Prompts: Not Realizing They're Injured/Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms/Healed Wrong/"It's not my blood."
"It's not mine."
That's what Lance had said, because it couldn't be. He would know. Wouldn't he?
But judging by the look on Keith's face, he was clearly missing something.
"We need to put pressure on that," Keith said slowly in that carefully enunciated voice, the one he used when he was trying to hide his alarm.
Again, it wasn't his. But he knew better than to interfere when Keith was like this, teetering on the edge of panic. Better to let him see for himself.
Lance allowed Keith to remove his left rerebrace, which, to Keith's credit, was slick with blood. Keith wrinkled his nose and bit the tip of his glove, pulling it off his hand.
"See? Not mine."
"Nothing on this planet bleeds red, Lance," Keith reminded him as he forcefully pressed the rubber glove into Lance's tricep.
Oh yeah.
But if that was true, then why didn't--
Oh. Oh. Okay. Now it hurt. The pain was so sharp it felt cold, spreading ice to his nerves in his fingers. He wiggled them experimentally. Bad idea.
Keith tapped his helmet, activating his comm, "Red team withdrawing. We need to get Lance to a healing pod. Stat."
"Do you need an extraction?" Allura asked, concerned.
"No, but he's losing a lot of blood."
"How much blood are we talking?" Hunk asked as Lance's vision started to get fuzzy around the edges.
"Tourniquet level," Keith replied as he pulled his hairband out with one hand, the other still holding pressure to the wound.
His heart was beating so fast that Lance half expected it to explode. He tried to focus on taking big slow breaths, but he found himself gasping for air when it seemed like he couldn't get the air in fast enough. Oh no, he was hyperventilating. That couldn't be good.
"Hold this," Keith instructed as he folded the band in half and wrapped it around Lance's arm, pulling the elastic tight.
The pressure on his brachial artery was not a welcome sensation, he realized as he felt his hyperactive pulse push against the elastic band. Nausea rolled in his stomach.
Keith snapped his fingers in front of Lance's nose. Lance tried to focus on the eyes looking back at him with intensity. "I'm gonna need you to keep pressure on this, as much as you can."
Lance nodded, the pain making him feel so weak he was numb, like his extremities were slowly disappearing. It wouldn't be long before he was weightless.
Keith hoisted him in a fire's carry before bolting for Red.
Lance was barely aware as his cheek lay against the cockpit floor. It was cool. And he was the coldest he had ever been.
Fog pressed up against him, clouding his awareness.
-nce
What was that?
-ance!
The sound dipped in and out, gently, like a lullaby.
Lance! What's your blood type?
And everything was quiet.
* * *
There was a pressure in his head. A pounding. Wait. That's what sounds were. Those were sounds. Funny. He couldn't understand them. Not yet. It was like they were all meshing together in one big blob that echoed through his head like a gong.
