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Everyone who knew Keith knew he was a private person. It was a well-known fact that Keith was the adopted brother of Takashi Shirogane, the youngest pilot to lead a space mission successfully, so most people who knew Keith were either angry at him or jealous of him. Most people, except for Katie “Pidge” Holt, Hunk Garret and Lance McClain. Adam and Allura were adults, so they didn’t count.
Pidge was Takashi Shirogane’s best friend's sister. Pidge knew Takashi Shirogane as a dork who mixed up his languages when he studied past three in the morning, a caffeine addict, passable at sniper games but pants at Mario Kart, for all he was an excellent spaceship pilot. She also one of the few people who knew intimately what went on in the Shirogane household when they took in Keith, way before adoption became an option and all the way until Keith became an official member of the Shirogane family. She and Keith had a special bond that wasn’t very well known, for neither of them were particularly boisterous about. That suited them both just fine.
Hunk Garret was studying mechanical engineering and, as such, shared a few college courses with Keith. They met by accident, when Hunk nearly spilled a hot latte all over Keith’s precious red leather cropped jacket. Keith scowled at him, which Hunk thought was completely justified, and took a seat in the front row of the class, next to the far wall, nearly hidden by an alcove in the wall. Hunk felt so terrible about the whole incident that immediately after his classes ended, he went home and baked a batch of his best double chocolate chip cookies for him. Which was just as well, because Keith was a closeted chocolate addict and when those cookies melted in his mouth he forgot why he’d been annoyed at Hunk in the first place. Since Hunk and Pidge were also on friendly terms from their shared courses, they all soon began to hang out.
Lance McClain considered himself the odd one out from his friend group. Growing up in Varadero, Cuba, his first real love was the ocean and his second were the stars. He was undecided about what he wanted to major in, so his college courses were a mixed amalgamation that would allow him to, eventually, branch out either into the ocean or into space. Considering all his friends were looking at the stars, Lance was ninety percent decided on following them up there, as well.
Lance meeting Keith was a supernova. Being best friends with Hunk since middle school, Lance had taken great offence in Hunk’s behalf when the broody, moody, mullet-wearing punk had scowled at his friend after nearly getting coffee on him. Despite Keith being justified in his anger at that moment, Lance was loyal to his own. However, seeing Keith experience Hunk’s cookies for the first time was a revelation and curse.
You see, Lance had always felt undecided when it came to the dating market. Sometimes he found girls cute, sometimes he found boys cute. When Keith’s eyes widened and he gasped at the melty chocolatey flavor that exploded in his mouth right before letting a moan that flustered Lance to the tips of his hair, he thought, ‘Wow, I’m so gay.’ That thought led to Lance isolating himself in his bedroom for a whole week while he came to terms with his own sexuality.
Keith and Lance had a rocky beginning, in no small part thanks to Lance’s inability to cope with his newfound attraction to Keith and Keith’s inability to identify and communicate his emotions. They butted heads constantly, nearly getting into a few physical fights at the beginning. Gradually, however, the grimaces became smirks and the glares gained a playful, teasing color. Their bitter bickering turned competitive, snarky, witty and funny. Lance felt his ears grow hot the first time he made Keith snort soda out of his nose.
Lance learned, slowly but surely, that Keith was guarded and private, but so very caring and so very kind and before he knew it, Lance was head over heels for the one who had become one of his best friends. Lance knew little to nothing about Keith’s childhood, as it was a subject Keith hated to talk about, but he knew how he liked his coffee in the morning and his herbal infusion at night. Lance became jealous of Shiro at some point when, before he was aware of their sibling status, he’d assumed they were dating. When he discovered that they were, in fact, siblings, Lance broke into a happy little jig inside his living room.
Lance knew Keith loved taking long motorcycle rides at night, and that he fed the street cats next to his apartment when no one was looking. Lance knew what shade Keith’s eyes were when he laughed and how they darkened when he was sad. Lance loved how they burned when he was rightfully angry at some perceived injustice and about to throw fists. So, yes, while Keith was a private person, Lance liked to think he knew him quite well.
Which is why Shiro’s call was such a shock.
“Keith has Hanahaki,” Shiro said at one in the morning on a random Wednesday (or was it Thursday, already?) and Lance had never heard him sound so wrecked, “I… He… he’s refused the surgery multiple times, already. He… The doctors think he might… he’s going to… he’s in the in the final stages, they say.”
Lance’s world stopped so abruptly, he got metaphorical whiplash.
“Wait… what… that means… isn’t that the disease that someone gets when the person they love doesn’t love them back?” Lance stammered out over the phone, stumbling out of bed and trying to find his pants in the dark.
“…yeah…”
“Who–?”
“He hasn’t said.”
“Do I know…?”
“Lance… please…”
“Send me the hospital you’re at. I’ll be right there.”
Lance hung up and drove as fast as he could to the hospital as he tried to process what this meant. Keith had Hanahaki Disease; a disease born out of unrequited love. That meant Keith was in love with someone. Keith was in love with someone who wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. Lance hadn’t made any effort to hide how he felt. He always thought Keith was oblivious, but perhaps he just had pretended not to notice. Perhaps he just wasn’t interested.
Lance felt his heart break but could not focus on that. If he understood Shiro correctly, Keith was dying. And Lance had no idea who it was that Keith loved, but Lance couldn’t live in a world where Keith was gone, so Lance would find them and make them fall in love with Keith. Because at the end of the day, Keith had to live.
