The Dead Don't Bleed

Trust

Word Count: 2,087

"Lance? Is that you?" An answering voice, clearly female and thick with an English accent, echoed from downstairs a moment later.

Lance's grin widened, "Yes, it is, beautiful, tell Coran, and the others to come up, we've got someone we'd like to introduce."

While they waited for the rest of the group, Keith took in where they were standing, committing every detail to memory and marking the possible exits if it was a trap. Just because they were being nice to him, didn't mean he couldn't have some sort of escape plan ready just in case things went sour.

Looking to his left, he caught sight of Pidge playing with something in her wrist again. Now that they weren't going anywhere and in decent light, Keith could see that it was a rougher looking version of those fancy digital watches Keith remembered seeing before the apocalypse started, her fingers seemed to go next to nothing on the thing.

Echoing footsteps sounded at the stairs, and her fingers went still, and Keith averted his gaze when she suddenly looked in his direction

"Shiro?" The same voice from earlier was closer now and Keith strained his neck to catch a glimpse of a figure standing in front of the stairs, looking to be about Shiro's age, she had startlingly white hair that fell almost to her waist and blue eyes seemed to stand out brightly against dark skin. As she strode closer to them, Keith could see she wore a ripped pair of jeans topped with an oversized hoodie, but not even that could do much to mask her beauty.

"Allura," Shiro's voice was soft and before Keith could blink, the two were hugging, ending their embrace with a soft kiss, they finally pulled apart. Keith caught Lance pretending to gag out of the corner of his eye as two more people made their way up the stairs.

One looked to be around Lance's age, he wore a bright orange bandana, contrasting brightly with his dark complexion, the other looked to be a little older, he had a fairly large mustache, and Keith's only thought was questioning why some guy had time for a mustache in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Keith watched as the larger teen suddenly exclaimed something loudly before barreling into Lance, pulling the teen off his feet and crushing him in a hug, "Oh, man, oh man, Lance you are not allowed to spend four days on a scavenge ever again, you understand? I was so worried."

Lance gasped air back into his lungs as his friend finally released him back on the ground, bending over for a second or two to recover before straightening back up, and placing a hand on his shoulder to reply with a smile, "Relax, Hunk, we were fine, and technically it was only three days."

"Yeah, three days with half of our team gone! Look, I know how important it is to find supplies and stuff, and I know that, but next time you guys have to go out that far, we're going as a team, you got it?"

Lance waved his friends worries away, "Alright, alright, yes, I get it, Dios you're almost as bad as Shiro."

"That's a good thing! How that bad?"

"My point is, you worry too much."

"No, I worry just enough, you don't worry at all."

"Exactly!"

Between exclamations of surprise and 'welcome back's, it seemed that Keith had suddenly grown invisible, and he shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, awaiting one of two options: the eager welcome, or the hint to hit the road (and he'll admit, he was more than willing to take the second over the first).

His eyes shifted to Shiro for what felt like the ten billionth time in the last second alone. Talking with the woman, Allura, he reminded himself; he seemed almost ... happy, and Keith couldn't help but feel like he was getting in the way of that happiness yet again. Here was Shiro with a life and someone he loved, who was Keith to get in the way of that? He was the one barging into their life unannounced.