A loud tapping filled the prison. Annoyed glances turned to the mer who was making the sound. Fabian's nervous clicking against the bars of his cell was beginning to annoy the rest of the mers.
Aaravos mumbled angrily. "If you don't stop that right now I'm going to stuff a glow worm up your—"
"How 'bout we try a different approach," Krolia interrupted Aaravos, "Fabian, why are you tapping so much?"
Fabian sighed. "I get anxious waiting here for nothing. I miss my husband too, but that's the same as any day." Lance shuffled onto his side on the uncomfortable ground. He knew how Fabian felt. For the anxious part, not the husband part.
Just then two guards entered the prison. Their faces were half covered by helmets— only their mouths could be seen. They chatted while swimming over to the human's cell.
"I heard he went to the land," one said. Lance lifted a pointed ear in interest.
"I heard Zadok sent him away, that he did something to piss him off." The mer lowered his voice, "Though really, when is the king not pissed about something?"
The first mer snickered. She unlocked the cell with a steel key while the other mer grabbed the human. "Rumor is that he went on the land to get an escaping mer. Is going to kill a human who knows too much."
"Seems about right. Do you think he'll actually be able to do it?"
The last word Lance heard before they left with the human was "Well, Lotor..." The mer froze. Lotor, going to kill a human who "knew too much?" It had to be him.
"I have to get out of here," Lance mumbled. All the other mers looked at him in shock. "I-It's him. The human Lotor's after—" Lance didn't finish before he threw his body into the barred door.
"Lance!" Ignatius warned. "That'll never work."
"He's right," Zethrid spoke up. It was a surprise; she hardly ever spoke to anyone except Ezor. "You need to get the lock first."
"Try this," Ezor said as she handed a thin, twisted stick of iron through the bars to Lance, whose eyes widened.
"Did you have this the whole time? Why didn't you escape?" Lance lifted an eyebrow.
"We have nowhere else to go." Ezor shrugged and shared a glance with Zethrid. Lance nodded with an understanding smile. He jiggled the piece of metal inside the lock until he heard a satisfying click and swung open the cell door.
"Hey, Lance." The mer was too focused on getting away to hear Fabian. He swam towards the door, then paused.
"I promise I'll be back for you guys."
"Wait, Lance," Fabian shouted, "Where are you going?" Krolia gave the mer a look that seemed to say, just let him go.
"I need to save Keith!" Lance yelled behind him before he was gone. All eyes turned to Krolia, who's expression shifted into one of disbelief as she processed what Lance had said.
~ ♆ ~
Keith wore a longing smile when he returned to the beach house. Pidge and Hunk still sat on the floor while Adam was in the fridge searching for what seemed to be something to drink. He looked up to Keith as he came in, wearing a look of disappointment, but in a lighthearted manner.
"Keith, I know you're having a hard time with Shiro and that other mer and all, but would it kill you to buy some decent drinks?" Adam smirked sarcastically and shut the fridge, carrying only a bottle of water. "Also, I think something died in there. It smells awful."
"He's right you know," Pidge called from the other room. Hunk nodded as the two of them left their work and walked into the kitchen. Keith eyed Pidge then Hunk then Adam, wondering how his friends weren't confused as to why the other mer had shown up.
"Commander Wright was just telling us about how he was your brother's boyfriend," Hunk chimed as if reading Keith's mind. He chuckled, "And scolding me for going on land."
Keith lifted an eyebrow. "Commander?"
"I'm their teacher at home. Both Lance and Hunk are my students," Adam supplied. "The 'commander' title is because I also work in the castle, protecting Altea and whatnot."
"Ahh." A silence filled the room until Pidge piped up.
"Oh! We figured out a way for us to get Lance!" Keith visibly woke up, placing Lance's letter and lion on the kitchen counter for the time being. Pidge pushed up their glasses with a finger, now in what their brother Matt called "Get-Shit-Done Mode."