Lance arrived at the hospital and wiped the tears from his eyes. There would be plenty of time for self-pity later, once Keith was alright. He grabbed his phone, his keys and his wallet and rushed inside. The receptionist gave him directions in a concise and professional manner, as if Lance wasn’t experiencing the most monumental terror he had ever felt in his twenty-one years of life.
When he arrived in front of Keith’s private room, everyone was already there. Shiro sat on a chair next to the bed while Adam paced the floor behind him. Pidge was curled up against Matt on the couch, crying. Hunk stood on the other side of the bed, looking lost, opening and closing his fists. And Keith, in the eye of the hurricane, so pale he seemed to blend in with the white sheets, face clammy with sweat, had his eyes closed as though he was only sleeping. Lance could have convinced himself of that if it wasn’t for the ventilator that was the only thing keeping him alive.
“Keith,” he breathed out, though in the silence of the room it seemed to echo.
He rushed to Keith’s side, next to Hunk, as tears rushed unbidden to his eyes. Everyone followed him with his eyes but they didn’t say anything. There was nothing left to say. Hunk placed a heavy hand on his shoulder in a vain attempt to comfort him.
“How… how long?” Lance whispered.
“No more than twenty-four hours,” Adam answered, jaw clenched tight, “he was speaking up until a couple of hours ago, but then he crashed. They had to intubate him. He’s only declined since.”
“At least we’ll make sure he isn’t alone,” Shiro said, never taking his eyes of his little brother, as though committing everything he saw to memory.
“Did he say…?”
“No,” Adam replied again, tone tight with anger bellied by the shine of tears in his eyes, “he refused to tell us who, and he refused to get the surgery. Stubborn brat.”
“Before that, did he say anything to anyone? About a crush or a fling or, hell, even a new student?!” Lance exclaimed, looking around at everyone’s defeated faces.
“You don’t think we would be doing something if he had?” Pidge spat out from her brother’s lap, “You don’t think I haven’t stalked every social media he has looking for—”
“Pidge,” Matt interrupted, putting a hand on her head, “it’s not his fault.”
Lance looked around his group of friends again. They had all arrived before him. In fact, it looked as though they’d been here for several hours, already.
“Was I the last one to be notified…?” Lance finally asked in a choked whisper.
The people in the room shared a look that spoke of things they knew and Lance didn’t.
“Why?” Lance demanded.
“Two reasons,” Adam answered, “one, and the most important, Keith didn’t want you here.”
Lance stepped back as though he’d been slapped; as though someone had grabbed a sledgehammer and rammed it into his stomach. The hurt took his breath away and he struggled to get it back.
“And the second?”
“We all know how you feel about him,” Shiro answered this time, giving Adam a reproachful look, “it didn’t seem fair to you.”
“Does he… did he… does he know? Is that why…?”
“He didn’t say why,” Shiro continued, “but Keith has never been one to rub salt on someone’s wounds. You are his best friend, after all.”
“And yet he didn’t tell me he was dying! Or that he was in love! He didn’t want me to… he wasn’t going to even let me say goodbye!” Lance snapped and tears flew down his cheeks, unbidden.
“Lance…” Hunk began, but Lance backed away, feeling the sting of betrayal from everyone in the room, including the comatose love of his life who very clearly didn’t feel the same.
“I’m going to save him,” Lance declared and turned his back on everyone in that room, “I have a spare key to his apartment. I’m going to go snoop through his things, find his diary or something, and tell the asshole who put him here to love him back.”
“Lance! That’s a terrible breach of his privacy!” Shiro exclaimed, standing up from his chair for the first time since Lance got there, not that Lance turned around to see it.
“He can hate me all he wants afterwards,” Lance replied, “he’ll be alive to do it, after all.”
He stormed away, his feelings matching his pace. He got into his car and slammed the door so hard Lance was pretty sure something broke. Then he screamed. He screamed and sobbed and cursed for five minutes. He gave himself five minutes so that he could carry on trying to save Keith’s life. Then he turned on the engine and booked it to Keith’s apartment. He wasn’t lying when he said he had a spare key.
To nobody’s surprise, Keith lived quite an austere life. His living room had a simple couch and a TV, an outdated console and a few video games Pidge brought. The kitchen had a basic fridge, a stove and a microwave; no oven. His room a single bed, a closet, a dresser with a lamp. He had one bookshelf bursting to the brim with books; when asked why he didn’t buy another one, Keith always shrugged.
Since learning about Keith’s adoption, Lance had assumed that Keith was used to not getting comfortable in any one place. He was used to not getting attached. How ironic he got the one disease that relies on attachment.
Lance opened every drawer in the damn house; he turned over every piece of furniture, every linen and pillow, every piece of clothes as he looked for clues but he came up with nothing. He leafed through Keith’s favorite books in the shelves, and then through his least favorite books in the shelves, but again, there weren’t any underlined letters or words that would form a hidden message. There weren’t any notebooks or diaries that Lance could find. Lance found Keith’s laptop but the password truncated him; he tried every date and name he knew Keith loved and was attached to, but none of them granted him access. He managed to completely lock himself out of Keith’s computer for the next hour and barely restrained himself from throwing the laptop across the room.
Lance was about to give up. Lance was about to resign to living the rest of his life without his best friend, the love of his life, but he wasn’t about to go back to that hospital room either. That’s when he saw it.
