A/N: Today's Prompt: Near Death and/or Blood Loss

Not much to say this time around. Enjoy this little piece!

hyggelig - (adj). taking pleasure from the presence of gentle, comforting and soothing things; a feeling of friendship, warmth, peace and contentment.

DAY 3. NEAR DEATH AND/OR BLOOD LOSS

Keith is not happy.

He's pretty damn annoyed, actually. Because they should be back on the castleship right now. But no. Lance is moving too slow. He's moving too loud.

And now Keith is in a closet. On an enemy ship. Hiding. Waiting. With Lance.

It wouldn't be so bad but the closet is small, stuffed with cleaning supplies that Keith assumes scrubs away all the bloodshed because the tiny space reeks of it.

Keith presses his back against the wall to create as much space as he can in the cramped closet, but it doesn't feel like enough. And maybe Lance missed the memo but they're trying to hide and the idiot is breathing awfully loud, obnoxiously so, like he's just finished a marathon. So loud that Keith is certain passing sentries will hear it.

To add to his list of annoyances, he can hear something dripping as well. Drip, drip dripping and puddling at his boots.

There are shadows floating by the sliver of light at the bottom of the door. And Keith isn't in the mood to be found, so he throws a hand across Lance's mouth and nose to block the sound and presses.

Lance mumbles into his palm, his breath heightening. He even latches weakly onto Keith's wrists to try and dislodge the grip, but Keith holds fast. There are bodies on the other side of the door—he can hear them—and Keith isn't going to die today because of Lance.

Once the sound of footsteps fade away, Keith glares at Lance through the darkness. "I'm going to let you go but you need to be quiet," he whispers harshly. Lance whines, a sound that is muffled and trapped behind Keith's fingers, followed by the softest of moans.

Keith waits just long enough to convince himself they are in the clear, then removes his hand from Lance's mouth to grip the door's handle. There is a bay of escape pods not far off and if they hurry, they can be back on the castleship in a matter of doboshes.

"Come on," he urges, tugging at Lance's arm as he pries the door open. His boots, wet from the puddle in the closet, slip a little but he manages to find his balance even as Lance collapses onto the floor with a muted grunt. He doesn't get back up.

"We don't have time for this," Keith growls, moving to peel Lance off the floor, and then he notices it. Blood, fresh and vibrant, on the floor and stinging his nose. It's on his boots and pooling underneath—

"Lance!" It's louder than he means. Keith is kneeling down within a tick, rolling Lance onto his back to allow himself access to the damage. He swallows a curse. There is a cut along the right side of Lance's stomach, deep and pumping precious blood and it throws Keith for a loop because he doesn't remember Lance getting hit and Lance didn't say anything.

He thinks back to the puddle in the closet, how he'd been standing in a pool of Lance's blood and did nothing but restrict his already labored breathing, and tries to calculate how much time has been wasted.

"Well that's… not good," Lance wheezes, and Keith is thankful that Lance is squirming in discomfort because it's much better than the complete stillness he was moments before. Keith grabs Lance's hands and presses them over the wound and applies pressure. He does not let panic take over, but he most definitely does not feel in control. Lance grits his pink-stained teeth. Says, "Gonna start keeping track of h-how many times you have to… you know, take care of me."

"It's not a contest, dumbass. Why is everything a competition with you? And here's a question for you; why didn't you tell me you got hit?"

Lance's chest shakes when it rises and falls and Keith pushes harder on Lance's hands to encourage good pressure. Blood spills over both of their fingers at it continues to pump. He has no idea how much blood Lance has lost but he can see the way Lance's eyes struggle to focus.

"Was just before the… the closest. Adren… adrenaline. Don't be mad. I didn't kn-know it was so… At the time I though—"

"Okay. Okay," Keith says, startled at the softness of his own voice. "You didn't know; fine. It's… fine. Save your breath. Just… Just."

He wishes Shiro was here.

They are so close to escape. If they don't run into any trouble, they can still make it. Lance can still make it.

"Sorry," he mutters, scooping Lance up off the floor and into a fireman's carry. He needs an arm free to wield a weapon.

Lance growls at the way Keith's shoulder digs into his stomach, clearly agitated, but voices nothing beyond that. He understands that this is faster. Fast is good. Agreeable Lance is good.

