastic with his free hand. Keith studies him, sees how troubled he looks by all of this—his body is slumped, there’s a deep crease in his brow, and his lips are turned down in a frown. Why does he look upset when Pidge and Hunk have fallen for the story hook, line, and sinker?

The possibilities make Keith’s heart race.

Because Lance was convincing. So convincing that Keith is wondering himself if it’s true, that it’s getting his hopes up. But that’s not possible is it? Lance couldn’t have had feelings for Keith for five years.

He used to be in drama club, Keith thinks. He knows how to perform when he needs to.

As he’s going back and forth between the likeliness of Lance actually having feelings for him or not and as Hunk and Pidge prattle away about how oblivious they both are, Lance tilts his head to look at Keith, their eyes catching. There’s something intense in his gaze like he’s trying to relay a silent message to him, but Keith isn’t sure what, so he just stares back.

The first period bell sounds and snaps them out of the moment.

“Ugh, saved by the bell. Thought you two were gonna start making out right here,” Pidge says, lifting herself from the table.

“We weren’t—” they both start.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Come on, Lance. I’m not gonna be late for English just ‘cause you have a boyfriend now.”

Lance gives her a stink face and turns to Keith. “I’ll see you in second,” he says, then only hesitates for a moment before he presses a brief kiss to Keith’s cheek. Keith’s eyes widen and his hand floats to the spot where he was kissed as he watches Lance and Pidge leave together. Pidge teasingly tells Lance “wooow” and Lance gives her a good-natured shove with his shoulder.

“Man, you have got it bad,” Hunk says from beside him. Keith doesn’t answer and instead watches Hunk get up from his seat. “See ya, Keith.”

He waits until Hunk is out of earshot before he says, “yeah, I know.”

The rest of the day is weird, but not as bad as Keith was expecting. Yeah, people are nosy about Lance and him, but it’s all very positive. He has a couple of girls asking him throughout the day, “are you and Lance McClain dating?” to which he always replies with an awkward “uh, yeah.”

He keeps getting nice answers back like “oh, that’s great!” and “you two are so cute!” and while it all makes him want to cringe a bit, there’s something nice about it. Keith doesn’t really like attention on himself, but if he has to, then he’s glad it’s good attention.

Lance and Keith have three classes together and they can’t really hold hands during, but Lance tells him it’s a big help just being able to touch in between periods. Keith is glad for that, at least.

The hardest part of the day is trying to focus on the lectures, because of course his brain is dead set on analyzing Lance’s behavior. He keeps picking apart every recent interaction, every look, every word that might point to Lance liking him back. He knows it’s a long shot, that there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything Lance has done, but there’s a part of Keith that thinks it might actually be worth the risk to find out. Keith always thought Lance returning his feelings was impossible, but it doesn’t feel that way any more.

It feels... feasible.

On the drive back in Blue, after werewolf practice at Allura’s, they hold hands and Keith gives himself a deadline—when he comes to my place tonight, I’ll tell him.

It only seems fair. He was going to tell Lance weeks ago anyway, and now that this closeness is starting to be routine for them, it’s time. Keith knows he can’t keep the feeling bottled up forever, that it’s long overdue to come out anyway, so why not tonight? Why not rip off the bandaid?

Especially when it might go well?

As Lance drops Keith off at his apartment, he waves goodbye with a smile and Keith returns it. And in the first time in a long time, Keith doesn’t hate the feeling of being in love with his best friend.

Later that night, about the time Lance usually shows up at his window, Keith gets a text message.

Lance [10:33 PM]

hey im stayin home tonight! being able to hold hands throughout the day really helped so ill let you get a good nights rest for once adjda

Keith feels his whole body tense and ice crystals slice into his chest. He had been so sure that Lance would come tonight, that it never crossed his mind he wouldn’t.

Maybe it really isn’t meant to be, he thinks and he hates it. He hates it because damn it he doesn’t want to be Lance’s best friend. He doesn’t want to settle for that without trying but the universe is making that near impossible.

Keith picks up his phone and stares at it. He could tell Lance “come over anyway” or “actually, can you come over? I want to talk” or anything else that could put fate in his own hands, but he doesn’t.

Me [10:35 PM]

Okay. Sounds good. Glad you’re feeling better.

Lance [10:35 PM]

uwu

Me [10:36 PM]

Perish.

Lance [10:36 PM]

b-but i wuv u and u wuv wancey-wance

Me [10:37 PM]

I think I broke a rib from how hard I cringed.

Lance [10:37 PM]

ruh roh

Me [10:37 PM]

If anyone asks, this is why we broke up after a day.

Lance [10:37 PM]

( ´△｀)

Me [10:38 PM]

Good night, Lance.

Lance [10:38 PM]

night lover

Me [10:38 PM]

I’m actually going to kill you.

Lance [10:39 PM]

:P

Keith puts his phone down and buries his head in his arms and muses how amazing it is that, even while he’s breaking Keith’s heart, Lance still manages to make him laugh.

The next morning, Keith wakes up to a text message from Lance.

Lance [6:12 AM]

hey man i dont think i can drive can u pick me up?

Me [6:12 AM]

That’s fine. Why? Are you okay?

Lance [6:12 AM]

yeah fine just a little shaky

Me [6:13 AM]

You’re in pain, aren’t you?

Lance [6:14 AM]

yeah...i thought i’d be okay but today its worse

Me [6:14 AM]

Probably cuz the full moon is getting closer.

Lance [6:15 AM]

yeah

Me [6:15 AM]

Okay, I’ll be there in 20. Sooner if I can.

Lance [6:16 AM]

k thnks

Keith is at Lance’s place in less than fifteen minutes, the extra helmet for Lance tucked between his legs as he parks himself on the gravel driveway. Lance’s house is big and old, desperate for repairs from the roof to the floorboards, but it’s on the inside, it’s warm and full of smiling people. It used to be much more full with a total of five McClain children, but with Lance—the baby—being a senior in high school, the other four have all left the house whether to college, their careers, or to make families of their own.

Lance’s grandparents on his mother’s side eventually moved in so it didn’t feel as desolate, but sometimes, when Keith was over, he’d catch Lance sneaking a glance at Veronica or Marco’s old room with a sad smile on his face.

Growing up, Lance always complained that he never had any privacy, but Keith knew he missed those days when he used to fight over the bathroom, when the kitchen table was so full you were bumping elbows with whoever you were next to, when no matter what there was someone in the house to talk to.

Keith had always found Lance’s family a little overwhelming. There was just so many of them and Keith had always belonged to a strictly two-person household.

But the McClains were kind, warm people that always grinned at Keith when they saw him. it was just so obvious that yes, this is where Lance came from—a big house full of love and support. Keith could see it in every corner of the house, the marks that Lance made and the marks the house made on Lance. Keith loves it, but of course he does.

Lance comes out from the front door, the colors of his outfit muted from the soft blue light of a too-early morning, the sun not yet peeking from the horizon, but on its way. Keith can tell with one look that Lance is in agony. He holds his elbows and is shivering, biting his lip with clear, dark circles under his eyes. Keith bets he didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.

“Lance,” Keith breathes and places a hand on Lance’s hip as soon as he’s close enough to touch. Lance’s face crumples into such relief, Keith is worried he might cry.

Lance sighs instead. “That’s...so much better.”

“If it was so bad, why didn’t you just come over? Did you even sleep last night?” Keith asks, passing him the extra helmet.

“I slept.”

“Lance.”

“I got a couple hours in,” Lance says and Keith raises an eyebrow at him. “I just wanted to give you a night off, that’s all.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “I mean, I appreciate the concern, but I told you, it doesn’t bother me. I thought we agreed that you’d just let me help you from now on.”

Lance looks down at his helmet, scrunching his mouth to one side of his face in thought. “I just...I feel like you’re not getting a say in any of this. Like, you just got stuck with me clinging to you forever when it’s not even really your problem. We were all over each other at school yesterday, so I thought you’d want some space.”

Keith stares at him for a long moment. Lance is always like this, thinking of others before himself and it’s something that Keith likes a lot about him, but right now, it’s getting annoying. Keith puffs out a breath of frustration.

“If I told you I actually sleep better when you’re over, would it change anything?”

Lance snaps his head up to look at Keith, the surprise clear in his tired eyes, but Keith doesn’t flinch. He looks Lance dead in the eye, waiting for his answer.

“I guess…” Lance starts, slow and careful. “That would depend if you’re telling me the truth or if you’re just saying it so I’ll stop feeling guilty.”

“Did you ever think that maybe it doesn’t matter? No one’s putting a gun to my head, Lance,” Keith says crossing his arms, before he says in a low voice, “but for the record—I mean it.”

Lance’s gazes falls back on his helmet and his lips twitch, like he’s fighting back a smile. He closes his eyes then looks back up at Keith, letting the smile free. “Missed me in your bed that much, huh?”

Keith lulls his head back in exasperation and shoves the helmet in Lance’s hands, pressing it hard into his chest. “C’mon already, we’re going to be late.”

“Okay, okay, sheesh,” Lance says, putting on the helmet. When he puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder, Keith lets go of his hip and grips the handlebars. Lance swings his leg over and saddles himself behind Keith, looping his arms around his middle.

“Ready?” Keith asks, his heartbeat quickening just a bit. He’s taken Lance on hundreds of rides on Red and Lance was even the one to name her after Shiro gave her to Keith for his 16th birthday (“my ride is Blue, and your’s is Red!”), so he really shouldn’t be getting flustered over the contact, especially after all their sleepovers, but he does anyway.

“Yeah, Speed Racer. Take it away.”

Lance stays over at Keith’s place that night without question. School was less eventful, the bustle of high school gossip already flying past Keith and Lance and on to newer scandals. No one questioned Lance seeking Keith out to hold hands every period and no one batted an eye when Keith’s palm stayed on Lance’s knee all throughout lunch.

Since it was Friday, Lance sent a text home saying he was going to spend the night at Keith’s so they could sleep in. Usually, Lance would wake at the crack of dawn to get back home before the rest of his family woke, which significantly cut into his sleep time, something he complained to Keith about often over the past few weeks.

Luckily, Shiro is out of town for another training simulation at Garrison East, so the apartment is theirs for the weekend without any sort of questions.

“Have your parents found out?” Keith asks.

“About me being a werewolf?” Lance responds, wiping away the excess toothpaste at the corner of his mouth with a towel in Keith’s bathroom. Keith leans against the doorway, fresh out of a shower in his pajama shirt and joggers and mostly dry hair. He rolls his eyes so far back he gives himself a headache.

“No, Lance,” Keith says, tone thick with exasperation. “About us ‘dating’.”

“Oh, no. Don’t have any more siblings in school so there’s no one to snitch on me,” Lance says with a shrug.

“Oh, good.”

“And Shiro?”

“He hasn’t been back in town since Monday and I can’t imagine anyone texting him about, so I think we’re fine.”

“Cool.”

They decided early on that keeping their fake relationship a secret from their respective guardians since sleepovers were likely to be forbidden if they knew.

Lance places his spare toothbrush next to Keith’s in the cup and his chest tightens. There’s something so domestic about the gesture that with Shiro gone and the apartment to themselves, it’s almost like they’re living together.

Keith moves forward to take Lance’s hand, a motion that’s become so ingrained in Keith that it’s like breathing, and intertwines their fingers to lead Lance back into his room. Lance hums at the sensation and Keith is reminded that every second they stop touching, Lance’s pain mounts the closer and closer they get to the full moon.

Lance flicks off the overhead light in Keith’s room as Keith reaches for the bedside table and Lance slides under the covers as easily as if they were his own. Keith is quick to follow and they end up facing each other, their opposite ears on the pillow, their clasped hands sitting between them.

“Can I ask you a question?” Keith asks. Lance yawns.

“Mm-hm.”

“What does it feel like? Being a werewolf?”

“Which part?”

“The pain, I guess. You always look like…” Keith trails off.

“Like, what?”

“Like you’re being ripped apart.”

“Oh,” Lance says, his eyes falling on their hands. “I guess...I guess it kinda feels like that. It’s like my bones are trying to escape my body or something.”

“Sounds awful,” Keith says, brushing his thumb against the back of Lance’s hand.

“That part is pretty bad, yeah,” Lance agrees, watching the movement of Keith’s thumb. “But it’s not all bad.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like, when I do actually transform it feels good. It’s like being free after spending years in a cage every time I do it, like my bones are how they’re supposed to be.”

“What else?”

“Well, I feel super strong too, like nothing can stop me, which is pretty cool. And I have this super scent thing that’s...kind of a mixed bag.”

“You have a super scent thing?”

“Yeah. It’s way more intense when I’m transformed, but I still have it when I’m normal.”

“So, what? You just pick up more smells like a dog?”

“Kinda. But it’s also kind of this synesthesia thing, like specific scents have colors and if I focus I can see them.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah!” Lance says, and he actually looks excited about it. “Everything has a scent and a color—like home is this mix of my mom’s cooking and firewood and it’s this like, a chocolate chip cookie brown color. I never really noticed how it smelled before, ‘cause it was my home y’know? You don’t really know how your own house smells.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Keith says and he scooches in a little closer to Lance. “What about people? What’s that like?”

“Everyone kind of smells like a combination of their sweat and their shampoo and other stuff. Like, Hunk is this burnt yellow color and he smells like oil and baked bread. Pidge is neon green and she smells like machinery, like you know that smell when your computer’s too hot? It’s like that.”

Keith laughs a little. “What about Allura?”

“Oh, Allura is a super pretty pastel pink and she smells like a mix of all those herbs she works with? I can’t focus on her for too long or I feel like I’m going to pass out,” he says, laughing.

“What about me?” Keith asks, hushed. Lance’s smile fades and his eyes study Keith’s, searching. Keith worries he’s said something wrong when Lance answers.

“Blue,” he says and he moves his hand to wrap around Keith’s wrist to bring it up towards their faces. “The same color as your tattoo.”

Lance traces his thumb along the line on Keith’s wrist and Keith swallows. Lance’s eyes are fixated on the mark, like he’s trying to read a smudged message there.

“You smell like...like that cheap 2-in-1 shampoo in your shower and the old books on your shelf and the exhaust from Red.”

“Oh.”

“It’s nice.”

“Oh,” Keith says again stupidly and Lance looks at him, the mirth gone from his face. His eyes bore into Keith and it’s too intimate, too scary, so Keith blurts out a question to cut the tension. “What do you think the mark is?”

“On your wrist?”

“Yeah. Allura said it was specific to us.”

Lance hums and looks over the thin line on Keith’s wrist again, brushing his thumb against it with the lightest of touches.

“I think,” he says, quiet. “It’s a tightrope.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “Just a guess.”

He shuffles himself closer and offer his arms to Keith. Keith responds immediately and curls himself into Lance’s chest, breathing a sigh of relief when Lance wraps his arms around his shoulders.

Keith could press him further, ask him what he means by his answer, but he’s once again stopped by how warm and safe he feels in Lance’s arms, too nice to bother to pester Lance about his cryptic answer.

“So there’s some good things?” Keith asks, not quite ready to stop talking altogether. “About this whole...situation?”

“Yeah, a pretty nice amount, actually,” Lance says and he holds Keith tighter until they both fall asleep.

The next morning, Keith finds Lance with his head stuck out his window.

“What are you doing?” Keith asks, voice gravelly with sleep, his side cold and missing Lance.

Lance doesn’t spare him a glance, just takes a whiff of air and then tilts his head to get another. “Is your landlord doing something to the building? New bug spray or something?”

“I don’t know.” Keith rubs some sleep from his eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“Did a new tenant move in recently?”

“No. Lance, what’s going on?”

“There’s this weird smell hanging around your building. I noticed it last week but it’s really strong right now. Fresh.”

Keith sits up, his senses coming to him. “What is it?”

“I—I don’t know. I can’t even think of what to compare it to. Maybe...vinegar and burnt hair? Even that’s not right, though.”

“Should I be worried?”

Lance looks at him then and the creeping sunlight makes his skin glow bronze. His features soften as he gazes at Keith and he wonders what he sees that causes him to make such an expression.

“No,” he says, gentle and reassuring, “I’m sure it’s nothing,” and he moves to sit on the bed, one leg folded on the mattress as the other dangles. He runs his fingers through Keith’s hair, trying to tame it. “Your hair’s sticking up on end.”

Lance wears a soft smile as he works over Keith’s hair and Keith watches him. With the nature of their bond being what it is, Keith supposes it makes sense that they’d have less barriers with each other, that gestures they wouldn’t have dared to make a month ago are common place now, but still, Lance finds new ways to surprise Keith. Ways to make him blush, ways to make his knees feel weak, and, usually, ways to make Keith desperate to kiss him.

Lance is always so close lately, his lips always in Keith’s line of sight, and it has him constantly curious as to what they feel like. The impulse is always there—to just tip forward, make a physical confession and be done with it, to have the sensation for one glorious moment and to inevitably let it go. It’s the letting go part that scares Keith enough to bottle the impulse.

He’s turned it over and over in his head so many times. Tell him. Don’t tell him. Tell him. Don’t tell him. Tell him. Don’t tell him. Tell him—

It’s circular and vicious, but at the end of the day, he always clutches tightly to the relationship they have now. He’s always been a risk taker, but he always chalked that up to not having much to lose. But this? This is a conversation that could lose him something invaluable, irreplaceable. If he tells Lance, they can never, ever go back to how they were. They just can’t.

It’s inevitable, though, he tells himself. You’ll slip up one day.

It’s true. He knows it. At some point, his feelings will spill out of him like water cascading over a plugged up sink that’s been left on for too long.

Just a little longer. Just let us stay this way a little longer.

“There,” Lance says, gently tugging on one of Keith’s black tresses. “Ready for the day.”

Keith’s chest rolls and swells with affection as he smiles back and mutters a small “thanks.”

“No problem,” Lance says, tucking a lock of Keith’s hair behind his ear and leaves for the bathroom.

Just a little longer.

The fourth week, the one that leads to the full moon, is the worst. Lance is always shaking with pain after class and Keith’s touch between periods is the only thing to get him through it. They have to spend all their free time together which leads to raised eyebrows from Shiro when he comes back from his trip, a question in his eyes that he never voices. For that, Keith is grateful.

Lance only goes home for an hour, two at most for dinner, and blames it on midterms, but he tells Keith that his parents might be getting suspicious. Keith can tell he’s scared. There’s no way they can explain why Lance has to be with Keith constantly—they wouldn’t accept the truth and if they knew of their “relationship” they’d only keep them apart.  And they can’t have that.

“I know the pain is bad now, Lance,” Allura says the day before the full moon. “But it gets easier and easier, I promise.”

Lance grumbles, responding to her in his wolf form as he lies down to take a break, paws crossed at the ankles and his huge chin resting on them. He stays transformed throughout the entirety of the training session since his wolf body affords him no agony, even without Keith clinging to him.

This week Allura has had Lance transform and hone some of his powers, since he’s finally picked up how to transform at will. She sets out plates of strong smelling items—peppermint, pencil shavings, orange peels, and rose petals—and has him focus on each one, strengthening his sense of smell, making it easier for him to follow the colorful trails they make. She teaches common fighting techniques, how to track, and has him run laps to increase his speed, though it’s all very basic. Simple as it is, it has Lance exhausted.

“Allura, he can hardly make it through school even with the gum, the bracelet, and us looking like a bunch of lovesick idiots during breaks. How are we supposed to do this every month?” Keith asks, getting frustrated.

Allura sighs, her face soft with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Keith. I wish there was more I could do, but I’m afraid the first few months after the bite are hard. But believe me, it could be much worse. Lance is functioning, which is way better than what can be said for most new werewolves I’ve known. But it won’t always be like this. Eventually, Lance will be able to get through the month without your help if he keeps up with training.”

Lance huffs, voicing his own frustration.

“Come on, was the pain ever as bad as that first night?” Allura asks and Lance looks down in thought. He shakes his head. “See? And it’ll never be this bad again either. I know it might be little comfort now, but it’s all downhill from here.”

Keith watches as Lance gazes away from her, studying a blade of grass and Keith can feel the fatigue coming off him. He’s drained, sapped physically and emotionally and Keith looks forward to going back to the apartment. They’ll huddle up on Keith’s bed, get some studying in, maybe watch a movie on Keith’s laptop, and fall asleep in each other’s arms. It’ll make Keith wistful and melancholy, but there’s a quiet satisfaction in being the one able to ease Lance’s pain.

“It’s just...getting to be a lot,” Keith says, finally.

“I know, but you just need to get through the next few days. Once we’re passed the full moon, he’ll be in far less pain and you two can go back to your normal lives for a little while,” she says, standing from the tree stump she was sitting on. “Speaking of, we should plan for tomorrow. You should both come here before sunset. Lance, you’ve transformed enough this month that you should be pretty much yourself when the moon is overhead, but I think this will be the safest place for you.”

Lance and Keith both agree with the plan and once they do, Allura gives Lance orders to run along perimeter of her yard for ten minutes before they wrap up. Lance makes another rumbling noise at her, but Keith knows it’s half-hearted. He loves running as a wolf. He told Keith once that when he runs, it’s the most free he’s felt since Sendak attacked him, like his body is his again.