It was nearly nothing. He wouldn’t have noticed if the light shining through his tears hadn’t hit a weird, uneven line in the floorboards. He picked at it and it came loose; Lance lifted the plank. It was a narrow opening but in it there was a keychain with two keys Lance was painfully familiar with, so with renewed hope he grabbed them and ran to his car. He checked his fuel tank; it was nearly empty. He checked his wallet; he had just enough to fill the tank for a round trip to the desert. He checked his glove box; there was a single plastic water bottle. It would have to do. He checked his phone; fifty unread messages, ten missed calls. The time was two thirty in the morning and he had above fifty percent battery. Maybe he could get an energy drink at the gas station. That would have to do.
Lance turned the ignition and was off.
One freshman night when Keith and Lance had just started to put aside their differences, they got wasted. That’s when Keith revealed he was an orphan. That’s when he told Lance that Shiro was his adopted brother. Keith also told Lance that the one thing he had left from his birth father was a decrepit shack in the middle of the dessert. Why? Who knows. Keith had been dying to know why the shack existed for as long as he’d known about it, but he had no one who could answer his questions.
Nearly a year later, Keith offered to take Lance to said cabin.
As Lance approached it once more in the middle of the night, Lance still wondered why Keith’s father had chosen such a remote place to build such a thing. Lance had no one who could answer his questions.
He parked the car and turned off the lights; he needed to be able to get back to the city. There was no cell service at the shack, but he didn’t need it. He only needed the flashlight. Lance pushed open the bare, rotten wooden door and gasped; everything Keith’s apartment lacked was stored in this tiny shack in the middle of nowhere.
In the far wall was a threadbare cot with a threadbare blanket. To the left was a half-finished motorcycle Lance knew Keith had been working on for months, now. To the right, by the small kitchenette, there was a bigger bookshelf than the one in Keith’s apartment, but this one was filled with notebooks that Lance recognized. When Lance grabbed one at random, he found an incredibly realistic drawing of some flower. Lance moved on to another one, but in this one he found the opposite: a very crude, childish drawing of a house with a family of four at the front, and to the side, a little lonely stick figure with long hair and sad eyes.
The shack was littered with all sorts of trinkets and personal items that made any place a home. This was clearly a refuge, a shelter and a place where Keith felt comfortable enough to leave a mess. Lance’s heart broke all over again when he realized he didn’t really know Keith all that well at all. The last time he’d been here, everything had been neat and pristine, if a little dusty; cleaned up. This was a side of Keith he’d never been allowed to see.
Shiro was right; this was an absolute breach of privacy. But if he was already in for a penny, Lance might as well find out who the person Keith loved was so that Lance could kick their ass before begging them to love Keith back.
Lance leafed through most of the notebooks on the shelves, but there weren’t any clues there. Most of the drawing notebooks were dated years earlier. If there was a current notebook, it wasn’t in the shack. Lance riffled through some more trinkets and, eventually, stumbled upon a photo album underneath the cot. The first picture in it was of Keith and his dad when he was clearly very young. The next one was years later, when Keith must have been twelve or thirteen, with the Shirogane family. Next to that picture, there was another of the Shiroganes and the Holts together. Lance’s heart panged.
The few pictures in the album featured Shiro, his family and Adam the most. There were a few more with Pidge and Matt sprinkled in. Towards the end, there were three or four of their friend group. One of them was the other strip they got at that photo booth in the mall. Lance had his glued to the wall next to his pillow with blue tac. In it, Keith wore a smile that brightened his entire face. His eyes shone with mirth even through the picture, and it made a sobering contrast to the last time he’d seen Keith just a couple of hours before.
Lance slammed the album shut.
He was about to leave, defeated and empty handed, when a he found on the kitchen counter a pristine white envelope with his name on it. Lance frowned. It was Keith’s handwriting, alright, but wobbly; kind of like it was written with a shaky hand. Lance’s own hands shook as he opened the envelope and took out the letter.
Lance,
If you’re reading this, then I’m already dead. You are the only one I told about this place. I know you have questions just as I know you’re the only one who cares enough to look for the answers. I will try to answer as many of them as well as I can in this, my first and last letter to you.
I am dying, Lance. I have Hanahaki. I love someone so much it has begun to consume me from the inside out. But I’m a coward, so I could never say anything. I’m just so afraid of ruining everything we already built. I’m content with what we already have. What right do I have to ask for more of this person? Who am I to impose myself on them? Even now I cower from writing their name.
I haven’t told anybody that I’m sick. If it was up to me, they wouldn’t ever find out at all, but I don’t think I’ll be that lucky. In any case, they won’t know until they absolutely have to. Please tell them they shouldn’t blame themselves for not seeing it when I was so careful to hide it.
I’ve spent so many weeks coming to this place, now. Did you know that I started researching this shack a few years after I got it? I went through so many regional archives, but I learned so much. Turns out my dad also died of Hanahaki Disease; I suppose he never got over my mother and her leaving us. Now I have something else I can’t forgive her for: taking my dad away from me. But I suppose you can’t help who you fall for or how hard or if they will love you back.
I don’t want you to hate me, so that’s why I don’t want to tell you who the person I love is. Though I suppose, if I’m already dead, it doesn’t really matter, does it?
“You’re not dead, yet, Keith. Please, tell me you wrote their name in here,” Lance pleaded, and continued to skim the letter.
