Our Love Is A Tragedy I Wouldn't Miss/When In Rome

The Tiniest Lifeboat to Hades

Lance's wife started showing the year after their first child had been born. Their first was still small enough to be held and now had green eyes that explored the world and excitedly patted her mother's stomach as she babbled about her little brother or sister.

Keith had to leave the room in fear of anyone seeing him shed any tears.

Keith tried to avoid Lance that day but Lance was persistent and ended up laying in Keith's bedroom with Keith in his arms. Lance on his back and Keith on his side with his face smashed into Lance's neck.

"Please don't cry, Keith," Lance mumbled into Keith's hair when it sounded like Keith was about to start crying only minutes after calming down.

"I won't," Keith insisted with a broken voice into Lance's neck.

The arms around Keith tensed and the hand behind his head pushed him tighter into the base of Lance's neck.

"I didn't do it to make you sad," Lance informed Keith. It was redundant, as Keith already knew this, but somehow it was something that he didn't know that he needed to hear.

Keith's voice was muffled but Lance still understood it when Keith answered, "It did."

"I know, Sweetheart," Lance said and sniffed.

Keith tried to pull back but Lance tightened his grip.

"I hate that I have to do this to you," Lance muttered bitterly in a fragile attempt to hide his misery of making Keith cry.

"Me too," Keith answered weak but honest.

"At least it will only be you sleeping with someone else for a while," Lance said in an attempt to comfort Keith but it only weighed his heart down even more.

"Yeah..." Keith stretched the word out.

"Hey," Lance said as he pulled Keith away from his neck. Lance moved his hands to the sides of Keith's head to hold Keith's gaze better and letting his thumbs brush over the skin under Keith's eyes. "It's not that bad. It takes a lot less preparation at least."

"Yeah..." Keith answered the same way as before. He could lie far better than this but he was too emotionally drained to do so. Even if Lance was right in a way, he was still far more wrong because Aspasia didn't need to be stretched out and she created lubrication herself but Lance either underestimated or had no idea about how much time it took Keith to hype himself up to sleeping with his wife. Sleeping with Lance took preparation but nothing mental and it was fun to prepare with Lance. They didn't even need to prepare every time that they wanted to get off as they did a lot of stuff that didn't take any preparation at all but was often just as pleasurable as penetration was.

"I probably have to sleep with her before she sleeps with someone else again," Keith informed Lance.

"Yeah..." Lance breathed out, all light going out of her eyes. His eyes focusing on the ceiling behind Keith for a moment before they searched Keith's eyes out again. "Did you really think the baby was yours? Before it was born?"

"Yes," Keith answered more matter-of-factly than he could remember ever answering anything.

"That sucks," Lance commented in an effort to say something but it summed the whole situation up quite nicely.

"It's okay," Keith filled the silence out with a few awkward seconds after Lance's comment. It was an obvious lie because it wasn't okay. She couldn't just become pregnant with another man's child when Keith had worked so hard to give Rome what he was obligated to. What they, him and his wife, was obligated to.