He takes off, powerful legs kicking off the ground and rustling the fallen autumn leaves beneath his paws. Once he’s yards away, running next to the large fir trees that line the yard, Allura turns to Keith.

“Keith, I was hoping we could discuss something...privately.”

Keith raises an eyebrow at her. “What?”

“Tomorrow night, can you make sure to bring the knife I gave you?”

“Why?” Keith asks, offended.

“It’s just a precaution.”

“I’m not gonna stab Lance!” Keith says in a fierce whisper.

“I don’t want you to stab him,” Allura says, glaring. “I want you to have it on you in case something goes wrong. You should have it with you at all times anyway.”

“Why do I need it? Lance won’t hurt me.”

“Yes, Keith. Exactly. If, heaven forbid, Lance isn’t in his right mind, we’ll need you to keep him from hurting any one. If he comes for me, it’ll be very hard for me to protect myself while also protecting him. But you? You can get in close, just scratch him with it and then I can perform some healing magic to undo the effects of the blade.”

Keith shakes his head. “But you told me not to even let Lance touch the blade and you want me to cut him? Couldn’t that kill him?”

“No. No, it’s very hard to kill a werewolf. It’ll take him down and make him sick, but it’s nothing I can’t reverse.”

Keith shakes his head again, uneasy and takes a couple steps back from her. “I can’t.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to, Keith. I really don’t. He’s doing really well, but it’s just in case. I know it seems contradictory to hurt him to help him, but you giving him a little nick with your knife will be a lot better than me sending an arrow at him. It’s just as a last resort.”

“I—okay, well we should at least ask Lance how he feels about it.”

“No, he can’t know. You’ll have a much better advantage if he isn’t expecting you to have it on you. Please, Keith. It’ll be the safest thing in the long run.”

Keith makes an exasperated sound, gritting his teeth. What Allura’s saying makes sense and if something does go wrong, he’d want the path of least carnage, but he feels like he’s breaking Lance’s trust by doing this. Still, he’s seen Allura practice with her bow and arrows and she’s a frighteningly good shot and he’d hate Lance to be at the receiving end of them.

“Fine, but I don’t like it.”

“Good,” she says, smiling at him. “You’d be a pretty poor tether if you did.”

Keith and Lance go home together, hand-in-hand in Blue, as is customary now, and don’t speak much on the drive back. There’s a quiet, nervous energy coming from Lance, vibrating out into the interior of the car, right into Keith’s hand that has Keith searching for something, anything to say. He thinks maybe he should reassure Lance, tell him tomorrow will be fine, that he’s prepared enough and it’ll go off without a hitch, but it’d feel like a lie and Keith can’t lie to Lance. Not about this.

Unable to find words, Keith fiddles with the radio station until it lands on that one oldies station. Moon River plays and when Lance hears it, the melody pokes a smile out of him. He  sings along under his breath, his voice pleasant and sweet, matching and sometimes harmonizing with Andy Williams. Keith watches him out of the corner of his eyes and smiles. He’s not sure what tomorrow night will bring, whether it’ll be uneventful or tragic, but for now, he’s grateful for this small moment of peace. There’s a kind of magic in the pure simplicity of the song and the graceful autumn leaves falling around the car like snow that Keith feels he has to be present for, like a moment like this can’t ever be recreated again, so he needs to commit it all to memory and never let it go.

The song dies down and as it does, Lance’s eye meet his and he gives Keith a soft smile, and Keith knows, just knows, that Lance feels the exact same way.

They don’t talk about tomorrow night when they get to Keith’s apartment. They avoid the topic completely and Keith thinks it’s because they’ve found a bit of ease between them that’s as brittle as the point of a pencil and neither wants to break it. They both decide that studying is a lost cause tonight (which isn’t great because the past month hasn’t been kind to their grades), so they settle on wrapping themselves in blankets with mugs of hot cocoa and catching up on Buzzfeed Unsolved and fighting over who’s more Shane and who’s more Ryan.

(Lance is convinced he’s Shane, but Keith knows better. Lance so much as hears a rumor about a place being haunted and he wouldn’t be caught dead within fifty feet of it.)

When it gets late, they get ready for bed and Lance grows quiet again—a sure sign that he’s overthinking something. Keith decides not to pry; he trusts that if Lance wants to talk about it, he will.

Lance is in bed first, looking at his phone and Keith watches him drop it directly onto his face. “Haugh!”

Keith bursts into laughter. “What was that sound?” he asks and then recreates it. Lance glares at him, but there’s no bite to it.

“Shut up,” he says, but a smile is doing it’s best to wiggle free from his lips and Keith can tell.

Keith shrugs. “Make me.”

“You’re gonna be sorry you sassed me when I steal all the covers tonight.”

“Not much of a threat since you do that every night, but go off, I guess.”

Lance throws a pillow at him. Keith takes it and gives the pillow a solid swing directly into Lance’s face.

“Hey!” Lance exclaims. “You really want to do this, Keith? With me? Youngest of five McClains?”

Keith pauses. Lance has a point—when it came to roughhousing, the McClains play dirty.

“Alright, alright, truce,” Keith says, flicking off the lights and crawling into bed.

Lance clicks his tongue in consideration and says, “in a second.”

His fingers dive for Keith’s abdomen and Keith squawks as Lance tickles him mercilessly. There are only two people in the world who know Keith’s the worst kind of ticklish (a preciously guarded secret) and that’s Shiro...and, very unfortunately, Lance. While Keith can kick and slither his way from an oncoming attack from most anyone, Lance is a whole ‘nother animal of tickler. He’s fast and smart, anticipating how Keith could get away, then blocks him from doing so. It’s a skill he’s no doubt perfected from the years of being a target in his own house, and in order to survive, he cultivated a truly dangerous technique.

Keith sputters and squirms, his laughter getting to that breathless place where he’s unable to make sound. Lance’s fingers are relentless in their attacks and Keith finally musters enough breath to huff out “uncle! Lance, uncle!”

Lance takes mercy and stops, giggling and hovering over Keith, his arms on either side of him to prop him up. “The best.”

“You’re just lucky Shiro sleeps like the dead,” Keith snipes back at him in a fierce whisper, listening for any movement in the halls.

“We weren’t loud,” Lance says and almost if to prove a point, he says it hushed, more so than he needs to.

And it’s changed the moment—where it was once light and silly, now there’s some strange energy crackling between them, heavy and thick. Lance looks down at Keith, his smile fading and as soon as it does, Keith’s heart goes from zero to sixty in a flash and his smile fades too. They’re staring at each other, eyes locked so tight, Keith doesn’t think he could move away, even if his life depended on it.

Lance’s eyes are blue, but they’re not the kind of blue you see in blonde, fair-skinned people, all ice and oceans. His blue is much darker, so dark that they look grey from far away, but Keith seems them for what they really are under the light of bedside table lamp—the color of a twilight sky. That color that only exists for about a half-hour before the sun’s completely set and the moon makes her appearance.

Lance’s twilight eyes widen, just a bit, before they soften and Keith stays very, very still. He doesn’t know what this is, what’s happening. One moment they’re teasing and quipping at each other and the next they’re here, silent and staring and too close. Keith doesn’t breathe, he doesn’t move because any action he takes means pushing Lance away or pulling him towards him and Keith can’t decide which one he wants.

There’s a shift to his left—Lance raising his right hand and keeping his weight on the left over Keith. Lance’s hand is slow, tentative as it inches to Keith’s face and Keith watches it with rapt attention. When Lance gets close his fingers flex then draw back, like he’s worried Keith’s flesh will burn him, but they come in again.

Lance tucks the disheveled locks of newly dried hair in Keith’s face behind his ear and it’s not a quick, light touch. Where a simple swipe with two fingers would have done the job, Lance moves the hair with almost his whole hand, the tips of his fingernails pleasantly scratching at Keith’s scalp down along the shell of his ear. When that ends, Lance’s fingers follow the length of the hair until he reaches their end and Keith can only describe the action as indulgent.

Keith’s breath hitches as it happens and he watches Lance watch his own hand movements, until his eyes slowly find Keith’s again. Keith bites his lip to stop himself from any tempted impulses.

“Your hair’s always in your face,” Lance says and it’s too quiet to even be called a whisper.

“It’s getting long, I guess,” Keith breathes.

“I want to see your eyes more.”

Honestly, Lance can have whatever the fuck he wants.

“You can. Anytime.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Lance smiles, closed-mouthed and crooked, and reaches over Keith to turn off the lamp. He slowly lowers himself by Keith, one arm snaking around Keith’s stomach and his face pressed against his shoulder. Keith tries to even out his breathing but it’s hard when he’s panicking that Lance can feel the swooping in his stomach where his arm is.

“Keith?” Lance asks and he can feel the heat of his breath on his neck.

Keith angles his head slightly and breathes out a delicate, “yeah?”

“Not tomorrow, but the next day...I really need to tell you something. Will you hear me out? Until the end?”

There’s something achingly sad in the question and Keith’s heart breaks a little to hear it. He takes his free hand and rests it on the arm Lance has over his stomach.

“Yeah, of course.”

Lance smiles a little then snuggles in closer, his nose in Keith’s neck and says, “thanks”, tickling the sensitive skin there.

Keith shifts so they’re fully embracing now and closes his eyes, his heart stuttering with anxiety for whatever this conversation might be, but his arms are warm and full of Lance.

And for now, that’s enough.  

When Keith wakes up the next morning, Lance is already gone—which is normal—but still, Keith feels like there’s a lump of coal in the basin of his stomach and a chill running up the side of his body that Lance was pressed to only an hour ago. Keith shakes it off as he gets ready for the day and dismisses the sick, nervous feeling creeping up in his throat as more pining idiocy. What he won’t do is blame his unease on tonight because he has no reason to be nervous. Lance’s progress this month had been good, Allura said so herself and who is he to doubt the heiress of a centuries old line of monster hunters. Lance would be fine tonight. Keith knows it.

He gets ready quickly and as he throws on his red pullover sweater, he eyes the locked drawer in his desk. Inside is where he’s stowed the wolfsbane infused knife he’s not once touched since Allura gave it to him nearly a month ago.

Allura told him to bring it tonight, that it’s a necessary precaution in case things get out of hand. Keith shivers at the thought. He knows that giving Lance a little cut, a simple scratch wouldn’t kill, would hardly even hurt him with how quick he heals, but still...he hates the idea that he was given a failsafe against Lance, that there’s even the slightest chance he might have to use it. Keith turns away from the drawer and fishes out his black leather jacket from his closet.

I’ll come back home and decide whether to bring it or not after school, he thinks, finding no reason he should worry about it now when it’s not like he can just bring an ornate blade to AP U.S. History.

He downs a cup of heavily sugared instant coffee and goes outside, waiting for Lance to pick him up. He walks to the streetlight on the sidewalk and leans against it, checking his phone.

Lance [7:04 AM]

be there in 5

Me [7:06 AM]

Okay. I’m outside.

Keith sighs and stares ahead at the ugly cheap apartments across the street, zoning out as he waits. He tucks his hands in his jacket pockets, the tips of his bare fingers cold from an oncoming breeze. Lance always did make fun of his fingerless gloves—”useless” was the word he used, but Keith liked them. He initially wore them on bike rides to protect his palms from the rubber grips, but he was wearing them so often anyway, they just became a part of his daily ensemble, like Lance’s collection of friendship bracelets from his niece and nephew.

But, when it came to chilly October mornings, Lance was right—useless.

Without warning, Keith feels a shiver in his spine and shudders. It’s not a shiver brought on by the cold, but something else, something like what a rabbit would feel as a fox watches it behind some brush. Keith looks over each of his shoulders for any signs of movement, but there’s nothing beyond the leaves rustling in the wind along the street. He’s weirdly on edge, though there’s no reason to be, so he shakes it off.

A moment later, Lance pulls up to the street light and Keith forgets all about it.

School that day is rough. Lance is full of fidgety energy and Hunk and Pidge start to notice. Lance is usually pretty good about putting on a brave face at school, but today he’s all nerves.

“Is he okay?” Pidge asks, when Lance heads to the bathroom during lunch. Keith was tempted to go with him since the pain is so bad today, but even that is too much for their clingy boyfriend shtick.

“Um,” Keith starts, scratching the back of his neck, buying himself some time for a convincing lie. “He’s nervous about college applications. The Garrison one is due next month.”

“Why is he so worried? He’s getting a rec from Shiro and his grades are good,” Pidge says taking a bite of her sandwich.

Keith shrugs. “Just overthinking it, I think.”

“Sounds like Lance,” Hunk agrees and Pidge snorts.

“Overthinking? Lance?”

“That’s my boyfriend you’re talking about, Holt,” Keith says and it’s out of his mouth before he can decide whether it’s a good idea or not. Pidge gives him a look that’s half teasing and half impressed.

“Dang, Loverboy Lance, more like Loverboy Keith.”

“Shut up.”

“Man, Lance is gonna get a load out of that one.”

“Pidge, if you tell him I swear to god—”

Of course, Pidge tells him and of course, Lance teases him about it, but Lance also smiles the first real smile he’s had all day, so Keith takes that as a win. It also gets him a quick kiss on the cheek, which Keith knows is for appearance’s sake, but his chest warms all the same.

When Lance drives Keith back to his apartment, the quiet anxiety comes off Lance in waves.

“Lance, relax.”

“I’m perfectly calm.”

“Just looking at you makes me nervous.”

Lance sighs, not really up for denying it. “I don’t know man, I just feel antsy. I can barely remember that first full moon. What if I go berserk? What if I hurt someone?”

Keith gives Lance’s hand a little squeeze and shakes his head.

“You won’t hurt anyone, Lance. Allura, Coran, and I are going to be watching you and we won’t let you get anywhere. She’s lined her yard with wolfsbane so you won’t be getting out of there until Allura wants you to.”  

“I know. I just...I have a bad feeling,” Lance says, his free hand gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles are white. Keith takes a deep breath and runs a hand over his face.

“Allura said that you’d feel jittery on the day of the full moon, so it’s normal. Nothing’s going to happen, your wolf instincts or whatever are just going haywire. We just gotta get through this night and it’s all downhill from here, man.”

Lance looks at Keith briefly before his eyes are back on the road and he nods. “Okay. Okay, yeah. You’re right. It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, we got this.”   

Lance smiles, though it looks like it takes effort and squeezes Keith’s hand back. It reminds Keith of what Lance said last night—

“I really need to tell you something.”

Keith whirls the words around in his head, looks at them from different angles, puts them under a surgeon’s light and dissects them.

Keith has a hunch. He might be horribly, cruelly wrong, but Lance’s long glances and lingering touches are getting his hopes up.

Proceed with caution, he tells himself. He grants himself it’s possible, but some other explanation is also possible, and as long as there’s a one percent chance this talk could be about anything else, he guards his heart against it.

It’s a problem for tomorrow, not today.

Lance pulls up in front of Keith’s apartment, putting Blue in park and diving for Allura’s dittany gum in preparation for Keith’s inevitable absence.

“Make sure you get there before dark, Lance. Allura wants us there before dark.” Keith says opening the passenger door and Lance rolls his eyes.

“Yes, mom.”

“I’m just saying. You dawdle.”

“I don’t dawdle.”

“You dawdle.”

Lance glares at him, chewing his gum like an angry cow chewing cud and Keith gives him a crooked grin. Lance shoves his shoulder playfully and says, “get out of my car.”

“Love you too, babe.”

“If you want to play the ironic term of endearment game, we can totally do that, puddin’. ”

“God, who are you, Harley Quinn?”

“Not feelin’ that one? How about muffin? Darlin’? Sweetie? Ooh, you look like a sweetie. What do you think, sweetie?”

“I think I’m getting out of your car now.”

As Keith steps out of the car, Lance moves his eyebrows up and down in quick succession and then winks. Keith flips him off.

“See you in a bit, sugar pie,” Lance says and Keith slams the door on him. Lance blows him a kiss goodbye and pulls back onto the street, leaving Keith with a stupid smile.

In that moment, Keith thinks it seems utterly ridiculous that he hasn’t told Lance how he feels yet, that he’s procrastinated this long, despite the inevitability of the conversation.

Tomorrow, he tells himself. I tell him tomorrow.

And this time, he means it.

When Keith gets inside the apartment, he raids the cupboard for a cup of easy mac and a handful of oreos. He usually tries to eat better, but well, it’s one of those days. There’s a buzz in Keith’s jacket pocket as the little cup of noodles spins in the microwave. Keith takes the phone out of his pocket to see a message from Shiro.

Shiro [4:42 PM]

Hey I’m hanging out with Adam tonight. You okay to get dinner on your own?

Keith replies back with a quick reassurance and he shoves a whole oreo in his mouth. His mac and cheese finishes cooking and he brings it to his bedroom so he can eat while listening to music.

The apartment is quiet except for the Sufjan Stevens album Keith has playing on low on his laptop as he scoops globs of cheap, processed mac and cheese into his mouth and finishes it in less than a minute. He checks the clock and it’s not even five yet, but Lance is probably just now helping his mom set up the dinner table.

If Keith wanted, he could leave now, get to Allura’s early just to have something to do, but for some reason he thinks, in a little bit.

Keith leans back against his desk chair and closes his eyes, the music decorating his thoughts like twinkling lights in a darkened bedroom. His thoughts wander to Lance. He wonders what Lance has to tell him and how Keith will tell him what he has to tell him. And there’s a calm he feels that comes from the fast-approaching end. Things are about to be different and he only has twenty-four hours or so to enjoy how they are now. Though, he won’t really be able to enjoy them, if tonight is going to be as hard as Allura keeps hinting it will be.

He’s going to be fine, Keith assures himself and mostly, he believes it. He’s going to be kept in a small area and Keith will be right there the whole time, so there’s no reason Lance should turn rabid.

In truth, he’s much more nervous about tomorrow. What will he say? How will Lance react? Will he smile? Say “thank you, but I just don’t see you that way”? Will he turn from Keith and look troubled? Will he let out a nervous laugh?

A sneaking, mischievous voice creeps into Keith’s head and says I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

Maybe. Maybe, if he’s lucky, Lance feels something too, but Keith’s too afraid of the possibility of rejection to go in with high expectations. He can’t afford to get cocky; he knows what’s on the line.

Keith thinks of how he’ll be if Lance does say he doesn’t feel the same. He imagines it’ll hurt worse than an actual wound, but he’ll keep it together, smile sadly and tell Lance, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” and then, when he’s alone in his room, he’ll cry into his pillow. It’ll be quiet, no hiccupping or sobbing, just a steady stream of tears that will soak his pillowcase until he falls asleep, body aching and grieving over a lost dream.

He thinks about what it’ll be like, being Lance’s tether after he tells him. How will they share a bed when Lance knows? Keith supposes they’ll deal with it, figure something out. Maybe put pillows between them to act as a shining neon sign to both of them that says “strictly platonic! ”

Keith realizes he should have told Lance so much sooner, should have let him know “hey, you’re actually cuddling with someone who’s been in love with you for two years, hope that doesn’t make it weird” that first night. He knows he had good reason not to bring it up, as stressed as Lance was about everything, but in hindsight, he worries he’s taken advantage of the situation by never saying it.

No more, he promises. No more sleepovers until he knows.

And as surely as the thoughts of rejection scenarios leak into Keith’s mind, so too do the scenarios a reciprocated acceptance.

If Lance did feel the same, would he smile and blush? Bury his face in his hands? Would he let Keith place both palms on his cheeks? Would he let Keith kiss him?

Keith’s face warms at the last question and his mind reels. He’s thought of kissing Lance a hundred times, a thousand times but he always swats such daydreams away like flies buzzing at the tip of his ear. Those kind of thoughts were a rabbit hole he’s always been too scared to go down too far, for fear of never coming out again, but tonight, he indulges himself. Just a little. After all, it might be his last chance to. If Lance rejects him tomorrow, then he’ll really have to ban himself from this particular luxury.

He thinks a first kiss with Lance would be soft—he’d be cautious and slow, maybe brush a thumb to his lower lip or kiss his chin first before getting to his mouth. Lance is a romantic, someone who puts others before himself, so he’d probably kiss like that—kissing to please and send a message, rather than for his own gain or pleasure.

Keith opens his eyes and gently presses his fingertips to his lips, his breath stopping.

All at once, he collapses onto his desk, his face burying into his folded arms. He gets as far as imagining their lips slotting together and of course, his stupid face overheats with embarrassment.

He decides that he’s let his imagination have free reign for too long and wills himself to think of something else. He sits up, sighs, and bumps his knee against one of his desk’s drawers—the one with the lock. The one with the knife.

Keith sucks in a breath, knee aching and angry, as he stares at the lock and then gets up from his chair. Like a hawk snagging a rat from the ground, he grabs his ring of keys off the kitchen counter with swift decisiveness. He cards through them until he finds the little bronze one that matches the built-in lock in his desk and darts to his room before he can convince himself out of it.

Walking into his room he slams into an invisible wall when his eye catches on the drawer.

