Nightmares (Klance)

Part 3: Pragmatic Decisions

"Sleep with me."

And there it is. Keith's conscience is screaming at him. This is an awful idea. Terrible! He can't do this. He shouldn't do this. Because just the thought of lying next to Lance has his mouth filling with saliva and his heart fluttering in his chest. You're an idiot. An absolute idiot.

"W...what?" Lance's voice breaks. Keith doesn't hear it over the thudding of his own pulse.

"You heard me. Just sleep with me. It doesn't matter if you keep me awake because I barely sleep anyway."

Lance blinks at him.

"It's fine."

Silence still hangs over them.

"Do you honestly hate me that much that you won't even...?"

"No no that's not it." Lance exhales. "I just... are you sure?"

And there's an uncertainty, a vulnerability in Lance's expression that makes Keith's pulse stutter. He collects himself and smiles lazily.

"It's fine. We're a team right?" He holds his fist out in front of him. Lance sneers and a shred of his usual self-sparkles to life. He bumps Keith's fist and chuckles.

"Team Voltron.".

Keith leads them back to his room. It's a mirror image of Lance's, except with a few souvenirs from missions are scattered around the place. Lance isn't able to place them all. A piece of shrapnel, a rock from some distant planet, a pressed flower that some local had given him, Keith has kept them all and placed them lovingly around his room. Clearly, his hoarding in his desert shack had not been just a phase, but Lance cherishes this new fact about Keith. He's sentimental. Lance would never have guessed.

"You can just..."

"Oh, I don't need to be told." Lance eagerly crawls into the bed and underneath the thin blankets, curling into a tight ball against the corner when he's settled. He notices how the sheets smell like Keith. He's been pinned under him enough times in training to recognize that particular blend of citrus and black pepper musk. It's a pleasant smell, which only annoys Lance more because of course Keith would even smell good.

Keith kicks off his boots, gloves, and socks, but keeps his t-shirt and pants on as he sidles in next to lance.

"Whoa, whoa, aren't you gonna get changed?" Lance mumbles into the pillow.

"I told you. I barely sleep. If I stay in my clothes then I can just roll out of bed and start working immediately." Keith reaches by the side of the bed and pulls up his tablet. Allura had given each of the paladins one, in the hopes that they would allow them to communicate and research better. He could always read over battle tactics if Lance needed him to stay in the bed all night.

"You're crazy, man", Lance yawns. He can barely keep his eyes open. "Pragmatic.... But crazy."

"Just go to sleep already."

"Keith?"

Keith flicks through the Altean symbols that appear on his screen.

"Hmm?"

"Thanks for this.."

"You don't..." Keith turns to look Lance in the eye, but he's already asleep. He's snoring gently into the pillow and his short hair is a fright. Keith smiles gently and sets his tablet down. Timidly, and with shaking fingers, he brushes Lance's hair away from his eyes. Butterflies soar in his stomach.

"You don't have to thank me." He whispers.

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Sorry, bit of a short chapter. But the cuddles kill me ;)