Feel The Rythm In My Chest

After what only felt like minutes to the red paladin, but was actually about an hour, Keith decided it was time to take Lance back to his room so he could sleep properly. He didn't want to wake the resting Cuban though, so he picked the boy up bridal style and made his way to the blue paladin's designated bedroom.

Keith didn't like the thought of leaving Lance alone for the rest of the night cycle. Whatever his nightmare was about it must've been a really horrifying one if it caused such a reaction from him.

Keith knew how Lance could get when it came to one of his nightmares, because sometimes Keith would catch him in the main control area with his blanket over his head just like this night, with tear stained cheeks and matted hair and puffy eyes. But this time was worse, this night was a lot worse than his usual encounter with a sad Lance. Keith never made it his business to comfort Lance whenever he caught him in the control room. And if it wasn't his business to comfort Lance then it sure wasn't to tell others to do so. This was mostly because he was really bad at that sort of thing and he knew exactly how Lance saw him. As a rival. As a person who hates him and always tries to prove that he's better than him even though that's never really Keith's intention, he just never outwardly says it isn't fo fear of losing what precious messed up friendship he shares with the Cuban. He only really interfered this particular night due to the fact that Lance was actually sitting there sobbing into his knees instead of his usual silent tears.

Guilt gnawed at Keith every time he would walk away from helping his teammate when they so clearly needed it, but as proven before he's not good at that sort of thing. But this time the guilt broke him with every whimper that Lance let out of his mouth until he couldn't take it anymore and went in without a plan or so much as a baseline in where to begin. It just sorta...happened. And Keith was glad that it ended up fine even though it got kinda rocky in the middle there.

He sighed as he reached Lance's door, shifting his weight slightly so that he could open the door. He knocked slightly, then fought the urge to facepalm because Lance was in his arms, not in his room. He then tried a number of different codes on the keypad, none of which worked because he couldn't remember the right for the bedroom of the blue paladin. Keith groaned outwardly, tilting his head back to face the ceiling while keeping Lance stable in his arms.

Great, he thought, now I'm going to have to take us both back to my room. As if this night wasn't already awkward enough.

Keith made a mental note to never let a teammate sleep on him without their room code again as he trudged down the castle's long corridors for his own room, drowsiness and the weight of an entire extra human body weighing him down, though it wasn't too much of a challenge for the muscular Korean. But the fact that he had Lance swaddled in a blanket which was making his already sweaty body hotter was not helping his case, neither was the fact that the blanket didn't quite keep Lance's chest covered up due to the jostling of Keith's footsteps.

By the time that they had reached the red paladin's room he was an exhausted mess. Once he punched in his room code he carefully laid Lance down on his bed where the Cuban immediately curled up into a relaxed ball, whimpering slightly at the loss of Keith's warmth, but not in a sad way like earlier that night. Keith smiled fondly at his teammate before walking into his personal bathroom (each of them had one in their rooms) and changed out of his morning cloths which he wore to training and into his pajamas which consisted of red pajama pants and a baggy dark gray tank top. He left his other cloths in the bathroom and left his jacket on it's usual hook close to the door.

Keith silently walked back to Lance, quickly tying his hair up into a ponytail with a hair tie he grabbed from his bathroom, and reached over the sleeping boy to grab his own blankets and a pillow from the bed. He then laid down a thicker blanket in the floor, places his pillow on top of it, then proceeded to lie down and cover his body with the thinner blanket which he snatched from the bed. He was debating with himself whether or not to let his hair down but decided against it since he felt too hot and bothered by being practically face to face with the room heater that was on the floor in front of him.

He scowled a bit as he tossed and turned trying to get comfortable on the ground without waking Lance up. At some point he even considered joining Lance on the bed just to be more comfortable, it was his bed after all, but he also didn't want things to turn weird and awkward. Just as Keith was pondering to go sleep in the lounge he heard the whimpers again, the little sad noises which Lance was uttering what seemed like an eternity (eighty minutes) ago.

