There, nestled against my pulse

Chapter 13

The medics lift Lance and Keith clear of the wreckage not long after Keith...after he stops talking. After Lance stops begging him to wake up.

When the hoverbeds come close enough to see, Pidge's hands clap over her mouth and she takes a step back. Hunk drops the drone's controls. Shiro feels bile climb up his throat and he bites his tongue trying to swallow it down.

Keith lies still and pale and Shiro zeroes in on the metal embedded in his side. It's larger than he imagined—redder and sharper. The bed is already soaking wet.

Shiro takes one step towards him, heartbeat ratcheting up a notch, when he hears a commotion.

He looks over to find Lance struggling to sit up, pushing away the fussing medics and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He's fixated on Keith, mouth pressed thin and eyes wet, and Shiro doesn't need to have a comms line open with Lance to know how fast and shallow his breaths are. Even from this distance, the heaving of his chestplate is obvious.

Hunk is at his side in a second, Pidge on his heels.

Shiro follows, after he watches the medics hurriedly slide Keith's bed into the stasis pod, pushing him towards Green's loading ramp.

"Lance, lie down," Hunk orders.

Lance shakes his head.

Hunk puts a firm hand on his chest. "The bed needs to do a diagnostic on you before we shove you in a stasis pod for transport. How the hell can Ryner calibrate the pods at the tower if you don't give her info? Seriously, lie down."

Lance folds himself around Hunk's arm instead, head bowing, and Hunk's face falls.

"Oh jeez," he says, soft, and wraps Lance in a hug. He tucks Lance's head against his shoulder, slipping a hand into the space between Lance's helmet and neck guard. "Keith's gonna be fine. State-of-the-art Olkari medtech, you hear me? He'll be fine in—what was your guess? A week?—he'll be up and swinging his sword around soon enough."

"He didn't look fine," Lance chokes out, and at his side, Pidge makes a wounded noise. "You didn't—right before he closed his eyes, they went—they went empty, Hunk, I saw it. I had to lie there and watch him die."

"Lance," is all Shiro manages to say before his throat closes up. He wants to move, wants to tuck Lance against his side and hide him, wants to roll Keith up in bubble wrap and never let him leave the castle, wants this to never happen to any of his people ever again. He's pulled in six directions and frozen still.

Pidge glances over her shoulder, worries her lip between her teeth, and then wiggles in between Hunk and Lance. They shift to accommodate her and Shiro feels that wrenching in his gut again, watching them huddle together.

"They're almost done loading Keith's pod into Green," she mumbles. "I have to fly him to the tower as soon as they're done, so Shiro or Hunk will have to take you."

Her arms squeeze around Lance and then she slips away, scrubbing furiously her eyes. She doesn't look him in the eyes when she says, "I'm glad you're okay. I'm sorry."

And then she's off, darting into Green's open mouth.

"...What's she sorry for," Lance whispers, staring after her blankly.

Shiro shifts on his feet. "We got held up because we had to take a shuttle for the mission instead of our lions and it lost an engine right before we got Ryner's call. The scanner was acting up and missed the rock that hit us. Pidge was on navigation—said she should've noticed the faulty system when we ran the pre-flight check. I think she blames herself for being the reason we didn't get here faster."

Behind him, Shiro hears it when Green whirs to life. The lion takes off and he shuts his eyes against the burst of air.

"It's not her fault," says Lance.

"It's not yours either," says Hunk.

Lance jerks back and his face screws up into something just a shade away from self-loathing, and it's so raw that Shiro has no choice but to step closer and haul Lance in.

"It is not your fault," he says fiercely. "It isn't. None of this is."

Lance sits with his head to Shiro's chest, stiff. When he manages to speak, the words tear themselves from his throat, thin and hoarse:

"I promised you."

Shiro closes his eyes, tightens his arms around this kid, this boy, that he let onto the battlefield. Despair creeps into his lungs like ice.

"I promised," Lance gasps out, "I'd keep him safe, said I'd keep him awake—I said I would, he's your brother—and then you said you trusted me and I tried, I really really tried and I'm sorry, Shiro, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"

He dissolves into choked sobs, restrained hiccups. He's hooked his hands in the edges of Shiro's armor, clinging to it like a life raft.

Shiro stands there with Lance tucked under his chin and wishes he'd never thoughtlessly asked so much of someone so young.

He doesn't know how long it takes until Lance's breathing evens out, but Shiro opens his eyes to find that the medics have cleared out and it's only him and Hunk now.

Lance pulls back.

Shiro keeps his hands on Lance's shoulders, and waits until Lance meets his eyes to say, "Hey, listen. I don't blame you—I don't. I know you feel guilty, and I know that guilt won't let you believe me right now—it's not something that's easy to brush off. But the truth of the matter is, is that there's only one thing responsible for Keith's state, and that's the very dead robeast. Okay?"

Lance presses his lips together, dropping his gaze.

"Okay?" repeats Shiro. "I do not blame you. And Keith won't either. Right, Hunk?"

"Yeah," says Hunk, taking Lance's hand and squeezing it. "He'll probably give you a really confused look for even trying to apologize."

Lance's face crumples again. "No, he won't."

Shiro shares a look with Hunk. "What?"

"He won't do anything," whispers Lance, "because he won't be waking up. He's gone."

Lance removes his left glove and peels the suit back until his wrist is bare.

There, nestled against his pulse:

I love you.

"Oh no," Hunk breathes, fingers tightening around Lance's. "Oh, Lance."

Shiro stares at the words blankly, hearing the echo of Keith's voice in his head. He knows what this means, but he has to check—

"You're sure it's him?"

Lance nods. He won't look at them. "He said my first words when we freed you from the Garrison scientists."

And before this, Shiro would've been happy to hear this, would've grinned wide and relished in the way the boys would probably stammer and blush at the same time as he laughed at them—but now?

Now he hates himself, because he's hoping Lance is wrong.

Because if Lance is right—if this is true, then—

Then that means they lose Keith.