I have never loved anyone like this in my entire life. It’s terrifying. It feels like I jumped out of a plane without a parachute, and as much as I want to stop loving them, I can’t because their gravity keeps pulling me towards them. But they deserve so much more than me, Lance. I want I need you to understand that they deserve so much better than what I can offer. They are everything, Lance. They are the sun and the moon and the stars. They are the air I need to breathe and the thorns that constrict my lungs. Please, don’t blame them for my death. It’s okay if they can’t love me back; I have accepted my fate.
“But I haven’t, Keith… I can’t accept such a thing…”
We have so many inner jokes, now. It completely took me by surprise. We can say so many things just with glances and nudges. I think he understands me better than I understand myself, sometimes. He is loving and caring; loyal, warm and always so lively. He is everything that I am not, everything that I wish on some level that I could be but that I know I can’t. I love him but I also envy him; he seems to have everything figured out, while I can’t seem to get my shit together. I can’t even tell him that I’m in love with him and everything he is.
“Well, now I know it’s a he…” Lance muttered and ignored his own heartbreak.
You know I like Shakespeare, right? And you know how I always say that Romeo and Juliet was never supposed to be as romanticized as it is, right? Shakespeare made it to tell the world that teenagers are stupid, but we took the story and ran with it in the complete opposite direction. And yet… here I am, willing to die for love or for cowardice, just like Romeo didn’t hesitate to end his own life when he thought Juliet was dead. What a hypocrite I am, am I right?
My hand is shaking badly. I’ll need to stop soon, so I better cut to the chase, huh? The person I love is a wonderful, kind, beautiful man who deserves the world. I hope he finds someone someday who can give it to him. I hope you find someone someday who can give you the world, Lance. It is you who I love, and I hope you don’t hate me for tarnishing our friendship with these post mortem words.
Lance’s knees gave out and he collapsed on the cot, feeling dizzy all of the sudden.
I die because I chose to preserve our friendship rather than to ruin it. Because you are so noble and so kind that you would never reject my love if you knew it was killing me, and I can’t ruin your life by saddling you with me. I’ve been enough of a burden in the world to become a burden to you, as well. I die because I refuse to forget you, or my feelings for you, for you have been the brightest light in my life for a while now.
Part of me is hoping that you never find this, for what good would it do for you to know your dead best friend loved you to death? But another part of me is desperate to answer the questions I know you have. I know what I’m doing isn’t fair. I am sorry to saddle you with this, now more than ever. I’m sorry for the grief I’ve caused you, for I know that even if you aren’t in love with me you did love me in your own way. I know I’ve hurt everyone with my decision, but it was still my decision to make and I stand by it. I’m sorry you’re the one who had to find this letter and pass on my apologies to the others.
I hope I have managed to answer some of your questions. Please, don’t hate me.
Love, Respectfully, Sincerely,
Keith.
Lance’s sob broke the still silence of the shack. His stomach was turning itself into knots. He didn’t know and couldn’t tell if he was elated or if he wanted to die. He pushed himself up from the cot and stumbled to his car, still clutching the letter in his fist. He wiped his nose and his eyes and looked at the time on his phone. It was nearly five in the morning. Was Keith still alive? He needed to know.
He revved up the engine and booked it out of the desert, not even remembering if he’d closed the shack on his way out or not. As soon as he got within city limits, his phone began popping up like crazy from all the messages he missed. The anxiety of now knowing if he was too late was eating him alive. At a red light, he couldn’t handle it anymore and he called Shiro. He put him on speaker, so he could still drive.
“Lance—”
“Is he still breathing?” Lance demanded, frantic.
“Huh…? Where have you…? What are you…?”
“Is he still breathing, Shiro?!” Lance yelled, shrill in his desperation.
“Yeah… um… he’s still breathing… but it doesn’t look good.”
“I’m on my way,” Lance said, making an effort to modulate his voice, “I can save him. Please, tell him to hang on.”
Shiro was quiet on the line for a second before he sighed.
“Lance, I know you want to believe that—”
“I’ve got to go, Shiro, but I’ll see you soon,” Lance cut him off and hung up. Lance could save Keith because he had proof in a letter addressed to him that his feelings might not have been as unreciprocated as he thought. In fact, Lance was revisiting his theory that Keith might just be the densest person on the planet. Now, Lance only had to make it back on time to tell him.
Lance made it back to the hospital close to six o’clock in the morning. The receptionists had changed. Lance didn’t need to ask for directions this time, so he didn’t even approach the front desk. When he arrived at the corridor of Keith’s room, he saw Hunk, Pidge and Matt already waiting for him. He didn’t even look at them. He tried to shoulder past them, but the three outside blocked him.
“You can’t go in there, Lance,” Hunk tried to say with his comforting, pitying voice.
“Let me through,” Lance demanded and tried to force his way through, but Hunk was a wall of solid muscle while Lance was a twig.
“Shiro and Adam are saying his goodbyes. Keith doesn’t have long,” Matt said.
“Then let me through! I can save him!” Lance exclaimed.
“No, you can’t, Lance,” Pidge snapped at him, “this isn’t something the power of friendship or some such nonsense can cure.”
Lance shoved the letter in Pidge’s face, and if the situation wasn’t so dire, he would have felt smug seeing her face lose color.
“Now let me through,” Lance repeated, his voice turning cold and hard.
Pidge passed the letter to Hunk, who after a quick skim gave him an apologetic look and moved aside. Lance was too angry to look at either of them, so he just marched on ahead.