Keith shot up from his place next to his bed and got on his knees, kneeling over Lance's still resting face as he kept on whimpering in his sleep. Keith realized that he wasn't quite having a nightmare, but he wasn't quite peacefully sleeping either. It was like some sort of in between gray area where bad thoughts mixed into the black void of slumber. He knew this because Shiro told him that he would get those types of things before a full out nightmare when he was way younger...close to his father's death.

Keith shoved those thoughts out of his head as he reached over to softly stroke Lance's face, trying to recall and do what Shiro used to do for him. The Korean boy shut his eyes in an attempt to remember what it was that his older brother figure would do to help him in this situation.

Soft and melodic humming fills the air. Warm arms wrapping him up in a safe embrace and a familiar musk surrounds him, yet he couldn't put his finger on the scent. A reassuring heartbeat calms his own palpitating one to another period of pure peace. Lance slept quietly once again.

Keith exhaled in relief, it had worked. Humming that same old tune and stroking Lance's hair while allowing Lance to curl into him had calmed the boy down. The red paladin was positioned in a way that was comfortable yet protective over the blue paladin. Lance laid in his lap, head over the Korean's heart with his long tan legs sprawled over the bed. His bare chest on top of Keith's stomach and his arms wrapped around Keith's torso, he had a small, content smile on his face. Keith secured Lance's blanket over his shoulders and rested one of his hands there and the other in Lance's hair, hugging the boy on top of him closer to his body, his own little legs were laid out so that Lance was securely in between them (not in a dirty way). Keith placed his head on the back wall which enclosed his bed, repeatedly waking up and falling back asleep throughout the night in an effort to help Lance have a peaceful slumber for once in who knows how long. If Lance ever started to fuss during the night again, then Keith would always be right there to let him fall back asleep to his heartbeat. * * * Morning came too early in Lance's opinion, he had gotten some real rest last night and waking up from it did not please him in the slightest. He woke up groggily, slowly, and took in his surrounding one by one. First was the sight, he woke up to dark gray colored cotton that was calmly rising and falling beneath his cheek. Second came the sound. The sound of small snores, except they were more like deep purrs that filled his ears. It wasn't even unpleasant, Lance found the noise both cute and soothing. Third came the smell. It was a familiar yet unfamiliar musk the enveloped him, yet did not overpower his nose. It smelled woody and sweaty, yet also fresh at the same time. Fourth came the feel of the things around him. Lance's eyes widened as he became hyper aware of smooth, cool skin under the pads of his right hand and soft cloth clutched in his left. His face had only a thin line of fabric between him and a built chest and he could feel his legs tangled together with another's under the sheets. Not to mention the fact that his exposed chest was pressed against what for sure felt like abs and a hand over his blanket covered shoulders plus one ruffled in his hair. Fifth was his sense of realization as to what had happened and why he was like he was after a few groggy what??'s floated around his head.

He was in Keith's room.

In Keith's bed.

Bare chested and pressed up against Keith.

Hugging Keith's torso.

Breathing in Keith's scent.

Listening to Keith's heartbeat.

Everything right then was just directly involving Keith, he had even waken up in Keith's safe arms.

Lance blushed slightly at that simple thought, stealing a small smile to himself as he hesitantly gazed up to Keith's sleeping face. Lance had never seen him so relaxed, it was almost like all of these walls which Lance hadn't even known existed crumbled and all that was left was the face a young man who had seen too much.

Lance reached out his right hand, slipping the fingers away from where they made their way slightly up Keith's back during the night and to his face. Lance hooked his fingers lightly under Keith's chin and rubbed slight circled right on his cheekbone. The red paladin habitually leaned into the taller male's touch groaning slightly as the sudden warmth under his eye, though he did not wake up. Lance whistled lowly as he started to get up and off of Keith, deciding that he would creep back to his own room then pull Keith aside to talk to him about everything that happened later. Hopefully Keith wouldn't have spilled his little secret by whatever time that would be. But he did seem very sincere last night, maybe he really didn't want to just be rivals, and it was just Lance's head telling him that Keith hated him, that what he thought was far from the truth and Keith really did care and wasn't going to be a douchebag about the whole thing.

Lance shook his head slightly, there will be time to think about that later, right now I need to get outta here or else this morning is just going to get embarrassing, he thought as he tried to get on his knees and shimmy his top half out of Keith's grip.

