Confusing Carnations (Klance)

Ch 18: Let's Go

With my Hanahaki being in the open, the other paladins were surprisingly supportive and checked in on me to gauge the progression. After that evening with Lance, I hadn't felt the pain in my chest as much, though it still remained a subtle aching.

"Well, it looks like the growth of the flowers has paused, but they are still there and alive," Allura spoke judging from the x-rays which were taken.

I hadn't shared what had happened with Lance and me due to embarrassment on my part and Lance hadn't shared it either to my knowledge. It was honestly so magical that I thought I had been cured on the spot, but I guess that isn't the case.

"The illness will be cured when the flowers die. When that happens, you'll cough up the dead flowers." Pidge spoke, as if reading my mind.

Allura smiled cheekily, noticing my rosy face, "So, you and Lance have been rather close?"

Blushing more, I moved to speak, when as if on cue, Lance came into the communication room and sat beside me on the couch.

He sat close to me, his leg brushing my own. What are we? I pondered it to myself. We've kissed now and it doesn't take a genius to know that friends don't kiss each other. I'm not cured so he's not in love with me, right?

"So, how's Keith doing now?" He pointed his question at Allura. Lance always somehow timed his entrance near perfectly after my check in with Allura and Pidge as my pseudo-doctors. He was doing his best to not entirely invade my privacy while showing concern for my health and it made me extremely thankful to see him this way.

"The flowers are stagnant in their progression, neither ceasing or progressing," Allura spoke to Lance.

Lance pursed his lips together and knitted his eyebrows in thought, before speaking, "Okay, that's not bad at least."

Pushing his hands on his legs, Lance stood up and sighed, "Hey, Keith, are you done with everything here?"

I followed his face as he stood up and spoke, "Yeah, why?"

"Wanna help me with something then?" Lance glanced in my direction, a small smile on his lips.

Allura and Pidge shared a knowing look, smiling to each other.

"Yeah, sure," I felt a blush creeping on my face despite my efforts not to embarrass myself in front of Allura and Pidge and stood to walk out with Lance.

Once out of the room, Lance led the way. The entire way, he had a goofy smile over his face.

"Where are we going?" He had passed just about every place I would have guessed we'd go.

When he turned to me, his eyes shined in a mischievous manner, his goofy smile unwavering, "It's a surprise."

I rolled my eyes, but felt a smile find it's way to my face. I kept finding more and more sides of Lance that I loved.

After a few minutes of walking, we came to the doorway which opened to the blue lion. I gasped realizing that he wanted to leave the castle and he turned back to me, beaming a smile.

"Wait, Lance- we can't just leave without telling anybody."

Tilting his head, a light blush went over his face, becoming suddenly sheepish compared to his originally confident spontaneity, "We won't be gone long, I promise. So, come on."

The truth was, Lance had asked the team for a day they wouldn't have anything going on to plan this. After that kiss, he felt his world tear apart and piece itself back together. The world that was now materialized before his eyes was one where being without Keith was not an option.

Lance had fallen hard and undeniably in love with the red paladin. Today was the day he was going to cure him and it filled him with uncontainable excitement. 

Breaking from his thoughts and noticing my hesitation, he grabbed my hand and the blue lion moved its head to the ground, mouth opened, making an entrance. Lance tugged me inside and eventually I conceded and allowed him to pull me along til we made our way into the control panel of his lion.  

"Oh, shit." I heard Lance mumble under his breath and I moved to his side.

At his side, I saw the predicament: there was only one chair. "How is this going to work?"

"I'll admit, I had not thought this through as well as I thought." Lance moved to his chair to sit down when a subtle blush rushed to his face, waggling his eyebrows playfully, "You can sit on my lap. It's the only solution."

I knew that it wasn't the only solution. I could have easily taken my lion and followed him to his surprise destination and Lance knew it too. They both wanted each other's company and closeness more than ever despite that so, as if in an unspoken bond, Keith decided to pretend to have not thought of it, giving into Lance.

Turning my face away and rolling my eyes, I walked over to Lance, "How should I, uh, do this?"

Seeing his advances being accepted, Lance got a burst of confidence and reached his hands to Keith's waist, glancing at Keith's face in the process to see if he had an adverse response but saw only embarrassment.

With a bit of maneuvering, Keith sat across Lance, his legs hanging off the side of his thighs. Lance's arm served as Keith's backrest when he fiddled with the controls.

I felt him kiss my cheek and my face flushed. He laughed a bit at my reaction and began to power on his lion, "Ready?"

Facing forward, away from his face, trying to steady my heart subtly, I mumbled, "Yeah, whatever."

The entire trip there, Lance would take me by surprise by kissing my cheek every now and then. He would also point at weird shaped space debris and talk about how cool they were. A couple times, he'd point at an awfully shabby looking rock or planet, and exclaim, "We're here!" just to laugh to tears, thinking it was absolutely hysterical.

To be fair, his laugh filled me with joy, even if it was about something ridiculous. Even with the trip being a bit longer than an hour, I never once felt bored.

I wrote this chapter in a flash, lol. The next chapter will be more fun to write, I think. To clarify, Keith's Hanahaki has ceased progression but Keith is unaware of Lance's feelings so he can't be healed yet. Hanahaki, in my "observations" (if you can call it that, lol) is a mental illness. It manifests itself in physical ways but it's caused due to emotional pain (i.e. heartache). I should have probably cleared that up but I have no idea how to casually slip that into the story. Lol, look at me with such logic on a fictional disease. I'm trying to decide what to write when I'm done with this story and I want to write femslash, lol. I don't know what ship but femslash is my favorite so I'll figure something out, ha ha.