He entered Keith’s room, and hesitated only for a second. Shiro was sobbing onto Keith’s hand while Adam stood behind him, steady hands on Shiro’s shoulders. They both looked up with Lance came in, and he decided he couldn’t care what they thought of him now. Keith was more important.
“Lance—”
“I can save him, Shiro,” Lance said, feeling like a broken record, “please, let me at least try.”
Shiro and Adam exchanged a look. Though they looked weary and worn, they acquiesced and moved aside. Lance immediately took Shiro’s place and grabbed Keith’s hand with both of his own.
“Keith… I don’t understand why you think so little of yourself that you can’t see how much I love you. But I do. I’ve loved you for years. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. Please, please come back to me so that I can tell you, over and over, how much I love you,” Lance said, like a prayer, “I will dedicate the rest of my life to show you how much. I will do whatever it takes to convince you that you are enough, more than enough; you are everything I’ve ever wanted.
“You are passionate, and underneath that prickly exterior of yours, you care. You care so much that you tried to save us all the grief, not knowing your loss would be unrecoverable from. You are loved, Keith. I think you are the one who deserves the world; I just need you to stick around long enough to see that. I love you, Keith. You’re my best friend. We could both have the world if you just give us a chance, Keith… please…
“Don’t leave me,” Lance begged, tears unashamedly running down his cheeks.
The machines still beeped around them. Keith didn’t react; his eyes didn’t flicker and he didn’t make any signs of waking up. Lance got angry.
“Listen you stupid flowers: I don’t know how this thing works, but I know Keith loves me and I return his feelings. That means you better scram. Keith is loved. You will not take him from me,” Lance snarled, glaring at Keith’s chest when the flowers were destroying his lungs.
Keith’s hand squeezed Lance’s. Lance smiled through his tears.
“There you are, Keith. Come on, you can do it. You are too hot to die, baby. Come on. I love you. I really, really love you. That’s what you need to hear, right? We can have all the conversations we missed about this once you’re awake, but you need to come back to us first,” Lance cajoled and cooed the same way a person would try to coax out a scaredy cat.
Keith’s grip strengthened on Lance’s. He groaned slightly. Shiro rushed to call the nurse, while Adam approached the beeping monitor. He was the only one from their friend group who could possibly understand what the numbers meant.
“His oxygenation has improved,” Adam said, sounding lighter already, “whatever you’re doing Lance, don’t stop.”
“You hear that, Keith? The in-laws already love me,” Lance teased though the tears were still wet on his cheeks, “I bet they will love me more than you one day.”
The grip on his hand felt angry.
“What? You don’t think I can steal your brother from you? Ha! I bet I can,” Lance laughed.
Another groan and a slight cough. Like someone waking up with a tube in their throat. Lance smiled, feeling hopeful for the first time since he got Shiro’s call.
“Shh, baby, listen to me. You are in the hospital. You nearly stopped breathing, so the doctors had to intubate you. That’s why you have a tube down your throat. Shiro went to call the nurses. You’re okay. We’re here with you. I love you so very, very much and I’m so very, very glad you’re still fighting.”
Shiro did indeed return with two nurses in tow who took one look at the monitor and gasped.
“It looks like he’s waking up,” one of the nurses said and turned to Keith, “Mr. Kogane, can you hear me? If you can hear me, please wiggle your fingers.”
Keith wiggled his fingers, though wiggle was a generous term for the slight movement.
“We need to wait until your oxygenation levels rise up a bit more before we can remove the tube. There could be further damage to your lungs if we pull it out too soon. We are going to sedate you to make the experience less uncomfortable.”
Lance felt more than he saw Keith tense up. He began carding his fingers through Keith’s hair.
“It’s okay, babe,” Lance said, and felt Keith marginally relax, “we’re going to still be here when you wake up. We love you. I love you. You’re going to be okay.”
The nurse then injected the sedative into the IV and soon Keith’s hand went limp. The nurses explained what they were expecting to see now and what the next steps would be, but Lance let Adam and Shiro handle the particulars. Lance was content to watch Keith sleep.
Lance woke up to gentle fingers carding through his hair. He leaned into the touch. His neck was killing him, but the fingers were nice. He wondered who it could be when his mom was so far away.
Lance took a deep breath and the smell of antiseptic reminded him, abruptly, that he was in a hospital because Keith had almost died. Keith nearly died because of Hanahaki disease. That thought made Lance jolt awake and look around in alarm. His eyes found wide, violet eyes that were open and alert. Keith had an oxygen mask around his nose and mouth, but Lance could discern a shy smile. The room was covered in sunshine, making it look airier and brighter than it had at one o’clock in the morning.
“Keith,” Lance breathed.
“Hi,” Keith answered, bashful, or afraid, Lance really couldn’t tell and it soon became irrelevant when the raging tide of his emotions took over.
“You’re an ass,” Lance said. Keith flinched, “I don’t know how you got into your head all those stupid things you wrote on your letter, but you don’t get to decide for me how I feel about you. Assuming I didn’t reciprocate your feelings, you let yourself die and very nearly succeeded at it. Did you think about what that would have done to me? To Shiro and Adam and Pidge and Hunk?”
Keith looked away. His hands met the white sheet on his lap and fisted the fabric. Lance forced himself to take a deep breath and calm the fuck down.
