Lured (Klance)

2: Alone

Song Of The Chapter:
Breathe - Fleurie

Lance was losing track of the days spent locked in the small enclosure.
Back in the ocean, he could tell the difference between night and day through the brightness and currents of the water.
Here, he had to study the human's schedules, but even then he had no clue what time of day it was.
Lance started to instead track their routines, figuring out when they came in for a daily dose of some sort of torturous experiment, feeding time, and when it seemed okay to fully slip into sleep.
The humans were strange creatures.
Rude, for sure.
Stupid, but yet, somehow smart enough to know how to completely knock him out if needed.
It was unfair, really.
In the water, Lance would be dominant among them. The limbs they obtained had no visible fins or webbing to assist them in the water, so he could only guess they weren't good at swimming.
It could explain, too, why so little people survived wrecks out at sea.

And the more he thought about it, the more it made him miss the ocean.
He longed for the refreshing feel of a current, wished for the lazy afternoons spent drifting around with whales or the excitement of meeting up with his family after long periods of time.

The water in the tank was stale.
There was no current, not a single sound of a fish moving, with the exception of himself. The silence was deafening, and it was all but an invasive reminder that he was alone in the tank.
That loneliness grew with each passing day, and sometimes he would let out a small, sorrowful croon, but never were there any sea creatures to reply to his heart-wrenching call.
And, the realization began to dawn on him that he might die in this tank, far from the comfort of the sea.

~~~

Keith had been spending extra time at Altea Aquarium ever since Shiro went missing. It helped him cope, and he felt it was necessary to keep his mind focused on something else instead of dwelling on horrible thoughts while Pidge, Coran, and Allura searched around on any possible traces of where Shiro might have disappeared to.
It was hard not being around his brother.
Shiro was someone who he looked up to, and without the older male around, things felt out of place.
Keith had even noticed it with several of the common visitors when the aquarium and sanctuary open up for visitors.
Shiro was a spark of life to the aquarium, and many people loved seeing and talking to him. With his absence, it was a lot more quiet. Those who enjoyed seeing Shiro interact with the dolphins were bummed to find he wasn't working at the moment.

Keith remembered one of the days a few days after Shiro's disappearance, a small boy came up to Keith, asking if Shiro would be putting on a show that day.
They hadn't done a show since the incident.
Why?
Black, one of the dolphins, was incredibly unresponsive to basically everyone, which caused a big disturbance to the other dolphins.
"No," Keith had replied, throat tight. "He... won't be back for a while."
"Why?" The boy had asked, eyes sad.
"He... is somewhere else right now. He will come back though, I promise."
He will come back, Keith had whispered to himself after, as if to reassure himself. No matter what it takes, I will find him.

It was late, 11 PM, a Saturday, and Keith was sitting at the edge of the dolphin's pool, Red nudging at his feet, making curious and hopeful clicking noises.
Allura had been up on a ladder putting some items away on a shelf, but had stopped to come over and sit down beside Keith.
"Hi, Keith," she murmured, trying to catch his gaze.
"Hey," he replied, not sharing the eye contact.
"How are you holding up?" She asked, deciding to watch Blue as the female dolphin swam around Yellow.
Keith didn't reply in words, instead shrugging his shoulders at the question.
She sighed.
"I'm sorry about Shiro, Keith. We all miss him, and want to get him back just as badly as you do. It's different without him around, isn't it?"
Keith huffed at that, but the white haired female wasn't finished.
"You are acting different, too. You're more distant to the rest of us, and it's increased over the five days since Shiro's been gone." She paused, before continuing. "That's one reason I'm checking in on you now. You need to talk to someone, Keith. It is never good to bottle up your feelings, because if you keep doing it, at some point you're going to explode. It doesn't have to be me if you don't want to talk to me about it, but we are all together with this. We were all there, and can all mostly understand how you feel." She tagged on, "I can definitely understand. Do remember how I lost my father and my mother."
Keith let a breath out. "I'm sorry," Keith looked over at her. "I just... can't believe he's gone."
"Neither can I," Allura admitted sadly.
Her eyes followed Blue, who was swimming over to the dark colored dolphin who was underneath the platform of the staircase on the opposite side of the pool. Blue attempted to nudge the dolphin out of hiding, but got an angry sounding squeak of refusal in return.