So Keith keeps close to the walls and runs as smoothly as he can but he knows Lance is suffering. But Lance is also dying and Keith prefers Lance in pain than being dead.

He needs to hurry though, he knows. Lance, thought he tries, is unable to plug the wound like this, and is losing blood. It's all over both of their armor and dripping on the floor, leaving a trail to their location.

On top of that, Lance is disturbingly not chatty.

Keith scowls. You don't make things easy, do you?

Only a few ticks later and Lance is writhing, hands off the wound and instead groping and pushing at Keith's back, trying to alleviate the pressure being forced onto his stomach by Keith's shoulder. "H-hurts, you j-jerk."

Damn. That was pretty slurred. Keith ducks into a darkened corner and slides Lance off his shoulder and onto the floor. Their exit is just around the corner and Keith expects there to be sentries posted there. He can't have Lance bogging him down while he clears their way out.

"I'll be right back," Keith vows, guiding Lance's hands back to his wound, which is still steadily oozing. He pushes down, hard. "Keep pressing. Stay quiet."

It looks like Lance wants to nod. Instead he meets Keith's eyes with more trust than Keith is comfortable with. He breathes in and out slowly, gurgling.

Then Keith is off, sprinting around the corner with his sword arched at the ready. As expected, a pair of sentries guard the nearest set of pods. Before any alarms can be raised, Keith is on top of them, dismembering the arm of one and thrusting his sword through the chest of the other. The torso sticks, so Keith swings it around like a bat to crack the first sentry in the head. They both go down in a fizzled heap of scrap metal and Keith makes a beeline back to Lance.

Lance is still slumped up against the wall where Keith left him, hands no longer on his injury but instead weakly holding his blaster. He points at Keith with shockingly steady aim, warbles something unintelligible, and fires.

Before Keith's heart has a chance to fall back into rhythm, he hears the metallic thump of a sentry hitting the floor behind him.

"Even Steven," Lance murmurs before going slack.

Keith stoops down to pick him up again; he's heavy and awkward to carry but Keith manages.

"Hold on," he commands irritably because irritation is easier than alarm and it allows him to push his concerns to the wayside.

He rushes to the closest escape pod and crams himself into the single seat, draping Lance uncomfortably across his lap.

"Just a little longer."

A few buttons and switches and the pod door closes and they are shot off into space. Keith sets the coordinates and activates autopilot, then spends the next agonizing stretch of time pushing down on Lance's wound. It feels like he's lost so much, but Lance has a habit of… whatever this is, this flirtation with danger, and for as much as Lance hates the pods, he always comes out as loud and buoyant as ever, ready for the next near-death experience that will shed the years off of all the people who give a damn about him.

But while a cyropod can seemingly work wonders, it cannot revive the dead. Keith pushes so hard on Lance's wound that Lance whimpers, because he'll be damned if he's going to let it come to that.

"Did…you… did you hear what I s-said? When I… shot the guy?"

Lance's soft voice drags him back to the now, and Keith looks down and finds himself focusing on bloodied lips. Astonished they can still smile, even now. Swallowing thickly, Keith says, "No."

Because it looks like in spite of himself, Lance is proud and really, really wants to tell him.

"Hah. I said, d-drop dead."

Then Lance's eyes roll back and he sinks heavily into Keith's lap.

xxx

Keith is there when the pod hisses open and Lance spills out. He falls heavy like a stone, arms outstretched for a body to catch him, trusting someone will be there. He probably doesn't expect it to be Keith when he flops into his waiting arms, but he doesn't complain either. His legs wobble with his own weight, hands rubbing at his side where he'd been bleeding out less than a night ago.

"Saved me," Lance mutters sleepily. It's nice to hear Lance speak without strain. Then he adds, with an audible pout, "…again."

Saving each other is what they do, for each other and for the universe. Keith doesn't say it because there is no way that Lance doesn't know this already. The only thing that Lance doesn't seem to remember these days, or even from the start, are the intimate moments between himself and Keith.

There is a tempting itch in Keith that makes him want to call Lance on it, to accuse him of remembering them all, but he chooses not to because then he'll have to acknowledge how many they've had so far. And then there is the chance that Lance will never shut up about them, and that, Keith thinks, is a far worse fate.

So he lets Lance lean against him as the chill of the pod melts away, and Keith continues to hold him even long after Lance seems to have fully warmed up, and says nothing. Neither of them do.