You won’t use it. Just bring it for Allura’s sake.

That’s enough to get him across the room and kneeling in front of the drawer, but not enough to get him to put the key in the lock.

Would Lance think it a betrayal if he knew? He knows Keith has such a weapon, but Lance doesn’t know he’ll bring it tonight, to be used on him if things go sour.

It’s the safest solution, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Allura in his head says.

“Fine,” he says and unlocks the drawer, the click of the mechanism sounding like a gunshot to Keith in his little room. He takes out the blade and lifts himself back on his desk chair. He holds the blade in front of him and removes it from its sheath and its like a snake slipping out of its old skin. He lets himself admire the intricate designs etched along the face of it and the clear mastery that went into forging the weapon. The metal of the blade is so pure and clean that it reminds Keith of a running river.  It’s a beautiful thing, near a foot long from tip to handle; it’s probably the most valuable item in the whole of his apartment. Truth be told, Keith would probably revel in the chance to use such a fine tool for something, but as it is…

He covers it again and attaches the sheathe to his belt.

It’s not like I’ll need to use it, he reminds himself.

Keith takes his phone from his pocket to check the time and when he sees it’s just past five, he decides to head out. He sends a quick text message to Lance and Allura to let them know he’s on his way and grabs his keys and helmet.

When he gets to the front door, he’s struck with a shock of nervousness that hits him like lightning.

It’s fine. It’s going to be fine.

Taking a deep breath, he turns the handle and steps outside, locking the door behind him. Red sits in the designated motorcycle parking of the apartment complex and he makes his way to her, a part of him grateful that he and Lance decided to meet at Allura’s; they’ve carpooled a lot in Blue lately and Keith’s missed the thrill of his bike.

He’s about to put his helmet on when a blunt, heavy force cracks against the back of his skull, a bat to a baseball. The blow sends him to his knees and makes him topple over onto the ground. Keith tries to look up, to see what’s happened, but all he can see through his blurred vision is a pair of brown boots and then, darkness.

Chapter Text

When Keith wakes up, the first thing he notices is the chill. The second thing he notices is the splitting, pulsating pain in the back of his head.

And when he finally opens his eyes, Keith notices he’s not at all where he’s supposed to be.

There’s hay clumped all around him, littering the floor, and he’s boxed in by rotting, termite-damaged wood paneling that does next to nothing to keep the November cold at bay. His eyes move heavenward and where there was once a roof now there’s only a hole, a skylight giving Keith a clear view of the full moon shining down on him.

The full moon.

Lance.

No. He can’t be here right now. He needs to be with Lance, to soothe the pain, to help him through this night. Why is he here?

He tries to stand up, but is stopped when his feet give him resistance. He looks down and sees they’ve been tied together with rope at the ankles, but not just his feet, his wrists, too, are shackled together.

Panic sets deep in his chest and his mind nearly blanks completely beyond just the terrifying realization he’s in danger. Someone is holding him captive in an abandoned barn and he has no idea why.

Think, Keith. Think!

He scans his surroundings one more time, but he sees nothing but a row of stalls and hay. He tries to listen for some clue to where he is or for his captor, but all he hears is the wind rustling the surrounding brush in an ominous chorus of whish, whish.

For now, he’s pretty sure he’s alone, but there’s every chance that whoever knocked him out and brought him here is just outside.

A fresh wave of panic washes over him as the reality of the situation sinks in—he’s been brought to a remote location, tied and gagged, and with no way to call for help. He knows what happens to people in situations like this and it always ends in a sad newspaper headline with a recent school photo.

I’ve gotta get out of here. They’ll kill me.

He tries to calm his panicking brain and to think it through because there has to be a way out of this. If he’s in a barn and he can hear the long grass, then he must be on the outskirts of town, a good couple of miles away from a place with a phone. There’s a chance the barn has a back door or another hole he can crawl through to get away, but he’ll need to cut away at the ropes first—

My knife! He thinks with a jolt. Turning over to better see his hip, Keith looks down at it to see the weapon has been taken from him and with a quick pat down of each pocket, his phone has been taken too.

Maybe there’s an old saw in here or something, he wonders, squinting around the room looking for anything sharp, but with just the moon casting light, he’s having a hard time making out any details.

It’s during his search that he hears an abrupt bzzt, bzzt near the east wall. There, on a worn down barrel, is the light of a cell phone that must have just gotten a text. The light from it is like a beacon and on the same barrel, Keith can make out another object next to the phone.

The knife.

It has to be. His captor must have taken his phone and knife and put them there, thinking they were far enough away to keep him from them.

Keith isn’t going down without a fight, however, as he starts scooching his body towards the barrel. It’s several feet away, nearly the length of the whole barn as he’s situated in the southwest corner, but if he just takes it slow and steady…

But he doesn’t get a chance to go for it because as soon as he starts moving, a figure passes the front door paneling of the barn, blocking the moonlight that was spilling in from the cracks. Keith shifts back to where he originally was and holds his breath and a new, stronger fear fills his entire body. It’s a primal fear, one rooted in being prey in the face of the predator and Keith has never felt so small.

With a slow, drawn out creak of the door, a hulking figure steps into the barn, his frame silhouetted by the moonlight behind him. He’s tall, menacingly so, and even if it feels like an exaggeration, Keith would say he’s near seven foot. His chest is as thick and wide as a barrel and with every step he takes, there’s a loud, vibrating thump.

Keith’s throat closes in fear and he presses his back as close as he can to the barn wall, his entire body screaming at him to get as far away as it can from the demonic figure.

But there’s nowhere to go. He’s a rabbit thrown in a fox den.

The shadowed man steps into the ring of moonlight made by the hole in the ceiling and rolls his neck, humming like the light is a refreshing steam bath. His hum crescendos into a deep, rolling chuckle that sounds like a peal of thunder and turns Keith’s blood cold.

He smiles then, the unnatural length and point of his incisors glinting under the moon. There’s something animalistic about the man with his thick dark hair covering his arms and face and how big his mouth is. The worst is his eyes, black and shiney as they look at Keith like he’s a raw cut of meat. Keith is ready to beg for his life but his jaw is locked tight, too paralyzed to make sound.

“Don’t look so afraid, boy,” the man says, voice so deep and gruff, Keith thinks the walls shake. “It won’t be long now.”

Keith’s heart is racing, or it’s doing its best to punch it’s way through Keith’s chest so it can escape this man, whoever he is. He wants to ask “What? What won’t be long now?” but he’s too terrified of the answer to get his lungs to work.

The man looks up at the sky and his amused smile fades into a look of annoyance. “What’s taking so long?”

He grumbles and looks back at Keith. “I thought he’d be here before you woke up.”

“Wh-who?” Keith manages to stammer out, his heart plummeting. The man smiles at him again, a taunt on his lips.

“The one you tether,” he says, delighting in each syllable he speaks.

“No!”

The man chuckles low in his throat and moves slowly towards Keith, seeming larger and larger with every step. At his side, one of his hands transforms before Keith’s eyes—the fingers get longer and the nails grow to a point, like he’s grown claws.

“I think it’s time I speed up the process,” he says with a sharp smile. He leans down and captures Keith’s wrist, the same wrist as his mark and tears off the fingerless glove there. Keith feebly fights against it, tries to take his hand away, but it’s useless; the man’s grip is iron-tight, stronger than any physical force Keith has felt before.

The man makes Keith’s fingers flex out from the tight fist he had them in and presses the sharp point of a claw at one end of Keith’s palm. He draws his claw across the palm, cutting into it deeply and causing a fresh line of blood to seep out at the seam.

“Ah!” Keith says, wincing. The man ignores Keith and wipes the blood away with his own hand, then wrings his hands together like the blood is soap.

“There,” he says, satisfied, “that should put a fire under his ass.”

“What are you going to do to him?” Keith asks, dread and terror for himself and Lance filling him from head to toe.

“Aw,” the man coos and he lets one claw slide from Keith’s temple, down his cheek, and to his jaw with enough pressure that Keith can feel how sharp it is, but not enough to break skin. “Now, if I told you that, you’d get all upset.”

“Bastard,” he hisses through gritted teeth, but it only makes the man laugh.

“I forget how annoying tethers are. The last one I met was just like you—speaking out of turn when it was in their best interest to stay quiet. You be good tonight and I just might let you live. We’ll see how I’m feeling.”

“Go to hell!” It didn’t matter if Keith’s life could be spared if he played nice, not if this man planned on killing Lance. Keith might be scared out of his mind but he’s no coward.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll meet ya there,” the man says with a dismissive wave of his claw as he sniffs the air, searching.

“How do you even know who I am?” Keith asks, his voice shakier than he’d like to admit. “How do you know I’m a tether?”

The man smiles crookedly, arrogance washing his features as he says, “because I’m the one who turned the wolf you’re tethered to.”

Keith’s blood runs cold and his throat tightens again.

“Sendak,” he utters and it doesn’t even feel like the word is real on his mouth. It’s like someone else entirely is saying it, like he’s watching the scene from the outside. Sendak’s smile deepens.

“My reputation precedes me.”

“What are you going to do to Lance?” Keith repeats, new fear mixing with the old. Before, he just felt base fear—fear for his life. Now he fears for that which is most important—Lance’s life.

And he has no way of stopping it because Lance will come. Keith knows he has a hyper sense of smell and that Keith’s blood is probably an olfactory beacon to him. There’s no way he won’t know something’s wrong and there’s no way he won’t come. He’s too good and at the moment, Keith wishes he wasn’t.

Don’t come, he pleads. Don’t come.

He’s not sure what Sendak would do in the event Lance never shows up but Keith prefers it over any option that could get Lance killed. It’s likely that would mean his own death, but that is starting to feel less scary than living, surviving without Lance.

Stupid, he thinks. You had a whole month to tell him. Had all the time in the world and you blew it.

Keith shakes his head. He can’t worry about that right now. He needs to get information out of Sendak and find a way to help somehow.

“Tell me,” Keith demands, pulling against the rope at his wrists, burning the sensitive flesh there.

Sendak’s lip curls into an ugly, cruel smile and Keith can tell he’s enjoying himself. He opens his mouth to speak but then snaps his head to the side, wide-eyed and alert. He sniffs the air and his face brightens before he turns back to Keith.

“Sorry, gonna have to cut the interview short. We have company.”

“No!” Keith shouts. “No, leave him alone!”

Sendak stands, gives Keith another toothy smile, and turns to the barn door.

In one last ditch effort to warn or slow down Sendak, Keith shifts his weight quickly to get in an awkward sort of crouch and launches himself at the huge figure with a yell.

It’s all in vain though, as Sendak’s reflexes are beyond human and he backhands Keith so hard he goes flying back into the wood paneling of the barn.  

Keith cries out in pain, his cheeks stinging and back pulsating from the impact. He’s left breathless from the blow and unable to move, his body like lead beneath him. His eyes water and through his impaired vision, he sees a blur of grey fur standing under the arch of the open barn door.

“No, Lance,” Keith tries to yell but his respiratory system isn’t letting him speak yet, so it just comes out as a strained wheeze.

Lance’s face is contorted into a mess of rage and ferocity as the skin on his nose bunches up to show his white fangs in warning. He growls deeply, his eyes landing on Keith for just a second before they go back to Sendak and he sends a pointed, aggressive bark at the man.

He hears Sendak’s deep-throated chuckle and as Keith’s eyes start to focus, he watches Sendak transform into a massive, soot-furred wolf with yellow eyes. If Lance’s wolf form is the size of a minivan, Sendak is a moving truck, every inch of him thick and sinewy with hardened muscles. Keith’s eyes widen at the monster and more dread, more fear pours into his heart because how can Lance possibly be a match for that thing.

Both wolves stand facing each other, heads lowered and teeth bared in menacing snarls, their attacks imminent. Keith wants to scream, shout at Lance to just run and get away from Sendak as fast as possible, but it’s too late. He knows it’s too late.

Sendak moves first and launches himself at Lance, barreling at him like a wrecking ball. Lance is quicker than Sendak and his hulking movements, however, and he moves out of the way just in time as the black wolf slams his head into the barn wall, bowing and cracking the wood there.

Lance uses the opening to his advantage and jumps, locking his jaw around Sendak’s throat. Sendak bucks Lance off with such force that when he goes flying, he smashes through two horse stalls, the remnants of the wood cracking and splintering everywhere.

“Lance!” Keith shouts, his voice coming back. His heart is in his throat but still pounding wildly as he sees Lance’s body crumpled among the broken planks and hay. Sendak rounds on him and thankfully, Lance is able to get his wits about him in enough time to dodge the incoming attack.

We need to run, Keith thinks. It’s clear Lance has nothing on Sendak in terms of brute strength, but the reverse is true for Lance’s speed. If Keith can just get to him, take Sendak down long enough to get on to Lance and high tail it out of there, they could potentially make it out of this alive.

There’s a yelp and another smash of bone against wood. Keith looks up to see Lance has been thrown again and this time it’s near the barrel.

The barrel!

It’s toppled over from the surrounding impact and so too has Keith’s phone and the knife. Keith gasps, half in horror at Lance being hurt again and half at the realization that he might be able to help yet.

Lance gets back up slowly, his frame shaky, but the intensity in his eyes tell Keith he’s not done fighting yet. He runs back in and goes for Sendak’s ankles. He bites down hard and shakes his head viciously with an ankle between his jaws. Sendak lets out a horrible howling sound and tries to break free from Lance’s iron grip.

Keith tears his eyes away from the fight and instead laser focuses on the fallen knife all the way on the other side of the barn. He starts slinking over like an inchworm—his elbows and knees thrusting his core up and down to create a steady (if undignified) momentum.

The warped wooden floor gets splinters lodged in the exposed part of his hands and wrists, but he moves forward despite how uncomfortable it feels. Lance and Sendak continue to thrash with each other beside him, but he keep his gaze forward to the knife. He can hear the scuffle though—growls and barks of hatred, the scrapping of claws on the floor, and the crash of the barn being destroyed around them.

There’s a loud, pained yelp that has Keith distracted enough to abandon his task for the second and he snaps his head to see Sendak’s jaws sunk deep into Lance’s shoulder. Keith gasps and he shakes with terror as he watches fresh blood drip from the wound.

He turns away from the sight and tells himself to hurry. He moves across the floor as fast as he can, grunting as he does, the knife getting closer and closer.

There’s another blood-curdling snarl and a responding bark, but Keith doesn’t look back. There’s only one way he can help Lance now.

When the knife is within snatching distance, Keith reaches out his bound hands to it and sighs loud with relief when he grasps its hilt. He sits up and pulls away carefully at the sheath with his teeth until the blade is fully exposed. He fumbles with it awkwardly, anchoring the knife between his hands so the blade hits the rope binding him right in the line of his connected wrists. He saws at the first cord, flicking his wrists back and forth to create friction and is surprised when the cord frays in two almost effortlessly. He hears another crash behind him and he doesn’t question it, just saws faster until, finally, his hands are free.

He gasps at the accomplishment and looks back to take in the scene and his heart collapses in on himself when he does. Sendak is creeping slowly to one corner of the barn, his tail facing Keith, and his sights set on an unmoving heap of grey among the dust and particles floating in the air. Lance is unconscious, vulnerable and Sendak has every intention of exploiting that.

And that’s when Keith’s knife sings, hums a soft, but striking note that vibrates through Keith’s body, calling on him. In any other situation, Keith would question the strange phenomena but now it just feels like a call to arms.

A rush of adrenaline courses through Keith and he slices away at the rope at his feet as easily as if it were made of butter. He stands blade in hand, and knows he has to act now.

He takes off, works every muscle in his legs, calls upon all those hours of running in the early morning to propel him forward before Sendak can notice him. Sendak is only a few feet away and a massive target, but the run to him feels long, drawn out, like the moment is happening in slow motion.

Sendak is distracted by his path to Lance, hypnotized by the sight of him, so Keith uses it to his advantage and makes a running leap to the monster, blade out.

He lands true, plunging the knife hilt-deep into the meat of his thigh. Sendak howls in pain and confusion, but Keith doesn’t let him get a chance to find his bearings as he pulls down, the knife cutting a deep line through flesh and muscle far easier than it really should. Blood spurts from the wound and splashes onto Keith’s face, thick like paint and he pulls out the blade to get some of the blood out of his eye with the back of the same wrist.

The sound Sendak makes this time is so pathetic and awful that Keith almost feels guilty for inflicting so much damage, but that’s fleeting as Sendak’s massive head snaps toward him. His huge yellow eyes spell murder and Keith braces himself, holding up the knife up towards Sendak with his arm crossing over his chest.

Sendak thrust himself towards Keith and he waits for the impact, but it doesn’t come. At some point, Lance had regained consciousness and now he attacks Sendak around the middle, launching himself so that they both go flying and crashing to the other side of the barn.

“Lance!” Keith shouts for what feels like the millionth time. It has some power, though because Lance gains his senses back fast enough to get away from the ticking time bomb that is the other wolf. He skids in front of Keith, getting into a defensive position and clearly acting as a shield from whatever Sendak might do next. The stance is brave and noble, but Keith sees the shakiness in his limbs, like his whole frame could collapse at any moment. Blood from Lance’s shoulder oozes and drops to the floor, reddening the bits of hay there.

Sendak stands then, shaking his head as dust flies madly all around him. He growls deeply at both of them and snaps his jaws, though despite his ferocity, he’s definitely not the cocksure monster he was minutes ago. There’s a flicker of trepidation in his eyes, and his body isn’t as wired as it was before.

He still approaches though, and if Keith is honest, he’s probably too strong, even like this, for Lance and Keith to handle by themselves.

Lance is backing up, getting closer to Keith, growling and snapping back at Sendak, but more so preparing for the attack about to made on him, rather than revving up for his own. With every step that Sendak takes, they step back and they’re quickly approaching the corner the barrel is in and Keith’s foot bumps up against his fallen phone.

Maybe I can grab it real quick. Do something. Anything.

But there’s nothing he can do. Anyone he can call or ping his location to won’t be here in time because this is happening now, as Sendak’s pre-pouncing pose announces.

Sendak lunges forward, his jaw wide and heading for Lance’s jugular and Keith’s heart stops, realizing now, that not even his wolfsbane infused knife could slow him down and that this is where he and Lance will both die.

There’s the thunk of a bow string being pulled taught and let go and the whizz of something flying. Keith sees the arrow slice through the air out of the corner of his vision, but sees it land in full view, right into Sendak’s right eye. There’s a gush of blood from the wound as Sendak lifts his head and shrieks, making the blood pour down around him like rain. Keith isn’t particularly sensitive around blood and he can handle any gore fest horror film you send his way, but this has his stomach turning.

Another arrow cuts through the air and this time it hits Sendak’s shoulder and he cries out again. He shakes his head and backs away, the smallest he’s seemed the entire night, even when he was human. It’s after this second arrow that he decides to run—he stumbles for just a second before he decisively runs at the nearest wall. He barrels towards it with his good shoulder leading and crashes right through it like it’s construction paper.

Keith takes the brief reprieve to bend down and snatch his phone, his brain still desperate to pull his resources, when he hears a slight shuffle from above. He looks up and his eye catches on a figure crouching on one of the thick banisters—Allura, bow and arrow slung over her shoulder. She jumps back, letting her body fall but her hands catch on the banister so she swings above them until she finally drops to the ground in a graceful superhero landing.

“Allura!”

She offers no explanation or hesitation when she says, “come on, he’s getting away!”

“Wait a sec—” Keith starts, but he stops short when Lance wobbles then collapses unconscious beside him.   

Allura and Keith both gasp and look at each, then kneel to his side.

“Keith, put your hands on him! It’ll heal you both faster.”

Hastily, Keith sheaths and attaches the knife back on to his belt and places both hands on Lance’s neck.

“Sendak threw him all over this barn and bit his shoulder pretty bad!” he all but yells at her, panic making him tremble.

Allura looks him over, spending a few seconds on the bite in particular and shakes her head. “There’s little I can do for him here. Coran’s outside. We have to get him to the car.”

“How are we supposed to carry him?!”

Allura’s eyebrows furrow, the line between them deepening and she gently pets the top of Lance’s head. “Lance. Lance, please. I just need you to transform back and we’ll do the rest, okay? Just transform back for me.”

At first, it doesn’t seem like Lance will respond, but there’s a low grumble and his startling blue eyes flicker open for the briefest of seconds.

“Lance, you gotta transform back,” Keith pleads. “We gotta get you home.”

Lance lets out a noisy exhale and there’s a sudden flurry of fur blowing away from the wolf until it shrinks and shrinks, leaving the hidden treasure—Lance.

A badly injured Lance.

A horribly injured Lance.

Keith wretches to his side. It’s nothing much since it’s been hours since he ate, but it leaves him shaky and hollow nonetheless.

Lance is bruised and battered, his bronze skin charcoal in most places from where he’s been slammed up against walls and a huge gushing bite mark in his shoulder that has his shirt steeped in blood, but Keith can’t let himself look for too long.

“Are you okay?” Allura asks.

“I’m fine, let’s just help him. Do you know how to do a two-person fireman carry?”

