He Walks In On Keith, Alcohol-soaked Rag Clutched In His Hand, Elbow Pressed Against The Wall To Try

He walks in on Keith, alcohol-soaked rag clutched in his hand, elbow pressed against the wall to try to reach the weeping wound in the middle of his back. He hadn’t been called, or invited, but had instead used the lock code Keith had muttered at him weeks ago, quiet and plasticly casual in a way that told Lance the gesture was anything but.

He doesn’t wait for an invitation now, wordlessly padding forward and prying the rag from Keith’s crooked fingers, pressing it to the wound. Keith does not flinch or tense, but there is a volatility to the air that makes Lance hold his breath without realizing.

“I’m tough,” Keith whispers, forehead pressed to the wall. His eyes are nearly shut, open only a sliver, and he breathes heavily through his mouth, measured and controlled.

Lance nods. He leaves one hand on the arch of Keith’s left shoulder, using the other to squeeze out the rag into a bucket, blood turning the water pink. He presses the newly strained fabric to the inflamed, sliced skin, and this time Keith inhales sharply, back tensing at the sound of it ringing through the room. Lance doesn’t move, only keeps the rag where it is, applying pressure.

“I know you are.”

“I can take care of myself.”

The bleeding has slowed to something much more manageable, so Lance takes the rag off entirely, tossing it into the bucket with a splash. He returns his fingers to Keith’s heated skin, tracing down the ridges of his spine, the bulges of his trapezius, the raised flesh of his scars. He circles the edge of the wound, mapping the soreness, noting the hitch in Keith’s breath, the jump and twitch of his muscles. He’ll need stitches. Ten, twelve of them, probably. And salve will need to be applied hourly, bandages changed four times a day. This will be a high maintenance injury. He cannot reach it.

He wonders how many of the raised, brutal scars on the Black Paladin’s back are from wounds exactly like this, before Lance knew the lockpad password, before Lance learned to suture, before Lance thought to follow him after missions. Before Lance.

“You have,” he says, instead of that. “You still do. You always will.” He swallows. His hands rest flat-palmed against the wideness of his shoulders, burning through the heat of his skin. “I’ve just joined in, too. Now we take care of each other.”

Keith is frozen, unmoving. The only sounds are his breaths, heavy and slow, and the creak of his jaw as he grinds his teeth.

“You never let me.”

“What?”

Keith turns his neck slightly, looking over his shoulder. He doesn’t look at Lance so much as look to the side of him. “Take care of you.” A beat of silence. “I’m never allowed.”

“I let you,” Lance says quietly. “I always let you fix me up when something hits me.”

“I’m not talking about that.”

Lance heart pounds. Instead of answering, he quickly withdraws his hands, walking over to Keith’s dresser and busying himself with gathering supplies, picking through the first aid kit. He takes his time counting out sutures, a needle, sterilizer, bandages, a belt for him to bite down on in absence of numbing cream. He can feel Keith’s eyes on him, burning the back of his neck, as the seconds and minutes tick by.

He keeps his head down as he turns around with his armful of supplies, sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor and organizing all the equipment, lining it up so it’s perfectly straight. After several minutes Keith joins him, sitting gingerly in front of him with his back turned.

Lance starts with gauze, drying up the wound, soaking up the last surges of blood. He presses until he can no longer feel the burning heat of it pooling into his hand, then he pulls on gloves, tying the suture to the needle. He nudges the belt towards Keith with his foot.

Keith grabs it, pulling it slowly towards him, and holds it loosely in his hands, draped over his lap.

“You were angry at me last night,” he says softly. “After. You pulled away and locked yourself in the bathroom and didn’t come out until you thought I was asleep.”

“I was just showering off,” Lance says shortly.

“You weren’t.” Keith fiddles with the buckle. “There wasn’t any steam coming through the door. You just turned the sink on. I heard you crying, anyway.”

Lance’s hands shake. He clenches them into fists, squeezing until they still, blinking the sting out of his eyes.

Keith lifts the belt up to his mouth, long ends extending behind him like the reign of a work horse. Water condenses on the leather of the belt from the heat of his exhales, millimeters from his mouth. “I know it was because — because I was far away. In my head. I wasn’t — I wasn’t vulnerable.”

The end of his sentence hangs in the air, like a discordant note, in unfinished chord. He finally takes the belt in his mouth and bites, clenching it between his teeth, steadying himself for the sharp pain. Lance forces his hands to move, to slide the point of the needle through red flesh, curve it through torn muscle and sluggishly leaking veins. He loses himself in the sutures, tying one, two, ten. He second he ties off the final stitch, he hears a clink, and the leather belt slides off Keith’s shoulders as he unclenches his teeth, dropping the belt from his jaw.