“I do love you,” Lance reiterated when he felt calm enough, “I love you so much I drove to the shack in the middle of the night looking for clues as to who the mystery person you loved was. I was willing to step aside and let you be happy with whoever it was as long as you lived, Keith. I do love you. And I’m also so, so mad at you because I very nearly didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry,” Keith said, in a low volume and his voice sounded like a rag that was rung out. Between coughing thorny flowers and being intubated, his vocal chords must have been shredded a good deal.
“Was the thought that I might love you back really that unbearable?” Lance asked with a deep sigh.
Keith turned his head to Lance so quickly that the joints popped.
“No,” Keith answered, firm and unwavering, “it was the thought that I might lose you that was unbearable.”
“Unbearable enough to bet your life on it?”
“I didn’t see another way out. I couldn’t forget you, and losing your friendship over an unrequited crush was a gamble I couldn’t bring myself to make,” Keith explained.
“But I did love you. I might not have spelled it out, but I haven’t been hiding it either,” Lance challenged.
“You’re affectionate with everyone you meet,” Keith replied, pouting, “you could make friends with a wall if it could talk. How was I supposed to know the difference?”
“I gave you a handknitted sweater for Christmas!”
“You also gave Hunk handknitted mittens!”
“Mittens aren’t a sweater! The amount of yarn and work and time don’t even come close.”
“Ouch,” Hunk said from the door with a smile and closed soup container, “and here I thought I was your favorite.”
Lance felt a pang in his chest and couldn’t bring himself to look at Hunk. The memory of Hunk preventing him from reaching Keith, his clear skepticism that Lance could actually be of help and the fact that he hadn’t bothered to contact Lance when Keith was first hospitalized… it was all too much, too soon.
“I need some air,” Lance said, and walked away from the room before his temper got the best of him.
On the third floor of the hospital, there was a small roof garden with a nice view of the valley below. Benches were spread out around the space and Lance found one where he could see the desert in the rough direction of the shack.
He scrolled the hundred and change messages he hadn’t read last night. Most of them came from Shiro, Hunk and Pidge, and he even had a few from an unsaved number that the picture revealed to be Adam’s. They were all some variation of ‘sorry,’ ‘are you okay’ and ‘please don’t do anything stupid.’ There were some from his mom that were unrelated to the whole situation and he very gladly answered those.
One message was from his sister who asked ‘what’s up?’ likely triggered by an anxious phone call from Hunk that didn’t disclose enough details to satisfy Rachel that he was, indeed, ok. He sent her a quick ‘I’m ok. Shit happened. Tell you later.’
Rachel answered within thirty seconds: ‘you better.’
He put his phone back in his pocket and leaned back against the wall, happy to watch the thin clouds drift by his head. He tried to untangle his mess of emotions and thoughts, but found it difficult to even focus on a single thread. Keith was still alive. He was alive because he loved Lance. Lance was able to save Keith because Lance loved him. But what if it hadn’t been him that Keith loved? What if the letter had confessed Keith’s love to some other man Lance couldn’t reach? And what did it matter?
At the end of the day, Keith had made the decision to keep Lance in the dark. Not revealing his feelings, Lance could sort of understand up until the point when they begin to choke you to death. But to hide the fact that he was sick and that he could die? What if Shiro hadn’t called him in the middle of the night? What if he’d woken up at seven thirty this very morning to find out his best friend and the love of his life had died in the night and no one had thought to contact him to say goodbye?
He thought back to the last interaction he had with Keith before coming to the hospital. It happened right before midterms, nearly a month before. Though they usually studied together for their shared subjects, Keith had claimed he had a cold and was contagious.
Lance opened his chat with Keith, and scrolled up through the various excuses Keith gave not to meet up with him. At the time, Lance thought Keith was distancing himself from Lance on purpose because he had noticed Lance’s feelings and didn’t reciprocate. That’s why Lance didn’t notice: he was too absorbed in his own hurt to see anything beyond it. Should he have pushed? Should he have insisted on meeting up with Keith, as any best friend would have? Could he have stopped this sequence of events from ever happening?
“You couldn’t have done anything to prevent this, Lance,” Allura said, scaring the daylights out of Lance who startled up with a yelp.
“How do you do that!?” he exclaimed, put a hand against his chest and tried to calm his wildly beating heart, “and how did you know what I was thinking?”
“You’re an open book, Lance. It’s written all over your face,” Allura answered. She sat down next to Lance on the bench. She had deep bags under her eyes and her scrubs were rumpled to hell and back. He wondered how long it had been since she got home and got some sleep and a good meal.
“Did they send you because you were the only one absent last night?” Lance scoffed, his bitterness coming back unbidden in a massive wave. Allura replied with a scoff of her own.
“For the record, I told them it was a stupid idea,” Allura replied, “but Shiro got all righteous about respecting Keith’s wishes and whatnot.”
“Well, if he had then Keith would have died for a completely stupid reason,” Lance said, “they weren’t even going to let me say goodbye…”
Allura wrapped an arm behind his shoulders and pulled him to her in a one-armed hug. Lance let his tears finally fall. Allura didn’t say anything more, and just let him cry it out. After a while, Lance stopped and pulled away sniffling.
“Thanks. I needed that,” he said.
“No problem,” Allura replied and continued, “did you know my father sent me to medicine school here in the States after he was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer?”
Lance looked at her, shocked. His face said it all and he didn’t need to verbalize a reply.
“I went back home to Manchester for Christmas on my first year to find he was already in hospice care. He left his estate to me, but with Coran as the manager. I almost didn’t make it in time to say goodbye, and when I did make it, it was a close thing.
