Star Crossed (Keith/Lotor fic)

Chapter Three

Back on the castle, Lance was sitting in the control room with the others. They were all tired, having not had much time to rest between dealing with the Galra but also searching for Keith. When he suddenly sneezed, Pidge said from across the room,

"You know, when you sneeze it means someone's talking about you." Well, she didn't so much say it as she did tiredly mumble it. He sneezed again before he could reply and she said, "Two sneezes means it's something negative."

"If Keith is off somewhere gossiping about me I'm going to be pissed." Lance said drily. "If he is, I'll kill him when we find him."

"Why do you think he left in the first place?" Hunk asked. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Does anything Keith does make sense?" Lance sat up and yawned. He was seriously struggling to stay awake, but didn't dare complain, he knew the others were just as tired as him by now. "Was he running away? Did he got lost? Did someone capture him? Who knows. We sure don't!" He threw his hands up in exasperation. Shiro finally turned to face them, clearly equally tired.

"Why don't you guys get some rest?" He said. "We've all been up long enough." Really, Shiro just didn't want to spend the night listening to their delirious arguing.

"What about you? You're just as tired as we are." Pidge said as she got up.

"I'm fine, I'll get some sleep later." He told them. They took one look at the dead tired look on his face and knew they couldn't bother arguing. They all said goodnight before leaving him alone with Allura and Coran.

He'd been spending every free moment they had searching for Keith. It reminded them too much of Keith, he'd been the same way when Shiro was missing. So far all they knew is one of the pods had gone missing, and they found the signal from the pod coming from a nearby planet. They had tried checking it out and they found the crashed pod- no sign of Keith though. This only made them worry more. There was nothing hinting at Keith even being alive, but they kept searching anyway.

Lance didn't believe that Keith had really just run away from them or something. They'd tried contacting the blade but they haven't seen or heard from Keith, and didn't seem all that concerned about the matter either. That meant there was either a terrible accident, or someone had taken Keith. The seemed to silently but unanimously agree that when they found who it was, there would be hell to pay.

***

Things continued like this for another three or four days. Lotor would come in, usually give him something to eat and some medicine. Once he had to restitch the wound on his side when Keith had been searching for a way out of the cell again and had twisted weirdly when trying to pull the grate off a vent.

"You're like a stubborn kit." Lotor had told him, once again pushing him arm away from his bleeding side. Keith had tried to cover it, but ultimately he'd only bleed out if he didn't let the prince help him. "You know I don't plan on hurting you, why are you so desperate to get out."

"I don't exactly like being caged up." Keith had muttered, using his anger to hide the pain. He flinched when the needle first went into his skin, but otherwise didn't react much.

"I suppose that's to be expected." The prince said, staying focused on his work. When he finished with the stitches he wrapped bandages around the area for extra protection this time. Once he finished Keith looked at the newly bandaged wound.

"Shouldn't it have been getting better by now?" He asked.

"Yes, it should've been. But you won't rest like I tell you to."