“You aren’t vulnerable with me, either.” He shifts, pulling away from Lance’s frozen hands. “You keep things locked to your chest. It’s like you have to force yourself every time you touch me.”

Lance swallows. It doesn’t touch the dryness of his throat.

“I react badly to being loved,” Keith says when Lance can’t bring himself to speak. “That’s why I — pulled away.”

“You pushed me away,” Lance corrects. His voice is so quiet it rasps the inside of his throat. “Not — not pulled.”

Keith winces. “Yeah.”

Lance’s hands shake again. He wants to put them on Keith’s skin again so badly. Like a magnet, almost. He glances at the bandages, weighing the weight of the excuse they offer.

“It’s okay,” he starts shakily, stretching the bandages across Keith’s torso, lingering on his chest, his shoulders, his ribs. “For people to — for me, to like the things you’re way too hard on yourself for.” He inhales quickly and forces the rest of the sentiment out, even though it’s humiliating, even though it will cost him. “I like your brashness.”

His face is to Keith’s back, but he can hear the smile in his voice.

“Yeah?”

“Yes. It’s — charming. It comes from your protectiveness, I think, and I like the thought of that. Of your protection, I mean.”

Keith doesn’t say anything for a moment. Lance can’t read him, can’t guess his thoughts, and he feels like a flayed heart in his openness.

“I like your competitive streak,” Keith says softly. Fondly.

Lance blinks in surprise. “You like my — you like that I’m stubborn?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Lance isn’t the only one who likes the ugly parts, then.

“Can we start over?” Keith asks timidly, after Lance has wrapped his wound tightly, after he has turned to face him, but still looks slightly away. After they sit inches apart, refusing to touch, itching to make contact. “I want to — be vulnerable.” He speaks the words as if they hurt on their way out of him. “I want to do this together.”

Lance shudders, eyes closing without his permission.

Together — that’s all he’s ever wanted. Equal footing with Keith. All he has ever wanted was for Keith to want and crave him as badly and he does, and apparently he —

Apparently, Keith likes him when he’s stubborn, when he is argumentative and frustrating and annoying. Keith wants him then.

“Yes,” Lance says quickly. “Together.”

———

based on this post

Regarding some of the terminology posts people have been reblogging, I want to share my experience growing up as an older millenial.

My entire school career, from K-12, saying the word "gay" was formally banned.

As a younger kid, this was because homosexuality was considered a completely inappropriate subject for children in any form, even just acknowledging its existence in a neutral or negative way, let alone a positive one. By the time I was in high school, it was also because people were using "gay" to refer to anything they didn't like. "Ew, we have a pop quiz? That's so gay!" "Parking costs $30? That's gay!" There were absolutely still some homophobic people who wanted to ban all mentions of gay people for homophobic reasons, but by this stage there were plenty of more liberal teachers and administrators behind the ban to curtail the rampant casual homophobia.

So, did it work? Of course not. Queer kids were still bullied for being queer. But notably, it also didn't prevent people from using slurs. Kids couldn't say gay, so they used other words. The classic ones, like twink and fairy, were available, but just to cut back on pushback from adults even further, kids innovated. "Bundle of twigs" instead of "faggot." "Dam" instead of "dyke." "Happy" instead of gay.

And I stress that these euphemisms were frequently used unironically. People would be in dead serious, heated arguments, up to and including physical altercations, screaming insults like "twigs" and "happy" at each other. It was the equivalent of many modern teens automatically defaulting to "unalive" even in serious offline conversations about death. "Happy" was a slur.

Declaring certain words off limits accomplishes nothing. Ceding labels to the homophobes does nothing. All of our labels are slurs, and even if we stop using them, they'll just make more slurs. You don't have to like or use any particular label for yourself, but you accomplish nothing but censoring other members of the community and perpetuating in-fighting by trying to be the language police.

ok, i have to say this before i say anything else about the rwrb movie:

when the book came out, it was groundbreaking. it was one of the first true queer rom coms. this movie is now even more groundbreaking.

yes, some depth and detail was lost from the book, but that’s bound to happen in any adaptation. but before we complain about that, let’s ask ourselves:

exactly how many fluffy, fairy tale, sexy, funny, sugary, queer romance movies are there? you could probably count them all on one hand, and most of them probably aren’t major studio releases.

queer people deserve silly romcom movies too. queer people deserve to see themselves in tender, uncensored intimate moments on screen too. and, correct me if i’m wrong, but i’m pretty sure this is the first time a major motion picture has explicitly mentioned truvada/PrEP and included a conversation between a parent and child about safe queer sex. like…queer people don’t get shit like this, and now we do. and that’s a big deal.

