NB: (February 2, 2025) This is a long fic that I've been working on for about six or seven years now. I'm not sure it will ever be finished, so I'm sharing this outline here. It includes all the major scenes and key plot points, but is only about half-written. You may also see scenes from this work show up in other places on this site.

And who knows? Maybe one day I actually will finish it.

Epitaph

Five days ago... that's when I first had the nightmare. I haven't been able to get out of my room since then.

The phone doesn't work... the TV doesn't work... I can't even get anybody to hear me when I yell...

My whole world has suddenly turned insane.

My door's chained up, the windows are sealed shut... And on top of that, someone chained the door from the inside.

How am I going to get out of here?

Act I: Introductory Rites

Scene 1: Keith driving into Silent Hill, introducing the missing Shiro, and the letter.

Scene 2: Keith having to avoid “construction” and monsters in the town, trying to get to the place at the pier. He finds the radio here, and fights off a monster.

Scene 2.1: Meeting Allura (like Angela), Hunk, and Pidge (like Laura)

Scene 2.2: Finally making his way out of the weirdly foggy town, and meeting Tadashi (Kuro)

“Shiro?” Keith said, almost to himself, trying to get a better look at this figure through the fog. He couldn’t make out much but broad shoulders in a familiar slouch, a dark, sharp undercut– “Shiro!”

The man stood up from his position on the bar, turning around and giving a smile to Keith. Oh, no, it was… Mostly wrong. This wasn’t Shiro. His hair was still all dark, no shock of white at the tip, and his face was free of blemishes.

“No– you’re not,” Keith voice cracked with this realization, and he stopped a few steps away from him. The distance was suffocating. “I’m–”

“Do I look like someone you know? Family?” the man spoke, and god, his voice was just like Shiro’s, warm and comforting and sure.

“No– yes, my brother,” Keith found himself saying. “He’s dead.” And Shiro’s doppelganger gave Keith a familiar, pitying smile. “But... you look just like him. I mean… You don’t have his scar, but–”

“My name is Kuro,” the man said, pushing away from the observation deck and walking back towards the foggy town. He chuckled good-naturedly. “I don’t think I’m a ghost of anyone. At least, I hope I’m not.”

Keith just stared, eyes narrowed and stomach flipping, unsure. He turned to walk away, brushing past Kuro as he spoke: “Where are you going?”

“I’m looking for Shiro,” Keith said, all semblance of patience gone and disappointment in its place. “I doubt you’ve seen him.”

“Didn’t you say he died?” Kuro put a heavy, familiar hand on Keith’s shoulder and Keith almost immediately shrugged it off, turning to face the taller man. His outfit wasn’t much like what Shiro would wear, either– just a purple shirt and dark wash jeans.

“Well, disappeared,” he said firmly. “Three years ago. But I got this letter from him, I don’t know how. But he said he would be here.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him,” Kuro said. Another soft, understanding smile that made Keith shiver. “Happy to help you look, though!”

Scene 3: Kuro showing Keith a shortcut back to town. The town goes red, and Keith takes shelter in a subway (or train station, whatever).

Scene 4: Hiding in the shadows. Hearing voices— a man, a woman, a monster’s.

Scene 4.1: Hearing mutters of horror. Meeting Lance in the subway, covered in blood.

“Look, man, I don’t even know why I’m here,” the lanky man was screaming, hands practically pulling his brown hair from its roots. His shirt was completely covered in blood, and it clung to his form. “All I know is that some girl just fucking bled out in my arms, so really, I’m not having a great fucking day!”

“You’re not following me?” Keith’s brow furrowed, and he took a step closer. “You’re not one of them?”

“One of them? I have no idea who them is, but no,” the man said, voice calmer but not any quieter. “I just… I just want to get out.”

“Get out of where?” Keith finally let the plank in his hands rest, leaning on it like a makeshift cane. The man before him had no weapon of his own, and he seemed to know it, looking around nervously when anything so much as creaked.

“My apartment,” he said. “I’ve been locked in there for a week.”

“Who’s been keeping you locked in your apartment?”

“I have no idea. I just woke up one day, and there’s all the chains on my door, and some message saying don’t go out! So I tried to go out, but I literally cannot go out,” the man was talking quickly now, hands animated, drops of blood flying off of them as he spoke. “And then one day this gigantic hole just appears in my bathroom, and I’ve been cooped up for eight days, so I think what the hell. Let’s go through. And now somehow I’m three towns over in hell on earth.”

“Three towns over?” Keith asked, cocking his head.

“That’s what you got out of that?” Lance’s expression fell, but he just shook his head. “Yeah, I’m from South Ashfield. Are you from here?”

Keith shook his head. “I got… I got a letter asking me to come here, from my brother. I’m from Texas, actually.”

“What the hell did your brother want you to come here for?” Lance scoffed, scuffing the toe of his red sneakers into the gravelly ground. God, was there any part of him not covered in that girl’s blood?

“We used to vacation here,” Keith said sullenly. “It wasn’t… It wasn’t like this before. Silent Hill used to be our special place.”

“You find him yet?”

Keith shook his head. “I wasn’t expecting to, I– I mean, he’s dead.”

“Yeah, yeah, that would probably make things a little difficult,” the man nodded, and stuck his hands in his pockets. He had a forced smile on his face, and spoke through his teeth. “Welp. Nice meeting you, but, uh, I’m gonna try to find… My way… Out of here…”

“I’m not crazy,” Keith said forcefully, pulling the letter out of his back pocket and shoving it towards the other’s face. “He told me to come to Silent Hill. So even if it wasn’t him– something was calling me here.”

Scene 4.2: Keith assumes that Lance is evil, or whatever, and they fight (?).

Scene 4.3: Lance somehow barely gets the upper hand and yet refuses to kill, and runs off. Keith realizes maybe he’s as scared as he is.

Scene 5: Keith heads out, looking for Kuro again— he lost him in his trek to the train station/subway station. He finds his way into an apartment complex.

Scene 5.1: He searches through the apartment, experiences creepy shit (butterflies, TVs on with dead people in front of them, etc.)

Scene 5.2: He meets up with Lance again and they fight because they’re both stubborn and dumb. Lance leaves.

And without warning, the clouds in the sky turned black and the air was a heavy weight on Keith’s shoulders. A shiver ran down his spine as the world started to peel away again– cool breeze stagnating, metal rusting, dark and viscous splotches oozing out of every building’s pores. And it was so, so hard to see. The normal fog limited visibility, sure, but nothing like how the black sun hung over the sky, blinding Keith but for a few feet in front of him.

He heard some shuffling, echoing around him. His tired brain was unable to place where it was coming from or what it could even be. He picked up his wooden board, end colored black from dragging on the asphalt, and he tried to walk as quietly as possible. A familiar building came up on his left, and Keith impulsively pushed open the door and took refuge inside.

Though, refuge would be the wrong word—no place was safe from the town’s unpredictable transformations. The floor was sticky, the walls peeling and shifting and dark, and Keith found himself hunching his shoulders, drawing his arms closer to himself.

And then with a jolt he realized why this place looked so familiar– it’s the [I Don’T KNOW WHAT LOCATION I NEED HERE YET AND I WANT TO KEEP THIS AS OPEN AS POSSIBLE SO I CAN PLACE IT WHEREVER I NEED IT : ) ]. He and Kuro had cleared this place out decently well earlier. Hopefully monsters didn’t respawn when the town peeled away to reveal this other world.

“Otherworld,” Keith said lowly, head cocked curiously at his own thought. “Decent name.”

And then– a shuffling sound again, this one louder and slower and much more deliberate. Keith tensed his grip on the wooden beam, splinters boring into his palms and his eyes fought against the dark. A large figure, slowly stepping around the corner, all angles and long limbs and–

“Oh, great," Keith relaxed his white knuckles and let the wooden plank fall to the ground, its bang sending a jolt through the man in front of him. "Lance, is that you."

"Oh, Keith," Lance stepped a little closer, into the red-tinged light, and Keith could make out some of his features– the sharp nose, the high cheekbones. His forced smile. "What a pleasant surprise."

"No, it's not," Keith replied, turning around and heading back the way he came. His boots stomped freely, any concern about monsters outweighed by the burn behind his eyes and the stabbing in his stomach and the unadulteratedly annoying Lance Espinosa.

"What crawled up your asshole and died?" he heard Lance say from behind him. That voice was grating, even more so in this unnatural hush. "That was a little harsh."

"It’s rough enough dealing with the Otherworld," Keith slowed to jiggle a door handle curiously– locked. "I don’t want to deal with you too."

“Otherworld, huh?" He drew out the word, chewing on each syllable thoughtfully. Keith glanced behind him to see Lance putting his hands behind his head. Even his walk was fucking annoying. Presumptuous and cavalier and so full of it that Keith couldn't help to roll his eyes.

"That’s what this is called," he said, hiding his pride in the name under his tongue, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning cockily. Another door handle, quick test– locked.

“Oh, cause you're the president of this place?" Lance scoffed, derisive.

“You got a better name for it?”

“I'm just saying," and now Lance had caught up with him and ditched the whisper, instead glaring down at Keith. "That was a really pretentious way to tell me the shitty name you came up with."

“It’s not shitty, you’re shitty," Keith toed back at Lance and glared right back up. He drew his hands to his sides, ready to shove if Lance pushed further.

“I’m not the one covered in monster blood and holding a fucking plank," Lance barked, spittle flying in Keith's face.

“No," and Keith wiped his face with obvious disgust, and yelled, "You’re just covered in some human’s blood and weaponless, so I’m going to have to save your pansy ass all the time now and ruin this jacket further."

Lance's glare intensified, he huffed a heavy breath– and then stepped back, arms crossed. He looked down at his broad chest tapering into a tiny waist, and muttered, "I changed my shirt."

"What?" Keith gave a confused grimace.

“I’m not– I changed my shirt. I’m not covered in Nyma’s blood as much anymore," Lance said, chin tucked to his chest.

“Oh," was all Keith cared to say, and he started walking again. He had no idea what direction they were headed in, how many turns they had made, where they were, if it was even the same hallway or the same building or the same town. Just all red and sticky and always so dark.

“It wasn’t a dream," Lance said, behind him again. His voice was distant and Keith wondered if he even knew he was speaking aloud.

“Obviously not," he called back regardless.

“No, like… Like on the news," Lance continued. Keith realized his voice was saturated with emotion, unshed tears drowning the words. "They said a Nyma Campbell died. She… She thought she was dreaming."

“Did you?”

Lance’s silence said everything.

Without warning, Keith heard footsteps behind him again, and he glanced back to see that Lance had unfrozen and was shuffling along.

"Get lost. I don't need you following me," he said, rolling his eyes so hard he was afraid he might damage them.

“I wasn’t following you," Lance shot back just as callously. "We’re just going the same way."

“That’s following," Keith replied.

“Oh jesus christ no it fucking isn’t okay," Lance's hands balled up at his sides as energy flowed back into his voice, his words bouncing off the paint-chipped walls. “I am not following you, I don't want to follow you. I didn’t even want to find you because I know how much you hate being around me, and I don’t need you to save my pansy ass because my pansy ass can take care of itself!"

“Then why don’t you have a weapon?" Keith's adrenaline-laced annoyance had him right back up in Lance's face again, the electricity of a punch not yet thrown coursing through his blood.

“I do," Lance hissed. He lifted up his shirt, revealing a fraying rope tied intricately through each belt loop, and holding a pistol to Lance's side.

“Where did you get that?” Keith stepped back, peering at the gun.

Lance shrugged and let his shirt drop, barely covering the weapon. "Found it around."

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

“Like you’d care."

“Obviously I do,” Keith retorted.

“Just that I didn’t tell you, not that I have it," Lance pointed out, not inaccurately.

“No," Keith said impatiently. "I’m glad you have it, because that can help you!”

“And why do you care if I’m helped?” Lance crossed his arms and pulled his mouth to the side, frown poorly hidden.

“Because I’m not a fucking monster," Keith yelled back, as though he were explaining the most obvious thing in the world. Lance's brows furrowed. "Because I care about who lives and who dies in this town, believe it or not. I came here to find my brother, not watch people die."

A moment of silence, then Lance spoke in a low voice: "Your brother's dead." His eyes were unreadable.

"He disappeared," Keith's voice was iron. "We don't know if he's dead."

“Some of these monsters are ghosts, Keith,” and Keith suddenly realized Lance wasn't mocking him, but warning him, and somehow that made the fire in his belly flare brighter. “What are you going to do if one of them is your brother?”

“Bring him back to fucking life, I guess," Keith said stubbornly, and he turned around but didn't move forward.

“Jesus christ,” he heard Lance run a palm down his dirty face.

"Jesus christ yourself. Get out of here if I’m such a problem to you," Keith ground the heel of his boot into the soft, sticky wood floor. Maybe there was something under it. Probably not.

“I thought I was a problem to you," Lance's voice was mockingly hostile.

And Keith's tone matched perfectly, in its derisive defense. “We can’t both be a problem to each other?”

“I don’t have problems with people."

“No, you just are the problem."

And finally– finally– Lance banged his hand against one of the walls, and Keith heard him stomping the opposite direction. “Fuck yourself with a rake, Kogane," he hissed, and Keith just stared down at his feet. He hoped he didn't die. He hoped he didn't come back.

Scene 5.3: Eventually he hears something, goes to investigate, and gets the shit beat out of him by a monster (what originally was Pyramid head, but will be something else— Robeast equivalent! Here to do Lotor’s bidding!). The last thing he sees is a man so pale to be almost blue, with long white hair.

Scene 6: He wakes up to Lance ministering to him. Lance saved him from the monster. Keith begrudgingly admits he was wrong; they start over as friends.

It felt as though cement had been combed through his eyelashes. Keith tried to wipe the grime and sleep away from his eyes, forcing them open only to be greeted with a shocking blue. "Good morning, sleeping beauty."

"Wh- what.” Keith sat up suddenly, voice prickly and deep. He tried to sit up, but ended falling back on his elbows. His core muscles seemed to be out of commission. Holy shit, everything fucking hurt.

"How are you feeling?" Keith took stock of where he was, though Lance’s bright probing eyes and curious expression were immensely distracting. He was sat in some giant building— it was cold— he was wrapped loosely in fabrics meant to imitate blankets, but was shirtless— and Lance was there. Why was he there?

"Why are you here?" he demanded the man sitting on his haunches, too close to Keith.

"Hey come on princess, that's no way to treat your knight in shining— No, don't get up!" Keith tried to push himself up again as Lance spoke. But his legs gave out almost immediately and shockwaves of pain pulsed through his stomach. He fell half-into Lance, shoulders grasped by the other man’s warm hands.

"Hold it, hold it.” Lance gently pushed Keith back to the pile of white and purple fabrics, pushing them together so Keith could sit more fully. He sat across from Keith again. Still too close. Face too concerned. “Look, dude, you are not well enough to stand."

Confusion clouded Keith's mind. Everything within him was working too slowly. He placed a hand to his tender head, and fingertips met layers of bandages. “Why do I feel like a truck ran over me?"