"Mmm, nooo~ five more minutes. So warm, so tired~" Keith complained. Lance let out a small yelp as he was pulled back down on top of the Korean again, though this time Keith had rolled over to the side, dragging Lance along with him. Even when he was asleep he had an ironclad death grip. Keith wrapped his left arm under the crook of Lance's neck and over his shoulder while his right arm draped over his uncovered waist, the initial blanket stuck beneath the two of them. Keith had pulled Lance so close to him that the Cuban's arms were trapped against him so he couldn't do anything but either go back to sleep or wake the Korean boy up.

On the one hand he wanted to get up.

On the other, he wanted to live.

Just as Lance was coming to terms that he could very much die at the wrath of 'just woken up' Keith, Allura's voice came over the speakers startling both the boys up from their sleep heavy positions.

"Paladins, I require you all in the control room within twenty doboshes. One of the rebel bases has contacted us and are in need of assistance from Voltron. This is not an attack but still an immediate emergency. Please hurry, the sooner we meet the sooner we can discuss what needs to be done." Then her voice was gone, leaving the two males in an awkward silence, sitting side by side yet neither really looking at the other until Lance cleared his throat.

"Can you, uh, your hand is..." Lance trailed off, gesturing to his waist where Keith had protectively encircled it in his arm.

"Oh!" he retracted his arm and let it sit in his lap. "I'm sorry. I did-didn't mean to-to," he stammered, his face heating up a bit.

"It-it's okay," Lance stuttered, rubbing his neck with his hand, a nervous habit he had developed at a very young age after picking it up from his older brother.

Keith looked over at Lance, taking in the sight of him in just his pajamas, feathered bed head, dopey expression painted across his face. And the longer he looked, the more little things he saw which he hasn't noticed before, like the faint freckles across Lance's nose that became more plentiful splattered across his shoulders and dipping down his back, also the way his hair curled up at the ends, and the way his eyes crinkled when he tried to focus in on something so early in the morning.

God, he looks really pretty...

Lance looked up at Keith in surprise, his eyes wide showing off his ocean colored rings and a dark blush burned his face. "Uh, um. Thank-thanks. Y-you look adorable when you-your asleep-sleep ya kn-know," Lance giggled nervously, averting any hope of eye contact with the red paladin.

"Shit did I say that out loud?" Keith asked, face heating up as he already knew the answer.

Lance simply nodded, when he did it caused Keith to jerk back from embarrassment and topple out of the bed headfirst and onto the well placed pillow that he had left in the ground last night. He groaned loudly, partially from falling on his head and partially from saying such an embarrassing thing out loud.

Lance giggled into his hand as Keith covered his eyes with his forearm, taking a few deep breaths before trying but failing to get off the floor from his position.

"Need some help?" Lance asked, climbing over Keith's legs and offering his hand out to the smaller male. Keith simply grunted and gladly took the Cuban's hand, allowing himself to be pulled back onto the bed. Except he fell again, but forward this time. Forward right on top of Lance. Keith and stuck his free arm out (for his other hand was still grasping Lance's) and stopped centimeters short of Lance's face. Both boys blushed even harder if that was possible before Keith scrambled to get off of the blue paladin.

"S-sorry," he said, not looking at Lance as he let go of his hand and climbed out of the bed. "We should probably get up and get ready, I think we've taken long enough."

"Yeah," Lance agreed, following Keith off the bed and bending back over it to quickly grab his blanket.

Lance made his way to the door slowly, taking in the emptiness of Keith's room. There was nothing personal about it, it was so bland and the lack of items almost made it seem cold even though it was as warm as ever.

I guess he doesn't have many things he would like to keep with him. It's almost like he's not getting too comfortable around here. I want to change that, not now, but someday, somehow I'll change that.

"Hey Keith?" Lance said from the doorway to of the room.

"Yeah?"

"Can we...can we talk about what happened later? I don't know, I guess I just want to take in what happened between us."

"Of course, if that's what you want. I also felt like we should address what happened."

"Yeah, oh and...thanks, really. Thank you for helping me out," Lance finished, walking out of the room and hurrying over to his before Keith could say anything more.