Red ~ // Klance

4 - Sleep is a Good Idea

For a long moment things were silent. Lance sat in the pilots seat while Keith sat on the floor, back pressed against the wall.

Neither spoke, hoping the other would be the one to initiate conversation.

Ever since Shiro and the rest of the paladins left, things somehow got more uncomfortable.

It was as if the walls were getting closer together, preparing to crush the two alive. Such a thought made Lance's anxiety spike.

"Lance? Do you wanna talk or?" Keith started.

"Actually Mullet, I don't." Lance said a bit ruder than he had intended.

"For fucks sake, can you stop acting like a child for 10 minutes?" Keith groaned as he rubbed his temples, trying to stay calm.

"I do not act like a child." Lance kept his head turned away from Keith, starting at the control board instead.

"Sure, is that why you've been angry at me since I got here? You won't even sit still long enough for me to try to figure out what's wrong."

"I'm done talking with you right now." Lance dug his foot into the hard metal ground under him.

"No your not, you don't just get to decide when our conversations end. If you haven't noticed, we are both stuck in here so the least you can do is talk to me. I'm leaving in a few days, I don't know when I'll see everyone again." Keith balled his hand into a fist, avoiding the urge to punch something.

"Now you wanna talk? No thank you. I honestly don't care if you're leaving Keith. I'm tired, I want you to go so I can get back to being a sharpshooter without distractions."

Keith could practically feel his blood pressure rise at an unhealthy rate. "So that's what your gonna say? I've been gone for I don't even know how long and when I come back I don't even get a 'hi' or 'how are things going with the Blade?' from you. I never understood this stupid rivalry thing but before I left I thought we were at least becoming friends? I wanna fix things but I don't even know what I did wrong."

Spinning around in his chair, Lance faced himself towards Keith. "You don't know what you did wrong? You play this whole victim thing and you don't even know what's wrong? Since you wanna know so badly, let me name a few. First you say a bunch of inspirational stuff and make me feel like things are gonna be okay for a while. After that, you leave like it's no big deal. Every other day we'd receive reports from Kolivan saying you got hurt or almost died just because you had to act like a hot shot. Do you even understand how many sleepless nights we've had, thinking you were going to die? You fucking knew that the Blade doesn't care about your life more than anyone else, at the very least you should have been looking out for yourself. But guess what? You couldn't even do that. "

"Lance I- the only reason I left is so you would have a lion. I knew you were better suited as a paladin of Voltron than I ever would." For the first time since Lance knew Keith, he heard his voice break. He sounded like he was about to cry but he didn't, he just swallowed down his emotions like he had done his entire life.

It was impressive how insanely quick he felt guilt punch him in the gut, though the chance to apologize didn't come before Keith tried to leave.

Eyes nearly as red as the lion, Keith got up and started pounding on the wall. It started with a few semi-hard punches and escalated to full on kicking.

"Keith, stop it!"

But Keith didn't stop, at least not for a few more minutes until he fell over from exhaustion. By some magic, there was not a single dent in the interior of the lion. Whatever material the lion was made of seemed impossibly durable.

"If that's how you feel Lance, I'm going back to Kolivan once Red lets us out."

Lance sunk to the ground next to Keith and attempted to set a hand on Keith's shoulder. It didn't work, Keith flinched away before Lance could touch him.

"I-I, listen I didn't mean that okay." Lance looked at the ground.

"I know you didn't Lance. But I'm not sure if I wanna deal with this right now. I'm going back to sleep." Keith moved a few feet away until he was met with the wall furthest from Lance. Turning to his side, he bunched up his thin red jacket and put it under his head like a pillow.

"Your gonna take a nap? If we don't get this sorted out we're gonna be stuck in here for a while." Lance pouted.

"It will only be a little. I can't hold a conversation with you like this. Keep yourself entertained or something." Keith shut his eyes.

---
Happy afternoon, morning, or night ladies and gentlemen (and our friends who fall into other categories <3).

I'm feeling productive, I'm actually getting chapters out consistently. I'm very sorry if I mess somethings up. I normally write at like 4am using my phone so there is bound to be some mistakes.

Anyway, here's another fun question for today:

What's your favorite unpopular food combination?

(I'm not sure if this counts but I love crushed club crackers, berries, and whipcream ^_^)