"Well.” Lance's eyes left Keith's face and stared into the corner of the ceiling, as if searching for a script in the grimy crown molding. Each word was like a medicine ball he had to throw up into the air again and again and again. "It wasn't so much a truck as a seven-foot-tall machete-wielding supermonster, but yes."

"Wait. Wait.” Keith's hands went from his head to in front of him, pointing first at Lance and then at himself, as though to connect the dots between where he had been and were he lay now.

"You were getting your ass handed to you, that monster knocked you out.” Lance started rattling off the story and Keith saw in his minds eye a body, limp. Perfect target for that triangle man, until Lance suddenly apparated into the picture. "I shooed him away and then brought you here."

Keith caught his tongue between his teeth and tasted blood. Lance continued when Keith remained silent, his voice quieter. It still echoed in the rafters of this building— a church, Keith realized. "You've been out for maybe two days. I... I can't tell time well. Here."

"Oh my god.” And now Keith's words joined Lance's as a ghostly choir. "I've been unconscious for that long?"

"You had…” Lance swallowed, and stared down at his hands, stained a rust color. "Lost a lot of blood. I did my best patching you up, but I think some of your cuts might scar."

Keith remained silent and pat over himself to feel it all– every bruise, abrasion, cut and laceration. Lance had covered them all, even the ones that were weeks old. He had bandages wrapped around his wrists, his head, his left bicep and left thigh, and most prominently around the entirety of his bare torso. Blood had seeped through it a little, dry now. That'll be a bitch to take off.

"Did you kill it?"

"No way. Shot at it a couple times but then I just grabbed you and ran.” Lance’s brow furrowed. "Where was your boyfriend?"

"Kuro? Oh, I have no idea.” Keith said dismissively. He stared down at the bandages wrapped around his torso, obvious care taken with each precise tie. It started to feel as though they were binding tighter, and his ribcage was restricting his lungs.

"You shouldn't have taken that thing on by yourself.” Lance blurted out. He almost looked surprised at his own admission but the words had been steeped in days old, agonizing worry, ready to be spilled. "You could have been killed."

"Like you ca–" And Keith stopped himself before the word could be finished. He realized that was now painfully untrue. The statement amended in his mind, and Keith breathed out new nervous emotion: "Like you could have been."

Keith swore that in the dim lighting he saw Lance flush, saw his pupils widen just a hair, but Lance shook his head before he could memorize the way the red crawled up his cheekbones.

"Nah, I'm a sneaky little bastard, in and out before he even realized I was there," the ever-cocky Lance had returned in full force, hand brushing Keith's worries out of the air. Keith had a hard time imagining that his lanky frame and loud mouth could be stealthy, but now didn't seem quite the time to call that into question.

"Lance?" Keith said quietly.

"Yeah?"

Keith swallowed the emotions that threatened to bubble out of these words. "Thank you."

"It's no big deal," Lance almost scoffed, smile seeping into his tired voice. "I know you'd do the same for me."

Keith couldn't help the little laugh that escaped his lips. Would he? If it was Lance on the ground, would Keith have done a damn thing? Was he– was he capable of not? Keith didn't really like the answers that were flying through his mind, colored by dark stained glass windows and Lance's ever-blue eyes.

Lance, always more perceptive than he let on, reached out a hand to pat Keith's uninjured shoulder. His voice held an understanding disappointment. "Look, I know what you're thinking, and you can still hate me all you want. Me showing basic human decency doesn't mean you're not allowed to think I'm a douche."

"I don’t.” Keith blurted out, and then amended himself. "Most of the time." And then a third correction, honest and quiet. "Not anymore."

"That's so meaningful, Keith. Next thing I know I'll be braiding your hair and we'll be talking about how much we love each other"

"You just didn't have to do that.” Keith avoided the bait. His hands flew down to slap agains his thighs, pain emanating from the bandaged one."And you did. I wouldn't have... Expected that. From anyone."

"Then you need to have higher expectations for people, my guy," Lance replied, and though his voice was cavalier, his eyes were sad and grateful and something else that Keith couldn't quite read. "If you're tired you should go back to sleep. Your body is on healing overdrive."

"You can sleep too," Keith muttered, avoiding Lance's hieroglyphic eyes.

"I have been," Lance chucked sheepishly, but pride oozed from his pores. The next words were light, and Keith could feel the weight of monsters banished within them: "It's safe in here."

It was silent for only a second before Keith's adrenal instinct suckerpunched his throat and forced out a name: "Lance."

"Yeah?" Lance grinned.

"Just, um," and with Keith's nervousness Lance's smile faded into a look of understanding tinged with worry. "I understand if you don't like me. Either. Or whatever."

Lance laughed and Keith felt a whisper of pain at the idea of his diaphragm moving that much. "We did get off on the wrong foot, didn't we."

"I don't do well in stressful situations," Keith deadpanned. Lance laughed again, more of a giggle this time, and Keith scowled when his mind– unwarranted– told him that it could listen to those warm, joy-filled bells forever.

"Well, in that case, why don't we start over," Lance extended a lazy hand. His smile had grown wider and overwhelmingly sincere. "Lance Espinosa."

"Keith Kogane," he met it with a firm grip. Lance's hand was warm and pleasantly heavy, a welcome weight in Keith's own.

"Kogane," Lance repeated, and he seemed to like the taste of it in his mouth. He pulled away from Keith, and started wrapping some fabric around himself. "Well, Kogane, get some rest. You'll feel better in the morning."

Even as Keith forced his eyes to close, and obliged his breathing to slow, he found he already did. He fell into a dreamless sleep, haunted by the echoes of Lance's laughter.

Scene 6.1: They spend the night there together, and Lance is a talker. He gets Keith to tell him about Shiro, though. And he tells Keith about his apartment in more detail.

But Lance's eyes couldn't close. He felt a sudden tightness in his chest, a shortening of breath. His arms itched to reach out, to touch the stone of the altar and the wood of the floor and Keith and make sure he was still there, still alive, still real–

"Hey Keith," but he chose to just whisper into the distant rafters, a breath of a prayer. "Are you awake?"

It was a moment of long, empty silence before Keith shifted and murmured his own answer. “I am now."

"I can’t sleep." Lance exhaled, grasping the thin threads of this conversation, trying to weave them together into something stronger that could blanket him and help him rest. "Anything keeping you up?"

"No, not really. Just trying to figure out what's painted up there," and now Keith turned, rustling the lace underneath him. His shoulder brushed Lance's, and the lower half of his body was illuminated by the tired candles placed around the sanctuary. It was silent again, and Keith broke it again: "And I'm thinking about Shiro."

Lance trained his eyes from the ceiling to Keith and realized the candles were barely throwing light on his face, too. The sound of the rain was louder now. "Will you tell me about him?"

"What, as a bedtime story?" Keith's voice seemed to turn its back on Lance even as neither of them moved.

"No, no," Lance said hurriedly, sincerely. "I just want to know about him."

Keith made a noise of understanding but didn't open his mouth. Lance tried to prompt him again, "He's your brother, right?"

"Yeah," Keith pulled his arms behind his head, cradling it. His voice was measured, calm, casual. "Well, no. Not technically."

Now it was Lance's turn to make a prompting noise, turning a little to face Keith as he spoke.

"We were in the same foster family. When I aged out of the system, he adopted me. So he's technically my guardian but he's," Keith swallowed. "He's my brother. Or he was, I guess."

"That's really amazing," Lance said softly. His eyes shined. "He sounds like a stand up guy."

"Yeah," and Keith smiled a little, thinking back, envisioning Shiro's always kind, always tired smile. "I admire him a lot. He’s a lot older than us, and he’s ex-military. When I aged out at 18 he was like... 26?" Keith counted the years on his fingers, and Lance tried not to laugh, just letting him continue his story: "And he had been through some shit, but we kept in touch the whole time. I knew I wanted to live with him, so he made it official."

This was the most Keith had talked about him– ever, even when he was alive, and he couldn't seem to stop. His mind was distant and his mouth kept moving. "I kept my last name, but now I wish I had his. I miss him a lot."

"He sounds really cool," Lance said genuinely, tempted to reach out and pat the stress away from his companion's back. "If– if you find him, even just a ghost of him... I'd like to meet him."

"Thanks," Keith said, turning to look at Lance a little more. He shrugged. "You know, I'm not really awkward about his death. I kind of came to terms with it. but this letter throws it all out of wack."

"I bet. How did he die?" And immediately as he said it, Lance felt shame flush his face, and he immediately tried to backtrack. "Shit, that is so awkward to ask, I'm sorry–"

But Keith cut him off. "No, it's fine. He went missing."

"Did they ever find him?" Lance asked lowly.

"Not that they ever told me," Keith replied darkly, tone a caustic but tired. "I looked for him for years myself too. I– There had to have been something I could have done."

"No, Keith," Lance said gently. Keith shrugged off Lance's voice, shaking his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block out Lance's voice, to ignore these visions of Shiro, to just fall asleep, but Lance just kept god damn talking.

"It's not your fault, Keith. You can't help what happened. No use in ruining the rest of your life over it."

"You don't get it. I would have had no life without Shiro," Keith said sharply, his voice echoing through the church all the way up the bell tower. He curled into himself and away from Lance. His voice was muffled by their makeshift blankets now. "You don't understand. You don't know me."

"You're right," Lance huffed, patience waning. "But i know what you can be. I've seen you here. You're... you're so capable, and strong and god damn stubborn you can do anything you set your mind to. I– look, I've lost people too in my life. When my dad walked out the fucking door and left me to take care of six siblings and a mom– let's just say i know what it's like to feel completely hopeless and like," Lance took a second to breathe here, voice breaking on his next words. "Like nothing fucking matters. That you have no life."

The silence suffocated them for a few minutes, and Lance started to settle back into a sleeping position. "I'm sorry that happened," Keith said quietly.

"No need to be. It's not a pissing contest," Lance's voice was softer again, stripped and honest. "Just... you're not alone. And if Shiro's alive, we'll find him and if he's not–"

"I move on," Keith finished, and a feeling of acceptance washed through his bones. Lance squeezed in under the altar totally, now, and spoke up to the ceiling.

"So on a lighter note, who's Kuro?" His eyes were oddly focused. "A boyfriend?"

"What?" Keith snorted.

"I don't know," Lance half-laughed. "You seem intimate."

"No, no fucking way," now Keith was full-on laughing, so much that it infected Lance. "He– he is Shiro. Or, not really. It's complicated."

"Obviously," Lance's smirk could be heard in his voice. He yawned, "Look, we should sleep, but you're explaining this in the morning."

Keith agreed, and they gave each other a quiet good night before drifting off to the sounds of rain.

Scene 6.2: Keith is “well” enough to leave, so he does. Lance follows, and asks if it’s okay if they stick together.

“You know what, Keith.”

“What,” Keith sighed, clenching his fists and begging himself to not toss his knife behind him. There was no guarantee it would hit a major artery, anyway.

“I’ve decided I like you. You don’t care, and I like that about you. You just don’t care,” Lance’s voice was light but venomous, frustrating seeping out of every word’s edge. “I mean, you led us to the first floor, the wrong place, ignoring my telling you that it’s the wrong place. And you just don’t care, Keith. It’s great!”

Static emitted from Keith’s radio only for a second– Lance was ready, two precious bullets taking out the headless leg-creature that was shuffling towards them, right in the leg and a vital organ. He was getting better at that, at least. Which made up for his grating voice, bouncing off the narrow walls of the hallway. Keith futilely tried to tone it out. At least the radio was pretty quiet now.

“I mean, it’s not like I told you that we weren’t going to find that map down here– not like I hadn’t already told you I didn’t see it. But you just don’t care, Keith, and that’s totally great, not super–”

Keith growled, and he snapped at Lance, pushing him up against the left wall with his forearm. The taller man’s bony clavicle was practically stabbing him.

“Look, if you’re so much smarter than me, so much better off without me, be without me,” he pushed a little tighter, eliciting a gasp from Lance. “I didn’t ask for you to come along. So get fucking lost.”

Lance’s eyes suddenly widened, but he looked away, frustrated too. “I– You don’t mean that.”

“Get lost if you want to get lost, Lance,” Keith said, pushing away and stalking down the hall again. He passed the unmoving monster, stomping on its chest cavity for good measure. “I don’t care.”

Silence. For too long, silence.

“Do you care if I… don’t get lost, though?” And now Lance’s voice was much lower, stripped of any animus or amusement. Keith turned around in time to see Lance scuff his shoe into the floor, rubber catching on the uneven wood. His face was obscured by shadow but he could still see the emotion through his words. “I– I don’t want to be alone.”

“Scared?” Keith said, but he too was solemn.

“Kind of,” Lance answered honestly, finally meeting Keith’s eyes again. He smiled awkwardly. “But mostly I’m just lonely.” A heavy pause.

“Being locked in an apartment for a week will do that to a guy,” and Lance attempted to inject a jovial tone into the words and didn’t give Keith a chance to reply before he forged ahead and started shooting at locked door handles, wasting bullets to distract what ate him alive.

Scene 6.whatever: They explore. See the monster that fucked up Keith.

“It’s getting darker,” Keith muttered. Lance pulled out a flare and cracked it, its warm orange glow illuminating his face and not much else.

“Better than nothing, I guess,” he said with a shrug, and the pair continued down the hallway. The static of Keith’s radio was getting louder, almost obnoxious. But at least it was a distraction from emotion.

The ground was squishy, almost pliant under their feet– and Lance wished that he had heavy boots on like Keith, rather than a pair of hightops. He couldn’t tell if the soles were actually soaking through or if he was just freezing.

The pair continued through the alleyway. Keith eventually turned his radio down, listening for the sounds of nearby monsters rather than just its warning cry. Lance wondered if Keith’s nail-laden bat, tight in his left hand, was as heavy as the gun on his hip.

He no longer flinched when they turned corners, though– which was good, since they had probably made it past a few dozen now, and it just kept getting darker. They squeezed through a rusted, squeaking gate and only made it a few steps further before Keith realized the gate wasn’t creaking– something else was.

“Up ahead, to the left?” Lance said lowly, tossing the flare to his other hand and slipping the gun out of its makeshift holster. He twirled that between long fingers, and Keith just tightened his gloved grip on the bat.

“There’s nowhere to go but ahead and to the left, Lance,” Keith barbed. Lance exhaled, a weak imitation of a laugh, and he pushed head to lead Keith around the next corner. The brick walls were splattered with something, now, and this alley somehow smelled of iodoform and Pinesol and– blood.

Lance sighed in relief when the next corner revealed the noise maker– just a familiar monster, the shambling ones wrapped in skin, wrestling to escape their own flesh. It was tied up in a rusted wheelchair, shaking violently and squeaking. Another gate stood just a few feet from this monster, but in the dark it was almost impossible to see what lay beyond the rusted wire.

Keith wound up to take a swing at the twitchy, bloody creature– no use wasting bullets on something without arms, after all– when he almost dropped his bat and screamed.

“Lance!” He screeched, taking a step backward and reaching for his shoulder, his hand, anything to grab onto with a vise-like grip. “Lance, Lance!”

