shining like the stars

82

"Problems?" Keith asked dryly, standing with his arms folded as he watched Lance fiddle with his bayard. The weapon had not lit up in the slightest, its usually glowing bands dark. Lance scowled and pointed the weapon at the locked door again, but just as it had the last half-dozen times he'd tried it the weapon gave off no noise nor indication that it was supposed to do anything other than look threatening.

Lance banged his fist against the solid door uselessly, then let his arm dangle, the plasma rifle held against his body with his left hand. "This has happened before," he said, although he was still scowling. "In Shiro's memory."

Keith said, quietly, "you were in Shiro's memory?"

"Yeah." Lance sighed and shook out his arm, the bayard returning to its normal state in his hand. He half-turned and looked back at Keith, brow furrowed. "You sound like you didn't know that."

"I didn't." Keith's ears had gone flat against his head, mostly indistinguishable from his ruffled mess of dark hair.

"I know we discussed this," Lance said. He folded his arms and tilted his head, trying to remember when, exactly, they had discussed it. After a long moment of silence, he shook his head once and shrugged. "Okay, I can't remember discussing it with you but I know we did." He gestured back at the door. "But anyway, when we were in his, my bayard didn't work in the cell, but once we broke out of the established timeline all our shit started working like normal."

"That's all well and good, but we don't know where we are in that stupid little shit's memory," Keith said.

"Yeah, that does pose some problems," Lance agreed. Keith glanced around the tiny room and Lance did as well. There wasn't much at hand, no real furniture to speak of, windows large enough to see out of but too small to easily try to escape through. "Any ideas?"

Keith rubbed one of his hands over the vambrace on his left arm, then nodded his head. "I think I do," he said, and popped the latch on that portion of his armor. Lance's eyebrows shot into his hairline.

"Whoa," Lance said. "Are we actually doing this? Because I'm down-"

"God, shut up," Keith said, and tossed Lance his shed vambraces. "I don't want to shred the gauntlets on my uniform, okay?"

"...what?"

Keith peeled off the thick dark vacuum-resistant material, exposing his hands and wrists, and rolled the sleeves up to his elbow. He was still wearing his fingerless gloves under the paladin armor, and Lance was about to open his mouth to say something snarky when Keith shot him a glare and Lance actually heeded the warning given. There had to be something messed up in his head for him to actually shut up when Keith glared at him, and Lance snorted to himself about that thought.

Keith's hands didn't look all that different, at least not until Keith flexed one hand and Lance realized that instead of blunt, trim nails he had claws.

"Okay, so when we finally do get around to fucking around with you like that, we're putting you face down in the mattress, I don't want you taking out chunks of my shoulder blades...." Lance shuddered at that thought. "Shiro might be into it, he seems like he might enjoy a bit of pain play-"

"Lance, I'm giving you one last chance to shut the fuck up," Keith said, putting one hand flat against the door, feeling out the building material through his fingers. "Besides, I'm pretty sure that if anything Shiro would want to be tied up and fucked into the mattress himself." He put both hands on the door as Lance sputtered, his brain almost refusing the image of an alpha tied up and submissive.

Keith flexed both of his hands and dug his fingertips into the door. The claws made a god-awful noise, digging into the cheap plastisteel construct — and after a moment Keith shifted one hand further away, and where he had flexed his hand into the door there were five distinct indents.