Allura nods and gets to one side of Lance, Keith taking the opposite. They grab each other’s wrists—one set looped under Lance’s hips and the other set behind his back under his armpits so his arms can rest on their shoulders. At the count of three, they lift him, holding him in an odd human chair.

“Coran’s out front,” Allura says and Keith nods, letting her take the lead.

They get outside and Keith was right about where they are—some desolate location on the outskirts of town in the middle of rolling hills covered in long grass and the odd oak tree. Keith swallows, worrying over the distance back to Allura’s.

Coran’s white Mercedes sits on the nearby, lonely road and when he sees them, he hops out of the car, distress clear in his face.

He goes to the back door and opens it before running to them.

“What happened?” he asks, taking Lance’s dangling legs.

“Sendak,” Allura says. “He’s hurt badly. We need to get him to the mansion as soon as possible.”

“Right.”

They reach the back seat of the car and Allura nods at Keith. “Go in first and we’ll hand him to you. Keeping contact will help.”

Keith follows her instructions, sliding in to the back seat and leading Lance in until his head and shoulders are on his lap. Keith keeps one hand on Lance’s uninjured shoulder places the other on his forehead, carding through the brown, dirtied hair there.

“Lance…” Keith whispers, a boulder dropping in his gut.

After Coran and Allura safely adjust Lance into the back seat, they jump up front and Allura digs through the glove compartment. She turns around as Coran takes off, maneuvering her body in between the two front seats to look at Lance. There’s a small vile in her hand and she starts sprinkling the clear liquid along Lance’s body, her body bouncing up and down as the car twists down the country road.

“Keith,” she says, grabbing a tin can from the glove compartment and shoving at him. “You’ve lost blood. That’s orange and dark chocolate infused gum and it’ll speed up blood production. Take it.” Keith nods and pops one of the small, white rectangles in his mouth. It’s bittersweet and instantly makes him more alert.

Allura is over Lance again and mumbling a language that Keith is unfamiliar with while her hands move in intricate, coordinated patterns. She shuts her eyes, concentrating hard on the spell as Keith finally lets himself look at Lance. Really look at him.

He’s...better. The bruises have gone from angry purple splatters to a tempered, nearly-healed yellow and the bite mark that was once a crescent of deep, bloodied gashes is starting to close, the holes becoming shallower faster than the blood on his shirt can dry.

It all hits Keith then. With the adrenaline finally filtering out of his system and Lance’s condition clearly stabilizing, he feels it—the horrible, sweeping sensation that’s like being pulled into a black hole, like he’s being submerged in a smothering darkness with no escape. Like he can’t breathe.

He was scared. He was so so so scared. Scared he was going to die. Scared Lance was going to die. Never in his life had he felt such an all-consuming feeling, a feeling so raw and powerful that it made his ribs push against his muscles and skin, trying to get out.

He chokes out a singular sob—an involuntary thing. It cuts through him like a bandsaw through a plank of wood. It’s not until he sees a drop of water splash on Lance’s forehead that he realizes he’s crying, that there’s streams of tears coming down his face.

Trembling, the hand on Lance’s shoulder slides down to the uninjured side of his chest and Keith clutches tightly to the shirt fabric there. He leans over him, pressing Lance a little closer.

Lance protected him. He could have died protecting him. Stupid, selfless, wonderful Lance could have died because of him.

And he still doesn’t know.

I love you, he thinks. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Lance.

“Keith,” says a voice, but it sounds so far away. “Keith, no. This isn’t your fault.”

It is. He’s hurt because of me.

“Keith,” the voice repeats. “Keith, look at me.”

The desperation in the voice makes Keith slowly rise his head, his tear tracks cool against his skin as he does and he sees Allura’s impossible indigo eyes looking at him, wide and concerned.

With sudden clarity, Keith realizes he’s said all that out loud. That Allura’s heard him. She’s heard him say “I love you” to Lance before Lance got to hear it for himself. He’s stupid. He’s so stupid. He’s had so many chances, made so many excuses, gone through instances of Lance having near-death experiences and now he’s gone and spilled his secret to Allura and Coran of all people. He always wanted Lance and no one else to know. His feelings are a matter between them and even though it seems like a silly thing to be upset over right now, he can’t help but hate himself for it.

“Allura, I—“ he starts before his throat closes up on him.

“This wasn’t your fault, Keith. If anything, it was mine. I wasn’t diligent enough. I didn’t think this was the kind of threat we were up against. I didn’t know Sendak would come back after so long,” she says and there’s real regret hitching in her voice.

“What happened?”

Her eyes are downcast, taking in Lance’s unconscious form. “I...I have an idea, but I was hoping you could tell me what happened to you first to be sure.”

“I don’t know,” Keith says, shaking his head. “I was just about to get on my bike when he came up from behind me and knocked me out.” The stinging pain at the back of his head pulsates as if to reinforce the memory.  “Then, I woke up with my hands and feet tied in that barn a little before Lance showed up.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Not much. All I know was that he was using me as bait to get to Lance. He told me he might even let me live.” Keith pauses for a moment, wracking his brain for any other important details. “He said...he said something about the last time he met a tether—how annoying they were.”

Allura nods, her face solemn. “Did he say how he knew you were a tether?”

Keith hadn’t thought about that. It didn’t seem an important detail at the time, but now that Allura brings it up, he’s sure he knows the answer. “He was spying on me. I kept feeling like someone was watching me and Lance even said there was a weird smell hanging around the house.”

“He must have been keeping tags on Lance, then. Werewolves with tethers have a defining scent to them, that plus how you two have been inseparable lately? It wouldn’t have been hard to figure out,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut, like it pains her to speak the words.

“But why does it matter? What did he want from Lance?”

Allura turns her head to look at Coran who meets her gaze. They share a meaningful look before Coran gives her a solemn nod. She sighs and fixes her eyes back on Keith, new determination shining in her face.

“What you have to understand about our work, Keith, is that there is fact and there is fiction. Werewolves, vampires, demons, ghosts—they’re all real, but not everything you hear about them is true. Silver bullets don’t work any better against werewolves than regular ones do, garlic doesn’t ward off vampires, that kind of thing. There’s a lot that normal humans have taken and ran with until the reality of the situation is almost unrecognizable compared to the myth.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Keith asks.

“I just want you to understand why I didn’t consider this possibility before. It’s...well, it seemed unlikely. It read like werewolf fiction and Coran and I must focus our efforts on what’s real.”

“Get on with it.”

Allura takes in a deep breath, steeling herself. “There was a fable, hundreds of years old, that describes what I believe Sendak is trying to achieve. It’s a tragic love story between a werewolf and his tether—they had found each other, fallen deeply in love, but one day, a power-hungry werewolf saw the love between them and got so jealous he went mad with it. He wanted a tether too but he didn’t have one. So, then, on a full moon night, the jealous werewolf found the tethered one and killed him, eating his heart right out of his chest.”

Keith’s stomach sinks so hard it feels like a hand is gripping it and pulling down. “You don’t mean…”

Allura can’t look at Keith anymore so she gazes at Lance, her eyes glossy. “Legend says that the jealous wolf gained an incredible amount of power after that. He became bigger, stronger, harder to track with a less conspicuous smell. They gain full control over themselves, even on full moons, like they’ve absorbed a tethered wolf’s power.”

“So you’re saying Sendak heard this story and now he wants to eat Lance’s heart?” Keith asks, the gory details sending another wave of nausea up his throat.

“I think he’s done more than heard the story. I think he’s proven it’s true. We kept wondering why he was so powerful without a tether, why he was always slipping through our fingers, why he was even doing this…”

“But now we have our answer,” Coran says, uncharacteristically dark for him.

Keith swallows. “You think he’s already eaten a tethered wolf’s heart?”

Allura’s closes her eyes again and he doesn’t miss the crack in her voice when she says, “yes, I’m afraid so.”

“And he wants to eat Lance’s heart next?” Keith asks slowly, cautiously—worried if he says it too abruptly he’ll break something within him.

Allura nods and it breaks anyway. He lets out a pained sound and tightens the grip he has on Lance.

“I’m so sorry, Keith. I never thought—it always just seemed so—”

“But why?” Keith asks, uninterested in Allura’s apology. He’s not mad at her or anything, but it’s trivial compared to what they’re up against. “He already ate a heart so why is he after Lance?”

“Probably thinks he can double his power. Sendak strikes me as the greedy sort,” Coran chirps.

Keith shakes his head. It’s too much. It’s all way too much. He’s eighteen; the biggest thing he should be worried about is if the Garrison will accept his college application, not his best friend’s heart being devoured by a monster.

He looks down at Lance, his face slowly becoming less and less twisted with pain, evening out to a peaceful slumber instead of a tensed sleep. How will they ever tell him?

Desperate to get the image of what it would take to get to someone’s heart, Keith changes the subject. “How did you find me?”

“You didn’t make it easy on us!” Coran says as he turns the wheel to the left. Keith can see street lights in the distance; they must be close.

“We got your text message, but you never showed, so Lance was really worried. He kept pacing and wringing his hands. Coran went to your apartment to look for you. You weren’t there, but your motorcycle was. We knew something was wrong then,” Allura says. “We decided to go out looking for you, but we ran into...complications.”

“What kind of complications? Was Lance having trouble controlling himself?”

“ No. No, not at all. He did well. Incredibly well, even. He’s more powerful than I realized. But no, we were having trouble with tracking. Lance was picking up your scent, but also something that seemed to go in all directions. Lance barely knows the basics of tracking using his sense of smell, so he wasn’t able to tell where you were. It’s a fairly sophisticated skill and Sendak’s power from the heart he’s eaten must have made his scent complicated to track. Lance was able to get us as far as the countryside, however, but we searched for hours out here until...I don’t know. Lance just sort of... bolted on us.”

“Like a chupacabra seeing a goat in a field,” Coran says, nodding.

Allura scratches at her chin. “He must have picked up your scent somehow.”

Keith looks down at his left hand, the one mussing up Lance’s hair and turns it over. The blood has coagulated along the cut, but the wound has also smeared red on Lance’s forehead and bangs.

“He sliced open my hand,” Keith says, watching himself curl the hand into a fist. “Sendak cut my hand and Lance showed up a few minutes later.”

“Of course. The fresh blood of anyone a werewolf knows well would be like a beacon, let alone the fresh blood of the werewolf’s tether,” Allura says.

“What happened after Lance took off?” Keith asks, eager to move on.

“He was too fast for us to follow after that. I had to cast a detection charm to keep up with him.”

“Luckily you had some spare Lance hair on you!” Coran quips. “Would have used it on you, but we were clean out of Keith hair.”

“I’ll be sure to restock soon,” Keith grumbles.

The rest of the ride is silent and short after that. Coran and Keith carry Lance to a fancy bedroom Allura leads them to and it looks like a guest room meant for royalty. The drapes have gold embroidery, the comforter is made of silk, and the bed is a California king. It feels far too lavish for a sick bed, but it’ll do.

As soon as they lower Lance to the mattress, Allura’s already running for supplies while Keith stays glued to Lance. He thought he’d seen the worst of it, but now that they’re back in a well-lit building, Keith can see just how blood-stained Lance’s white t-shirt really is—so blood-stained you’d never guess it was once white at all. It makes Keith feel woozy all over again, so he calls for Coran’s help to get Lance out of his filthy clothes.

Once they do, Coran leaves to get some warm water and rags to clean him while Keith keeps a careful, watchful eye over Lance. Keith takes in his body, smooth and brown, the traces of bruises fading from it every minute. Lance becoming a werewolf is nothing short of a curse, but silently, Keith is so thankful for it; Lance would have lived with those injuries for months if he hadn’t turned. Keith can’t help but be grateful for a body that heals so quickly.

Keith’s eyes wander to the pinking scar along Lance’s shoulder and collar bone. With a light touch of the back of his fingernails, he brushes the area, idly wondering if the scar will fully heal, or if Lance’s will always have this marked on him now. The thought makes him sad; Lance always takes such pride in his skin.

Absently, Keith traces is thumb over the raised, discolored skin along Lance’s collar bone and watches it intently, almost hypnotized by the only proof that Lance could have died that night.

It takes him a couple moments, but he breaks his gaze from the scar to Lance’s sleeping face.

Only, it’s not sleeping.

Twilight blue eyes are staring at him, intense and focused, and Keith has no idea how long Lance has been watching him.

“Lance,” Keith whispers, voice thick with emotion.

“You’re okay.”

“Allura’s gonna be back soon. She’s going to treat your injuries—”

“I was so worried.”

“And Coran’s coming back to get you cleaned up—”

“Keith,” Lance says, soft, but stern as he reaches out to place a hand on Keith’s cheek. His thumb brushes along Keith’s cheekbone as he asks, “are you hurt?”

Keith’s breath hitches in his throat at the gentleness of the gesture and he finds his own hand floating to press Lance’s even closer. “Nothing Allura can’t fix.”

“Doesn’t answer my question.”

“I’m fine,” Keith insists. “How are you?”

“Don’t change the subject on me.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “I’ve got a bump on my head and a scratch on my hand. I’m fine.”

“Let me see,” Lance says, frowning.

“What?”

“Let me see.”

“Fine,” Keith says with a sigh. Their hands drop as Keith turns, showing Lance the back of his head. Lance sucks in a breath and touches his scalp with a feather light touch, but still, it makes Keith wince, the wound still sensitive.

“Sorry,” Lance says as Keith faces him again. “Your head’s covered in blood, Keith. I bet you have a concussion.”

“I don’t have a—” but Keith stops when he remembers how often he’s felt dizzy and nauseous over the past few hours. He probably has a concussion.

Lance smirks, but doesn’t tease him further. “Your hand?”

Keith hesitates for a moment but eventually, he unfurls his hand to Lance. The cut—which truly, isn’t so bad—causes Lance to suck in a sharp breath.

“Oh, come on, Lance,” Keith says, exasperated. “Sendak took out a whole chunk of your shoulder. I think I’ll be okay.”

Lance’s smile dissolves like a sugar cube in hot tea and his eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “Sendak?”

“You—you didn’t know?” Keith asks swallowing hard.

“No. No, I didn’t know who that was. I didn’t think—”

Lance is cut short when the bedroom door swings open, presenting Allura with a basketful of herbs and vials while Coran trails behind her with a water basin and towels.

“Lance!” Allura gasps, a smile brightening her pretty features. “You’re awake.”

Lance smiles. “Thanks to you, I’m sure.”

She kneels next to Keith so she’s eye level with Lance, already dabbing something that smells like peppermint on her finger.

Lance doesn’t let Allura work on him until she addresses Keith’s wounds, which is annoying, but Allura’s happy to oblige while Coran helps Lance get clean and into a new set of clothes. As Allura works over his head injury, Keith feels the pressure lessen and the light fog in his vision clear.

“You should be fine to go to sleep now,” Allura says with a gentle touch to his shoulder. “But it’ll be sore for a couple days.  

Keith is shooed away to take a shower after that while Coran and Allura get Lance up to speed on all they’ve figured out. When Keith comes back, Lance is almost to full health but his face is pale, spooked.

It’s not exactly a pleasant surprise to find out someone wants to literally eat your heart out.

In fresh clothes, Keith slips beside Lance on the large bed and puts a hand on his shoulder. Lance’s body relaxes and he offers a smile for Keith’s benefit, but it’s so small and fleeting it has neither of them fooled.

“I know you must both be tired,” Allura says, pulling up a chair from a nearby desk, “but there are urgent matters to be discussed.”

“Allura…” Lance starts, groaning.

“I know, I know. But I’m afraid this can’t wait.”

“What is it?” Keith asks.

Allura takes a moment to breath and then stares at them with a hard determination. “I want to go after Sendak and I need your help.”

“Are you crazy?!” Lance snaps. “He nearly got us killed and you want us to go looking for a fight?”

Allura huffs, indignant. “He’s weak. I took out his eye and Keith did a number on his leg, plus all the damage you dealt during the fight. We have to strike now.”

“I’m basically healed already, so why wouldn’t he be?”

“Because you have Keith and an alchemist highly trained in the art of healing. Even with the powers Sendak’s accumulated from eating a tethered wolf’s heart, he’s hurting right now, especially since Keith and my weapons were imbued with wolfsbane. You don’t just bounce back from that,” she says, smugness lining her voice.

“He’s still the size of a house, Allura,” Keith chimes in. “And he wants Lance dead. It’s too dangerous.”

“He can’t kill Lance, not unless he wants his heart to be totally useless to him. Sendak has to eat his heart in the full moon light otherwise it won’t work and the full moon is almost over. We have the advantage!”

“Maybe he’ll just run away then. Maybe the fight’s over,” Lance says.

Allura shakes her head, clearly annoyed. “You don’t understand. I’ve been chasing Sendak for a year now and my father three years before me. He won’t stop. He’ll never stop.”

“Your father?” Keith asks and the mention of him immediately makes Coran and Allura’s faces fall.  

Coran looks off, staring at a bit of ceiling. “Alfor...he was a credit to his profession. Changed the game completely. Before him, it was commonly believed among monster hunters that there was no truce to be made with supernatural creatures, that they were all vermin to be eradicated.”

“My father,” Allura continues, voice caught in her throat, “recognized that most supernatural creatures were once human and that they still deserved to be treated humanely. His life work was spent helping turned creatures gain control so they wouldn’t hurt anyone else or themselves.”

“Of course, he was an advocate for lessening the number of people turned because as you know, it’s a hard life for anyone,” Coran added.

Allura nodded. “My father travelled all over the world, helping vampires hunt animals instead of humans in Europe, finding housing for Sasquatches in the Pacific Northwest, and teaching werewolves how to control their transformations all over the Americas.” Allura’s eyes glossed over with tears at the last one. “The last few years of his life, my father realized there was an uptick in werewolves, numbers we’ve never seen before. Your average werewolf will turn about one or two people in their lifetime, which is usually pretty manageable, but there were dozens being created in the span of a year.”

“Sendak,” Keith says darkly.

“Yes,” Allura says with another nod. “My father was suddenly swamped with work. He wanted to help ease the transformations for these newly turned wolves, but Sendak was still out there, turning people.”

“In the end, he chose to help those transformed first, rather than leave them on their own,” Coran says, placing a comforting hand on Allura’s shoulder.

“Which is what got him killed,” Allura says, an expression like an unexpected rain coming over her face. “He was helping a newly transformed wolf of Sendak’s creation on his second full moon when he lost control and well…”

“He just...lost control? Without any warning?” Lance asks, shaken.

“I know it’s hard to imagine, Lance, but you have it fairly easy compared to other weres. Having a tether is like playing on easy mode. This were...didn’t have such a comfort.”

There’s a tense silence that falls over them, but Allura just shakes her head and continues on. “I picked up where he left off a year after that and eventually, I heard about your attack, Lance. I wanted to help you through your transformation so I posed as a transfer student at Birchwell High to get to know you. The plan was to sedate you through the first transformation since it’s the hardest but…”

“We ran into Sendak on our way to find you,” Coran finishes.

“We fought for a bit but he ran off before we could deal any real damage. It wasn’t until the next day when we found you and I realized Keith was a tether, that I started suspecting Sendak’s endgame.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Keith asked, a flicker of anger sparking in his stomach. “Why leave us in the dark?”

Allura’s face becomes troubled and guilty, scrunching at the nose like she’s been wounded. “I regret that, Keith. Honestly, I do. I just wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to scare you over nothing. You were both so stressed as it was and the whole idea of one werewolf gaining powers from eating another werewolf’s heart seemed far-fetched, even for us.”

“What else aren’t you telling us?”

“That’s it, I swear! You know everything now. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and you have every right to be mad at me, but please, put that aside for just a moment. Coran and I have never been able to successfully track Sendak before, but Lance has. He knows Sendak’s scent now, so we can track him and take him down now that he’s weak and vulnerable.  And especially with Keith amplifying your powers—”

“Whoa, whoa, you want Keith to go with us?” Lance asks.

“Why, yes. Keith is an amplifier to your power. He speeds up your recovery and will heighten your sense of smell. We’ll need to work together if this is going to happen.”

“No way. Keith was almost killed and I—”

“Others have already been killed, don’t you understand that?” Allura snaps, fire in her eyes. “Every day Sendak is out there he ruins more lives, puts more people in danger and finally, finally there is a window where we could take him down. We can’t squander it, Lance. We can’t.”

“And what if we say no? What then?”

Allura straightens, her face hardening. “Then, Sendak gets away. He’ll probably keep coming for you every full moon. I told you before tethers are rare and he won’t want to give you up. If you’re determined not to fight, I can arrange for you and Keith to be relocated somewhere in Europe for your safety, but you’d never be able to speak with your families again.”

A silence fills the room like poisonous gas. Keith holds his breath, already dizzy from the fumes.

“Are those really our only options? Hunt Sendak before he hunts us or enter a monster witness protection program?” Lance asks, his voice strained.

“Sendak is relentless. I have no doubt he’ll keep coming for you. If you stay, you’ll have to fight again eventually and if you really don’t want to do that, then your only other option is to go.”