Um.

The Barbie movie really said. Yes you will grow up and childhood wonder will vanish. Yes you will grow up and learn to hate yourself, your body, your awkwardness. Yes you will grow up and lose your confidence and certainty and sense of purpose. Yes you will grow up and the world will seem a bleaker, lonelier place every day, and society will seem bleaker and lonelier every day, and you won’t understand what went wrong in the span of just a few years, what took you from a happy and secure young girl to a sad, uncertain, scared grown woman.

And yet. You will learn to find beauty again. You will find joy in not having a purpose, in building a purpose for yourself. You will find beauty in connection, with the people and the world around you. You will learn to love signs of ageing as proof of a life well lived, of experience and happiness. You will take that little girl by the hand and tell her “I know, this isn’t what you thought it would be, but it’s real. Let me show you how beautiful it can be.”

Ooh I like this prompt. Someone needs to do this with MHA characters and/or Genshin characters.

How many kisses I think it would take before he turns to mush

My creativity has been stuck in essentially a rush hour traffic jam for like weeks, so let's write something silly for practice, shall we?

Lucifer

Definitely ten or more. He tries to keep his composure, to focus on the task at hand, scold you for coddling him and distracting him, but if you hold onto your stubbornness and see it through to the end, he will be putty in your hands soon after you reach double digits. He might even fall faster if you give him little bits of praise after every kiss.

Mammon

Three MAX. One to catch him off guard, one to make it really sink in, and then the third to land the final blow. No amount of tsundere will outlast the triple attack. He'll be following you around like a lost puppy for the rest of the day, almost demanding more. He's greed after all, three might've broken him, but he'll be damned if he doesn't get more.

Levi

I would be tempted to say just one is enough, but we want a soft boy, not a vibrating, anxious mess. He gets tense at first, and he needs some reassurance and some time to understand that he likes and is okay what is happening. So I'm going to say five or more kisses. The first few he's just stuttering and blushing, but soon after, he can put that aside and just allow himself to relax a bit.

Satan

He acts like it takes him just as long as Lucifer, reaching double digits, when in reality he gave in internally much much earlier than that. Four is when his heart is melting and his mind is screaming, but around eight is when his body starts to unwind, almost curling around you like a cat.

Asmo

Much higher than you would expect. One must bridge the initial flirting phase before he becomes a puddle. I'm going to say probably six kisses. The first three he'll be giddy, but if you get softer with each kiss, he'll slowly start to become speechless.

Beel

As long as there isn't food in the way, just one. One kiss is all it takes. This demon has just so much love in him, you hardly need to kiss him for him to be soft for you. He doesn't need to put up an act. Just give him a single smooch and he'll drop whatever he's doing to cuddle into you.

Belphie

So many kisses. Probably even more than Lucifer. He feels like he deserves your kisses anyway, so it's hard to get him flustered about it, especially when he's so spoiled. Besides, you have to hope your affection won't lull him to sleep. Over ten for sure. Just keep going. Eventually, he'll be overwhelmed and give up his sleepy smug nature and transform into fluff.

Diavolo

Look me in the eyes and tell me this touch starved man will not cave after like two or three. He's not used to kisses, so the first kiss has his brain lagging. Hit him with the double combo and he's gone. Wasted. Fatality. Although please just kiss him more than twice. He really likes it.

Barbatos

Too many to count, unfortunately. He likes it, don't get him wrong, he's just tough to break. But there must be a breaking point somewhere. Keep attacking him with kisses and surely he must give in eventually, although most likely by his own will, giving in just so you can catch a proper breath. A win is a win.

Simeon

Probably no more than four, although it seems like more than that because he'll often return to sender and kiss you back. Don't give in, you must stay strong before he makes you melt first. Hum as you kiss him and he'll fall faster, almost cooing.

Solomon

He's got a stronger will than most, almost as good as Barbatos, but he will melt in due time. He'll treat it like a game at first, which it almost is to you, but he doesn't have to know that. It takes a while, but when he melts, he melts fast. He'll be trying to chuckle and make light of it one moment, and then be a completely speechless mess the next.