“Keith, what the hell– hit the damn thing, please,” Lance pleaded. He roped Keith’s arm around his own waist, keeping him standing. Keith had turned white as a sheet, and his eyes were wide and locked onto something in the dark, past the fence.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” and Lance put a bullet through the head of the monster in the wheelchair, watching it fall limp, its rusted seat totally still– but that scraping, squealing, metal sound still remained. Slower now, but louder. Keith was shaking like a leaf in the wind, only standing thanks to Lance’s support.

“Keith, what the hell is it? Are you okay?” Lance demanded, voice tight with worry. Keith just shook his head, breathing labored.

“Lance, who is that?” he whispered, nodding towards the fence. “He’s just… staring at us.”

“I don’t see anything,” Lance said, but he walked forward, holding the flickering flare out from him to try to catch a glimpse of whatever was beyond the corroded gate– until he too froze, staring with the same wide gaze that Keith bore. Their breathing matched, too– ragged and shallow and scared.

It’s really amazing, Lance thought to himself, perhaps even out loud, how something can stare at you when it doesn’t have any eyes.

There, just a few feet away from the open chain-link fence, was a man not much taller than Lance. He was garbed in a white smock, dirty with an oily liquid, and had rubber gloves on to match his boots.

Scene 7: They wander over into a mall, and explore there.

Keith wandered around the room, eyes peeled for something– anything. A scrap of paper, writing on the wall, a puzzle, a clue, just more than this empty office. Keith slammed the door shut and headed to the next one– locked. Okay, next one after that. This one opened to what looked like a storage room for the boutique downstairs. It was full of mannequins. Some shelved, some standing, all of them a blessed unmoving plastic.

“Keith?” His radio crackled to life just as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. Lance’s voice cut through the radio’s ever-present static. “Keith, I’m in the Hilltop Center. Where are you?”

“Same place, third floor,” Keith spoke down into his jacket pocket. His flashlight lit more mannequins, most of them headless and all of them an eerie, luminescent white. “Kuro and I were checking out some rooms.”

“Really, I just saw him wander out of the building– he said he was looking for you,” Lance said as Keith walked around the shelf cutting down the middle of the room. He spun quickly, light flashing every corner, and Keith realized there was only one mannequin with a head.

Well, that certainly put him on edge a little bit. The bat strapped to his back was a comforting weight.

“Oh,” Keith said, uninterested in the conversation. The headless plastic women still felt like they were staring at him, he realized. “He does that. We’ll find him later.”

Lance snorted. Keith could hear some sort of metal clanging together, and Lance cursed before speaking to Keith again. “You seem oddly complacent about letting your brother wander around a monster infested town.”

“He’s not my brother,” Keith replied sharply. He stood before the mannequin with a head, analyzing its features, looking for any rhyme or reason as to why this one was different.

“Right, right. Anyway,” more metal clanging from Lance’s end. Sounded like pots– makes sense why his tone is so casual, then. “Meet me downstairs, I found a café and the food looks like not hunks of human flesh.”

“Great. Be down in 5,” and Keith gave up on the plastic female form. He turned around the other side of the shelf now, boots scuffing the wooden floor and right as he reached the door he heard a pained woman’s scream, and the sound of something tumbling onto the ground.

Keith jumped, one hand going for his knife and the other waving the flashlight wildly. His steps were lighter as he stalked around the shelving, peering between headless mannequins until he was again standing before the only one with a head.

Or, it had had a head. A plastic head that was now lying on the floor. An expressionless, plastic, white head that was leaking something, staining the wood a dark red.

“This,” Keith swallowed, whispering to himself. “This is blood.”

And with that realization Keith slammed the door open and sprinted to the stairwell, not even taking the time to breathe until he saw Lance’s lanky form in the Last Drop Café.

Scene 7.1: Battle sequences, one after another, I think.

The blade spun through the air, almost in slow motion, and then with a sickening crunch it shattered the skull of the monster lurking against the far wall. The rest stopped swarming to look at their fallen comrade, but their faceless forms quickly turned again towards Lance and Keith.

The resignation of another battle seeped through his bloodstream– until Keith was hit with a panicked dread. His mouth dropped open and legs felt like they had completely stopped working.

"Oh, fuck," Keith said. He could see the silver across the room, stuck in the rust-red skull. It was glinting, winking at him mockingly. "My knife."

Lance just turned to him with a look of exhaustion. "You have got to be fucking kidding with me."

"Lance–" Keith felt distraught, heart torn in two. He mindlessly slammed his bat through one of the monsters that got a little too close. "I have to get it back."

"Of course. Of course you to have to get it back," he heard Lance say. The knife felt like it was miles away, separated by a sea of bloodthirsty creatures that Lance was beheading with his manic swings. The crowbar looked light in his hands but the weight could be seen on his grimacing face.

"It was a graduation present," he yelled desperately, bat held within his limp hands.

"Okay," Lance grunted as he took out his fourth monster. "I can only hold these off for so long. Go get it and get your ass back here so I don't die for your stupid knife."

"If you die just know it's totally worth it," Keith yelled as he sprinted through the crowd, ignoring Lance's squawk of protest. He ducked, weaved around and under and behind each shambling, blood-soaked monster. He could hear what sounded like chattering teeth coming from within their grotesque forms.

"And as cool as that knife-throw was," Lance yelled over the sound of his crowbar snapping the neck of a monster. "Don't ever fucking do that again."

Scene 7.2: Night falls quickly. They find somewhere to sleep, and hardly sleep. When they wake up, there’s a monster in the room that they fight.

“Jesus christ,” Lance’s eyes widened suddenly, and he scooted a ways away from Keith still prone on the floor. Lance suddenly started to laugh, fingers grabbing his jeans. “Oh my god, you scared me.”

“What,” Keith’s morning voice sounded like it was painful to speak with– all squeaks and guttural sounds, hoarse and scratchy. His hair, too, was a sight to behold. The dirt and blood of Silent Hill was doing wonders for his mullet. Half of it was now standing vertical, flat against his head, and the rest was a fluffy halo.

“You, in the morning, might be the scariest thing in Silent Hill,” Lance chuckled and jumped up off the carpeted floor, almost losing his balance but steadying himself with a confident smirk. He extended a hand to the man still on the floor and blinked expectantly. “Come on, let’s get going.”

“Five more minutes,” Keith muttered, not even looking at Lance. He nuzzled his face deeper into the carpet, trying to ignore the odd pine smell and his arms curled around his own torso. Lance groaned.

“No, not five more– did you hear that,” Lance said, cadence not changing at all but urgency multiplying. He stayed silent for a moment and Keith could hear something scuttling, scraping against wood, like fingers tapping on a table.

“Well, I like absolutely none of this, so could you wake up so we can leave please,” Lance whispered, blue eyes darting around the room. He shoved Keith’s shoulder with his shoe, making Keith whimper and Lance laugh– until, the insectile rapping sounded again. Louder. Louder.

Lance peered into the shadows of the ceiling, curious to what horror awaited them, and screeched from a place deep in his bones. Of course now Keith got fucking up.

Scene 7.3: Another day passes without any progress made in finding people. This can be kind of glossed over; I just want time for them to further get to know each other. The sun rises again on Silent Hill.

Scene 8: As they wander looking for Kuro, they come across Pidge again.

Scene 8.1: Keith asks if she’s seen Hunk, and Lance is completely baffled at there being a Hunk, and is afraid it’s his best friend.

Scene 8.2: (Spoiler, it is). They meet up with Hunk and the four continue their search for Shiro. Things are actually kind of fun for a second. There’s a growing fondness between Lance and Keith.

The weight of the city seemed to be lighter when Hunk was with them– a man whose shoulders were built for yokes and whose sunshine smile was a Giladean balm. Somehow even his nervous rambling was calming to Keith, who tuned out the blabber and just focused on his cadence, ebbing and flowing and washing his mind with warm sea waves.

"Watch out," he was pulled from his mindless walking by Lance's breathy voice and the sound of pounding feet. Lance flew past him, whipping Keith's hair into his face. His long legs propelled him off the ground, flying through the air for one majestic moment before he landed on Hunk's back with a thud.

"What's up, buddy," Lance grinned, peering around Hunk's head to look him in the eye. He wrapped his arms around Hunk's neck, and the bigger man instinctively wrapped his arms under Lance's legs, elbows cradling boney knees.

"Lance," Hunk said with a roll of his eyes– but, he still smiled back at his best friend. "You scared me. You should warm me before you do that next time."

"Ah, come on, Hunk, you know surprise piggy back rides are mondo lame if there's no surprise element," Lance jokingly whined. Keith just laughed from behind them, and Hunk turned around to face him. Lance's blood-stained clothes were rubbing off on Hunk's relatively clean shirt, he noticed, but neither seemed to care.

Keith shrugged and stuck his hands in his tight jean pockets. "Lance has a point. Surprise seems to be the deciding factor here."

Hunk groaned good-naturedly, and before Lance could even proclaim his victory, he dropped his friend straight on his ass on the gravelly street.

"That's what you get for that," he said, laughing and jogging away before Lance could even register what just happened.

"Oh, it's fucking on now, big guy," Lance yelled back. He hopped up, legs wobbling as he regained his balance, and he brushed the grit off of his hands. Keith smiled fully, teeth bared and cheeks stretched wide, as Lance sprinted ahead, catching up to where Hunk was handily– and jumping on his back again. Keith slowly jogged up to meet them and their laughter mingled in the air.

With the cacophony of joy, it was easy to ignore the rust-red despair that emanated from the town, oh so easy miss the distant sound of static. But it was much harder for Keith to ignore the sound of a bloodcurdling screech, a body falling and the crunch of bone. His body registered what was happening before his brain could, and with a swing of his nail-covered bat he had dislodged some writhing creature from the front of Hunk's shirt.

It whimpered– somehow, though it had no face– and Keith raised his bat again to take it out. He was interrupted, though, by the sound of a gunshot and a bloody hole appearing in the center of its head. He turned back to see Lance, one arm rubbing his lower back and the other still aiming the gun steady at the creature.

"Hope I didn't graze you," he said, voice throbbing with pain. Keith ran over to where he was laying but Hunk beat him there, taking his friend in his enormous arms and cradling him. Keith felt a pull in his stomach, an especially strong beat of his heart, a restlessness in his arms, though they were swinging his blood-covered bat from side to side.

"Lance, oh my god, I'm so sorry for dropping you– I should have been paying attention but that thing just came out of nowhere–"

"Buddy, it's no big deal, it's not your fault, seriously, I know you didn't mean to–"

"It's my fault," Keith said, interrupting Lance and Hunk talking over each other. They stared at him, four eyebrows furrowed. "I... I didn't realize my radio was going off."

And Lance just sighed and relaxed further in Hunk's arms. He gave Keith a gentle smile. "Dude, that thing is going off all the fucking time. I don't blame you for missing this one, seriously. That thing coming out– it's no one's fault," he emphasized further with a slap to Hunk's broad chest. Hunk smiled nervously, and allowed Lance to slide out of his arms and onto his own feet.

"I'm fine, guys," Lance broke the silence when he realized both Keith and Hunk were staring at him expectantly. "My tailbone is sore but I'm fine."

"Okay," Hunk replied worriedly, but he just pulled their map out of his back pocket and followed it up the road. Keith and Lance followed him, both of them sneaking poorly-hidden glances at the other.

"Thank you for–"

"I'm sorry I didn't–"

They both spoke at the same time, and Hunk dug his face further in the map as though to mask how invested he was already in this conversation. Lance chuckled, awkwardly, and Keith just stared down at his boots scuffing the asphalt.

"Thank you for taking that thing out," Lance continued as soon as he realized Keith wasn't. "That was– pretty badass."

"You've seen me fight before," was all Keith could think to say. "I mean–"

"Yeah, you're right," Lance laughed it off and reached his arms above his head, groaning as his spine stretched. "But doesn't mean my statement is untrue."

"I would say it was pretty badass, Keith," Hunk finally spoke up, looking at him expectantly– expecting what, though, Keith couldn't quite read in his warm eyes. "You saved Lance's life."

"And your life," Lance pointed out quickly, too quickly, and Keith shrugged his agreement.

"It was your scream that made him go all primal-feral-badass man, not mine," Hunk wiggled his eyebrows at Lance, now, and Lance just whispered a "shut up" through a nervous smile.

"Primal-feral-badass?" Keith looked down at his own blood-covered hands and grimaced. "I... I guess."

"Not in a bad way, Keith," Hunk started to explain, his familiar anxious tone returning. "Just like, in a really cool battle sort of way. Like, you heard someone needed protecting so you protected them– and that person just happened to be Lance."

"Oh, yeah," Keith shrugged again, and hid his hands in his jacket pockets, rubbing off the grime on the inside's fabrics. "I guess."

Lance, for his part, stared at the ground, white high tops a contrast against the dark street even in their perma-stained state. Keith didn't look up to see the flush painting his cheeks, dripping down his neck, or the hieroglyphic glint in his eyes every time Keith took a breath. But Keith noticed his stilted walking, and without thinking offered his arm as an aid, and Hunk smiled to himself as Lance quietly accepted.

Scene 8.3: They travel through the hospital, maybe? And they all share what brought them here. Pidge, searching for her brother, Hunk looking for his girlfriend, and Keith obviously for Shiro. Lance is the only one who wasn’t coming for someone, and they are all somewhat concerned about the whole “hole” thing.

Scene 8.4: In their worst idea yet, they split up. Pidge and Hunk go one way, Lance goes his own, and so does Keith. Lance gets ambushed; Keith gets inside that small room, etc. Again, fondness that disappears once they meet up with Pidge and Hunk.

“Lance?” Keith screamed, banging against the walls, paint chipping off with every slam of his palms. He could hardly take a full step back, the room was so small– and god, it felt like it was shrinking with every breath Keith took. “Lance! Lance, answer me, please!”

His fucking radio was no fucking use, either. The thing was on full static blast– he could make out a word here or there, but he doubted it would let him speak through it. Keith stopped banging for a moment and turned the radio’s volume all the way down. In the eerie silence he could hear– something. Something tapping against the wall to his right, slowly, in time with his heartbeat somehow.

“Jesus Christ, Lance, please answer me,” Keith all but wailed, voice cracking. “Lance!”

“Keith?” And suddenly he heard Lance’s familiar, warm voice through the wall behind him. Keith awkwardly turned around, bat banging against the walls and he leaned in to better hear. “Keith, is that you?”

“Lance, thank god,” he yelled. The tapping still continued. No faster, no louder. “What’s going on?”

“I have no fucking id–” Lance grunted, and Keith could hear something crack under metal. “Idea. Fell through a fucking hole in the floor, and now I’m fighting off Skeletor and his minions–” another grunt, a swing, a crack, and a hiss.

“Lance, are you okay?” Keith was pressed flush against the wall, as though he could phase through. “I’m gonna try to bash this wall down and get in there!”

“That would be–” more bones crunching. “Great. I found a crowbar but it’s a lot of dudes in here.”

“Where are you?” Keith yelled, tapping his bat against the Lance wall now. God, that tapping was fucking freaking him out. “I’m in some tiny thing. Can hardly stretch my arms out to swing or anything.”

“My room’s not huge, not small,” Lance sounded more distant now. Keith could hear the screech of some creature and he started slamming the bat against the wall, desperate to get to the Cuban man. “Nothing weird on the walls or anything which is good. No– no bleeding walls or flesh floor this time.”

