The Dead Don't Bleed

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Word Count: 2,058

He awoke the next morning tired and groggy as heck.

"Wake up, sunshine!" Lance happily chirped as he stood about an inch away from Keith's face.

Keith's eyes widened before shooting forward, not realizing until too late as he cracked his head against Lance's who stumbled back with a yelp before rubbing his forehead wincing. "Ugh, remind me to never wake up Sleeping Mullet again."

Hunk chuckled somewhere to his right, "Noted."

Keith groaned, rubbing his forehead and finally pulling himself up to a sitting position. His back ached, and the sun was bright, and, after a moment or two of yawning and making sure Lance's sudden wake-up surprise didn't break his skull, he realized he was the only one still sleeping. "Why didn't you guys wake me sooner?"

Hunk shrugged, handing him a bar, already munching on his own, "Well, you look so peaceful when you're asleep, I didn't want to wake you."

"And, we didn't know how you handled running off of little to no sleep, so we let you sleep in in for as long as we could afford," Shiro said, helping a struggling Pidge cram her sleeping bag into her backpack.

"I can handle it," Keith grumbled, mostly to himself, trying at the same time to make his eyes adjust to the light of the bright morning sun.

Shiro only chuckled and shook his head, "Of course you can."

They both looked at each other with mild surprise at that statement between them, but it was quickly forgotten as Shiro continued to help pack up camp, and Keith sat trying to convince himself to get up.

With a sigh, he finally stumbled up to his feet and- ah, yep, his legs were sore.

"Uh oh," Lance, noticing his slight grimace, snickered, already fully recovered from his bump in with Keith and apparently ready for more, "Someone's not a morning person."

"Shut up," Keith snapped, stretching while he silently prayed he wouldn't tip over with his head still fuzzy with sleep.

Shiro chuckled, "Come on, the sooner we get out there, the sooner this can all be done and over with."

Keith couldn't argue with that, and with a yawn, he leaned down to begin zipping up and rolling his sleeping bag as tight as it would go.

"Pidge, how soon until we get there?"

"We made good time yesterday, if we keep that up, we should get there in under a week."

Shiro breathed out what Keith could only guess was a sigh of relief, "That's good."

Unwrapping the granola bar, Keith jammed half of it into his mouth as he shoved the sleeping bag back into his already crowded backpack, and with a muffled grunt, still chewing, he finally zipped it closed and hefted the thing over one shoulder as he looked around.

Their little camp from the night before had been all but gone when he woke up, Hunk, Shiro and the others had already put up their own sleeping bags and someone- presumably Shiro -had put out the fire, and spread the majority of the ashes out into the surrounding forest to keep curious eyes off their trail. All-in-all, it looked as if no one had ever been there in the first place.

Realizing he'd forgotten his katana, Keith slid off the backpack and slid the sheath back into the familiar place on his back before sliding the pack back onto both his shoulders, gearing himself up for the next leg of their trip, and silently praying they would get there soon.

Sleeping on the ground like that every night was going to kill him.

...

"Keith, please," he looked back at her to see her own eyes wet with tears, "please," she repeated, "I don't want to Turn."