Allura’s words cut through the air like a knife and slice at Keith’s chest with a serrated edge, filling him with dread. Their outlooks are bleak and Allura isn’t interested in sugar coating it. Lance stares at her, both of them holding down each other’s glare for several moments, no one daring to breathe. The silence is long and excruciating, until eventually, Lance tears away from Allura to look at Keith.

“What do you think?” he asks, blue eyes hard and serious.

“What?”

“I said, ‘what do you think’? It’s you who will be most vulnerable out there.”

Keith rubs his hand at his forehead and sighs. “I don’t—I don’t know. This is a lot to take in and honestly? I just want to sleep.”

“Keith, I understand, but time isn’t exactly on our side here,” Allura says as gently as she can, though Keith can feel a lick of fire underneath it.

“I know, I know, but can we just... sleep on it? We all have to go to school tomorrow anyway or our families are gonna know something’s up, so we can’t do anything until then anyway.”

Allura makes to protest but she swallows her argument and nods. “Yes, that’s—that’s fair.” She gets up and walks to the door, and she can’t get to it fast enough, her shoulders tense. “I’ll get some spare clothes for you both, so don’t worry about going back to your homes tomorrow morning. Get as much rest as you can and…” she trails off, holding the door handle. It trembles slightly. “And I hope—I hope whatever you chose, that it’ll be the right one for you. I know we haven’t known each other long, but...you’ve become dear friends. I want your happiness, please believe that.”

“Allura…” Lance says, face softening.

“I’ll get you your clothes.” And she’s out the door, not sparing a glance behind her. Coran follows, but before he leaves, he stops and turns to face them.

“I’m sorry about her. As you can imagine, after her father died...well, stopping Sendak has become something of a fixation. She means well, truly.”

“You don’t have to tell us that,” Lance says, quiet. Coran’s mustache twitches up in a small smile.

“Yes, of course. Well, sleep well you two. Don’t let the Babadook bite, as they say.”

“Nobody says that.”

Coran shrugs. “Eh, ta-may-to, tuh-mah-to.”

A moment later, Allura bustles in with two sets of clothes and places them on a large set of dresser drawers.

“I think these should fit. We have lots of spare clothes for emergencies, so just let Coran or I know if something doesn’t work out.”

“Thanks, Allura,” Keith says, voice delicate.

Lance clears his throat. “Yeah, thanks. We—I appreciate it.”

“Of course.” Allura gives them a small, but genuine smile. “Rest well, both of you. Lance, make sure to sleep on your back—your ribs are still healing.”

“Yeah, you got it.”

Coran and Allura both leave with final waves and close the door behind them, leaving Lance and Keith alone in their own suffocating silence. Keith attempts to soften it by placing his hand over Lance’s. “You okay?”

“I’m...I don’t know. It’s a lot to take in. It’s all been a lot,” Lance says and he looks so much older. There’s bags and dark circles under his eyes where there were none before. He probably hasn’t been able to keep with his skin care routine much this month.

“Yeah, let’s just...just forget about it for a little bit. It’ll all still be there tomorrow.”

Lance nods and squeezes Keith’s hand. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great actually. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so tired.” And he punctuates the sentiment with a yawn that Keith catches.

Lance tries to get up to turn off the lights, but Keith insists he continue to lie down, earning him an incoherent grumble. He turns off the light and slides under the covers of the gigantic bed, dragging his body close to Lance’s. Keith gently wraps his arm over Lance’s middle with a feather-light touch and asks, “that doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“No, never,” Lance says, his own arm curling over Keith’s shoulders. Keith carefully rests his head against Lance’s chest on the uninjured side and now that they’re in the dark, warm and safe, his eyelids feel so heavy and he’s already drifting.

“Hey, Keith?”

“Mm?”

“I just...I just want you to know that—that no matter what happens, you’re really important to me, okay? Like, I don’t want you to ever doubt that.”

Keith chuckles into Lance’s chest. “You gettin’ mushy on me, McClain?”

Lance hums. “Only a little.”

Keith’s consciousness starts fading, slipping into the pleasant release of slumber as Lance whispers something in his ear, but he’s asleep before he can catch it.

When Keith wakes up, there’s no warm Lance in his arms, just him alone marooned in the ocean of a bed.

It’s dark. So dark, Keith isn’t sure where he is at first, still blurry and dazed from sleep, but slowly, his eyes adjust and he sees a figure in the corner, pulling a jacket over his shoulders.

Keith reaches over to the lamp on the bedside table and flicks it on, wincing when the harsh light hits his sensitive retinas.

The lamplight is really only a soft glow, not lighting up much of the room at all, but it’s enough that Keith can recognize the shape by the dresser drawer as Lance.

“Lance?” Keith asks and Lance’s shoulders hike up to his ears, like he’s been caught sneaking out his bedroom window in the middle of the night.

He turns, but not fully and doesn’t look Keith in the eyes when he says, “hey, sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to bed.”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Just...just for a walk.”

“A walk? Lance, it’s—” Keith reaches for his phone and reads its face. “It’s four o’clock in the morning.”

“I need some air.”

Keith stares at him, studies his face, half cast in yellow light, the other in shadow and Keith can see it, tucked away in the dark corners of his expression. Lance is too honest of a person and Keith knows him too well for him not to realize.

“Why are you lying to me?”

Lance’s eyes go wide at the question and he stuffs his hands in the pockets of the black windbreaker Allura lent him. He bites his lip. “I’m not—”

“You are.”

“Keith.”

“You are. ”

Lance sighs and whispers, “please, don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“What does that mean?” Keith asks, a horrible sinking fear tickling the edge of his stomach.

“Go back to sleep.”

“Like hell,” Keith spits. “Since when do we keep secrets from each other?”

Lance nearly lets himself laugh at that, the sound like a deflating balloon, defeated and sad. “I’ve been keeping secrets from you for years, Keith.”

“Well, I don’t keep secrets from you!” Keith says, hurt.

“I know you have at least one,” Lance says, their eyes meeting for the first time and Keith’s throat squeezes.

“That’s not—it isn’t—”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is I’ve made up my mind, so you knowing or not knowing won’t make a difference.”

Keith is out of the bed and stomping his way to confront him. Lance backs away a little, keeping as much distance as he can. “Stop talking in riddles and tell me what’s going on. You’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry, I—that’s the last thing I wanna do. Really.”

“Then, talk to me.”

“Keith…” he says and for a moment he stares at his shoes, shaking his head, trying to decide on something. Eventually, he raises his head, meeting Keith’s eyes with resolute determination and says, “I’m leaving.”

Cement fills Keith’s lungs and he can’t breathe. The room is spinning and his head aches. “What do you mean ‘you’re leaving’? Where?”

“I can’t tell you where. That’ll defeat the purpose.”

“Wh—what are you—is this some dumb self-sacrificing plan to lure Sendak away or something?”

Lance sighs. “No, Keith, listen. I’m just gonna go into hiding. Sendak wants me not you and once he realizes I’ve cut all ties from you, he’ll have no reason to come after you anymore. That way, you can still be with Shiro and Pidge and Hunk and Allura. I’m not going to put your life in danger any more and I’m not gonna uproot you from everyone you love. I won’t do that to you.”  

Keith’s heart chips away when he hears “cut all ties from you” and his legs feel shaky and unreliable beneath him.

“You...you wanna leave. Forever?”

“I don’t want to. You know that. But I’ve been thinking about it all night and it’s the best option.”

The dread, misery, and anguish all burn out of Keith’s heart and instead get replaced with an adamant rage that spreads and catches like a wildfire over the brush.

“You think it’s the best option?! How? You think Sendak is just gonna not come for me because he suddenly believes you don’t care about your tether anymore? You think he won’t still come for me and cut me all up to get you to come back? Or does your plan include throwing me to the literal wolves?”

“What?! No! Of course, not!” Lance shouts, gobsmacked by the accusation. “He has my scent Keith, he can just follow me. There’s no need to bother with you then.”

“Oh, of course, I see,” Keith says, sarcastic. “You’ll just run around forever until eventually Sendak catches you and eats your heart. Great plan!”

“It’s better than the alternatives!”

“How?! How is it better?”

“Well it doesn’t involve you being put in danger and you get to stay with your friends and family! I know what they mean to you, Keith. I know they make you happy. I remember what you were like when they were going to take you away.”

“But you’ll be gone!”

“I’m just one person, compared to the dozens you have here.”

Keith throws up his hands and starts pacing and then, after a moment, he roots himself. “But you’re my person.”

“What?” Lance asks, his voice soft and eyes round.

“You heard me! You know, Lance. You have to know how I—what you mean to me. And you know I’ve had too many people leave me. Mom left me, dad left me, and now you?

Lance winces, pain clear on his face. “It’s not the sa—”

“It is! It is the same! You think my mom didn’t have her reasons? I’m sure she did! But I don’t care because I wanted us to be together. And if you really think—really think I wouldn’t prefer being with you over anything then you’re way more oblivious than I thought.”

Keith stares, anger coursing and pulsating through him in a steady rhythm as Lance stares back, a mix of confusion and wonder on his face.

He shakes his head. “Don’t, Keith. Please, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Say it.”

Keith stops then, his body stilling until he’s more statue than man. So he was right—Lance does know.

The flames that were already present in his ignited solar plexus explode and consume his entire body until his vision blurs with it. So Lance doesn’t want to hear him say it? Wants to just avoid the mess altogether? No, Keith isn’t having it. He’ll do whatever he wants, ruin the room by painting his feelings all over the floor and knocking over the furniture with them. Lance might be able to run away, but he won’t be able to run away without knowing the truth.

“No,” Keith snaps, frustration thick on his tongue. “No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to just up and leave and not hear me out. Yesterday, you asked me if I would listen to you and I promised I would. The least you can do is do the same for me.”

Lance’s face scrunches, grimaces like he’s willing tears not to fall, his hands clenched at his sides with the effort.

“I’d do anything for you. Please, just not this. I’ll go and you’ll be safe and eventually, you’ll forget all about me.” The words come out easy as breeze, despite how jagged Lance’s face looks, but Keith isn’t assuaged at all.

“You—you really think—forget you? I can’t close my eyes without thinking about you and you think I even have the capacity to forget you?!”

“Keith…” Lance says and the word is torture on his tongue.

“I get...I get that this is probably a huge inconvenience for you to hear and that yeah, it doesn’t make anything easier but you don’t get it.”

“I get it—”

“You don’t,” Keith says, the fire slowing to a smooth roll of magma sliding into his stomach. “I’m—” Keith swallows, eyes burning with threatening tears. “I’m in love with you.”

Lance’s already wide eyes open to the size of dinner plates and his jaw hangs uselessly from its hinge and just like that all the ire and fury fizzles out of Keith like the last ember in a campfire, replaced with a cool, washing embarrassment that’s as cleansing as it is mortifying. He said it. He finally said it.

“I love you, you idiot,” he says too fondly, too sweetly that he barely recognizes his own voice. He feels weak, like the words have sapped him of all his strength, but he keeps going. “How am I supposed to forget you when you—you have no idea how I—” Keith can’t find the right words. He’s planned all sorts of romantic speeches in his head but he just can’t call upon them now, so the words just spew out of him like tacks spilling onto the floor. “If you’re not here, then what’s the point?”

Lance is still staring at Keith hopelessly, but finally, after a stretch of silence, his face scrunches up like he’s about to sneeze and he buries it in his palms.

“Oh, no. Oh, no no no,” he groans, shaking his head. “God, no. ”

Keith feels like he’s been punched in the chest. No. Keith feels like he’s taken a wrecking ball to the chest. He always assumed Lance didn’t feel the same, but he didn’t expect him to be so horrified either.

“Yeah, well,” Keith says, tone biting as the flames of rage reignite. “Sorry the revelation is so disgusting to you.”

Lance’s head snaps up at that and his face is all sharp lines and a scowl, more offended than Keith has ever seen it.

“ Stupid!” he spits. “You think I’m disgusted? I’m not disgusted, Keith—I’m heartbroken, you absolute clod.”

Keith knots his brows in confusion, but fires back on instinct. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that? Clod. ”

“Because I’ve been in love with you since we were twelve-years-old you absolute asshole and now that you’ve said that, you’ve just made it like a million times harder to leave!”

“ I’m the asshole? You’re the one who wants to leave!”

“I want to leave because I love you!”

“Well, that’s stupid!”

“ You’re stupid!”

They stop then, both huffing and glaring at each other, Keith’s heart jackrabbiting in his chest and causing him to tremble.

And in a couple breaths, it all catches up to him. What he said. What Lance said.

Keith gasps and it’s quiet in his throat.

Lance...Lance loves him back. He loves Lance and Lance loves him. They’re in love.

And they just spent their confession slinging dumb insults at each other like they used to when they fought over who got to play with the black truck and who got to play with the red one.

Keith feels his face soften and his cheeks heat. Lance’s features have also leveled out and he’s looking at Keith with a face like sugared coffee, bittersweet.

Keith licks his lips and tentatively, carefully, he asks, “you love me?”

A beat and, “of course, I do,” Lance says, hushed. Another beat.

“So, when you said you told Pidge and Hunk that you started having feelings for me when I was about to be taken away…”

“I...meant it.”

Keith’s breath hitches in his throat and he doubts he’ll ever be able to breathe again.

“And the scary crush?” Keith asks in a whisper.

“You.”

Keith’s heart is thundering in his chest and water prickles at his eyes. He can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. Can’t quite convince himself it’s not a dream.

“I…” Keith shakes his head, trying come to his senses. “You love me.”

Lance scoffs but it’s more like a short laugh. “Yeah. Stupid.”

“Me too.”

“What?”

“At the table that day and the whole...scary crush thing. Me too.”

“Oh. Oh.” Lance scratches at the base of his neck and tries not to smile. “Maybe we’re both stupid.”

“Maybe.”

There’s a long pause where they’re both looking at each other, like they’re seeing each other for the first time and it’s too delicate of a moment for Keith to even smile, to even show one smidge of the flurry of unknown emotions bubbling in his chest. He wants to run to Lance, hold him so tight that they become a unit, take his face in his hands and finally, finally find out what those lips feel like.

But there’s something stopping him, some invisible barrier that still keeps them several feet apart and Keith can’t move. It should be easy given all they’ve been through in the past month, how intimate they’ve been, but this is different. Knowing is different.

Keith watches a change occur in Lance—he snaps his eyes shut, clamping them tight and shakes his head until a gear clicks into place. He opens his eyes and straightens, a cold, evenness decorating his features.

“I still have to go,” he says, edging on a whisper.

An icy wind traverses through Keith’s sternum, freezing his blood.

“Lance,” he says, pleading. “No. I get that you’re trying to protect me but I don’t want this. You don’t have to do this.”

Lance growls his frustration. “But I do, Keith! You don’t get it. You always do this. You’re so willing to sacrifice yourself for everyone else. Even when I just kept taking and taking from you, you just keep giving and if we keep doing this, there’ll be nothing left.”

“What? You mean the nightly cuddle sessions?! Because wow yeah, that really took so much out of me. What a burden.”

Lance’s cheeks darken and he shrinks back. “When you say it like that it sounds silly, but I meant like...the fake dating and hiding things from Shiro and y’know, the mortal danger. And none of this is your problem! It’s mine! And I dragged you into it.”

“It is my problem,” Keith says, holding up the wrist with the tattoo. “This isn’t a one-way street, Lance. This...we’re supposed to do this together.” Keith takes a couple steps forward, arms reaching out for Lance. He has to make him understand. “I want to do this together.”

“Y-you’re not thinking this through,” Lance stammers, backing away, but only slightly.

“I am,” Keith says, closer still. “Look, I think danger is inevitable at this point, so let’s help Allura get rid of this guy.”

Keith continues to take careful steps towards him as Lance increasingly looks like a cornered mouse. “But—”

“But nothing. Wherever you go, I go. If you want to run, fine we’ll run.”

“Keith, you can’t. What about Shiro?”

“And what about your family? You have no idea how freaked out they were when you almost died and now you don’t want to leave them.”

Lance’s eyes narrow, looking at the floor. “You know I don’t,” he whispers. “But I want everyone to be safe. ”

Keith is finally close enough to bridge the distance between them and he holds Lance’s biceps. “You can’t keep everyone safe, Lance. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. You just don’t know, but the way I see it...there’s a way for us to stay here, with our families. It’s risky and dangerous, but if it means I can stay here and I can—we can be together then I—I think it’s worth a shot.”

Lance’s eyes search deep within Keith’s, emotion burning strong in the depths of his blue irises. Some mix of tortured indecision and something else, something stronger that lies in wait underneath the surface. Keith wonders if it’s tied to Lance’s feelings for him.

“I couldn’t live with myself if you got hurt,” Lance whispers, so quiet, Keith almost misses it.

Keith closes the distance even more, their noses mere inches from each other. “We’ll watch out for each other.”

“I’m not as strong as him, I can’t protect you.”

“It’s four against one and he’s wounded. We can take him.”

“Keith…”

“ Stay,” Keith says, hands brushing over Lance’s arms until they sink to his hands and coil around them. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

Lance shakes his head. “You’re...you’re not being fair.”

“How?”

“How am I supposed to say no to you?” Lance asks and it finally dawns on Keith how close they are. Lance’s breath gently brushes against Keith’s mouth and his eyes are half-lidded, dreamy.

“Then, don’t,” Keith says, voice low as his gaze fixates on the little lines that pattern Lance’s lips.

“I…” Lance starts.

“Yes?”

“I really want to kiss you,” he breathes, and Keith’s stomach is wrecked from whatever winged creatures are thrashing around in there.

“Then do something about it.”

There’s a singular beat, one molecular moment where the world stops and there’s nothing but the small, insignificant liminal space between them and in that chasm there’s multitudes. It’s a moment that is as short as a breath, but as long as infinity as Keith watches a parade of emotions pass on Lance’s face in real time. First his eyes twitch wider in surprise, then constrict as his brow furrows and he weighs his options. But it’s the moment that Lance decides that has Keith’s breath hitching and his knees melting into jelly. Lance’s eyes change color, from his twilight blue to one shade brighter, one shade shimmering, but Keith only gets to admire the hue for a brief millisecond before his eyes shut and Lance is moving, gently hurtling towards him.

And Keith is a unable to be anything but malleable, weak and gooey in the hands that grab him at his upper arms, a total goner to the warm, wet press of lips on his.

It’s simple at first, just a sweet, chaste kiss, their lips resting on each other’s, but then, someone moves. Keith isn’t sure if it’s him slotting their lips together or the movement of Lance’s jaw, but it shoots them off like a gunshot in the dark. Keith’s hands slide upwards, caressing Lance’s soft cotton shirt that does little to mask the chest muscles that have been hardening over the month’s training.

Lance melts into the contact, his arms grabbing Keith’s hips and tugging him close, bringing them flush together. The sudden collision of their bodies makes a pleased hum come from somewhere deep and yearing at the back of his throat which only serves to spur Lance on further, his tongue sliding along Keith’s lip politely to request entry.

And Keith is lost in it. Dizzy with it. His cells are splitting and dividing, tearing apart and exploding with every brush of Lance’s fingertips against the goosebumps on Keith’s skin. It’s all messy and uncoordinated—their noses running into each other as they keep trying to find new, better angles, their teeth clash, and Keith’s hands won’t stop moving, but it’s everything. Keith could do this forever, wants to do it forever. Lance is warm and sweet and satisfying on his mouth, and the small, pleased sounds he keeps making fills Keith with an addictive kind of electricity. He’s fantasized about kissing Lance a hundred times, a thousand times, but they pale in comparison because Keith knows now. These feelings he’s kept so close to his chest like a good hand of poker are reciprocated. Lance feels the same. Lance loves him.

Keith can hardly believe it, but the way Lance is steadily backing him up towards the bed could turn him into a pious man yet.

They tumble onto the bed, Keith’s back to it as Lance hovers above him and he worries his body might just turn to ash since he’s clearly been set on fire. Lance breaks away from Keith’s mouth to pay attention to his chin and then smear kisses along the hollows of his neck. Keith’s hands clutch tightly at the harsh fabric of Lance’s windbreaker as he breathes out a sigh, but the sweet kisses and little nips he’s making at Keith’s neck start to feel a little too good. Anxious not to fall down that particular rabbit hole, Keith guides Lance back to his face, palm on his cheek.

Lance is obliging, but instead of going back to his lips like Keith had intended, Lance kisses the vulnerable area right below Keith’s ear. Then his temple, the apple of his cheek, the edge of his jaw, the corner of his mouth, until he finally lets their lips lock once more.

The momentum and frenzy has died down now, so this kiss is slower, lingering, each smek of lips punctuated by a beat where they’re not touching, not closing their eyes and seeing each other. The downbeat of a metronome between the clicks.

They slow to a stop, still impossibly close, their lips a hair’s breadth apart and now they’re just staring—eyes lidded and sparkling, lips red and swollen, hair mussed.

You’re beautiful, Keith wants to say, but he keeps the words tucked close for now, not really wanting to alter or stop the current afterglow of their first kiss.