"Okay, here's the plan. Adam is going to go into the Altea castle(because he's a general and has access) and try to locate where Lance is. While he's doing that, we'll get some scuba-diving suits from Alfor(I don't know why he has them, but he probably liked to dive when he was younger or something). Once Adam knows where Lance is he'll come back to the surface and the four of us will go down and break him out. We will only have a limited amount of time with air, so we'll have to be quick. Any questions?"
Keith lifted a hand nervously. "I can't exactly... go in the water yet. What am I supposed to do?" Adam placed a hand on Keith's shoulder from behind him like a dad would do.
"We have a good amount of time until we'll be ready to go. You can try to see if you will be ready to go in the ocean by then, but if you can't we understand."
Hunk nodded to Pidge's response, "We would never force you to do something you didn't want to do, Keith." Keith smiled reassuringly to his friends, but his thoughts said otherwise. That's the thing though, it's not that I don't want to. I want to more than anything. It's that I can't.
"I- I think I'm going to head upstairs for a bit. You guys seem to know what you're doing, so..." Keith trailed off as he walked out of the kitchen, clutching the letter and paper lion in hand. A moment later he entered his room, placing the letter on his desk. His notebook was open on it, to a page with the draft of a letter he was going to write, but ended up scrapping. He had decided that he was going to use his letters to Lance for his creative writing class project, but every time that he tried to recreate them they didn't sound right.
Keith placed the origami lion on his nightstand by the lamp that's lightbulb had died a few days ago. The boy glanced to the other side of the nightstand, eyes landing on a picture. It was the one of him, Adam, and Shiro at a pride parade in 2014. Keith didn't remember the picture being in his room, he had left it untouched in its home in Shiro's room. Lance must've brought it in here, he realized.
For the most part Keith had only focused on Shiro everytime that he saw it. The picture was always masked with how much he missed him. But now Keith looked to himself instead. The message of Lance's lion echoed through him. One day you are going to find yourself again. The Keith in the picture was happy. He had a sparkle in his eyes that was no longer there, a hope for a good future with no troubles anytime soon. That one day had filled the younger Keith with so much joy. It let him forget his misfortunes for just one moment, gave him a glimpse of what he could be if he could just learn to move past all the things that went wrong in his life. All the people who left him.
I need to do better. Keith recalled what he had realized earlier, on the beach. I need to help myself. I need to try to get better. He heard a knock on the door. Adam walked in, an expression on his face that said he wanted to check if he was okay. He saw the picture Keith held and smiled, resting a hand on Keith's shoulder as he stood next to him. But I can't do it myself. Keith looked up to Adam, relief spreading over him. Maybe they would get Lance back. Maybe he could be happy again. Maybe he could finally move on from his brother's death.
"I'm so proud of you, Keith. I know he would have been too," Adam's smooth voice split through the comfortable silence. Keith gave the man an uncertain look. What is there to be proud of?
Adam seemed to answer Keith's thoughts. "You kept going, no matter how strong the current got." The raven-haired boy chuckled, his eyes lighting up under his bangs.
"Of course you would use an ocean metaphor."
"Of course I would," Adam smiled, "Now come on, let's go join the others." Keith nodded and put the picture back next to the lion. Adam turned around as Keith left the room, glancing at the photo. He focused on Shiro, his eyes sad, but the smile on his face still very much real. The mer cast a knowing look to the origami lion before he left the room.
Adam entered the kitchen and was surprised to see no one there. The back door was wide open, a gust of wind blowing away the piece of paper Keith had entered holding.
"Keith?" Adam called as he walked to the door. His eyes widened when he saw what was on the beach. He cleaned his glasses to make sure he was seeing correctly. It can't be...
A/N:
Hello! Happy 2020! (although I'm still not ready for this year. At all.)
It's the first post of this decade, and I'm glad to say that the climax is happening, we're finally here. Well, almost. Just wait for the next chapter. ;))
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this one! I love writing scenes with Adam in them :D Oh, and also the prison ones.
~ Soni <3