“I was so angry… so betrayed… how could my father deprive me from spending his last months of life together? Did he not love me? Did he find me repulsive? Now, after being an oncologist for a few years now, I think I understand him better. But even after understanding him, I still find it hard to forgive him for stealing that opportunity away from me.”
“Did you…?”
“Huh?”
“Did you forgive him?”
“I’m still trying to, Lance. Keep in mind, though, that my father died. Keith is still alive. You can still work things out with him,” Allura said softly.
“How could he do this to me? He wrote me a letter understanding that I would have found it after he was dead. Just thinking about what I would have done if I had… it would have destroyed me, Allura… and everyone in that room would have been complicit.”
“He’s still alive, though. Torturing yourself imagining the worst case scenario won’t help you or Keith heal and move past it.”
“How can I move past this? I’m so angry, Allura…”
“You’re angry because you care. You’re angry because you love him.”
“But what if love alone isn’t enough to save us?”
“It will definitely not be enough if you keep hiding away in here,” Allura responded cheekily.
“I just don’t want him to see me like this,” Lance tried to explain, “I don’t want to start a fight in the room where he nearly died and where he is still recovering. It would cause nothing but tension and stress and those are the last things Keith needs.”
“Do you want me to step in? I can tell all interlopers to leave you alone for a few hours. Doctor’s orders, and all that,” Allura asked.
“Maybe… would you do that for me?”
“Of course. You’ll just have to send me some of your mother’s tres leches cake,” she winked and Lance laughed. Maybe there was a light at the end of this tunnel.
After his talk with Allura, Lance felt slightly better. She went ahead of him to let everyone know they had to head home. She told him to come after her exactly five minutes after she left, and so that’s what he did. Despite knowing what she intended to do, he was still surprised to find that everyone, including Shiro and Adam, had actually left them alone.
“Don’t look so smug. Shiro and Adam merely went to the cafeteria with Allura,” Keith told Lance with a grin when he entered the room.
“Willingly?”
“Not exactly.”
Lance shrugged. Allura’s methods were not for him to concern himself with. Lance walked to sit over by the chair next to Keith’s bed. Keith was still wearing the oxygen mask. He still looked pale and he had dark bags under his eyes; his hair fell limply over his eyes and shoulders, and he carried himself with a defeated air despite having just defeated death.
“I’m sorry,” Keith said, the first to break the silence and the tension settling inside the room.
“For what?” Lance asked.
“For… this,” Keith answered, gesturing to himself.
Lance regarded Keith silently for two heartbeats.
“I need to hear you say exactly what you’re sorry for, Keith,” Lance replied, “so that I can know if I can forgive you.”
Keith looked away, and tears gathered in his bottom lid.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Keith admitted, and his lower lip wobbled.
“So you chose to do nothing,” Lance concluded.
“You make me sound like a heartless asshole,” Keith whined.
“Because that’s how you’re acting, Keith! When were you admitted to the hospital, huh?” Keith refused to meet Lance’s gaze and remained silent, so Lance continued, “Tell me.”
“On Wednesday,” Keith begrudgingly answered.
“At what time?”
“Around noon.”
“Who was with you?”
“Can you stop interrogating me now? I get it.”
“Who was with you!?”
“Adam, ok?! He was making pasta for lunch. The fit was stronger than usual. He broke the door of the bathroom open and found me puking handfuls of forget-me-nots. He didn’t even call Shiro until were already here,” Keith said with a scowl.
“And then what happened?”
“Shiro was with Matt. Pidge overheard. Grabbed Hunk and they rushed over.”
“And where was I?”
A beat of silence passed.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” Keith countered.
“So you’d have rather died without giving me the chance to see you one last time? Without giving me the opportunity to say goodbye? Granted, we haven’t been friends for as long as Pidge’s been your friend, but I thought what we had merited some level of trust!”
“I do trust you!”
“Well, you have a pretty messed up way of showing it!” Lance snapped and stood up. He couldn’t help himself; he needed to move. There was just so much… too much going on inside of him.
“Lance…”
Lance’s pacing took him to the window, which happened to share the same view of the landscape he had on the third-floor terrace. He took a deep breath. Tried to remember what Allura told him.
“You told them not to call me…” Lance said, unable to stop the hurt from coloring his words, “you told them you didn’t want me here.”
“I thought I was going to die. I’d rather you remember me as I lived than as I died.”
“And I’d rather you lived, dammit!” Lance whirled around to face Keith, “why are you so insistent on dying?”
Keith locked eyes with Lance. Keith’s eyes swam with a myriad of emotions that Lance saw Keith was struggling to put into words. Lance took a deep breath again and he approached Keith’s bedside. This time he sat on the bed and held both of Keith’s hands on his own.
“Talk to me, Keith. I don’t want excuses. I don’t want you to justify yourself. What you did was not okay, but I want to understand where you’re coming from. So please, just tell me the truth as it is. I will listen. And then we can discuss where we go from here.”
Keith’s face crumpled and he cried, “I’m sorry that I hurt you… I’m sorry that… that I didn’t tell you… that I… nearly lost you…”
Keith sobbed and hiccoughed, making the string of apologies that followed nearly incoherent. Lance wrapped both of his arms around Keith’s shaking frame and pulled him close. Keith’s fists closed around Lance’s shirt and Lance felt the fabric go taut from how strong Keith was holding onto him.
“I was afraid… I was so afraid… I still am… I don’t want you to leave me…”
“Shh, Keith, you’re okay. I’ve got you. I’m here.”