And Keith realized he hadn’t even looked to see what was haunting his room. The walls weren’t oozing, there was just that tapping sound and–

Keith screamed as he looked up.

“Keith? Keith!” Lance’s voice was suddenly right there, right through the wall that he had hardly made a dent in. Keith could practically see his wide eyes and deep frown, eyebrows halfway to the moon with worry. “Keith, why are you screaming? Keith, please fucking tell me you’re okay!”

“I– there’s something on my roof!” Keith yelled back, voice high and terrified. He couldn’t move– he couldn’t look away– there was a face on the roof, a stretched face, strained and tanned skin with an angry expression and a monocle and a stoney, unwavering glare, and that goddamn tapping just would not go away and it somehow knew the pattern of Keith’s heart, and he couldn’t help but to scream again.

Suddenly something metal crashed through drywall, and Keith could see the head of a crowbar sticking through the chipping paint.

“Keith, I’m coming, please be okay, please be okay,” Lance sounded like he was about to sob now, voice thick and pained. Keith, meanwhile, started bashing away himself, baseball bat making slower progress than the crowbar.

With both of them bashing the drywall, it took only a few minutes to create a hole big enough Lance to drag Keith’s body through. His shirt tore, snagged on some wood, but soon he was in Lance’s arms that were crushing him in a desperate embrace, crowbar long forgotten.

Keith peered over Lance’s shoulder and saw at least a dozen unmoving, skeletal bodies– bloody, of course– scattering the perimeter of the room. Lance’s hand just carded through Keith’s grimy hair, and he was muttering into it.

“God, Keith, oh my god, thank god you’re okay, you scared me so much, you fucking scared me,” and Keith could feel something wetting his shoulder and he actually hoped it was tears– better than a bleeding cut.

“Lance,” Keith said into the crook of his neck. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

“God, when you screamed like that, I–” and Lance started to let go, shrugging his arms away but refusing to separate entirely. He was still so pale.

“I’m okay, Lance,” Keith said firmly, but not unkindly. Lance nodded and picked up his crowbar, eyes still wide but heartbeat finally slowing. And Keith tried to ignore how he could still hear that tapping through the wall, steady, unchanging, tormenting and mocking.

Scene 9: Finally! Kuro is found, outside of the hospital, of course. He said there’s an apartment building on the other side of town that they decide to go to for the hell of it. Pidge has been voicing theories about the town this whole time; now they’re just searching to search.

Scene 9.1: Again, they split up, but Lance and Keith stick together this time (with Kuro coming in and out).

Scene 9.2: Toilet scene, probably. Lighthearted bants.

"Bathroom over here," Lance called from the other side of the room. He led the other two into the claustrophobic space, each of them trying to avoid elbowing each other. The bathroom seemed average in its filth: the mirror was cloudy, the tile floors painted with dirt, and the beige walls were as dingy as ever. The only thing of note was the toilet in the corner.

It, too, was in dismal condition, its white porcelain colored with rust and the bowl clogged. The brownish water within was almost overflowing. None of the three could really identify what was clogging the toilet, let alone what was in it, but as always there was an unmistakable stench of blood.

"I think I can see something in there," Keith said as he peered into the gunk. The other two men leaned over Keith's shoulders– Lance to the right, Kuro the left– but Lance only made a noncommittal noise. Keith stepped closer to the toilet, kneeling next to it.

And with no hesitation, without even rolling his shabby sleeve up, Keith stuck his hand into the murky, clogged toilet.

"Oh, my god," Lance said, dry-heaving at the sight. He stepped halfway out of the bathroom, gulping in air from the other side of the wall. Kuro, too, was lost for words. He just continued to stare at Keith's ministrations, concern etched into his face and nose wrinkled from the smell of must and sewage and blood.

But Keith– Keith was resolutely focused on searching within the toilet. He was elbow deep now and the dark water was seeping further up his sleeve, dirty rivers mapping out the fabric. He swore he could feel something within the water, and if he could just reach a little further–

"Aha," he whispered triumphantly. He pulled a [WALLET? idk what item needs to be here yet] out, stained and dripping with sewage, and held it joyfully above the toilet bowl. "I knew there was something in there."

Lance retched again and fully stepped out of the bathroom and back into the dilapidated apartment. Kuro's eyes looked at the wallet, then the now-soaked sleeve, then at the pride emanating from Keith's eyes. His concern quickly turned to disgust when Keith looked ready to just walk back out into the apartment.

"Keith," he said as the younger man stood up and pocketed– pocketed– the toilet wallet. "You... You are going to wash your hands, right?"

"Oh, yeah," Keith said offhandedly and he turned to the sink.

"Oh yeah, he says," Lance called from the other room. His voice was colored with a deep, soulful pain. "Kogane sticks his hand in a fucking toilet and all he has to say is oh yeah."

"At least I found something that could help," Keith yelled back. Brown, brackish water spurted from the tap, showering off his right hand.

"A fucking wallet from the toilet is not exactly helpful," Lance muttered as he re-entered the tiny bathroom. He and Kuro pressed against the back wall, shoulders rubbing, as Keith casually rinsed his sleeve.

"It might help with a puzzle," Kuro pointed out, though he didn't sound particularly convinced in his own words.

"The puzzle of determining who is the most disgusting person in Silent Hill?" Lance said with a raise of his eyebrows and a grimace. Kuro chuckled and Keith rolled his eyes.

"Look, when we find something valuable with this thing," Keith turned off the tap and dried his hands on his pants. "You'll be kissing my ass."

Scene 9.3: A bad fight, where Keith gets pretty badly injured.

Scene 9.3.2: Lance finds health drinks and reveals his own issues with self-worth inadvertently. Kuro interrupts an almost kiss.

“Okay, okay, okay, I found three like… Health drinks? In the fridge, but it was turned off, so they’re probably pretty warm but hopefully they’ll still be okay. And I found a first aid kit in the cabinet above so,” Lance plopped down in front of Keith, bony knees practically denting the carpet. “Let’s see it.”

Keith shook his head, reaching out for one of the bottles labeled “CHOCOLATE” and practically ripped the cap off.

“Keith, I’m serious,” Lance said lowly. “I don’t want this getting infected, we’re already nasty as is.”

“It’s not even that deep of a cut, Lance,” Keith insisted, halfway done with the health drink. “I feel better already with this, anyway.”

“I’m fucking serious, Keith. Take your shirt off. Let me see your shoulder. You got stabbed by some rusty ass knife and I’m not dealing with tetanus in Silent Hill,” Lance punctuated each word of the last sentence with a slap on his thighs, some sort of powder puffing off of his jeans.

“Fine, dad,” Keith muttered, stripping his red jacket off and the black t-shirt under it. There was a sizable gash in the shirt and Keith didn’t really want to imagine how his shoulder looked. Lance winced, so it couldn’t have been good. He sat back in the ugly recliner, and Lance started his ministrations.

“You have cuts too, you know,” he said as Lance patted some wet cotton ball on the wound. Christ, that stung.

“None as deep as this one, though,” Lance spoke slowly, focus seeping into the edges of his words. His brow was furrowed and his eyes kept training down, away from the cut. “I want to take care of this and then I’ll look at my leg.”

“Your leg?”

“Oh, yeah,” Lance presented his calf, a hole snagged out of his jeans and a gaping, seeping wound in its place. “One of those nurse bitches got me. Ironic, right? It doesn’t hurt too bad, though.”

“Christ, Lance,” Keith hissed as Lance rubbed a salve into the cut on his shoulder, stinging even more. “That looks way worse than mine, what the hell are you thinking?”

“Priorities, Keith. Your cut was worse,” and now Lance started wrapping around Keith’s upper arm, up over the wound with a grimey Ace bandage. Better than nothing, at least. Lance tied it off professionally before smiling at his handiwork, a light flush on his face. “Besides, you need your shoulder more than I probably need my calf.”

Keith didn’t let Lance get an inch away from him, grabbing his face with his hands, fingers prickling on the stubble of his chin. Lance looked as surprised as Keith felt– but he still stared curiously, worriedly into Lance’s ocean blue eyes.

“You don’t actually believe that, do you?” he almost whispered, and Lance didn’t move. His eyes cast down to Keith’s lips. And they were frozen for only a moment before he started to lean closer, imperceptibly, focus on the cut on Keith’s lip and definitely not on how soft they looked and–

“Guys, guys,” Kuro burst in the apartment door, flashlight waving in his hand. “I think I found something a couple rooms down! Some interesting history about the town. Come check it out!”

Keith let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and gently pushed Lance away to stand up and follow Kuro out of the room. Lance promised to catch up in just a minute. And while haphazardly tying his own bandages, he tried to focus on the hole in his leg, and not the one gnawing in his gut.

Scene 9: The interruption proves important. Pidge and Hunk got in a bad fight also, with the same giant creature that got Keith. Hunk is dead. Lance does not take it well.

Scene 10: Pidge runs off in haste, in complete despair, saying “fuck you, I’m finding my brother.” Kuro, as he tends to do, disappears.

Scene 10.1: Lance and Keith, in their despair, just try to find somewhere to sleep. Lance is totally out of it.

Scene 10.2: They talk about going back to his apartment; try to go, but Keith can’t see the holes.

“Fuck, my back hurts,” Lance dug his fingers into the tense muscles of his neck and shoulders, grimacing as he massaged one particularly troublesome knot. “There really is nowhere comfortable to sleep in this fucking town.”

“You’re telling me,” Keith muttered. “At least you can go back to your apartment.”

“True, my couch is pretty comfortable,” Lance said with a stretch, voice tensing with his body. “I mean, a hell of a lot more comfortable than street, or church floor, or Bowl-a-Rama floor, or museum floor, or–”

“Floors,” Keith said flatly. “It’s a lot of floors.”

“You’re welcome to have my shitty apartment bed. Just an FYI, I think it’s covered in ghost juice. I’ve been having some haunting problems,” Lance said casually. Keith shot his head up, intrigued.

“I– why haven’t we gone back to your apartment?” he asked, thick eyebrows coming together. “Just to rest up at least.”

Lance stood, wracking his brain for any good reason why they hadn’t thought of it before. He shrugged, and admitted, “I think we are just very dumb.”

“How do you even get back to your apartment?” Keith asked, following Lance as he started to sprint towards some random alleyway.

“Holes,” Lance called back, and Keith made a confused sound. “Literally, just random holes showing up around town. There’s one in my bathroom. It just appeared one day, and I think it takes me where it wants me to go because I never end up in the same place.”

“That’s… weird.” “Even for here.”

“You’re telling me. I thought I had legit lost it when the hole showed up. Like, had I carved this myself in a crazed state? And why was I even considering crawling through?” “Though ultimately I’m glad I did, since it got me here.”

“How do you know how to find them when you’re in town?”

“Just kind of jog around and– speak of the devil and he appears. Follow me,” Lance grinned, and motioned down a dim alleyway. The walls were scabbed with rust and there was an odd scent of stale, metallic laundry down this way. Lance gestured towards the wall, and squatted. “Okay, just crawl in after me. It’s more spacious than it looks.”

Keith peered where he was pointing, and he started to panic. “Lance, I don’t see–”

And in the blink of an eye, Lance was completely gone. It only took a second for Keith’s exhausted mind to snap, and dread climbed his bones like ivy.

“Lance!” Keith starts pounding against the wall, feeling for the hole with his fists, trying to carve one himself with his bare knuckles. “Shit! Where– Lance!”

And his mind was reeling, thoughts flying one after the other. Was Lance even real this whole time? Where was Kuro? Hunk is dead. Pidge is dead. Nyma is dead. That Allura chick is alive, somewhere, but is she even real?

Was Lance real? Or was Keith relying on– caring for– dealing with–

Just another ghost?

He couldn’t help the pinpricks of tears. He was so tired. Just so, so so tired. Exhausted in the most intense, deep and soulful way. Everything hurt– his brain couldn’t move fast and his hands seemed to be in slow motion as they reached up to card through his hair and tug it as he screamed and–

“Keith!”

“Lance!” Keith realized tan hands were clutching his shoulders and relief erupted through his body.

“Keith, what in the hell is wrong? Where were you?” Lance sounded frustrated, frayed nerves covering fear, and Keith matched his anger in a second.

“Where was I? Where were you?” Keith stepped back and started swinging his hands wildly, anger taking over. “You! You just. Disappeared! There was no hole anywhere.”

“You… You don’t see a hole?” Lance’s voice cracked. It sounded like he was falling in on himself, emotions filling his lungs. His eyes were tired.

“No,” Keith said, calming down. He spoke honestly and earnestly, and quickly. Finally, he felt himself catching up to the world again. “I thought – I don’t know what I thought.”

“I,” a long pause, sucking the breath out of the entire godforsaken town. Lance looked more disturbed than he ever had, like even his skin didn’t fit right. And he looked so, so, so fucking tired. “I don’t know why I can see them.”

“Do you think Kuro can?” his suggestion was desperate

“You just disappeared into thin air” he punches him, ignoring the questions. frankly he didn’t care. “Never do that again”

“Ow! I didn’t– I thought you could follow. I just wanted you to get rest” Lance’s eyes were desperate, too

A silence, tense.

“We’ll find a floor around here”

And as they find somewhere to rest, Lance has a moment of panic himself of “am I real, is any of this real, maybe I am just crazy. I am going crazy. Why can’t Keith see the holes”

Scene 10.3: Lance at least makes his way back to the apartment to grab a walkie-talkie— better than nothing. There are ghosts in his apartment now (great).

The small red radio crackled to life. But unlike before, the static cleared and a tinny voice came through.

"Keith, come in, Keith. Do you copy?"

Keith scrambled to grab the radio out of his front pocket, almost dropping it in the process. He clutched it close to his face with both hands. "Wait– what the fuck. Lance?"

"Hah! Finally. I've been trying to get this thing to work for hours, now."

"How– what–"

"Okay, so," Lance's voice was as loud as always, even from the tiny rectangle. "I was searching through my box of old useless shit shit, because I was just like. Hey, maybe there's something not so useless in here, like a... I don't know, a Swiss army knife or brass knuckles or something. Something to pelt these ghosts with that aren’t my shoes."

“Ghosts?”

Keith let out a breathy laugh and Lance kept speaking: "And then. Then I found this old pair of radio walkie talkies. I got them with—" His voice dropped off. “Hunk. Back in college.”

Keith replies with something here.

"We got these two-way radios to try to keep in touch but never got around to using them so they're basically brand new. So I thought, if I can find your radio– what's the word, radio channel?"

“Frequency.”

"That's it. Frequency. And I just barely got it too, I could sort of hear you hitting something and like grunting. But yeah! Now I figured a way we can talk to each other no matter where we are. Like, I'm literally at home right now and we can still communicate."

"That's great, Lance, but–"

"Wait, what did you say? You kind of cut out."

"I said, that's great Lance, but–"

"Well, thank you. I was pretty proud of it myself, actually, it took some time to figure–"

"Lance. Lance, please stop talking for five minutes. What the fuck did you mean about ghosts," and Keith paused.

