The Monster in the Sky. Klance AU

Chapter 23: The Truth

After seeing James every day since Keith had returned to earth, the guilt was beginning to settle in the pit of Keith's stomach. He could hardly sit in the same room as his boyfriend without the image of James's father getting stuck in his mind and triggering an onset of nausea. That was why he decided, on a miserable Wednesday afternoon after James's classes, to tell him the truth.

They sat down on James's bed. James reached out to take Keith's hand, sending him a concerned expression but Keith just jolted away as if the touch was fire. "We need to talk."

As soon as the words left Keith's mouth, James swallowed and shuffled backwards on the bed. His eyes glossed over for a millisecond but, by the time that he blinked, the sparkle had vanished. James always had been great at hiding his emotions, having years and years of experience after his father. That was what made him and James such a good pair. "It's okay, Keith. I think I understand." James pulled himself onto his feet and turned away from Keith. He used one of his quivering hands to wipe away one of the tears trailing down his face. When Keith didn't say anything but reached out to latch onto James's left arm, his demeanour faltered. "You're breaking up with me. Is it Lance? Do you still-"

"No, no, I'm not breaking up with you," James slowly sat back down, eyes not leaving the tears gathering in Keith's. The fact that Keith had avoided James's question by interrupting him felt heavy in the air; especially when James was sure Keith still had some internal feelings for the blue paladin. "There's something I need to come clean about... your dad..."

James's face washed over with an emotion that looked more like trepidation than the sadness it once was. He started to furiously shake his head in conjunction with both of his hands. "I don't want to talk about him. He's gone now and I can't-"

Keith let out a soft sigh and placed his hand onto James's thigh in an attempt to calm his breathing down. Keith didn't need any scientific equipment to see that James was experiencing heart palpitations that would probably make any heart monitor explode. "No, I have to tell you. It's tearing me apart..." Keith took James's silence (other than his heavy breathing, of course) as a sign to continue. "That night... after I found you and called the ambulance... I went to see your dad." Keith was already sobbing and he hadn't even reached the main part of the confession.

"That was the night he went missing," James's face went blank for a second as he contemplated what Keith was insinuating. "I thought it was my fault, Keith. Were you the last person to see him?" James spoke softly but there was fury camouflaged in his tone like a chameleon camouflaged in its surroundings.

"It was my fault. I shouted at him and blamed him because it was his fault," Their was a sudden pique of spite in Keith's tone, suggesting that he still stood by what he had done. "He pulled a knife on me." With trembling hands, Keith lifted up the hoodie he was wearing. It had the Spider-Man spider logo on the front; not something he would have chosen for himself but it belonged to James (and it was really soft). James had a ridiculous addiction to Marvel superheroes which Keith didn't quite understand. The three scars on Keith's side were faint against his pale skin but James made them out as he leaned closer. James's hand traced the top scar, almost as if he was checking whether it was really there or not. "I tried to run from him but I couldn't get away so I had no choice but to fight."

James seemed to have already connected the dots in his head but he wanted to make sure. He didn't want to throw accusations around when he didn't know the facts. Maybe Keith was on the verge of pulling a horrific plot twist that would change everything.

"He pulled out a knife and- and I was scared. I didn't know what to do and I didn't want-" Keith cut himself off with his own sob, hunching over to bury his head into his hands. His entire body was trembling as one specific image was frozen inside his mind, haunting him like a ghost would haunt an old house. James's dad might as well have been standing in front of him in ghost form, scars glowing as his own blood dripped down his body in a way that was almost rhythmic. Keith could picture him- wearing that same navy blue suit and black tie that ended up being tye-dyed red- and he almost recoiled away from him. "I didn't want to die," His voice came out no more than a whisper, so much more fragile and broken than before. "I managed to get the knife off of him but he still didn't stop so I- I-"