Gone and Mute

Chapter 16

Now, granted, this was an apology from Lance, partially to Allura, so he could only be so serious before he made an offhand comment about how tears don't suit Allura. But his apology had been sincere, and that's all Keith had wanted out of it.

Even after the apology though, and Lance saying he wanted to wait a bit before his decision, he still seemed thoroughly distraught. Keith walked with him out of the bridge, but Lance avoided eye contact, staring at the ground with furrowed brows. Keith reached out and carefully wrapped his fingers around Lance's dangling hand. After a pause, Lance squeezed Keith's hand in return.

Taking this as a good sign, Keith spoke up. "Something's still bothering you."

Lance looked at him before forcing a chuckle and rubbing the back of his neck. "Is it that obvious?"

"I'm just perceptive," Keith lied, stopping beside Lance and turning to him. "What's wrong?"

Lance still refused to look Keith in the eyes. "I'm just... worried."

"'Bout what?"

"I'm out of practice Keith. I'm not sure how many earth weeks I've gone without training, but it's gotten to the point where I'm no longer sore from sitting still for too long."

Keith worked his jaw silently for a moment. "What if I just trained with you? You and me? We can see how out of practice we both are."

Lance snorted. "How can you be out of practice? You're perfect at everything."

Keith flushed and tried to hide it with a scowl. "Maybe you'll get lucky and beat me."

A snort. "Doubt it."

"Lance."

"Sorry, sorry." Lance sighed. "I guess I'll try."

Keith scowl gave way to a small smile and the two walked down to the training area.

---

Lance was, to say the very least, out of practice with hand to hand combat. He'd never been very good in the first place, they both knew. But somehow, Lance had gotten worse.

After getting thrown five or six times, Lance gave up. He spread his arms out on the floor and stared at the ceiling, breathing hard not only in his attempts to fill his lungs again, but to keep the tears from spilling over onto his cheeks. He pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes, sniffling, and Keith walked over to sit beside him on the floor of the training deck.

"Giving up already?" Keith asked with a chuckle.

"Already?! We've been at this for hours!" Lance protested, not moving his hands from his eyes.

"Lance, we've been in here thirty minutes."

An attempt at a joking groan turned into a sob and Keith reached over, rubbing Lance's shoulder softly. "... what if we tried something we know you're good at?"

"I'm not good at anything."

"That's not true. You can shoot much better than I can."

Lance opened his mouth to protest before sniffing and wiping his face on his arm, looking at Keith. "Really?"

Keith snorted. "You doubting yourself?"

"What?" Lance sat up quickly. "Of course not!"

"Well then, why don't you come show me?"

"You know what? I will!" He got to his feet and pulled up a weapon array. He pulled an Altean glock off the rack before tossing Keith one. Keith yelped and fumbled when he caught it, accidentally shooting the wall. Lance snorted. "Activate target practice!" He called into the training room, and several targets popped up on the sides of the room, and started to move.

Keith stared at Lance wide eyed as he started to shoot the targets, before setting the glock aside and standing up. "Nope. Nope, can't do thi- ACK!" He ducked when Lance shot at a target right behind him, leaving Keith trembling on the floor.

"You were in the way."

"You could've hit any other target other than one!" Keith cried shrilly.

"Keith."

Keith looked up to see all the targets were red, signifying they'd been hit. He let out a short breath of surprise.

"You... hit them all already?"

"I guess you were right. I am a pretty good shot." He blew on the end of the gun and twirled it in his hand.

Keith looked up at him, and oh god that cocky pose he was holding made him look infinitely more sexy.

Lance watched him before reaching out to help Keith up. Keith grabbed his hand and let Lance pull him to his feet, not breaking eye contact with the taller boy the entire time.

"Keith? You oka-mphf!" Lance's sentence was cut off by Keith pressing his lips to his. Lance stared at Keith wide eyed before closing them, wrapping his arms around the shorter one and holding Keith's body against his own as they kissed.