Now Lance was silent for several minutes. Even the static was quieter now. “There are ghosts here. That’s all. I’m on my way back out. THey didn’t get me that bad.”

Scene 10.4: And they just go back to the church to rest up. Lance probably has a really freaky dream here.

"Oh, hm," Lance suddenly groaned, and his body spasmed up, forcing his elbows to bear the weight of his heavy head and heavier eyelids. Raindrops shot at the windows of the church they were in, trying to find purchase on the murky rainbow glass, and instead leaving heavy streaks as they raced towards the muddy ground below.

The church beams above were creaking, and Lance swore he could hear scratching at the wide wooden door. Frankly, he was surprised they hadn't stumbled across any hauntings in here. Even haunted towns refuse to mess with the pope.

He and Keith had set up camp underneath the altar, an attempted hiding place should anything force its way into this cathedral or come bleeding out of its stoney walls. The dingy white fabric– not bloody, at least– draped over the top of the ovular table, and down the side, creating almost a tent in the center of the– what's it called? Lance sighed, stuck his tongue into the side of his mouth and tried to ignore the taste of blood. His eyes searched the painted ceiling as he searched for the right word.

The aisles ran down the side of the nave, and the nave led to the transept, which led to where the altar sat, and the altar sat in the–

"Sanctuary," Lance whispered, a simple, thoughtless relief flooding his veins once he remembered. Keith shifted beside him, burying his face further into his dingy sleeves. His bat lay limp and forgotten in his arms and Lance hoped that Keith was dreaming about a place better than here.

He wasn't a religious man– he'd grown up Catholic, and his mamá still forced him to practice when he was in her line of sight. Out of habit, Lance had even genuflected when they entered the building. But he had never believed much in the Church teachings, or even God himself–

But considering this sanctuary, this holy place, this home of the presence of god was the only place in town without a bleeding, growling and viscous gaggle of gruesome monsters–

He was willing to at least thank whatever higher power gave them this quiet place to wait out the rain.

Lance flinched as the pews creaked, as though ghosts populated the nave, ready to listen to the word of the antichrist currently running things in this godforsaken town.

He had been lying prone under a tapestry, pulled down from under a cold candle, but now Lance sat up and crawled further under the altar, wrapping the purple around him. His gun was clenched in his always tense hands, a mockery of pistol safety. Keith lay next to him, holding his bat like a person, hot breath leaving little ghosts of condensation on the freezing stone floor. The pair had promised to keep each other awake– never safe to sleep in this town, if you can help it. But the pitterpatter of the rain and the whisper of an organ made this place a calming refuge.

Lance couldn't force himself to wake Keith up– not even knowing how angry the other man would be if Lance didn’t. He looked half-dead. The bags under Keith's eyes were heavy, and dark, but the black of his eyelashes were still shocking against his ever-pale skin. Keith's breathing was deep, a welcome change from the usual shallow breath brought on by adrenaline and the constant threat of death.

Keith seemed to have gotten thinner since Lance had met him, also. Health drinks weren't much of a caloric boon considering how much cardio they were doing. Lance started down at his own torso, feeling his ribs beneath his fraying gray shirt, ignoring the pangs of hunger to focus instead on the gnawing fear that constantly wormed through his gut.

Lightning exploded, thunder clapped, and the bell in the church tower above them rung lowly. Keith stirred and Lance watched from his dark corner as Keith slowly woke up.

Keith looked around first, taking stock of the sacristy, the tabernacle, the rust-colored lace below him that he had ripped down from a side altar. And he finally looked Lance in the eye, and his voice was thick with sleep.

"Thank you," he said lowly, gravelly, and Lance tried to ignore the chills that gave him, to stuff the twist of his heart into the jaws of his fear. "If you want to sleep, I can watch for now."

"I slept a little bit," Lance admitted sheepishly, hand running through matted hair. He looked back up at the ceiling. The dark paintings had moved.

"Well, seems to be safe in here," Keith said, snuggling back into his position. He patted the ground next to him, hands making a resonant clap on the stone. "Might as well both get some rest."

Lance peels his eyes open, but it doesn't do much good. Wherever he is, he can't see worth a damn. But he can feel the air moving around him, something slithering up behind him, and suddenly a soft hand tracing down his spine. Lance shivers. This feels good.

And as the Something starts to nip at Lance's neck, he offers more skin to it, allowing it to roam his collarbone and jawline freely, marking its path with lovebites. Lance grinds into the person behind him, reveling in the stiff cock sliding against his jean-clad ass. He angles his hips just right, letting the man rut against him slowly as he kisses his neck so softly and sweetly and sensually. And god, Lance's cock is so hard, straining against his pants zipper. He moans a garbled name and he doesn't want to think too hard about what he was trying to say.

Lance's cock is leaking, a wet spot forming on the front of his pants, and they cling to his shaft lewdly as he keens and rubs against the man more frantically. He reaches down to free his dick, to stroke himself off before he realizes his hands are bound by the man's iron grip.

Hot breath stings the shell of Lance's ear. Lotor laughs. And Lance's blood turns to ice.

He's suddenly at the mercy of the killer behind him, body hardly resisting to Lotor's ministrations. His fingers crawl up Lance's spine again and Lance shivers. Lotor forces their faces together, tongue forcing through bloody, bitten lips. Lance's body follows instructions. He kisses back. His gasps are like sobs.

Lance doesn't even realize when his pants disappear, doesn't think when Lotor stops kissing him, and hardly notices that Lotor is fucking him mercilessly. Lance mewls, still desperate for release, and he feels a burn behind his eyes and on his heart and low, low in his stomach.

When Lotor comes with a low growl, Lance feels like earth beneath them shakes. He realizes he still can't see, but somehow he knows everything is all red.

Lance's stomach lurches, and his discomfort multiplies. He clutches at his abdomen desperately, positive he felt something shifting inside of him. Lotor pulls, leaving a trail of blood down the inside of Lance's thigh. Lotor rubs his hand down his blood-soaked shaft, and laughing, he forces his fingers down Lance's throat. They feel like they're growing longer, and longer, reaching inside of Lance as though to reach his heart and pull it through his mouth. Lance's hands spread more and more as his stomach expanded, and he felt such a painful squirming and the absolute need to vomit

Lotor finally removed his fingers, and Lance gasped for air. His stomach was distended, veins bulging out of the skin stretched taut. It weighed him down, but before his knees succumbed, Lance felt another burning sensation, a fault line forming down the center of his bulging stomach. He keened, pain searing through his entire body and tears spilling out of his burning eyes. Something– was tearing through him– claws ripping through his skin like cloth and when Lance forced his eyes open he saw a bloody mass emerging from the cavern of his stomach.

Lotor reached down, shaking hands pulling the thing out from Lance. He held it reverently within his arms, as Lance collapsed to the ground. It felt like everything inside him would follow the creature out, but when Lance's hands went to the hole in his stomach he found that it was healed. Instead of scarring, lightening bolts of black tracked his veins and covered every inch of skin.

"We have done it," Lance somehow worked up the strength to lift his head, and saw Lotor's tongue slithering out of his mouth. The red, slimy ribbon hung in the air and formed the words that Lance somehow still heard echoing around him. "Hail, full of grace."

Lance groaned, and he realized his skin was chipping, peeling like old paint. Every time he blinked– the hellish, infantile creature in Lotor's arms grew larger and his smile grew more manic. Lance realized he was smiling too, and hot iron was dipping into his mouth, and he realized that he was crying blood. With a wretched sob, Lance drew Lotor's attention one last time.

Lotor kicked him in the stomach, boot meeting birthplace of the infant he held so dearly. Pain, like glass, shattered within the core of his being, and Lance suddenly awoke to the sound of his own desolate cry.

Scene 10.5: Lance wakes up holding Keith, it’s gay, yknow. Or as gay as it can be when Lance is grasping for dear life because of a horrible dream.

Scene 11: They come across Allura who reveals that, though she was drawn by a letter “from” her dead father, she knows something is going on here and is trying to basically cleanse the place.

Scene 11.1: She talks about somewhere called the “Wish House” but Keith doesn’t want to go without Kuro. So they go looking for him.

Scene 11.2: As they wander they see spraypaint that says “There was a hole here, it’s gone now.” Lance feels better.

Scene 12: They get ambushed by a bunch of monsters and in the process of defending themselves Lance shoots himself.

Lance broke the silence. His voice was measured and calm, somehow. "So... if you could be anywhere but here, where would you be?"

"We are here," Keith said, voice low and tired. He forced Lance's blood-soaked shirt up and winced. "Nothing's gonna change that."

"Humor me and answer the question," Lance replied through clenched teeth, averting his eyes from where Keith was applying some sort of salve to his gunshot wound. "I'm trying to distract myself from the hole in my gut here."

"Well, I don't want to be distracted," Keith spat. "I'm trying to save an idiot who shot himself in the stomach."

"Yeah, I aimed that bullet just so it would ricochet back into me. That was definitely the plan, and I was certainly not saving your sorry ass from the fuckwads trying to kill you," Lance said with just as much venom. He yelped suddenly as Keith put pressure on the bloody spot on his stomach; if he concentrated, he could feel the red-hot metal within him.

"It's just–" Keith put a little more force than necessary on the wound. His other hand threw the ointment back in the back and searched for a bandage. "Fucking stupid Lance. We don't need to be dealing with this right now."

"Again, cause I totally did this on purpose–"

"I know you didn't!" Keith yelled, too close to Lance's face. He threw his eyes to the ground and quietly repeated, "I know you didn't."

Lance was quiet for a second, and without any backbone replied, "Then don't be such an ass about it"

"Sorry," Keith said. He finally retrieved a grimy Ace bandage– better than nothing, he thinks– and catches Lance rolling his eyes. "Okay. Okay, I am sorry. I'm just... stressed."

"I'm sorry too. I know this isn't an ideal situation," the bleeding man said, voice laced with pain. Keith pressed forcefully with the bandage now, wrapping it around his sweaty torso deftly.

"I don't want you to die, Lance," Keith finally said after a moment.

"Lucky for you," Lance grunted. "I'm not planning on it."

The silence between them was suffocating. Lance held his breath as Keith finished his bandaging, laying back against the brick wall and letting out a shallow breath.

"You never answered the question," he said with a little quirk of his mouth.

Keith sits back on his heels. Blood starts to seep through the bandaging. "Honestly, I think I'd still be here. Just the here it's supposed to be."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. This place... it's really nice, actually," Keith looked down at his hands. Across his knuckles, under his nails, down his pale wrists and staining his cuffs– all painted by Lance's blood. He swallowed. "There's so much hiking, boating, anything outdoors you want to do. And the food here was stellar."

"Ah, good food, yeah," Lance closed his eyes and leaned his head back, now, grinning. "That's what I'm about."

Keith's voice was softer now, but he pushed his knuckles against Lance's face to prompt him to open his eyes. "Where would you be?"

"Oh, gosh, that's an easy one," Lance said, eyes distant now and free hand scratching his leg. "I'd be back on Varadero Beach. It's where my family is from before we moved to Miami– god, it's gorgeous there."

Keith nodded for Lance to continue, and pain seeped into his smile.

"You think this beach is pretty? And the food here is good? You haven't had garlic knots on the–" Lance coughed. "The... gorgeous beaches of Cuba."

"Save your strength, okay," Keith said quickly, worriedly. He leaned forwards a little and wiped some of the dark streaks off of Lance's face, thumb swiping over soft skin.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Lance grimaced under Keith's ministrations. "I can hardly feel the wound anymore anyway."

"I'm," Keith paused. "I'm not sure that's good."

Lance just let out a breathy laugh, and then patted the bandages. "I think it's stopped bleeding at least."

"Okay, okay, that is good," Keith let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He noticed how shallow Lance's breathing still was, and without thinking drew a hand to his own diaphragm, feeling the swell of each sigh and a ghost of Lance's pain.

"I'm gonna survive this, Keith," Lance said, drawing his attention back up. His eyes weren't as hazy anymore and Keith was grateful that it was a fog of memory and not death that had clouded them before.

Yet he couldn't help himself from muttering a dismal truth: "You might not."

"Well," and though Lance didn't move, Keith heard the cavalier shrug in his voice, saw the twinkle in his eye. "If anyone was gonna take me out, I'm glad it at least... was me."

For the first time in what felt like years Keith allowed a deep laugh to roll up from his belly, shaking the hand still plastered against his torso, eyes crinkling. Lance matched his laugher. Keith was certain that even with the beach nearby and the mountains towering above them, there was nothing more beautiful in this town than the bells of Lance's laugh and their echoes in his eyes.

"I guess it could be you. I wouldn't be too upset about that. Maybe Kuro, too" Lance continued through his chuckling. Keith noticed that he wasn't grimacing through it. "But I'm not dying to any of these monster bastards. I may have no clean laundry but I have my pride."

"Kuro–" and suddenly Keith hopped to his feet, smile giving way to wide eyes and a panicked look. He spoke quickly, "Kuro! Kuro has health drinks, those things are amazing, we gotta get you one."

"Shit," Lance breathed, hope coloring his face. "Let's go then!"

"No, you wait here," Keith replied. He kicked the first aid kit closer to Lance and adjusted the bat on his back. "I'll find him."

"Wait, don't leave me alone," and Lance finally– finally– sounded panicked.

"Lance," Keith crouched again, looking Lance straight in his eyes, avoiding the red that he realized was again seeping in between tan fingers. "I promise I'll come back for you. Just radio me if you need anything."

"Keith–"

"Do you trust me?" Keith stood but offered his hand, clutching Lance's tight, tight, too tight.

"You know I do," he replied lowly.

"Then trust me," Keith loosened his grip but resisted dropping Lance's hand, reveling in the warmth, the feeling of vivacious life trapped within skin. He hoped his voice wasn't shaking as he spoke again. "I promise I'm going to save your life, okay?"

A pause, too long, and Keith finally let the tips of his fingers fall from Lance's.

"Okay," Lance said. Keith jogged out of their hiding spot, praying to god he could find Kuro.

Scene 12.1: Keith remembers Kuro has health drinks, and goes to find him. Blessedly, he’s right there— as always. They come back and fully patch Lance up, and head back on the adventure.

Lance downed the thick chocolatey drink in one desperate gulp. Some of it ran past his lips and down his stubbly chin, joining the myriad of other stains on his collared shirt. Kuro took the bottle from him as soon as it was emptied, and Keith looked nervously down at how tightly Lance was still grasping his stomach.

"Man, I have no fucking idea what is in those things," Lance said, voice thick. He wiped the back of his mouth with his sleeve and smiled up at Keith. "But I legitimately feel so much better."

"Thank god," Keith sighed, and even though his mouth turned up he felt like collapsing and crying.

"Help me up, man," Lance extended a hand that Kuro grabbed first, pulling the lanky man up to standing. Lance lifted his blood-stiff shirt and peeked between his stomach and the bandage wrapping it.

"Well?" Kuro asked.

"I have no idea how those things do it. But I'm not bleeding anymore. I'm healing," Lance said with an reverence to his voice, an awed and weighted value in what he didn't understand.

Keith swallowed and felt relief blossom in his throat where his breath usually went. "Thank god," was all he could say again.