It’s Lance who moves first, his hand moving a stray bit of hair out of Keith’s face, relishing the gesture as he does it slowly. He stares at Keith, studying his face like he’s trying to commit it to memory and Keith flushes.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

“I think I have some idea,” Keith says, wrapping his arms around Lance’s neck and pulling him down for another quick kiss.

“Mmf maybe. A little.”

“It was...nice.”

Lance smiles crookedly at him, a dangerous look that has Keith eager to kiss him senseless. “Really nice. Lovely, even.”

Keith feels one corner of his mouth quirk in amusement and he’s weak to do anything else but tug Lance downwards, capturing his lips between his again. Lance presses into the kiss but it’s interrupted by his poorly stifled giggles.

“Something funny?” Keith asks against his lips.

“Mm no. Just a little stunned. Didn’t think I’d get this far.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Pretty...pretty earthshaking revelation, huh?”

“Earthshaking is the right word, I would say,” Keith hums, his fingers sliding into Lance’s short hair.

Lance laughs again and then collapses, his full body weight pressing into Keith as his face burrows into his collar bone. He sighs and Keith feels the heat of it on his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. Lance is a bit crushing, but it’s nice rather than uncomfortable, even if it makes it a little harder breathe (not that Keith’s been breathing well the last five minutes anyway). Keith wraps his arms around Lance’s shoulders, holding him tight.

“Lance,” Keith says softly into his ear.

“Mmhm?”

“You...okay?”

Lance pauses. Keith can’t even feel his breath on his neck anymore. After a couple absent seconds, Lance rolls over, lying on his back so he and Keith are shoulder to shoulder.

“We’ve just made everything harder on ourselves.”

“You can’t honestly still be thinking of leaving?” Keith whispers, afraid. Lance turns his head so they’re both facing each other, cheeks pressed to the comforter.

“I know we can fight and I know that might be the most logical plan, but...:”

“But what?”

“You can’t imagine what it felt like when I realized it was your blood I was smelling out there, Keith. I was so scared,” Lance says and his face is tense, haunted by the memory.

Keith rolls so he’s on his side and snakes his arm around Lance’s middle, saddling himself in close. Lance’s shirt is hitched up ever so slightly and Keith lets his palm rub at the smooth, exposed skin there. Automatically, Lance places his hand on Keith’s wrist.

“I think,” Keith says, hushed, “you really need to stop assuming I care about you less than you care about me.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Yes, it is. I was there, remember? I had to watch you fight him. You think I wasn’t terrified out of my mind thinking he was gonna kill you? Or what about when I randomly got a call two months ago from Veronica saying you were attacked by a bear. I know exactly what it feels like to think you could die.”

“Keith…”

“Look, you haven’t been trusting me, Lance. I told you so many times that I was okay with being your tether and to help get you out of pain, but you just...don’t believe me.”
“I trust you!” Lance says, affronted.

“Not when it comes to like, I don’t know, what I want. I mean, I get it, you want me to be comfortable and safe and those things are well and good, but I want to be happy. And you make me happy. Seeing you happy makes me happy. And I’m willing to fight for that. So, just... stop acting like I don’t know what I’m getting myself into, alright? I know the risks and the possible consequences, but I don’t care.”

Keith keeps his face very still, but determined as Lance gawks at him, mouth hanging open. But slowly, easily, his lips curl into a soft smile Keith has never seen him wear. It’s tender and reaches his eyes, making Keith feel exposed, but he makes a secret oath to himself to make Lance smile like that as much as he possibly can.

“Jeez, I really had to go ahead and fall in love with a stubborn mullet like you, huh?”

Keith smiles, then shrugs. “You think you have it bad? I had to fall in love with a self-sacrificing goofball.”

Lance shoves at Keith’s shoulder playfully, feigning offense.

“I’m not a goofball! I’m like a cool, ninja werewolf.”

Keith snorts. “Ninja werewolf?”

“Shut up, tell me you wouldn’t watch that movie.”

Keith pretends to think about it for a moment. “I would.”

They laugh and Keith is grateful for it. It reminds him that they’re still Lance and Keith, even when they’re werewolf and tether, in love and in love. It’s a relief.

When their laughter dies down, Lance’s face gets serious again, knowing their conversation isn’t over. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, nodding. “You heard Allura, we could stop him from hurting a lot of people. I think we have to.”

Lance takes in a big inhale and lets it out. “Alright, fine, but on one condition.”

“What?”

A devious smile spreads across Lance’s face like a curtain being drawn on a stage. “I get to kiss you goodnight.”

“I think,” Keith says, an equally mischievous smirk growing on his own features, “that can be arranged.”

It takes them a while before they fall asleep.

The next morning, Allura takes them both to school with dark circles under their eyes and nickel-sized bruises on their collar bones. Keith silently says thanks that it’s scarf weather season and that Allura had left some among the borrowed clothes she had laid out for them.

They tell her on the drive that they’ll help take down Sendak, but Lance is adamant they’re safe about it.

“If it starts to look bad, we run. No martyrs. No ifs, ands, or buts.”

Allura nods, gripping the steering wheel tight. “Yes, alright. No unnecessary risk-taking.”

“Okay, good,” Lance says, sighing and leaning back on the seat.

Together, they decide they’ll hash out a proper plan after school and that they’ll strike at nightfall so Lance can move around in his wolf form more easily without detection.

When they get to school, Lance’s hand automatically clasps Keith’s and for all the times they’ve done it before, this time the touch makes his chest swell with a happy warmth he’s unfamiliar with.

It’s because we don’t have to, he thinks. It’s the day after the full moon, Lance is only a little sore; they’re holding hands because they want to, not to keep Lance comfortable, but because they prefer their hands to be together. It’s different. It’s all over different.

And better.

Lance gives Keith a shy little smile when he interlaces their fingers and Keith has to look away as his face blooms with a blush and an uncontrollable smile.

Neither says anything as they head to their usual spot to meet Hunk and Pidge, happy and content to bask in the newness of their relationship.

Keith decides that he’s going to be a normal kid for today. No werewolves, no tethers, no wolfsbane-infused weapons, just a senior ridiculously in love with his cute boyfriend whose most pressing problem is how he’s going to find ways to kiss said boyfriend throughout the day. All that Sendak mortal danger stuff can wait until they’re back at Allura’s.

They reach their usual table and Hunk and Pidge gush about their robotics course, both of them showing off the progress of their home-made battle bot. Keith is genuinely interested (the thing has three saw blades installed in the front, okay?) but he’s also distracted; he can feel Lance sneaking glances at him. Keith sneaks in a glance of his own and is, of course, met by twilight eyes and a honey sweet smile that has Keith looking back at the bot immediately. He’s not going to survive for more than a week if Lance plans to keep looking at him like that. His heart won’t make it.

The bell finally sounds and they all rise, Hunk and Pidge putting away their bot and Lance tugging Keith close to him.

He presses a quick kiss to Keith’s lips and doesn’t go far when he pulls away.

“Love you,” he says, like the damn sap he is, hearts practically bubbling off of him like a cheesy snapchat filter.

“Yeah,” Keith says and he has no doubt his face is as equally pathetic and lovesick because Pidge wretches behind them.

“Ugh!” she says, her nose scrunched up like she’s smelling week-old garbage. “What’s the deal? You two are grosser than usual.”

Lance beams at her, shameless. “We’re in love, Pidgey. Get used to it.” And to punctuate his point he lands a kiss on Keith’s unsuspecting nose.

Pidge groans and Keith turns as pink as a carnation.

Things only get “grosser” (or “better”, in Keith terms) from there. Before lunch, Lance texts Keith to meet him behind the physical science building and at lunch, Keith has him pinned against said building, leaving all manner of bite marks along his long, pretty neck.

“Really been bottling up all this desire huh, Kogane?” Lance teases, though it loses some of its power with how wrecked his voice sounds.

Keith hums. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want me to stop?”

Lance promptly shuts up.

And it’s nice. It’s better than nice. For the seven or so hours they’re at school, Keith is the happiest he’s ever been. Sure, he’s thought about what it might be like to be in this saccharine, honeymoon phase kind of relationship with Lance, but it was always a dream. No, less than a dream, less tangible—a fantasy, a story he concocted in his mind similar to all the stories the authors’ have concocted on his bookshelf. Imaginary. Scenarios he knew would never come true, no matter how hard he wished.

But, Keith thought, some of my books have werewolves too.

And perhaps if there is all manner of evil in the world, maybe true love between two people exists too.

Lance looks at him with soft smiles and starry eyes all day, sending him heart emojis in class and passing notes full of their usual teasing. It’s silly and dramatic and embarrassing but Keith secretly eats it up.

But for as great as the day is, it’s a little tainted. Because no matter how determined Keith is to just enjoy the day, he never forgets that they’re going to fight Sendak again tonight. The memory follows Keith around like a fly buzzing at his ear and he thinks he understands why Lance and he are laying it on so thick today—they both know, despite their precautions, this might be their only chance. Nothing is certain and nothing is safe. Even the sky is announcing the dawning danger with a parade of grey clouds rolling in from the mountains, a dark reminder every time they step outside.

So Keith tries to show as much pent up affection as he can in one school day without getting them expelled—he presses kisses to Lance’s cheek when he’s not looking (but he’s always looking), whispers “I love you” in his ear so quiet he might not hear (but he hears), and holds his hand like it’s a life line. He even contemplates writing a poem in his AP English class when the teacher gives them reading time, but he can’t quite bring himself to be that cheesy.

“I never wanted a day of school not to end so badly,” Lance says on their way to meet Allura in the parking lot after their last class. Keith rubs his thumb across Lance’s knuckles as they hold hands and feels his own face fall.

“I know.”

“Today was...was really great,” Lance says, looking ahead, his shoulders slumping slightly.

“Yeah.” Keith places another kiss on his cheek. Lance presses into it and Keith’s heart does the jovial little leap it’s been doing all day when Lance is around. “It was.”

“There’ll be more,” Lance says with a certainty Keith knows he doesn’t feel, but he has no desire to call him out on it.

“Yeah, there will.”

They find Allura soon enough in the throng of students and cars, her Mercedes sticking out like a ketchup stain on white shirt among the used Corollas and Civics in the lot.

She leans against it in waiting, her designer clothes and silver braids making her look like a goddess among humans, but she smiles at them kindly when she sees them.

“Heard you really amped up the boyfriend act today,” she says, the teasing clear in her voice.

Lance shrugs. “Not an act anymore.”

Keith’s heart not only leaps, but soars. They haven’t labeled anything officially yet, but Keith assumed that since they were both in love, they didn’t really need to. Still, hearing Lance basically confirm their status makes him light, weightless as a feather.  

The teasing tinge to Allura’s smile fades into a sincere one and her eyes soften.

“I don’t think it ever really was.”

The car ride to Allura’s mansion is both too slow and too fast. Keith’s emotions are a tangle of dread for the night and a deep desire for it all to be over. Allura speaks to them both about weak spots, places on the body that a wound will kill the fastest. Organs. Arteries.

The discussion makes Keith squirm. When Keith was young, his father taught him some basic wilderness survival skills—catching rabbits, how to cast a line and how to clean a fish, that kind of thing. He’s killed an animal with his own hands before, so he was sure, in the throw of a fight he could disassociate enough to kill an attacking animal when it came down to it, but now? Sitting in a car with two of his friends, driving away from school as they plan a murder? Keith feels guilty. Wrong. Sendak might be a monster, but he’s human too.

“Is there no other way, Allura? Do we have to…” Lance trails off, voicing Keith’s concern. It strikes him that if this is going to be hard for anyone, it’s Lance. He remembers when he told Lance that he and his father skinned and ate rabbits, his face dissolving into tears to hear that they had killed some of the little bunnies that populated the surrounding forests like vermin. Keith’s dad had to sit him down and calm him, explain that it was just the natural cycle of life, that lots of animals ate rabbits. He promised Lance they only ever hunted adults and that the kills were always as quick and painless as possible, so they never suffered. Lance calmed to only sniffles then, but ever since, Keith noticed he ate meat less and less, his gentle, loving heart too soft to truly understand the teachings of Keith’s father.

And even now, when their lives were on the line, he looked for the humane option.

Allura sighs, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Lance. I’m afraid this is the only way. He’s been jailed before across the country, or well, arrested, at least and you can imagine how that went for the officers doing the arresting. And there’s no werewolf-proof prison to take him to, no way to hold him. If we don’t defeat him, he’ll just keep killing innocents.”

“I...get that, but…”

“I know. I know, believe me. My father’s entire legacy has been built on the idea that hunters don’t have to kill the monsters we face, that humanity still lives at their core. My entire mission is to help mythical creatures live, thrive, even with their powers, not to kill. This is hard for me too and if there was another way, Lance, I swear I’d tell you. As it is…”

“There’s not,” Lance says with a frown, suddenly looking much older than his seventeen years.

“I wish I had a different answer for you.”

“We’ll do what we need to do.”

Keith shuts his eyes at that and it reminds him of his father, a memory flooding his mind. It was the first time he watched his father skin a rabbit and he had cried, not as hard as Lance had, but he was shaken all the same.

His father took him aside, placed a big, comforting hand on his shoulder and told him, “sometimes, to survive, you have to do what you need to.”

Keith repeated his father’s words in his mind.

Sometimes, to survive, you have to do what you need to.

“Do you know where he is, Lance?” Allura asks, seated on the desk ledge in the study that leads to her underground lab. Keith and Lance sit in the plush, cherry leather seats in front of her, nibbling on ham sandwiches Coran prepared for them since they both admitted they were hungry when he greeted them at the door.

(They didn’t exactly have time to eat at lunch.)

Lance swallows his recent bite of sandwich and shrugs, “Mostly. I think he’s in the forest around Seaglass lake, but I don’t think I’ll know for sure until I transform, but even then…”

“He’s hard to track,” Keith offers.

Lance nods. “Yeah, it’s like he has—I don’t know—phantom scents or something. They go off in three directions, but the real one is a little stronger. I think I’m a little better at picking it out now, but it’s...confusing. The only reason I found you last night was because the scent of your blood was stronger than his scents.”

“The fact that you can smell Sendak is something. If you weren’t a tethered werewolf, you wouldn’t be able to pick it up at all,” Coran says, rubbing his chin between his index finger and thumb. “Knowing what we now know about Sendak’s strength, having you and Keith fighting with us will lessen his advantage considerably.”

“But not completely,” Lance groans, weary.

“Don’t forget I took out one of his eyes,” Allura says, smugness creeping into the corner of her smile. “Not even a werewolf can just heal one of those back. We shouldn’t get cocky, but I’d say he’s lost his advantage. The only thing he really has is his bulk and ferocity.”

“Pretty good stats, I’d say. I’m like a pup to that guy.”

“But you’re fast,” Allura says, her lips framing around the word like it’s a treasure. “It’s true you’re not match against him in a strength contest, so we won’t let it become that. We’ll use stealth, strategy, our numbers. Hit before he even sees us.”

“How are we supposed to get the drop on him? He can smell us,” Lance says.

“How do you think I got into the barn without either of you noticing?”

“I—” Lance starts, but he stops his brow furrowing like he’s trying to work out a difficult puzzle.

“I have concealment spells. I can make us smell like pine trees for a few hours.”

“We’ll blend right in,” Keith says thinking of the evergreens that grow in the forest like weeds.

Allura nods. “I don’t have anything that can make us silent, so that’s on us, but if we play our cards right, we might just be able to take him down without a fight at all.”

Hope blooms in Keith’s chest like a poppy opening up in the morning sun. Could it really be that easy? Could they really get out of this without so much as a scuffle?

“That’s a big ‘if’, Allura,” Coran says, hurtling Keith back to practical reality.

“I know,” Allura amends solemnly, “and we’ll make the proper precautions and escape plan if necessary, but it’s possible.”

Keith sighs and combs a hand through his hair, coming to a conclusion. “It doesn’t matter if it’s possible. If we treat it like anything less than a mission that could get us all killed, we’ll get complacent. We can’t go in thinking it’ll be easy.”

“Keith is right,” Lance says, shooting him a serious look. “We need to proceed with caution.”

“And we will,” Allura says and she launches into the plan.

When she finishes and Lance is fully satisfied with the backup exit plan, she puts her attention on Keith.

“You brought your knife, yes?” she asks and he pulls it from his belt in confirmation.

“I thought we agreed Keith stays out of fray?” Lance asks, worry lacing his voice.

“He will, but another line of defense doesn’t hurt,” Allura says and goes back to Keith. “Unsheathe it.”

Keith obeys, the fine steel glinting under the light of the room. “I was always planning on taking it with me.”

“Good. You used it well back at the barn. You’re resourceful but there’s more this blade can offer you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a luxite blade, made of a special metal with transformational properties, specifically sensitive to tethers,” Allura says, eyes on the blade.

“Tethers were much more common hundreds of years ago, when the world was smaller,” Coran says. “And the first ones forged an agreement with the land, or so the tale is told. The earth granted tethers luxite as a way for them to protect the ones they tether, just as they protect them.”

Allura nods. “They’re not meant to be weapons against werewolves, but I tampered with this one to make it deadly to them. Since you’ve seen battle with it, it might feel bonded enough with you to transform.”

“It might feel?” Keith asks, looking at the blade.

“There’s a certain... sentient quality to the metal,” Allura says.

“You know what?” Lance says, throwing his arms up in surrender. “I’m not even gonna question it. Keith has a knife with feelings? Sure, fine. Whatever.”

“It’s not quite as complex as feelings. More of an affinity,” Allura corrects.

Keith shakes his head. “Okay, great. But how do I get it to transform?”

“You ask it to.”

“I ask it to?”

“You ask it to.”

“Like, uh, ‘hey knife, can you transform, please?’” Keith asks, just the example feeling foolish.

Allura shrugs. “You don’t have to say it out loud. Just focus all your attention on the knife and imagine it growing, like you’re stretching out an extension of your arm.”

“Uh, okay,” Keith says, grimacing. He holds the knife out in front of him, closes his eyes and tries to follow Allura’s instructions. He takes in a breath and thinks about the knife, feeling its hilt against his gloves.

In his mind, he asks, can you transform for me?

Everyone is silent around him, holding their breaths as Keith tries to make himself feel something. He sees the sword transform in his mind’s eye, remembers how the blade seemed to sing to him back at the barn, calling out in a battle cry. It makes no such call now.

Keith opens his eyes and sighs when he sees the knife in his hand is still just a knife.

“Oh, well. Nevermind. You haven’t had long to bond with it anyway and it’ll still provide you with some protection,” Allura says, her tone positive, but Keith catches the undercurrent of disappointment.

Keith sheathes the knife and puts it back on his belt. “Yeah.”

“Well,” Allura says, looking at her watch. “It’s nearly sundown, we should head out soon.” No one says anything or moves for a moment, a crackle of tension ripping through the air and making it hard to breathe. It feels different this time. Before, when Keith faced Sendak, it was an abduction, a situation he was forced into, but now they were walking towards the danger. Willingly putting their lives on the line.

Keith thought he’d come to terms with that last night, when he’d been desperate to convince Lance to stay and fight, but now he feels himself waver. Maybe they should run. He’d miss Shiro and his friends terribly, but he’d be alive. Lance would be alive. They’d have wounds that would never fully heal in some foreign countryside, but they’d have each other to dress them, at least.

He’s starting to understand Lance’s argument from last night. The thought of losing Lance, of him being thrown around like a ragdoll between Sendak’s massive jaws fills him with doubt now.

It’s Allura who moves first, a decisive, brave intake of breath standing her up and pushing her to the door with squared shoulders. Like always, Coran is right behind her. Keith and Lance don’t look at each other, but they rise at the same time, the movement slow, taking an eternity.

“Can—can we have a moment?” Lance asks, craning his neck to face Allura and Coran. “Alone?”

Keith’s eyes widen a fraction and something painful twinges in his chest. He thinks he has some idea about what this is about and he’s not sure he’s ready for it.

Allura looks to both of them, a sad understanding marking her features. “Yes, of course,” she says with a small bow of her head. “Coran and I will load our equipment. Meet us out front when you’re ready.”

Lance smiles at her, but there’s no joy in it. “Thanks, Allura.”

She returns the smile and they both exit, Allura carefully closing the door behind her.

At first, Keith and Lance don’t say a word, don’t even look at each other. Keith rummages around in his brain for something, anything to say, but what do you say to the love of your life when both of you could be walking to your deaths? There’s a million poetic things, surely, but not a single one of them is coming to him.

There’s a heavy sigh next to him and the sound of careful footsteps, growing closer. Keith looks up and is met with Lance’s blue eyes, so near he can see the little lines that pattern his irises. Lance’s forehead gently floats and comes in contact with Keith’s, a sweet, sad touch and his hands lazily grab Keith’s at their sides, dangling loosely like the crystals off one of Allura’s fancy chandeliers.

Lance takes a small breath in, his eyes downcast.

“I don’t know what to say,” he admits.

“Neither do I,” Keith whispers back, his chest hollow.

Lance shakes his head ever so slightly, so as not to disrupt their contact too much. “I never got to take you on our date.”

“The one where we go to a fancy dinner and the arcade?” Keith asks.