“I couldn’t face you last night! I couldn’t look at you and lie to your face, but I also couldn’t face your disappointment or your disgust or your rejection… I wanted you here so badly! I wanted you to hold me, to make it better, even just to see you one last time, but I was so afraid Lance!”
Lance held on tight to Keith and buried his face on Keith’s shoulders. He couldn’t suppress his own tears any longer.
“I’m here, Keith. I love you. We’ll be okay.”
“Will we?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?” Lance hated how small Keith’s voice was.
“Because I believe in us,” Lance replied, “I trust we can make it work.”
“I’m a mess,” Keith said with a self-deprecating chuckle.
“And aren’t I?” Lance retorted.
“I still can’t believe you love me,” Keith continued, ignoring Lance’s rhetorical question, “I still think I’m going to wake up, you’ll be gone and I’ll be dying.”
“You aren’t dying,” Lance interrupted sharply, “not on my watch. Not if I can help it.”
“Why do you love me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I’m me!”
“Precisely because you’re you,” Lance agreed, “you are everything I ever wanted. I don’t need anybody else but you. I’m in this one hundred percent if you are, too.”
Keith seemed speechless and lost. He looked at Lance as though he’d never seen him before. Lance couldn’t quite tell if it was a good thing or not.
“I think I need therapy,” Keith said, at last, and Lance couldn’t help it. He giggled because the statement was so obvious, with or without hindsight, and without his permission his giggles turned into full blown guffaws. At first Keith looked like he might get angry, but soon he joined in laughing with Lance about how ridiculous it all seemed.
“Yeah, me too.”
Epilogue:
After a lot of debating, Lance finally decided on his major. He didn’t go to space, after all, but he also didn’t go to the ocean. He looked up to Allura and decided to major in psychology, which meant taking courses he hadn’t ever considered to begin with which pushed his graduation off by a year. But he took it with grace and eventually got his degree.
Keith’s experience with Hanahaki had been harrowing, terrible and all around traumatizing. It made Lance realize that he didn’t really know Keith as well as he thought he did, and it made Keith realize that he had terribly unhealthy coping mechanisms. Lance and Keith agreed in no uncertain terms that if they were to make it work, they needed to go to therapy even though it wasn’t an easy admission to make.
They began talking with hospital social services, who gave them recommendations for subsidized therapists and private therapists their insurance covered. They decided to start on individual therapy with different people. Once or twice Lance joined Keith in a session, and once or twice Keith joined Lance in one of his. Slowly but surely, taking baby steps, they began to make it through.
In respect to the others, it took Lance nearly nine weeks to get back to Hunk and Pidge after lots of missed calls, ignored messages and unheard voicemails. Matt, who hadn’t ever been super close with Lance to begin with, was still in the doghouse as far as Lance was concerned. Shiro and Adam, knowing they were going to be stuck with Lance as an in-law for a long time, did their very best to get back in Lance’s graces.
And to be fair to them, Lance never held them against their actions. They were Keith’s family. Of course they would want to honor his wishes. Lance felt they were the only ones who had ever been justified in their behavior towards him.
Six months after Keith was released from the hospital, Lance borrowed his brother’s pick-up truck, filled the back with construction materials and rode out to the shack with Keith. Together, they tore down the broken, rotten wooden door and replaced it with a new one. They replaced the window frames and installed planter boxes underneath the sills. Lance got a second-hand couch and a second-hand coffee table, a broom, a dustpan and cleaning supplies and they made the shack a homier, more welcoming space. Lance fixed up some of the shelves in the bookshelf to prevent them from collapsing and called his brother so he could come set them up with a generator sometime next week.
That day ended with Lance and Keith sprawled on their new second-hand couch while eating the cold left over from Lance’s family brunch. Keith leaned his body on Lance, who wrapped an arm around him. Lance leaned down to kiss Keith’s temple.
“I really, really love you, Lance,” Keith spoke up after a long comfortable silence, “it’s still terrifying. It still feels like I’m constantly free falling, but now I know you’ll catch me.”
Lance turned his nose to nuzzle against Keith’s ear.
“Let me be your parachute, baby,” he whispered.
Keith cackled, and said, “That was terrible. One of your worst ones yet.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who used that corny line in his letter to begin with,” Lance replied with a wink, “I’m only quoting you.”
Keith sobered up slightly.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Lance pipped in immediately, “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“No, it’s just… I was so convinced you were going to hate me… it’s weird to think about the headspace I was in at the time.”
Lance couldn’t help but snort, “You speak as though that happened decades ago.”
“Sometimes it feels like it,” Keith replied, “because I am so different now than I was then. It’s bizarre.”
“Well, I’m glad those therapy sessions have paid off,” Lance joked.
Keith snorted now, too, “I still have a long way to go, I think, but I do feel like I’m not in that dark place anymore.”
“So do you still think you’re Romeo, oh Romeo, willing to die for his Juliet?” Lance cheekily asked. Keith flicked at Lance’s cheek.
“I still think Shakespeare’s original intent was to call out teenage stupidity.”
“But?”
“No buts. I’d rather live to grow old with you than die apart from you.”
Lance felt the heat climb all the way to the tips of his ears. He covered his face with his hands.
“You’re a sap,” Lance whined from behind his hands.
“You love it,” Keith said and unabashedly smiled.
Lance removed his hands and pecked Keith on the lips.
“Yes, I do.”
The End