"Other than the bullet living inside me, I'm back and ready to go," Lance said with a wide grin, loping one arm around Keith and the other around Kuro. His energy was genuinely forced, excitement boundless within him and body trying valiantly to catch up. "You boys ready?"

Keith nodded. Lance's smile, he noticed, was infectious.

Scene 12.2: Before they find Allura— or rather, as they look for Allura— they find the bullets? IDK I want the second wallet scene somewhere and here is about the best place I can find.

"Wait, wait, wait" Keith said, his eyes widened. He rummaged in his back pocket, bat swinging wildly, before pulling out the forgotten crusty wallet from the toilet. "When I went through this I saw a slip of paper with some numbers on it!"

"A safe code?" Kuro said, knuckles meeting his chin thoughtfully.

"Maybe," Keith crouched next to where Lance was still fiddling with the combination lock, spinning it left and right. Keith pulled out the stained paper from the wallet and started reading off what he saw: "Eleven with a right arrow, seventeen with a left arrow, thirteen to the right, six to the left."

Lance slowly followed the instructions, tongue trapped between his teeth and brows furrowed in concentration. "Eleven.... Seventeen.... Thirteen.... And... Six."

The safe made a loud click, Lance falling back off of his heels in surprise. Keith grinned triumphantly, and swung the safe door open, revealing a trove of ammunition– boxes stacked on boxes, full of shells and bullets, all for Lance's [TYPE OF GUN GOES HERE.]

"Holy shit," Lance said, picking himself up off the floor. He reverently crawled towards the safe, reaching in for one of the black cardboard boxes. It jangled in his hands, shaking from excitement. "You have got to be fucking kidding me!"

"Jesus christ, that'll last you forever," Kuro said excitedly. He crouched down to look in, bobbing his head as he counted. "Or, at least a month."

Keith just stood up and smiled smugly. As a delighted Lance shoveled ammunition into his jeans, his jacket, his backpack, Keith tapped his foot impatiently.

"Is there... anything you'd like to say, Lance?" he finally said, unable to keep the giddiness out of his voice.

Lance looked up at him, at first confused and then dropped his head with a groan and a jingle of bullets. "Oh, jesus christ."

"I seem to recall you saying we wouldn't find anything valuable with this thing," Keith shook the leather wallet before stuffing it in his back pocket again. He crossed his arms and smirked. "But... I'd say this is pretty valuable."

"Kiss my ass, Keith," Lance spat. Kuro just started to laugh and Lance moaned again when he realized what he said.

"I also recall saying you could do that to me if we found something valuable," Keith mocked, grin growing wider. Lance had a hard time keeping his poker face.

"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you," Lance finally muttered with a roll of his eyes and a smile. He tossed the last of the bullets in his bag and shot Keith a wink.

And suddenly the tables had turned– Keith couldn't help the flush that painted his face and the heat that pooled in his belly. The spacious room felt claustrophobic, and he took a tiny step back away from where Lance was dusting off his jeans. He would like that, very much, but– that's not–

"But really, Keith," he realized Lance was speaking again, and Kuro was staring at him knowingly. Keith shook his head and tried to shake off the blush, too. "Thank you. I never would have guessed the wallet would be helpful but this is... This is really great."

"Yeah, well, can't act like I don't benefit from it too," Keith said, voice much more reserved now. He reached behind his head and scratched, eyes trained to the floor.

"Yeah, can't wait to save that sweet ass of yours with my sick sharpshooter skills," Lance laughed and he bounded out the bathroom door. Kuro cocked his head and tried to hide his smile, teeth carving into his bottom lip.

"Sweet ass, huh?" Kuro just said, giving Keith a gleeful smirk as he followed Lance out.

"Suck my dick, bitch," Keith muttered. Kuro only laughed.

Act II: Liturgy

Scene 13: So now it’s time to find Allura again, and they do easily— and she has Pidge in tow. Great. Let’s go just a little ways through the woods, to the Wish House.

Scene 13.1: They split up, search for clues. Which is actually okay, because they have a radio now! (Or, they hope it’ll be okay).

"Wish House."

"That's a creepy name."

"Yeah. Yeah, it really is."

"What do you think this place is?"

"I have no idea." Kicks door in.

"Well gang, why don't we split up and search for clues." "Pidge, Kuro, you guys could take this floor? I'll take the basement, and Allura and Keith could go upstairs."

"You shouldn't go anywhere alone"

"Why not?" "I have a gun."

"Yeah, keep the gun with others. Come with us."

"But I want to see the basement."

"No. We're going– what's that out there?"

"Looks like a water tower."

"There's like... weird stairs around it."

"We'll check it out after this place. Come on guys."

"Wait, hang on" Lance gives Pidge his radio. "To keep in touch. We have Keith's. Let's roll."

Scene 13.2: They find a kid’s diary that helps them piece a couple more things together. Allura is our queen of exposition. Lance also finds a “bible” with annotations that hit a little close to home, and hides it.

"Hope House, the Silent Hill Smile Support Society" "I thought it was called the Wish House?"

"What is this, some sort of dentistry operation?" "A resort for orthodontic work?"

"It sort of looks like a hotel."

"Hey, look at this" Old picutre of kids lined up, a school portrait. "Was this a boarding school?"

"Or an orphanage."

Goes into one of the rooms, it's dusty but as though a child had left all their things. Creepy dolls. Lance shivers.

"What are we even looking for?"

"Honestly" "No clue. Or, rather. A clue."

"A clue to what, though. I feel like we're looking for answers when we don't even know the question."

"Maybe the clues will tell us the question."

Keith stalked over to a small desk, coated in dust and with black spots of ink freckling its top. There was a notebook lying there, leather and cracked, and Keith pushed back the front cover with a finger to reveal childish scribbles. "I think there’s a diary here."

"Woah, let me see it!” Lance pushed past Keith to snatch the journal from the desk. He ignored the glare of the shorter man, focused solely on flipping to a page early in the worn and yellowed book. His eyes widened and he started reading. "I was sent to the round cell yesterday even though I read good. I think it's because I played too far with Bob on Monday. The High Priestess says we shouldn't go far out into the scary world... But the woods are pretty in autumn."

"High Priestess." Allura tapped her bottom lip, eyes widening at title. "Oh. This place must have been run by the Druids."

Lance scrunched up his nose and cocked his head. "The whodah?"

"The Druids. They're a cult that sprung up around here ages ago.” The tall woman explained, shrugging. “There aren't many followers left. They're pretty insane, actually." Her voice grew softer as she spoke, and she reached down to run a hand along the thin, raggedy blanket that covered the tiny bed. She shivered. "I didn't know they ran an orphanage. Those poor children."

"Yeah, shit. This kid had some shit done to him." Lance had his nose back in the diary, finger running under the messy scribbles masquerading as sentences. "Some guy named Andrew made him drink leech water. And he keeps talking about something called the round cell."

"Who's writing this?” Keith ran a finger over the top of a dresser, unstable and weak. It was covered in dust.

"Uhhhhh let’s see,” Lance replied, flipping back to the front of the book and squinting at the red writing. “Some kid named Lewis. Lewis… Sullivan."

"We better hold on to that. The Druids are probably involved in whatever is haunting this town, and your apartment." Keith said, nodding to himself as he tried to organize his thoughts in the air. "So any information we have about them could be useful."

Lance squeaked, holding the diary open wide and showing off two dark, crusty pages. There was no writing, just splotches. "This has blood in it, guys."

"Well, that's fucked up,” Keith responded after a moment.

Radio crackle. "Nothing in the basement, not even a monster. You guys?"

"Oh yeah. Nothing up here, just a diary we found. Want to check the rest of the rooms?"

"Might as well."

But they were all empty.

Scene 13.3: Also they find medallions that come in handy with Lance’s hauntings.

Scene 14: Monsters, again, ambush them. They try to fight them together.

Scene 14.1: Pidge things she sees her brother, gets pulled away from the group and— is killed in front of Lance by the scary man from his dreams, the ones seen before by Keith (and Hunk).

Scene 14.2: Allura and Kuro have disappeared. Lance and Keith break down.

“Pidge,” Keith cried, his screams ripping through his vocal chords and making his voice almost unrecognizable in its anguish. “Pidge!”

He ran over to where the charred remains of her body lay, retching from the smell of burnt hair and blood that lingered in the air. She was still recognizable, as though the fire had melted her away to reveal a cracked and stony shell of Pidge Holt. Keith couldn’t bring himself to step any closer and he jumped as he heard sobs, coming from a few feet to his right.

“Lance?” he stepped away from Pidge’s still-smoldering form, trying to avoid the somehow-glassy gaze of her eyes. Everywhere was so dark. He could see a lump on the ground, a backpack, and then a shaking body.

Lance was sobbing into his arms. Full, painful, wracking sobs that sounded as if they would crack his ribs and tear open his throat. His tears were pooling into his mouth and the ground below him and Lance wished he could drown himself there.

“I tried,” Keith could barely make out through his hiccups and blubbering. “She– I tried but nothing worked. I– I– I don’t–”

And Lance broke down again. Keith dropped to his knees, hand splayed on Lance’s back, but he didn’t have the energy or the presence of mind to move it. Everything was so dark and the smell of burnt, decaying flesh was tattooed into Keith’s bones.

“It’s not your fault, Lance,” Keith found himself saying. He felt like he was trying to convince himself as much as the crying man beneath him. “It’s okay… It’s not your fault.”

“She– she had just found something– she c-called for me,” Lance was spitting out quickly, trying to force the words out in between coughs and cries. “And then– then she’s suddenly– on fire, Keith, she…”

“Did you see anyone?” Keith asked, voice harsher than he meant it to be. He wanted to leave. The smoke was suffocating and nauseating and aggravating.

“Sh-she said she did,” Lance pulled himself up from the ground, now, but his crying did not abate. If anything, the anguish he felt was multiplied tenfold and his bawling made him impossible to understand. “P-purple devil, s-she s-said.”

It was silent save for the monsoon ravaging Lance’s mind, pouring out through every orifice. He spoke again, more quietly. “She c-carved those numbers in… Into herself, Keith.”

“What?” Keith dared to stand and step closer to the small, ashy body. Parts of her almost seemed to still glow, like the fire was raging within her skin. 17121 – carved messily, almost childishly, right above her collarbone. If her clothes weren’t charred to bits Keith was sure they’d be soaked with blood.

“Come on, Lance, we have to get out of here,” Keith said, reaching his hand back for Lance to grab onto. Slowly the taller man stood, legs shaking and chest heaving, and he grabbed Keith’s gloved hand with a white-knuckle grip.

“We…” Lance wiped his face messily. “We can’t leave her here.”

Keith looked down at Pidge again, her face frozen in a mask of desolate fear. His stomach turned, stabbed with pain like someone had carved into it.

“We’ll come back for her,” he said, trying to convince both of them that it was true.

Scene 14.3: Lance completely breaks at this point, sprints back to the town followed by Keith. Big fight, where Lance goes home.

"Lance." So much anger leaked out into that word, cutting against Keith's teeth. His brittle nails pressed into his palms.

"Lance.” Keith repeated, the word prying at him. The other man halfway obliged, blue eyes shining in the dark alley. Keith itched to scream at him, but he was afraid of attracting those shuffling noises around the corner. "What are you doing?"

Lance stood, a breathing mannequin obscured by red-tinted shadow. Keith stepped a little closer and he was now able to make out his blood-stiff and ashy shirt, his white teeth framed by snarling lips, the pain in his ocean eyes.

"I'm going home.” Was all Lance said before turning again. Keith couldn't tell if Lance was taking long, deliberate steps or if he just wished they were slow.

"What the hell do you mean, you're going home?" Keith's words were blades that sliced open more wounds inside of him, and for just a second, Keith thought Lance’s tears were blood.

“I mean I’m going home.” Lance spat out, voice thick. “I’d rather be there.”

"You said you'd rather be in hell than stuck in that apartment." Keith crossed his arms, frustration focused into expectancy. Lance recoiled from Keith’s disappointment, and his emotions bubbled to teh surface like tar.

“That was before I had to hold some stranger as she died, watch my best friend die, watch someone I thought as a sister d—” Lance caught himself in a sob, and his hand pushed against his throat as though he could push out the words. “Watch Pidge die! And if Allura’s n-not dead yet, I know I’ll have to watch her die, and I’m going to have to watch you die and I’m—”

Lance voice caught suddenly again. And now the world is silent— no sounds of screeching creatures or scuttling limbs or Kuro’s distant voice or even Keith’s own breathing. Only Lance’s low voice cut through the muted air.

“I would rather just die.”

The sentence punched Keith in the gut and an anger was born from his pain. “So. What? You’re giving up?”

Lance rolled his clouded eyes at the statement, and though his voice was contemptuous, Keith could see thunder building in his bones. “Get the fuck off your high horse, Keith.”

“Sorry for caring about this place! About doing what’s right!” Keith called back indignantly. His hands threw themselves up and slapped loud against his side. Dust flew off his pants.

Lance’s spiteful scoff echoed louder than Keith’s voice. His words felt as rotten as any building’s floorboards. “This place? What’s right? You don’t give a shit about either.”

Keith opened his mouth to respond, breath tumbling out in a response, but Lance didn’t let up. “Don’t front me like this, Keith. You only care about finding your brother, who’s fucking dead. You’re not going to find him. Screw your head back on straight and get the fuck out of here while you can.”

“Shut up, Lance.” Keith didn’t even register his response and none of the words felt suitable for how much poison he tasted in his mouth. He boiled under Lance’s intense stare.

“Just—” Lance ran a hand down his face, eyes closing under the pads of his fingers. His mouth was a tight line. “Take advantage of the fact you can leave.”

Keith’s hands matched Lance’s and went to his own skull, fingers tugging through his greasy hair. His nails scratched, caught and trapped in tangles. Confusion clawed through the exhaustion in his voice. “I’m not the only one who can leave! You’re leaving right now!”

“Yeah. Leaving back to an apartment I can’t get out of— a haunted apartment.” Lance’s voice dripped with resentment. But instead of dousing the flames in Keith’s stomach, it was gasoline. A growling sigh left his throat as Lance continued. “I mean leave, Keith. Really leave. Get out. Go home. Be safe. I don’t— don’t fucking die here for a fantasy.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” The words were barely audible, and Keith felt sick even just staring at Lance’s back. He could make out the tenseness in his shoulders even under his ill-fitting shirt.

“Whatever, Keith.” Lance’s voice sounded as defeated as he looked, and his blood-soaked rubber heels started walking again back down the alleyway. A hole was assumedly bored into the brick, back in those shadows— as if Keith could see it anyway.

“Coward.” He muttered, just loud enough to be purposeful, quiet enough to be dressed up as an accident. His neck burned under his collar.

The lanky man shuddered to a stop. His voice held no such pretense, only a promise eager to be kept. “Call me a coward again. I fucking dare you.”

Keith glared at the ground beneath him, praying to the gravel for distraction— to focus on anything, a puddle or a stone or Lance’s gross, stained Converse— anything to keep him from feeling the blood rushing into his eyes and the burning in his stomach— anything to stop himself from throwing his head up and his words at Lance.

Nothing worked.