“And the lake,” Lance says, his breath warm against Keith’s face. “I’ve had it planned since I was fifteen. I saved up my babysitting money so that you could buy whatever entree and appetizer you wanted on the menu and as many nickels as you could get through. It’s like a hundred fifty something dollars, all wadded up in a sock in my bottom dresser drawer. It’s been there for two years and I never touched it.”

Keith tightens his grip on Lance’s hands, a bittersweet fluttering filling his stomach. He almost laughs, an amused huff leaving his lips.

“Probably should have known then, now that I think about it.”

“Known what?”

“How you felt about me.”

Lance smiles. “You should have known a lot sooner.”

“Yeah, well, you too.”

“Lot of wasted time,” Lance says, sadly.

Too sadly. Like Lance has already resigned himself to his fate. Somehow, it washes away Keith’s fear, at least some of it and he pulls his head back to cradle Lance’s face in his hands.

“No,” he says, resolute. “Stop talking like you’re never gonna take me on that date.”

“Keith—”

“No. I’m supposed to be the pessimist, remember? I know this is supposed to be some...romantic goodbye before we dive head first into danger or whatever, but tomorrow we’re gonna wake up next to each other and you’re gonna call in that reservation, and we’ll have that date. Exactly how you said. I won’t even kiss you until we get to the lake because it’s going to be just like you pictured it. I’ll make sure of it.”   

“How?” Lance whispers, eyes blue and searching.

“Because I’m going to protect you,” Keith says, strong and sure because he knows it’s true. He’s had enough of a taste of his life with Lance that he knows he’ll fight with every fiber of his being to keep it. They waited so long to be together and what? They only got one day? It was a hell of a good day, but no. Keith isn’t going to allow it and if he knows anything about Lance, he’s not going to either. “And you’re going to protect me, right?”

Lance’s eyes shine—a look he’s given Keith a couple times today that never failed to make goosebumps prickle along the back of his neck. Lance smiles, cheeks squished between Keith’s hands and he gently raises his own to wrap around Keith’s tattooed wrist. He slowly pulls it from his face, but just an inch and Keith lowers his other hand in response, letting it settle on Lance’s shoulder.

Lance closes his eyes and presses his lips to the inside of Keith’s wrist, right over the blue line that circles it. His lips are soft and cool on the delicate skin there, making Keith shiver and it fills him with both affection and desire. He gives himself a moment to appreciate the full shape of Lance’s lips, the long length of his dark lashes, and the strong cut of his jaw, everything so symmetrical and beautiful, he could have been one of those old, Greek statues come to life.

His lips retreat and Keith misses their touch instantly, but he suddenly understands the strange marking on his arm.

It’s a circle. Unbroken and unending. Keith gets it now.

“Yeah,” he says, voice soft as the kiss, “I’ll protect you.”

And it’s as simple as that. Courage that had drained from his just minutes before fills him again and Keith decides he’s ready.

He just needs to do one last thing first.

With his free hand, Keith urges Lance forward, lightly pulling on his shoulder to him. Lance moves with him like water, catching his lips between his and wrapping his arms around Keith, filling the empty space between them.

It’s a different kiss than the ones they’ve had so far which have mostly been heated, frenetic things, full of passion and enthusiasm. This is slow, cherishing. Appreciative. Like they’re trying to commit the feel and shape of their lips to memory. But it’s not just touch Keith wants to be able to recount later. He tries to memorize it all—the smell of the borrowed lavender shampoo in Lance’s hair, the way Lance’s eyes look right before he goes to kiss Keith (lidded and determined), the sound of the small sighs and intakes of breath between them, the taste of the grapefruit flavored lip balm Lance puts on almost compulsively because he can’t stand having chapped lips. Keith wants to memorize it all, stow it away in his brain for him to unpack anytime and replay it over and over again.

God, love has turned him into such a goddamn sap.

Too soon (it’s always too soon), they pull away because somehow they both know that if they procrastinate any longer, they might never leave.

They take a moment to be silent, to just breathe, and when Lance gives him a courageous smile, Keith knows it’s time.

Lance leads them out of the room, hand in Keith’s, and they head out the mansion to meet Allura and Coran at the car. Allura enchants them all to mask their smells, murmuring foreign words and dabbing what smells like liquidized pine needles on their necks like it’s perfume. When she’s done, they all file in and drive off, as the evergreens and nearly set sun whir by them. None of them look back.

Rain pitter-patters on the windshield of the car as they pull up to a lonely side of road along the forest, the twilight blue of the sky made a dark grey by the blanket of clouds. Wordlessly, they all get out of the car, following Allura to the trunk where she pulls out three sets of black, water resistant jackets. She hands one to Coran and Keith, but keeps the last for herself and puts it on without bothering to explain why she isn’t giving Lance one. He’ll be transforming soon enough.

Keith pulls his jacket on and once he does, Allura places a pocket light in his hand. The pocket light has a strip of velcro on its back and Allura demonstrates that the other strip lines their chest pockets, providing a convenient anchor for the light so they’ll be able to see without one of their hands fumbling with a flashlight.

Allura passes Coran his bow and quiver before slinging her own over her shoulders and grabbing a couple vials from a black bag, the small pouches on her belt now full of them. She looks at them all, her face hard and serious like a soldier’s, made somehow even more impressive by the rain rolling down her dark, flawless skin.

“You’ll lead with Keith, Lance. Coran and I will flank you,” she says, intense eyes going to Keith. “Keep yourself in contact with Lance. It should enhance his sense of smell. He’ll need it to be as sharp as possible if we’re going to find him.”

Keith squares his shoulders and nods.

Allura returns it. “Let’s go. Watch your footing and stay quiet.”

She gestures for Lance to lead the way and he looks into the forest and an odd sort of hardened determination paints his face, like he’s a seasoned war veteran, steeling himself for the next battle. He only takes a beat, one breath before he walks into the throng of trees, Keith by his side, Allura and Coran behind them, and once they’re no longer visible from the street he transforms. He towers over Keith as he has to raise his hand over his head just to reach Lance’s shoulder. The grey fur there is course, but still pleasant to the touch and after just a few seconds of the contact, Lance’s body stiffens in acute alertness, his ears perked and his tail high in the air.

Keith gives him a questioning look and Lance rolls his head to the northeast as if to say “this way.”

Keith nods and takes his lead, keeping the pace slow and careful. He looks behind him to check on Coran and Allura, but they’re gone, already turning off their lights, slinking into the shadows. He wouldn’t be surprised if Allura is even scaling the trees, traversing from branch to branch.  

Keith finds the hilt of his knife on his belt and holds it tight. They’re all here—ready to give it their all, and Keith will be no exception.

They walk the forest for a few more minutes, the white noise of rain hitting the trees the only thing Keith can hear at all. They walk and walk until Keith’s hair and Lance’s fur are soaked all the way through, until Lance stops dead in his tracks, halted as if he’s just been presented with a thirty foot wall in his path.

He sticks his snout in the air, sniffing and then it dives to the ground, upturning fallen leaves and pine needles to catch a scent. He trots forward, Keith needing to jog just to keep up with him and he can tell Lance is on to something but how confident his path is. There’s no hesitation or sidestepping, only an invisible line he follows like a guiding light.

They go on like that for a long while, getting deeper and deeper into the forest, well past the lake and into the real thick of the woods—the place where the deer and bears lived, most undisturbed by humans.

With every step, Keith grows more uneasy. He knows the eastern edge of the forest well, memorized from all the time spent there, but they never went past the lake. They’re stepping foot into a wild unknown and it has Keith’s anxiety mounting. If they screamed or called for help, no one would hear them.

It’s fully night now, the forest an expanse of never ending darkness that makes Keith feel impossibly small. It’s suffocating and unknowable—a terrible reminder of how dangerous their world has become. The consistent pour of cold rain on them doesn’t help.

Though Lance never doubts the path he’s on, he does take little breaks to look at Keith, to run his ice blue wolf eyes over him, double checking to make sure he’s safe and with him. Keith always rubs at his shoulder in those moments as a silent, “go on, I’m fine.”

Lance always listens, bowing his head a little and then pointing his nose forward again and Keith thinks there’s something so noble about him in this form. Like he doesn’t have a place to hide his bravery when he doesn’t have jokes or flirtations to mask it. It’s a side of Lance that’s raw, unfiltered.

It’s been thirty minutes since they started their hunt and Keith still hasn’t seen signs of Allura or Coran.

Where are they? He wonders, despite it being part of the plan. They’re the real danger to Sendak in this fight—deadly and out of sight. Keith can’t help but feel worried at their absence though. They should be there, but they could have gotten lost for all he knows. Could have been attacked by Sendak already.

Lance would have heard him, he reminds himself. Sendak’s too big to be soundless.

Despite Keith’s worries, he carries on, his fingers tangling in Lance’s fur.

It happens in the deepest, darkest part of the forest—the low rumble of a growl, the grey of Lance’s coat flashing before him, a gust of wind made by the force of something very big moving very fast in front of him.

It takes Keith one beat, one solitary moment to realize what’s happening, one little second of blank surprise as he takes in that Lance was at his side, but now he’s not.

Because something big and black swallowed him whole into the trees, leaving Keith all alone amongst the rain and darkness.

Sendak, Keith thinks with a panicked shutter and like a confirmation, he hears menacing barks and growling in the distance.

They sounded far, too far. Lance was just here but now he sounds miles away, but Keith isn’t sure if it’s distance or a combination of the density of the forest and the high volume of the rain that makes it sound like he’s nowhere near them.

Keith wants to cry out, scream for Lance because it all just happened too fast—too fast for him to do anything—but it dies in his throat, the muscles there constricting and tensing up and—

And he can’t breathe.

There’s wolf’s yelp that rings out through the trees.

Keep it together, he thinks. You have to help him.

Keith forces himself to take in lungfuls of air that end up only being shallow intakes, but it helps to steady him.

His bearings coming back, Keith grabs his knife from its sheath and holds it tight in his hand. It starts to vibrate, sing in his palm.

I need your help. I need to help, Lance. Please, he begs it, but it does nothing but hum.

Keith abandons asking for help, desperate just to find Lance, to follow the horrible sounds of a very large dog fight in the nearby distance.

It’s hard to pinpoint the sounds, to find the one direction he should be heading because it almost seems like they’re fighting from all sides, ping-ponging each other back and forth to either side of him.

Keith just starts running, listening for anything and everything, but the rain and the blackness of the forest that’s only interrupted by his little white pocket light makes it near impossible.

What he can hear is terrible though—crashes of something big hitting trees, yelps, howls, and growls, all a mix of pain, anger, and fear. The worst of it is that Keith has no idea whose cries of pain he’s hearing, Lance’s or Sendak’s.

Panic and worry twist in Keith’s gut like a wrung-out towel and he moves faster, for all the good it’ll do. He runs, chasing the inconsistent sounds that flash all around him and he doesn’t stop. He’s not watching where he’s going and suddenly, he’s flying through the air, his toes stinging from where they hit an exposed root hard.

He lands on the ground with a painful thump, the arm holding his knife out in front of him. During the fall, his pocket light slipped out and was either shut off or broken, but is gone either way, mixed among the roots and fallen leaves.

Panic sets in deeper now as Keith gets up, something thicker than rain dripping off his hurt chin. He’s in pitch darkness, with only the faintest hint of moonlight coming from the waning moon above, but the treetops block most of its shine.

He doesn’t know what to do because he’s lost. Alone in a sea of inky darkness and pouring rain.

And what’s worse—the noises have stopped. No booming growls, no high-pitched yelps, just unrelenting showers.

Keith’s heart thunders in his chest so hard it might give out. He looks over both shoulders, certain someone is watching him. He’s not safe here. No one is safe here. Sendak somehow got the jump on them, came hurtling towards them despite all their precautions.

The knife is still humming, but now it’s louder, more intense, almost shaking out of Keith’s hands. He’s sure it means danger.

Why can’t he hear anything? Sendak and Lance were fighting but if there’s no sounds at all then that must mean that the fight is over. That one of them is the victor. And Lance—oh god, Lance.

As Keith thinks of Lance, heart sick with the real possibility he’s been hurt or worse, the knife shakes even harder, demanding attention. Keith raises it up in front of him, gripping it tight and his fear and dread wavering slightly.

The knife glows with a silver shimmer, illuminating the small patch of forest he occupies. The blade elongates and changes shape, thinning out until it’s longer than the length of Keith’s arm. The glow dims, revealing a katana-like sword in Keith’s hands—long and curved.

Keith stares at it, his whole body filling with warmth from where he grips the hilt, like he and the blade are sharing one life source, one pulse. He gives it one powerful swing to taste its weight. It’s feather light; less of a weapon and more of an extension of his own arm.

He’s not as afraid then, not as alone. It’s like the blade is his comrade, not just his weapon.

The glow of the blade finally fades away and Keith is left in darkness again. He listens again for any telling sounds, any sort of guiding light that will get him to his friends, but he hears nothing beyond the whir of rain.

That is, until he does.

He thinks it’s just an animal rustling around in the forest nearby, but then he feels it—the seismic rhythm of heavy footfalls pounding into the earth. It hits him in shockwaves, the vibrations tickling him where his feet meet the ground and traveling through his whole body.

Keith’s heart stops. His breath seizes. There’s only one thought in his mind when he sees a single yellow orb among the tree trunks and dark—he’s coming.

Knowing doesn’t help him, doesn’t make him react fast enough, as the one light of Sendak’s eye blinks out, plunging Keith back into a vicious darkness. He readies his sword, heart sinking to his stomach. There’s a rustle of leaves and the moan of a bending tree behind him. Keith gasps and spins around to face the noise, but there’s more movement to his right. His left. Behind him again.

Sendak’s playing with him. Keith’s breath gets choppy and shallow, like every inhale is a little, panicked gasp, and every one of the hairs on his body raises. It’s the feeling of being hunted by a predator. Of being prey. Of knowing that they have you right where they want you.

There’s a loud SNAP of twigs breaking beneath a foot and Keith’s arm is tugged to his right, the blade reacting before Keith does. The force of the pull swings him right in front of a charging Sendak, his overwhelming size blocking out everything else from Keith’s vision, and jumps for him, claws out and teeth bared.

His back hits the forest floor with a sickening, dense thump and his shoulder aches with the heavy weight of one of Sendak’s paw on him.

Sendak looks down at him, murder in his glowing eye and the starburst scar where his left eye used to be, lips trembling with the full body growl he sends at Keith. Keith is silent, body going into shock from fear and he’s just about to scream, to start thrashing against him, when he feels a large splash of warm liquid fall across his stomach, like someone’s poured a whole pot of soup on him.

Sendak isn’t growling anymore. Instead, he lets out something like a wheeze, strained and wounded. It’s then Keith notices the three arrows on the top of his shoulders, pierced deep within his skin. Allura and Coran.

Keith’s eyes travel downward, to the beast’s neck, his wide ribcage, and then—

Oh.

There, plunged deep into Sendak’s chest, right at his heart, is the sharp end of Keith’s sword, though it no longer is shining with a sheen of a pure silver; the blade is soaked through in blood that runs down its length in waves, the rain washing and coaxing more of it out.

Sendak barks at him, high and with an edge of pleading, but Keith is unmoved.

Acting on instinct, Keith twists it at its hilt. More warmth pours onto his torso.

Sendak’s eye widens, twitches and he sputters out little sounds that Keith is sure will haunt his nightmares. He’s dying. Slowly and by Keith’s hand.

Sendak wheezes again but it rolls into a weak growl, his lips curling upward to show his white fangs. He’s going to attack, Keith, even if it drives the sword deeper into his chest—no matter what, he’ll take Keith down with him.

Keith sees Sendak’s jaws open, sees the intention in his eyes to clamp them around his vulnerable throat, and Keith shuts his eyes, prays for it to be quick.

He lets himself think of Lance—happy, smiling, precious Lance. The boy he’s in love with. His tether. His soulmate. They got so far, they finally got it through their thick skulls, only to have that one day. That one, perfect day.

Keith thinks of their stolen moment between bio and lit, behind a staircase in a mostly deserted stairwell. He thinks of how Lance kissed the skin behind his ear and whispered “you have no idea how gone I am for you” and how it made him shiver—how something clicked inside him, making him believe. They were crazy for each other and Keith knows it’s true.

It’s a funny thing, loving someone so deeply and having that someone feel the same way about you. It sounds fake, like a phenomenon that only exists in fairytales and YA novels, but Keith felt it. Feels it. They made it so clear to each other, just in that one day. He wouldn’t trade that day for the world.

Lance will be sad when he’s gone. Devastated, if Keith’s honest. Lance’s emotions run deep, but he has lots to live for. A family that loves him. A promising career. Friends who will support him. He’ll be okay. It’ll be hard, but he’ll be okay. Keith wishes they had more time together, but at least his death won’t be in vain. Sendak won’t survive this and it’ll mean Lance will be safe. What more can he really ask of the world.

Keith can feel Sendak’s jaws coming for him, so he takes a little inhale (his last one, he thinks) and lets go. Resigns himself.

And when it happens, he’s surprised. Because he doesn’t feel any pain—no fangs at his neck, no bones crushing and collapsing in his rib cage, none of the horrible sensations he expects to feel before his death if even briefly. Instead, the heavy weight of Sendak is off him. His shoulder is sore from where he was pinned, but other than that, he’s not in pain.

Maybe there’s no pain as you die, he thinks. Maybe the world lets you skip that part.

But then the rain is still pouring, still wetting his face and he opens his eyes. It’s dark, but he can see the moon and the treetops and it dawns on him that he’s still alive. That something got Sendak off him.

Keith sits up, frantically turns his head side to side and sees something large shuffle to his left—a wolf, smaller than Sendak. It’s jaws are clamped tight on a writhing black mass as it violently shakes its head back and forth like its a dog playing an intense game of tug-of-war.

Lance, Keith realizes with a thump of his heart. It instantly drops when he understands what Lance is doing.

Sendak kicks and squirms under Lance’s jaws and tries to angle his own teeth to find some flesh to bite, fighting until the bitter end to stay alive.

But it’s no use. Lance’s grip is iron-tight—strong and unrelenting. His claws sink into Sendak’s fur to give him even more leverage as he tears away at the flesh and fur and life there.

And, slowly, the black mass’ growls and whimpers die down to sputtering gasps. His movements become weak jerks and feeble twitches until, finally, he stills, his fire extinguished.

Keith’s breathing resumes—shallow and frantic. Did they really do it?

Lance turns, his ice blue wolf eyes trained on him, the fur on his muzzle stained and darker than the rest of his body. Keith wants to cry.

Instead, he stands up and lets his sword transform back to its knife form, then sheathes it. He reaches out to Lance.

“Lance,” he whispers.

At the sound of his name, Lance transforms back. His body is as straight and as tense as a board and he looks away from Keith, ashamed. The area around his mouth is still darker, discolored and Keith is pretty sure is he were to shine a light on him, it’d be red.

Lance spits and wipes his mouth with his sleeve, his eyes lifeless compared to their usual vivacity. Keith rushes to him and places his hands on Lance’s shoulders.

Lance won’t look at him, so Keith cradles his face between his palms to make him meet his eyes. The blood on Lance’s cheeks is warm and slick in Keith’s hands, but he ignores it, focuses on the vacant look in Lance’s eyes.

“Lance,” he says again, hushed.

He’s silent for a long moment until the facade in his face cracks, then breaks completely. His nose and eyes scrunch and he lets out a sob, his hands clutching onto Keith’s wrists.

“He almost killed you,” he says, pained. “I thought he was going to kill you.”

“I’m okay. I’m here. You did it, Lance. We did it.”

“I can smell his blood on you.”

Keith opens his mouth to answer but he’s cut off by cries in the forest.

“Lance! Keith!”

Keith turns around and sees two bobbing lights coming towards them and breathes a sigh of relief.

“We’re here!” he calls and in seconds, Coran and Allura emerge with their lights, both of them a little banged up, but safe on the whole.

“Where is—” Allura starts, but she cuts herself short when her eyes drift to the lump of black fur at their feet. Her face goes completely blank in shock and after a silent beat, she sinks to her knees.

Coran kneels by her immediately, holding onto her shoulders as Lance and Keith rush over.

“Allura,” Lance says, strained.

Allura doesn’t respond, just stares at Sendak’s lifeless body until she eventually whispers, “it’s over.”

Keith looks at Sendak and now that there’s light shining on him, he can see what a mess the body is—his fur is matted with blood all over his front, arrows stick out from various ends, and he’s posed all broken, like a fallen doll. Keith is queasy, but he can’t ignore the tensions that’s left his shoulders. They’re safe. Sendak is gone and they’re safe.

“Will you be alright?” Coran asks and it reminds Keith just how much this meant for Allura too. Sendak was responsible for her father’s death. She’s been hunting him for a long time.

Allura nods and stands up, a little shaky, but with Coran’s help she steadies herself. The raw shock is gone from her face and is now replaced by a calm and determined one. She pulls a vial the size of an airplane liquor bottle full of a dark liquid out of her pocket and goes to the body. She peppers Sendak’s fur with splashes of the potion and once it’s emptied she stuffs it back in her pocket.

