YELLOW [[klance]] [[COMPLETED]]

Lance.

[[TRIGGER WARNING: PTSD, FLASHBACKS, MENTIONS OF SELF-HARM/SCARS, MENTIONS OF SUICIDE.]]

I am once again awoken in the night, but this time by muffled sniffling, by little, body-wrenching sobs that lull me out of my lazy and torpid half-sleep. Blinking and twisting my body, I feel around my cold, wrinkled sheets for my phone. When I grasp it and hold it above my face, it bathes me in a square of frigid bright light that makes me wince.

The clock reads 3:38 AM.

I am reminded of the day, and of the boy who is supposed to be asleep in the bed next to mine.

I pull my respirator from my face and gently, precisely remove the feeding tube from my stomach. Tugging my rumpled shirt down until it's snug and looping the tube of my portable around my ears, I carefully slink out of bed. Feet cold against the floor, I tip-toe to Keith's bedside. He lays curled into himself like a frightened and injured puppy, his black hair streaming out from his head like vines. His whole body convulses with the pure fear that ripples through him in the form of ragged, painful-sounding sobs. His hands are quaking as they cup his face, knuckles white as he digs his fingernails into his hair venomously, whimpering through ugly sobs.

It just about makes my heart break.

"Keith," I murmur, propping myself on the side of his bed. "Baby. Keith."

Gently, carefully, I reach forward and delicately take ahold of his arm. He flinches violently at my touch, chest heaving as wetness stains his pallid face and trembling red lips. He looks at me with wide and frantic eyes, not seeing me at all. Seeing, smelling, feeling something I will never truly understand. Reliving a terrifying moment, a moment I will never fully understand, except through his scattered gaze. Reliving it again, and again, and again.

He's still trembling so profusely it scares me. I think seizure, and I know I have to calm him down.

I don't try to touch him again. 

"Breathe," I say softly. "Breathe, baby. You're gonna be alright, okay? I'm right here. You're right here. You're gonna be okay."

I repeat this in a low voice, trying to soothe him down from hysterics. It works, and his sobbing mellows down to breathless, snotty whimpering, his chest heaving, arms shaking as he wraps them around himself and breathes in big and deep.

"That's right. You're okay, see?" I offer him a little smile, but when he looks at me all I see is dull anger splayed across his face, his complexion wrought with resentment, dripping with desperation. 

I know this is an okay time to shimmy higher onto the bed and gently touch him. Press my palms to his arms and rub them soothingly in gentle archs. Adam and Shiro snore softly across the room, unperturbed, and I choose not to wake them unless I have to. 

"You don't understand," Keith says, his voice rough and thick with tears.

"I know, baby. I know." I keep touching his arms, feeling his heat through his sweatshirt.

"No." His voice cracks, and his hazy eyes flare with indignation. Not at me, not at any specific malevolent force. Maybe himself. "You don't understand." His voice breaks again, and he recoils from my touch to shove each of his sleeves up to the dip of his elbows.

In the dim lighting of the coiled lights above, I feel my heart drop like a stone to my stomach when I see the discolored hash marks that line his delicate white forearms. Purple lines cross-hatching his wrists.

Scars.

"Keith," I say quietly.

He hiccups, then brings his arms against his chest. When he speaks, it's quiet but angry. "I did it on purpose, Lance." A shimmering veil of tears congeal his turbulent purple eyes. His lips twist in despair and distaste and his cheeks shimmer with tears. "I meant to do it. I meant to drive over that cliff." Then he lets his chin drop to his chest, lets his hair fall and coil over his face and chest. "I tried so hard to die."