“You’re a coward!” The words hissed through his teeth. His throat felt raw even though he didn’t yell. “You’re running off, right when people need you m—”

Keith didn’t register Lance’s movement before his brown knuckles were cracking against his cheekbone. Nerves exploded with pain and adrenaline made his knees quake and his own fists swing up. Lance punched again, grazing the same spot, and then Keith is pushing back with nails raking against his collarbone and knuckles kissing his jawline.

Keith’s grip on Lance’s collar almost tore the fabric, and he pulled him so close he could taste the vitriol pouring from his blue eyes. Lance’s boney knee pulled up, the stained jeans aiming for Keith’s stomach, and he flinched. But instead of feeling a blow to his diaphragm, he just heard Lance’s breath catch and unscrewed his eyes to find Lance instead had steadied his feet back on the asphalt.

Keith pushed away and spit out what tasted like blood. Lance was panting, exerted from holding in the tears that felt like they would split his skull. A bruise was already forming on his jawline.

“Everyone who needs me is fucking dead, Kogane.” Lance finally shuddered out. His hands were shaking, and fisted his own shirt, as if renting the garment would make him feel better. His voice wobbled like it had been the one punched. “They’re all fucking dead. Pidge— Hunk— they’re dead.”

“I know that.” Ever consonant felt harsh on Keith’s tongue. He dared to step an inch closer to where Lance was collapsing in on himself.

“And they’re not coming back. Just like your brother. They— they’re not coming back.” Lance stuttered. His hands finally released his shirt, fabric stretched into tendrils, and they hung tense at his sides. His fingers jittered with chaotic energy. His voice held venom. “Accepting reality isn’t being a coward. Some shit you can’t fight.”

Keith couldn't stop himself from blurting loudly, too loudly: "Why do you think I don't need you?"

“What?” Lance responded. His eyes exploded wide, genuine wonder refusing to be tainted by his anger.

“You said— You said everyone who needs you is dead.” His throat tried to close in on his words, and Keith realized he was trying not to cry. Each syllable that he forced out was a crack in the dam. “But I’m not dead.”

Lance moved like fog, chest wracking even as his sobs had quieted. He peered at Keith, leaning in closer, watching his shoulders rise, fall, rise again. As if he were checking. His voice was a breath: “No, you’re not dead.”

Keith spoke honestly, voice cracking on every word. "I need you."

But Lance– every boisterous, ever loud Lance, with eyes crystal-blue like the sky and the sea and the color of wonder and hope– Lance was silent. Unmoving. His eyes glassed over and became dark, not with anger but with a hopeless melancholy.

"Lance,” Keith tried to reach him, broken voice offering a hand to the drowning man.

"I need to go home, Keith,” was all Lance said back, voice just as shattered.

Keith forced his despondency back into rage, a compulsory splintering, a strained fracture on his tired mind. "Whatever. Fuck you, Lance.”

Another moment of heavy silence, broken only by the crunch of gravel under Lance’s feet.

"Radio me if you need me,” he said lowly, and then he was gone.

Scene 15: Keith sleeps alone at the church. It’s cold.

Scene 15.1: The day passes without anything of note. It seems the world was actually eviler there when Lance was there— and yet Keith misses him greatly. The town is totally silent now.

Scene 16: The break comes when Lance actually radios Keith, asking for help. The hole in his room— it’s gone now?? Or something. He needs to be able to get back there though at the end. He can’t get out. There are ghosts. So far they’ve just been midly annoying but— his nightmares— it’s all getting worse. This scene was written and then used in Remodeling and needs a LOT of reworking.

There was noise coming from the other side of the door and something dripping down from the peephole, right through Lotor’s messy handwriting demanding that he not go out.

“Oh god,” Lance muttered to himself, stepping forward and hesitantly wiping his finger through the viscous liquid– blood. The peephole was bleeding. Curiosity had full control, and Lance steeled himself for whatever might be out there–

And yet one look through the peephole had Lance collapsing, nails scraping against the dirty white paint of his door. His trembling hands slapped against his hips and the floor, finally making contact with his walkie-talkie.

“Keith,” he whispered hoarsely, lips brushing against the shaking plastic. “Keith, please tell me you’re there. There’s something outside my door again.”

A long, unbearable moment of silence– before the familiar radio’s crackle, and Keith’s voice through the static.

“Lance,” he sounded out of breath, and he could hear the screeches of a distant something. “Tell me you’re okay.”

“I–” Lance almost couldn’t speak. He was hyperventilating now, only upright thanks to the corner he was now leaning into. A drop of blood fell from the peephole. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Lance!” Keith was cutting in and out, but Lance couldn’t hear any monsters from his end anymore. He clutched the walkie-talkie closer, as though it were Keith’s hand. “Lance, what the hell is out there?”

Lance looked back up at the peephole– he could hear a voice from outside, a frantic whisper like some sort of prayer. He forced himself to stand back up and look through the peephole again, before interrupting Keith, still shouting his name.

“What’s out there?” Lance said. “It’s– it’s me.”

Everything went silent for Lance, only for a moment, and he collapsed against the door again. He just barely remained standing, fear both paralyzing him and turning his entire body into jello. Keith was screaming again into the walkie-talkie, and Lance could barely make out Kuro in the background yelling too.

“Keith, Keith, I’m still here,” Lance started to chant, trying to focus on the sound of his own weak, breathy voice and the chipping paint of the door. “Keith. I’m here, Keith.”

“Lance, what the hell is going on? What do you mean you’re out there? Did– did you get out of the apartment? What’s out there?” Keith’s voice was hoarse from screaming now.

“Keith, hang on, please– I’m here, Keith, just let me,” Lance screwed his eyes shut. “I’m really fucking scared, right now. I just need to catch my breath– I, I don’t know what’s going on but I’m standing outside of the door, but it’s obviously not me–”

“Okay, Lance, it’s okay,” Keith’s voice was substantially gentler now, but Lance could tell he was exerting himself– was he lifting something up? “Lance, can you please tell me what you see? I know it’s scary but…”

“Okay,” Lance breathed, mustering the courage to look through the peephole just one more time– and christ, it never got easier. “It looks exactly like me, Keith, ex– except you can’t see my eyes, my hair is blocking them and…” Lance swallowed, hands shaking again. “There’s numbers carved in my neck, like the ones we’ve been seeing. 21121. And I’m covered in blood–”

“Okay, Lance, it’s okay, it’s just–” Keith grunted, and there was a cry from something in the background. Lance wanted to scream at Keith to put his radio down and pay attention to the fight, but he couldn’t lose his voice. “Anything else?”

“My mouth is bleeding. I’m– I’m whispering something,” Lance said, prying himself away from the door and practically sprinting to the couch on the other side of the room. He heard Keith throw whatever he was wielding to the ground– a metal something– and Kuro’s voice in the background again.

“What were you saying?” Keith’s voice was much louder now, and laden with worry. His radio must be out of his pockets and in his hands. God, he better be in a safe enough place to be doing that.

“I’m just whispering, over and over,” Lance collapsed onto the couch. Tears started to run down his dirty face. “Please help me.”

Scene 16.1: Keith knows what he must do. He takes his car and drives the Fuck down to South Ashfield.

Scene 16.2: He finds Lance’s apartment and lets himself in.

“Three twelve, three ten, three oh eight," Keith whispered desperately, breath shallow from having sprinted up three flights of stairs. He wasn't one to trust his gut instincts, but something had hooked into his ribcage and dragged him to this building. He just hoped that Lance was the one tugging at the end of this chain.

Keith's boots skidded on the dirty tile floor as he stopped quickly in front of his destination. He could feel some viscous liquid seeping into the cracked black leather. Room 302 was printed in bold, gold lettering, and there were several handprints on this off-white door. They almost looked normal: dirty marks of hallway friendliness, a ghost of Lance leaning to catch his breath after a run or flirting with a neighbor. For the first time, Keith felt a relief at Lance being locked in his own apartment. These handprints couldn't be his desperate clawing.

Keith knocked violently against this door at the end of the hall, trying to ignore the mold in the ceiling corner, praying its shifting was a trick of the eyes. "Lance?" he called out, voice reflected back into his own face. He couldn't hear anything on the other side, and his knocking soon turned into pounding.

"Lance," he called again, and as his right hand continued banging against the flaky white paint, his left reached down and started jiggling the handle. "Lance, are you in there?"

Nothing, still, on the other side, and Keith was growing more frustrated than worried. Nothing seemed dangerous in his immediate vicinity, but he knew something was up here. So that meant any and all hauntings were relegated to inside with Lance. And Keith felt that terrible twist in his gut telling him he needed to get in there as soon as possible.

Okay, he's equal parts frustrated and worried. Sue him.

"Lance, I'm gonna try to come in," he yelled into the door, hoping the lanky man was just asleep, getting the rest he so desperately needed. Keith grasped the brass door handle with both hands and tensed his shoulders, ready to force it all down.

But it only took one proper twist of the handle and Keith was stumbling into room 302.

The door swung wildly open; something clanked as it hit the entry wall. Keith did his best to balance on the balls of his feet, hand still grasping to the handle and his other scrambling for purchase. And Keith's eyes locked with Lance's, perched on his couch and surrounded by pages and pages of chickenscratch. He obviously hadn't been sleeping– even his seated position was one of focus, legs tucked under him and knees hunched to his shoulders.

"Keith!" Lance jumped from his seat, tripping and falling into his grimy carpet, but before Keith could even react Lance had leaped to his side and grasping his shoulders. "Keith, how– you–"

"Could you hear me?" Keith asked, but Lance ignored the question, moving Keith to the side with a firm shove. His breath shuddered, gasping, a drowned man walking on land.

"My door," he said quietly, voice hitching. "You got– how did you get my door open?"

"I just," Keith had turned around by this point and stepped to Lance's side, both men facing the wide-open door. The hallway was completely silent and faint rusty handprints lined the opposite side. He swallowed, "I turned the handle."

"Oh my god, Keith," Lance said, sobs barely contained in his voice. He laughed a little. "I never thought I'd be happy to see this gross ass hallway."

Keith couldn't help but chuckle along with him, his own breath stopping when Lance pulled him into a tight hug. "I don't even care why you're here, man. I'm just glad you got me the hell out of here. Assuming I can actually leave," Lance joked, letting Keith step out of his embrace. Tentatively, Lance moved towards the door, past his dirt-splotched kitchen counter and the blood seeping out of the entry wall.

One, two, three– and the fourth step was out of the threshold, into the hallway, and Lance started to hiccup.

"Fuck, that's embarrassing," he ran a hand down his face, dragging some blood from his hair onto it. Keith stepped out with him and anxiety clawed at his stomach, both tongue and mind failing in this moment.

"I'm not crying, I promise," Lance broke the silence again with a good-natured smirk. "I just... Man, I won't lie. After this week, I can't believe I'm let out of that fucking apartment."

"I didn't even know what I did," Keith admitted, turning to face Lance. "I literally just turned it open."

"Honestly, I'm not even curious to know," Lance laughed, leaning against the door frame. Everything seemed darker, somehow, and Keith wondered if a storm was rolling in. "Something something evil magic."

Scene 16.3: Lance shows him how the medallions have been keeping hauntings at bay, finally opens up about his dreams, and they piece together that the guy in the dreams is the guy Keith saw, the guy Lance saw killing Pidge, etc.

"Oh, okay, so here's a cool story," Lance slid his knapsack down his back. Keith and Kuro looked skeptically at each other as Lance squatted next to his bag, opening the fraying lid. Atop a jumble of metal pieces, hammers, health drinks and keys were several off-white candles. "I've been finding these candles around town and even one in my room, and it turns out, they like... un-haunt a place? I lit one to try to rid my apartment of eau de decaying flesh, and it straight up made the ghost go away."

"Was the ghost violent?" Kuro picked one one of the candles as he asked, turning the wax over in his hand. Keith reached for his own, but Lance swatted his hand away and snatched the one back from Kuro.

"Watch out, I need these things," Lance stood up, pulling the gray backpack onto his shoulder, his smile, as always, devil-may-care. "Not at all. Or, not yet, at least. He was just kind of annoying, always moaning and groaning."

"Shit," Keith ran a hand down his face, stopping to scratch at a scrape on his cheek. "I'm really glad we got you out of that apartment."

"Me too," Lance said, smile a little lopsided. He looked at Keith for a moment, just a moment, and then started walking down the main street. "At the very least, it's nice to stretch my legs! I've been cooped up in there forever."

"As if you haven't left," Keith pointed out sardonically, catching up to him. Kuro lagged behind but listened.

"All of that felt like a dream," and Lance turned to look Keith directly in the eye, blue so bright against the grey sky. "This– this feels real."

Scene 16.4: They leave to go back to Silent Hill together. By the time they get back, shit has gotten so much worse. Kuro is nowhere to be found, monsters are everywhere.

A laugh, a wipe of his tears and the messy, muddy blood again, and Lance stepped closer to Keith. "Wait– why and how did you get here?"

And at that Keith felt confidence flood through his veins. "Why isn't important. But how– I think you're gonna like how."

Lance quirked his brow, smile more curious than Keith's conniving grin. And without thinking about it, Keith grabbed Lance's hand in his own and tugged him down the dark hallway. 304, 306, 308 then past 320 and flying down the stairs. And even in his excitement, Keith still somehow noticed how well Lance's warm fingers slotted between his own and how Lance's pulse, distantly drumming through his palm, felt comforting.

And Keith wished he hadn't noticed, because he ripped away from Lance's like it were hot iron as soon as they had broken through South Ashfield Heights’ sticky front door. Now, his hand felt cold.

Lance was out of breath, and he seemed stunned into silence. Keith took the silence as a compliemnt, though, and stood between Lance and his object of desire. He beamed, eyes shining, and threw his left hand behind him. The baby blue Mustang stood out under the murky grey sky and dirty asphalt of South Ashfield– a perfect, juxtaposed frame for the car.

"Check it out," he said excitedly. "I found her today."

"You found it today and already got down here?" Lance said incredulously, running the math quickly in his head. "Holy fucking shit, dude. This is amazing!"

Laughter erupted out of Lance's chest, and the lanky man started hopping excitedly, running around the car and fiddling with every aspect. Antenna, side mirrors, door handles, paint– all were inspected by Lance's joy-filled eyes.

"I can't believe you found a car!" he said, fiddling with the passenger door handle. "And one that is this cool!"

"She drives beautifully, too," Keith said proudly, crossing his arms.

"Oh, I bet," and Lance suddenly went from animated to wistful, image painted in his mind of him and Keith driving through a sunny countryside with the windows down and music blaring.

Keith stepped a little closer to Lance and tried yet again to force his inexplicable nerves back into his stomach. But a flush painted his face before he spoke, and his beam faltered into a sincere small smile. "Um, if you want to drive us back, you can."

Lance whooped, crushing Keith in another too-tight hug before practically dropping him on the ground and sprinting to the driver's seat. He sing-songed to himself as he coasted around the car, "Oh hell yes fuck yes thank you thank you this is awesome."