Allura raises her arms, arms and fingers splayed out in front of her as she mumbles that same strange, ancient language to herself. Sendak’s body catches flame and Lance gasps beside Keith. The flames are a dark green, almost teal near the base and they encase Sendak’s entire body but they go no further. Keith is certain Allura’s magic keeps it contained and safe from the rain.

Keith expects for there to be some horrible smell, some awful stench of flesh burning, but he senses nothing like that and he wonders if that’s part of the magic too.

“What is that?” Keith asks Coran, low.

“A spell called ‘Forgotten Burial’. It was developed by monster hunters centuries ago to dispose of monster bodies without a trace.”

Keith shudders, glad that Allura and Coran are on their side.

After a few minutes, the flames die down and vanish altogether, leaving nothing but ash in its wake. The slight breeze is already picking some of it up and scattering it along the forest floor. If Sendak has anyone looking for him, they’ll never find him.

Keith doesn’t want to feel bad for him, doesn’t want the guilt of thinking he might have a family somewhere, but he sees the sword in Sendak’s ribcage and can’t help but be acutely aware of the blood still warm on his fingertips.  

The walk back to the car is long and silent. They only speak in the beginning, Allura asking everyone about their injuries. No one is badly hurt and Lance, who is initially bruised and battered all over, heals almost completely by the time they get to the car. Keith is the only one who really needs work done, so Lance sits up front as Coran drives while Allura fixes up Keith’s busted up shoulder.

The drive too, is long and silent with the exception of the chorus of rain and windshield wipers as everyone is deep in thought, trapped in their own little worlds, all of them looking out the windows to watch the fastly passing trees.

Keith doesn’t know what he’s feeling. He should be glad or at least, content. Sendak can’t hurt them anymore, but there’s a darkness that pools at the basin of his stomach. He’d helped kill someone tonight. It was all in self defense and to keep others safe, but he never thought he’d do something like this. It doesn’t feel real.

Nothing’s felt real since Lance first transformed by the lake.

When they get to Allura’s mansion, she gets them both clean pajamas and a change of clothes for the next day. Keith thanks the stars tomorrow is Saturday.

Allura encourages them both to clean up and to rest, that they earned themselves a night of peace. Keith and Lance about to go into the room they shared before when she stops them.

“I’m sorry. I know you must both be exhausted but I…” she trails off, biting her lip. She takes a moment to think, looking for the right words until she meets their eyes. “Thank you. Both of you. I—I don’t think you’ll ever know what it means to me...that he won’t be able to hurt anyone anymore. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Lance manages a small smile and a timid “don’t mention it”. All Keith can do is nod and say, “yeah.”

She smiles warmly at them both and urges them to get rest again before telling them goodnight.

When they finally are able to sneak into their room, the door shut behind them, a heavy silence settles in the air. Neither of them move, neither of them look at each other, and neither says a word. Now that they’re away from Coran and Allura, Keith feels whatever it was that was keeping him together fall away. He was fine just minutes ago, shaken but not panicked and now he feels it—the irregular racing of his heart, the shallow breaths that rasp down his tightened throat, the lightheadedness that could knock him clean over.

The room is spinning. What had they done? What had they done?

Keith thinks he just might faint, thinks he won’t make it to the bed fast enough when he feels a strong hand squeeze his.

“C’mon,” he hears Lance say and his hand tugs at Keith’s, leading him to the large, finely decorated guest bathroom. There’s something grounding in Lance’s touch that gives Keith enough strength to move forward, to not collapse where he stands.

Lance takes him to the lidded toilet and sits him down, taking the stack of clothes in Keith’s hands and placing them on the counter before he kneels in front of him. He starts undoing the snap buttons Keith’s bloodied jacket. Slow and gentle. Button by button.

Keith can’t do much else but watch him, but his face is hard to read—his eyes are tired and seem darker, almost grey, while he keeps his focus on his task. Lance gets to the last button and slides the jacket from Keith’s shoulders, throwing it in a nearby hamper. He stands up next, filling the sink with hot water and grabbing a hand towel from the silver rack.

Once the basin is full and steam floats from the water in spirals, Lance kneels in front of him again, this time gently taking one of his hands. He pulls away at the strap of Keith’s fingerless glove and peels it off, but it doesn’t come off too easily; the faux leather clings to Keith’s skin where blood sneaked in and dried around the openings. He gets it off though, and moves on to the next one. Keith marvels at how much blood must be in bodies that it would even slip into the crevices of his gloves and stain his palms.

Lance throws both gloves into the hamper and tugs at the bottom of Keith’s black t-shirt, also soaked with blood.

“This too,” he says and if he’s shy about it, Keith can’t tell. He doesn’t fight him, just raises his arms and lets Lance take it off, his fingers considerate and careful as he does, though the slight brush of the collar against the back of Keith’s head sets off the dull pain from where Sendak knocked him unconscious.  

This isn’t exactly how Keith imagined Lance undressing him for the first time would go, but despite that, he feels warm. Safe. Taken care of. More so when Lance grabs the towel dabbed in warm water and cleans away the blood on his hand, between his fingers.

Lance goes back and forth from cleaning the blood off Keith’s body to swishing the towel in the hot water to rinse it white again. There’s blood along Keith’s chest too and when Lance touches him there, touches the towel there, Keith’s heartbeat picks up speed. It’s so odd to him how being this close to Lance is both so appealing and uncomfortable at the same time. On one hand he never wants Lance’s hands to leave his chest, on the other, he wants to run to save himself from exploding. He’s weak to do anything but stay put, though.

“You should...take a shower,” Lance says, his face serious but not without tenderness. “It’s in your hair too.”

“I don’t want to be alone,” Keith admits, surprising even himself at the confession. It’s true, though. He can’t bear being seperated from Lance right now, even it’s just by a door.

Lance stares at him, face softening and he squeezes lightly at Keith’s knees.

“Okay,” he says, sweet and caring. “Why don’t you hop in and I’ll be right here. Is that good?”

Keith nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Then let’s—”

“No, wait.”

“What?”

“Let me…” Keith trails off and he takes the towel from Lance’s hand. Keith reaches over to the basin of water and rinses the blood away.

The lower half of Lance’s face is still tinged with dried, maroon blood, most of which is gone from him wiping away at it with his sleeve, but there’s still light streaks of it he missed. Keith unbuttons the first button of Lance’s windbreaker, the sound of the snap like a crack of a whip in the quiet bathroom.

“You too,” Keith urges and silently, Lance lets him unsnap each button until he’s able to shrug it off. Once it’s gone, Keith helps him take off the baseball-tee he has underneath, revealing the fading bruises and scars that decorate the sienna brown of his torso underneath the mess of caked on blood. Keith’s breath hitches at all the little injuries. None of them are serious, but Keith is sure he must have received them in the fight with Sendak, his healing abilities lessening their severity.

Keith’s fingers brush along three uneven lines above Lance’s right pectoral; he must have been scratched deeply there.

“What did he do to you?” Keith whispers, mesmerized by the scar.

“We fought,” Lance says, just as hushed. “We fought until he picked up on your scent or something, and he came for you.”

“Why?”

“We were winning. Coran and Allura were hitting him with arrows, he was having a hard time seeing where my attacks were coming from. We had him cornered.”

“And then?”

“Something happened with you. You like, became a beacon. There was this weird silver glow in the forest and your smell suddenly got super intense and Sendak took after you. I think he wanted to use you as a hostage or something,” Lance says.

“The knife. It transformed.”

“Yeah, I think...I think it’s what took him down. I mean, I—I killed him, but I think he was a goner anyway.”

“He would have killed me. If you hadn’t come.”

“I’ll always come,” Lance says seriously, eyes boring into Keith’s.

Keith doesn’t answer, just stares at him back until he can’t anymore and moves the towel over Lance’s chest, cleaning it until the maroon patches are gone.

There’s no real reason for them to clean each other like this. A hot shower would be more than enough and more efficient too, but Keith is so grateful to feel Lance’s warm skin beneath his finger tips. It’s comforting to be so undoubtedly sure he’s alive and safe, to experience the rise and fall of his lungs in his chest.

   He saves Lance’s face for last. Not really sure why, but when he brushes the towel at his jaw, he’s aware of how intimate it all is. He pays special attention to Lance’s high cheekbones, the slight, charming upturn of his nose, and the full shape of his lips; the slow drag of the towel across Lance’s body making him feel both strong and weak. Seeing Lance’s twilight eyes staring back at him reminds him, that despite how horrible the night’s events were, he regrets nothing. Lance is safe. Keith is safe. The world is safe. Or, at least, it’s safe from this particular monster.

Lance’s face is free of blood and the towel falls away, but Keith’s hand does not. It cups Lance’s cheek and his thumb brushes Lance’s bottom lip. It’s soft.

Lance cries then—just a solitary tear from his right eye that streaks all the way down to his chin and Keith can feel all the guilt this single drop holds. Lance took a life today. They took a life today. And it’s going to leave a scar on both of their souls. Keith knows that.

So, he kisses the tear track. He starts at Lance’s chin, then gently presses his lips upwards to his bottom eyelid. Lance’s eyes are closed, open to Keith’s affections.

Their lives won’t suddenly be easy now. It’s going to be hard. But, at least, Keith can do this.

Keith pulls away. Lance’s eyes open like a curtain rising and there’s a small catch of breath that’s the accompanying first note of the overture.  

At the bottom of Keith’s stomach, there’s a tug like unknown force is tying a rope there and yanking upwards with all their might. Keith’s eyes watch Lance’s eyes—they’re lidded and staring at Keith’s mouth and Lance wets his lips with his tongue. Keith’s smart enough to read the signal and slowly, he leans in to Lance, closes his eyes and kisses him.

Lance presses into it, eager to get Keith’s upper lip between his as the hand Keith has on his cheek sneaks around to the back of his head, tangling into the short hair there. Their movements are slow, easy, and reassuring. Keith can feel Lance’s pulse, hear his breath, absorb his warmth and it’s all overwhelming because Lance is so alive in his arms. They did it. They survived.

And now that he has Lance, really has him, Keith doesn’t ever want to let go.

The kisses slow until they’re just a couple of quick kisses separated by a beat and then, an eventual stop, though they don’t leave much space between them.

“You shower first,” Lance whispers, thumb idly brushing at the top of Keith’s thigh.

“Okay,” Keith says, eyes staring at the floor in embarrassment. “You’ll—you’ll stay right?”

Lance’s knuckles caress the skin over Keith’s cheekbones. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll stay. Just...change in the shower.”

His cheeks look a little darker than before but he smiles kindly at Keith.

“‘Kay.”

Keith rises and crosses to the curtained shower with a clawfoot tub, stepping inside. He strips off the rest of his clothes and chucks them out to the tiled floor, then turns on the faucet. It’s ice cold at first, but the water gets hot quickly and it helps melt the tense muscles in Keith’s shoulders and back.

There’s still blood that’s gathered near where his pants sit at his waist and in his hair, but it washes off easily, the diluted red circling the drain. It makes him nauseous to see it and it reminds him of the sickening sensation of his sword slicing up Sendak’s insides.

“Lance,” Keith calls over the running water, a little desperately. There’s a bit of shuffling and then Keith can see Lance’s silhouette in the shower curtain.

“Hey, hey I’m here. You okay?”

“Y-yeah. Yeah...I just, um, can you talk to me? I’m—I’m thinking too much.”

Lance is silent for a beat and then, “Yeah, we can do that. What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know,” he admits and he searches his mind for a topic, anything that’ll keep Lance talking. The first thing that comes to his mind surprises with him but he rolls with it. “Why didn’t you let me kiss you that night?”

“What night?”

“You know when...you kinda dared me? You called me a wilting flower or whatever.”

“Oh. Oh.” And Lance laughs, real and sweet, silly and endearing. It makes Keith’s heart flutter like a hummingbird in his chest. “I’m surprised you don’t know why.”

“Kinda thought it was ‘cause the thought of kissing me was gross.”

Lance scoffs. “Stupid.”

“What was I supposed to think?”

“I don’t know, just not like, the exact opposite of the truth, I guess.”

Keith’s mouth twitches at the corners. “Then, why?”

“Obviously,” Lance says, drawing out the word, “I didn’t want our first kiss to be because of some dumb dare. I told you. I wanted to take you out to dinner, romance you, and kiss you under the moonlight. You know, the whole thing.”

“Oh,” Keith says, face heating and not just because of the hot water. “Makes sense now that you say it.”

“I think there were a lot of things like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like...things that I did because of how I felt about you, but it didn’t really make sense unless you knew. I feel like I...hid a lot.”

“Tell me.”

“Uhhh, well.” Lance inhales. “Remember how much I hated James Griffin?”

“What does James Griffin have to do with anything?” Keith asks. He can barely put a face to the name, let alone remember why Lance hated him, though he does recall Lance glaring daggers at someone during lunch a lot the year previous.

“He liked you. Heard him talking about it to Ryan last year. I used to daydream about poisoning his milk.”

Keith laughs and resumes washing his hair. “That jealous, huh?”

“Well, he’s top of the class and not a bad looking dude, I guess.”

Keith hums and smirks at himself, a little satisfied at the story.

“Honestly, I’m not even 100% sure I know who you’re talking about.”

Lance laughs and it’s such a lovely sound, Keith thinks it purifies the air.

“If I didn’t hate his guts so much, I’d almost feel sorry for him,” Lance says, an unsaid but I don’t tacked on to the end.

“How kind of you,” Keith murmurs. “What else?”

“Uhh...I guess—remember the night I got attacked?”

Keith is sudsing his hair but stops at the question. “Yeah.”

“Well, the whole reason I was out that night was because I was heading to your place.”

“Why?” Keith asks, incredulous.

“I was gonna tell you, dude.”

“Tell me wh—” Keith starts until he catches onto Lance’s meaning mid-sentence. “In the middle of the night?!”

“Well, it sounds dumb when you put it like that, but yeah. I was lying in bed, y’know, thinking about stuff. Us. And I got really hyped up and I had to see you. So I snuck out my window and just started running. I could have grabbed my keys or whatever but I just wanted to run. It was kind of weird looking back. Kinda felt like I was under a spell or something.”

“Maybe you were,” Keith says.

“Maybe,” Lance says, a questioning lilt in his voice. “Though I think I would have ended up at your window confessing my love sooner or later, honestly.”

Keith smiles at that. “If I hadn’t beaten you to it?”

Lance laughs again. “Yeah, if you hadn’t beaten me to it.”

Keith’s sufficiently clean so he turns off the faucet and grabs the towel hanging from the nearby rack.  

“Well, remember the first night you transformed?” Keith asks as he dries himself.

“Yeah.”

“I was gonna tell you then. Y’know before the whole turning into an eight-foot tall wolf thing.”

“You were?”

“That so hard to believe?” Keith asks, wrapping the towel around his waist and bunching it at his hip so it’ll stay in place.

“The fact that you like me at all is hard to believe.”

Keith pulls back the curtain, causing them to suddenly be face-to-face and Lance takes one good look at him before he cranes his neck, forcing his gaze as far away from Keith as it can go.

Keith smirks at the clear blush blooming on Lance’s cheeks. That’s fun. He’ll have to figure out how to do that more often.

For now, he settles for kissing Lance’s very exposed neck and muttering, “well, believe it.”

Lance snaps his head back to Keith, eyes narrowing at him and Keith can’t suppress his smile.

“Was that a Naruto quote?!” Lance asks, scandalized.

Keith shrugs, stepping out of the tub. “Maybe.”

“Oh my god, you fuckin’ weeb.”

“Hey, you’re the one who insisted we binge all eight thousand episodes in two weeks!”

“I don’t see your point.”

“My point is you’re the Sasuke to my Naruto.”

“Oh, hell no. If anyone is Sasuke it’s you, you emo fuck.”

Keith bursts out a surprised laugh, but tries to calm it when he says, “I think I hit a nerve.”

“Shut up,” Lance says, rolling his eyes.

“Take your shower.”

“I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” he grumbles, peeling off his socks. “Your pajamas are on the counter.”

As Lance slips behind the curtain, Keith changes into the pajamas and throws Lance’s discarded clothes into the hamper. Lance sends quips his way all the while (“don’t forget to dry your mullet, Mullet!”) and Keith slings them back (“be sure to wash behind your massive ears, Lance.”)

And Keith feels like he can finally breathe, because Lance has him laughing despite the horrible couple of nights they’ve had. He doesn’t expect that he’ll just get over what’s happened, but he knows Lance will be there—like he always is—to make Keith smile. And if Keith can manage it, he hopes he can always make Lance smile too.

Lance finishes his shower and Keith is feeling well enough to give him some privacy to dress, but they’re only separated for moments as Lance changes at the speed of light.

Once their hair is good and dry, they turn off the lights and get into bed, fitting into each other’s arms like they were born to do it.

Lance’s head is pressed to Keith’s chest, rising and falling with Keith’s breathing. Keith’s fingers fluff Lance’s soft hair and he sighs, feeling warm and safe, though dark thoughts creep in at the corners of his mind. He focuses on Lance to ward them away.

“Keith?”

“Hm?”

“We’re...we’re gonna be okay, right?”

Keith doesn’t answer right away, isn’t quite sure what Lance means.

“Sendak can’t hurt us anymore.”

“Yeah, no. I know. But I just mean…”

“What?”

Lance sighs and grips at the fabric of Keith’s shirt. “I’m still a werewolf, y’know? Like, this might not be the last bad thing that happens, so I—”

“We’ll be okay.”

“Huh?”

“If that’s what you’re worried about, we’ll be okay. I know we will.”

“How?” Lance asks, looking up at him.

“I got your back,” Keith says, smiling down at him. “And you got mine, right?”

It takes Lance a moment, but his face flowers into a grin before he nuzzles his face back into Keith’s chest.

“Yeah,” Lance says, airy. “Yeah, I got you.”

And Keith knows he does.

Keith steps outside of his apartment, the rays of the setting sun hitting his eyes and making him squint, and the first thing he hears is a loud, impressive wolf whistle.

“Woo! Looking good, Kogane!”

“You said to dress nice.”

“And you did a very good job,” Lance says, leaning against his car in a royal blue pullover with a collared shirt underneath. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows which, for some god forsaken reason, drives Keith crazy.

Keith is in a collared red shirt and a black pair of jeans he knows Lance likes, but Keith isn’t particularly confident in dressing himself up.

Keith scowls at him. “Shut up.”

“I mean it!” Lance says, affronted. “You...you look good.”

Oh.

“Oh. Uh, thanks. You too.”

“I like your ponytail.”

“I like this shirt,” Keith says, tugging on the blue pullover at its hem. The color makes Lance’s eyes pop.

Lance’s smirk deepens as he opens the passenger side door of his van. “Hoped you would.” Keith goes in for a quick kiss before getting in the car, but Lance turns his head away at the last moment. “Uh buh buh buh! No smooches until our romantic last stop!”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Lance we’ve already kissed loads of times. What does it matter if we kiss now?”

“Because tonight’s special!”

And Keith can’t argue with that. Tonight is special—it’s their first date and Lance is determined to go all out. It’s been a week since they defeated Sendak and it’s been a rough few days. Lance and Keith have both been having nightmares, but they wake each other up when they do and it helps.

A couple days after that night Lance made a big show of asking Keith out, eager to take him on that big first date he’s been planning for all these years. Keith said yes easily, though a “first date” seems a little silly considering their history and the depth of their established affections.

But Lance seems happy as they slide into the bucket seats of the van and that’s enough for Keith.

“Besides,” Lance continues, buckling himself in, “think about how good of a kiss it’ll be! We’ll be building anticipation all night and then, bam! Super romantic kiss by the lake. Our kids will be telling their kids about it.”

Keith nearly chokes on his spit. “Kids?! Lance, we’ve been dating for a week.”

“I’m thinkin’ like four or so? Nice even number.”

“Four?! ”

“Okay, maybe that’s a lot but two is the absolute minimum,” Lance says, pulling out of Keith’s driveway, his face decorated with a grin that Keith knows means he’s being teased.

“I’m gonna sneak a kiss in as revenge for this conversation.”

“You better not!”

“I’m gonna!”

“I’ll kill you, I swear to god.”

It’s Keith’s turn to tease now. “No you won’t.”

“Maybe not, but I will revoke kissing privileges for a week if you do, I’m dead serious.”

Now that is a threat.

“Alright, alright. No kisses ‘til the lake.”

Lance smirks and turns on the radio. It’s the same golden oldies station that Lance has been so partial to the last month or so and Etta James’ silky voice fills the car.

“It’ll be worth the wait,” Lance says as they get onto the long stretch of highway that heads into town. The setting sun is bright and blinding, silhouetting all the trees in the overlook and something sweet and peaceful settles in Keith’s chest. He sees Lance’s right hand on the armrest and captures it in his left one.

Lance squeezes his hand back, reciprocating and happiness hums in Keith’s chest, matching the drawn out croon of At Last on the radio.

Keith smiles, laughing at a secret joke, when he says, “it always is.”