Keith smiled to himself, and forced the squeaky passenger door open. He slid into the smooth light leather of the passenger seat. Lance gave him a toothy grin before he reached for the key– still in ignition– but instead of the tired engine turning over Keith was deafened with a resounding gunshot. His hands immediately flew to the side, one hitting the cloudy window and the other grazing Lance's arms. And Keith couldn't hear a thing or focus on anything for what felt like an eternity, and for just one second of that eternity, he thought Lance had shot him and he was dead.

But the world quickly came back into focus, Keith reeling and hitting his head on the stiff back of his chair. His voice refused to work for a moment, but he felt fury jump into his throat, and it wasn't until he saw blood seeping out of the stereo that Keith turned to look at Lance.

Though Lance's eyes were trained towards the end of the pistol and confident in his aim, the gun still seemed like an unwelcome attachment, a black tumor on Lance's white-knuckled grip. He was saying something, mouth moving slowly and it took Keith a moment to focus on what he was saying.

"I'm sorry Keith," Lance was speaking loudly, voice filling up the car and drowning Keith with its warm sincerity. "I'm sorry, I should have warned you. I just wasn't thinking."

"What the hell did you shoot at?" and Keith's own voice was foreign to his ears. The left one hurt a little bit, but he seemed to be able to hear out of both.

"There's no radio in here, right?" Keith nodded, confirming Lance's observation. He turned to look at the deep hole, where some sort of console must have lived, and instead saw blank, dead eyes of a tiny creature. Keith's feeling of unease intensified, foreboding crawling up the back of his neck. He realized Lance was still speaking. "I don't think it was too dangerous, it was so small but– I'm not taking any chances."

"I didn't even notice it on the drive down," Keith admitted, shifting in his seat and hunching onto his own knees. Lance stuck his hand into the radio abyss, pulling out some blood-soaked creature. Lance's bullet dropped down from inside it, and the taller man pocketed it in his front shirt pocket. Keith tried not to have too judgemental of an expression, but when a viscid, dark liquid started staining Lance's cuffs, he knew something had to be done.

"Are you just gonna keep holding hands with that thing?" he said, a little testy and a lot zesty. "I mean, you don't want any cuts or anything to get infected."

"Thanks Dr. Oz, but, it's been how many days? And I still haven't showered that first murdered chick's blood off of me yet," Lance said, his grin ever cavalier. "I'm not too concerned about radioactive bat blood."

"You think it's a... radioactive… bat." He raised his brows and his voice. Lance didn't answer at first, distracted with rolling down his window. And Keith didn't even notice, distracted and almost surprised by Lance's bicep filling out his sleeve with each turn.

Lance scrunched his face up at the squelching sound the creature made when it hit the asphalt, and Keith's attention was diverted back to the matter at hand. He hid his blush behind a cough, that turned into a laugh when Lance spoke: "Well, that's what I'm gonna tell myself. Maybe it'll turn me into Batman."

"I don't think that's how Batman like, happened," Keith barbed.

"Right, right," Lance nodded, wiping his hands on his jeans and reaching for the ignition. "Manbat then."

Keith laughed as the engine turned, and with a squeal of the tires and a holler from Lance, the two were on the open road. They were called back to Silent Hill.

Scene 16.5: They go to the pier. Kuro ain’t there, but they stand really close to each other and enjoy the last moment of peace.

“I betcha with the sun out, this place would actually be pretty beautiful,” Lance said, the wind off the lake blowing his hair back. He seemed to have taken time in his apartment to try and wash up– his face was cleaner, freckles revealed under the blood and dirt, and his hair wasn’t matted to his forehead.

Keith wished he could have a chance to rest up in that apartment. The hotel he was staying in didn’t have running water, and he could feel the weight of the last couple of days on his skin.

“It is really nice here,” he finally said, voice caught in the breeze that still somehow couldn’t move the fog. “When it’s not hell on earth.”

“Right, you said you and your brother used to come here,” Lance pushed himself off of the cold bar and stretched, looking down where Keith still leaned. It would never cease to amaze Keith how bright his blue eyes remained, no matter how dark the circles under them or the permanent, cavernous furrow in his brow.

“Yeah, every summer, actually,” Keith scratched at the stubble under his chin, only pausing when Lance leaned down on the yellow painted bar again, closer to Keith this time. Their shoulders brushed and Keith grinned when he saw Lance was blushing too.

“I came here once on a photography assignment,” Lance said, to the water as much to Keith. “I used to freelance, doing a little bit of everything. Silent Hill always kind of haunted me the most. I guess… I guess that makes sense, now that I’m essentially trapped here.”

“I remember once, Shiro and I carved our names in a tree here,” Keith chuckled, eyes roving the forest. “Takashi and Keith, kings of the forest. Maybe it’s why I’m here too.”

"Wait, your brother's name is Takashi?" Lance turned curiously, apprehensively.

And Keith stiffened under his stare. "Yeah?"

"He," Lance seemed to be putting pieces together in his head, and he pulled his bottom lip into his teeth as he thought. "He's not Takashi Shirogane, is he?"

"No, yeah," Keith nodded. "That's him."

"Holy shit," Lance ran a hand down his face, eyes wide.

"Do you know him?" Keith said.

"Do I know– The guy is my hero! He's one of the greatest war photographers– no, just photographers ever," Lance's mouth started moving a mile a minute. "He's the reason why I wanted to do photography! He's why I ever came to shoot Silent Hill in the first place, he's why I'm–"

And now Lance stopped short, and his blue eyes met Keith's dark ones, and the earth seemed to stop. Fog hung in the air, unmoving, and the constant sounds of shuffling monsters and staticky radio were silenced by this revelation. A spark of awareness, an electric understanding, and as soon as they could both feel the gravelly ground under them again, Keith finished Lance's sentence: "He's why I'm here."

"He called you here," Lance echoed their thoughts, and stepped closer to Keith, warm breath making puffs in the frigid air.

"He knew what was happening," Keith said slowly, brows furrowed. "But he's dead."

"Maybe," Lance swallowed, and looked towards the direction that Kuro left in. "Maybe not totally."

And when Keith gave him a tired, skeptical look, Lance flew into explanation mode.

"Look, not that I think he's your brother, or coming back to life. Just that... I mean, Kuro brought you here. He brought you to me," he took another step forward, coming within an arm's length of Keith, and his eyes flicked around Keith's face as he repeated softly, "He brought you to me."

"Lance, I don't understand," Keith said, shaking his head. He took a tentative step towards Lance, shoulders tense. Lance brought a hand up to his face, gently, and hooked a loose strand of hair behind his ear, focus intense and movements nervous.

"I don't either," Lance admitted, and he gently roped his arms around Keith’s shoulders, eyes quietly desperate.

Act III: Consecration

Scene 17: They go to the church again, and find it’s still the only place safe from monsters. They study the diary together.

Later, just Lance and Keith, and Lance is looking into the diary.

"This is really fucked up."

"What?"

"I don't know, this Lewis kid just... I think he's an orphan, but he keeps talking about father." "The Stone of the Father, some Father Church, the Holy Father, and then his actual father."

Keith peers over his shoulder. "The 21 Sacraments for the Descent of the Holy Father. That sounds... Ominous."

"Yeah. Yeah, this..." "Remember when we were talking about clues?"

"Yeah"

"I think this might be one." “the one.”

"What?"

"I don't know, just something about it..." "The 21 Sacraments sounds like a ritual. Oooooh, the Twenty One Sacraments. SpoooooooOOOooooky. And– oh my fucking holy shit."

"What."

"Twenty-one, Keith. Twenty one."

"Okay, yes?"

"Why does that sound familiar?"

"I don't know, Lance, tell me."

"Nyma and." Lance swallowed, and stared back down at the dog eared, yellowed pages. "And Hunk. 17121. 18121."

Keith nodded slowly, brows knitting together, as Lance kept talking. He started getting more animated, hitting the open pages of the book with his finger, marking every syllable. "Keith, twenty one. Those aren't– those aren't ones in the middle, they're slashes. He's counting down. 17 out of 21, 18 out of 21– whoever is killing them, is doing this ritual!"

"So this ritual... you think this Lewis Sullivan is... involved with the murders?" Keith

"He... He has to be, right?"

"Is he haunting the town too, then?"

"I don't know, but– holy shit, Keith. Keith. Look! Look at this, he's talking about Ashfield in here."

"What?"

"It's smudged. But it says. An important lady named Haggar came today. The important lady told me my father was asleep in Ashfield. I have a father! I'm so happy! I want to see my father."

"No fucking way."

"Keith. That's–"

"Yeah. Holy shit, Lance."

"And then, on the same page, he writes: the apartment where my father is has a scary guy in it. If I can just read the 21 Sacraments for the Holy Father thing, I can bring him there."

"That's... That has to be what's wrong with your apartment." And then, without warning, Keith began to laugh. He ran his hands through his tangled hair, and his next words were imbued with disbelief even as he continued to chuckle. "Holy shit. This guy is talking about your apartment."

"He has to be, right?" Lance slammed the diary shut and against his other palm, dust flying off of the back cover as he did. He stared at Keith, frustration of being so close to understanding clouding his eyes with milky blindness.

"And I guess the town, too," Keith continued his train of thought, voice questioning.

"I don't know, man. All I know is... We keep seeing 21, and I'm from Ashfield, and this Lewis Sullivan guy– he writes about both of those things." Lance rattled off everything they knew by this point, counting it down on his fingers. "Allura said the Druids were fucky. That they could be involved."

"Well," Keith shrugged, and laughed again. "This is involved."

Lance held up the diary, shaking it irreverently. "Oh, this is fucking involved."

"Okay. But." "Now what do we do?"

"I..." "I guess we find Lewis Sullivan."

Scene 17.2: They spend the day searching for monsters and Lewis; find nothing; go back to the church for the night.

Scene 18: But when they exit, they find Lotor standing outside with Allura’s body in his arms.

Scene 18.1: The possession of Keith; Lotor says he knows where to find them; Lance says he’s going back alone. Keith refuses. They kiss.

"Y-You're him" "Lewis Sullivan"

"As a child, I was"

"Who the hell is Lotor, then?"

“I am Steward to Valtiel.” He said slowly, and he started circling around himself, eyes trained upwards rather than at Lance or Keith. “Compatriot of Metatron.” He clasped his hands now, fingers catching frayed blue sleeves. “Worshipper of Zarkon.”

Suddenly, Lotor stared right at them, yellowed eyes flickering towards Keith and then settling on Lance. He smiled, teeth baring like fangs. “He who undertakes the Twenty One Sacraments will become Lotor, worthy servant of God.”

“Okay. Lewis, or Lotor or whoever." Keith raised his bat and narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out what to say. "Uh, stop."

Lotor took a moment, looking around as though confused. He tilted his head forward as he asked. "Stop?"

"Yeah.” Lance backed Keith up, waving the hand that wasn’t holding his gun. “Stop with the whole, uh… haunting thing."

"Hm. Remind me what number we're on again."

"What?"

"The murders. I believe that I have sacrificed the Reborn Mother–"

"Allura."

"And have no need yet for the Receiver of Wisdom." "So we're at Twenty, yes?"

They tense up.

"So. I have twenty. I have twenty one. But you… Are twenty two.” “There is no twenty two.” “Why are you here?"

"One step closer and there's a bullet through your head."

"Hm. You don't look familiar." "Then, there is no use for you, I suppose."

And he waves his hand, and suddenly Keith is collapsing, and vomiting up blood. Lance is at his side in a second.

"What did you do to him?!"

The sclera of Keith’s eyes started to cloud, webs of yellow blinding him and turning his frightened stare into a frightful glare.

Keith's eyes turn yellow. He's being possessed. Lotor laughs, disappears. Lance clutches on to Keith, who is clawing at him, and panics for a moment as keith begins to turn purple and yellow eyed. Like a Galra. Lance just grabs one of those medallions from earlier and forces it around Keith's neck. He slowly returns to normal, hands go straight for the necklace.

"D-Don't take that off." And Lance is still holding him tight.

"Lance" "Where did he go?"

"I don't know. He laughed and disappeared." "Are you okay?"

Keith spits out a little more blood. "I guess."

"I'm sorry."

"Lance" "What did he mean when he called you that?"

"What?"

"The Receiver of Wisdom."

"I... It’s part of the ritual."

“Wait–” Keith coughed, wracking his entire body with a new soreness. “He said he had no use for me. So."

The other man nodded, looking through the ground below him. He pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth, breaking the skin again. The air around them was truly silent, for the first time, and Lance seemed unwilling to break it.

Keith, however, didn’t want to wait. He pushed but his voice betrayed his worry, and cracked. "Lance."

"I know."

"Lance. He's... You–” Keith swallowed thickly. Something bitter coated his tongue, an unfamiliar acidity that contrasted the usual taste of blood. His voice shook, crumbling under the weight of realization. “You're one of them."

"The last one." Lance nodded. His voice was faint and his eyes were glassy. Keith almost wanted to smack him out of his own head, but just forced his hands into white-knuckled fists.

"What?"

"I found their... bible. I guess.” Lance reached into his stained backpack and tossed out a worn book, bound in rust-colored leather. It landed on the ground between them but neither made a move to pick it up. “In the Wish House. I’m 21 out of 21. The Receiver of the Wisdom of God."

"Jesus christ, Lance." And Keith didn’t think before he threw his arms around him, clutching onto him with intensity usually saved for battle. His dull nails dug into the fabric of his jacket.

"What are we going to do?" Lance whispered into Keith’s ear. He could barely hold back the emotions swimming under his words, cracking them like ice.

"We have to stop him." Keith breathed back. All of his confidence was held in those fragile words, shattered by Lance’s next breath of a thought.

“What if we can't?"

"Lance.” Keith pulled back, but his words of encouragement faltered when he saw his partner’s face again. It had completely fallen, eyes desperate and brows pulled together. He looked so scared.

"I don't." The taller man didn’t seem like he could find any words– speechless, for once. Keith almost wanted to laugh even in the face of his anguish. Lance finally looked up, focus returning. Without warning, tears slid out of his ocean eyes, leaving tracks in the dirt and blood. He was whimpering. "I don't want to die, Keith!”

Keith couldn’t think of anything to say other than a muttered "I know.” He started rubbing down Lance’s stained jacket, running down each vertebrae of his spine, but Lance pushed back and gripped his shoulders.

"And I don't want you to die, either! When he did that to you just now, I–" The clutch he had grew tighter and Keith winced. Lance bowed his head and his tears started staining the ground beneath him, mixing with dark purples and reds. "Keith, I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Nothing will." Keith said words he wasn’t sure he believed. His hands moved to Lance’s shoulders now, in a pastiche of a hug. Too distant to make either of them happy. "We'll stop him. I promise."

Lance’s eyes darted away from Keith again, and he was silent. It was a moment before he stood, and offered a hand to help the other man up. "I know where he is."

"What?" Keith recoiled as though the words had smacked him in the face. He took Lance’s hand cautiously, but left distance between them and crossed his arms.

"He's got to be back in the apartment.” Lance responded with a shrug. “That's where it... It's all going to happen, isn't it."

"No." Keith responded without thinking. He dropped his arms and used them to gesticulate. "I still can't see the holes I– I can't get back to the apartment."

"You could drive and meet me." Lance's voice was low, and he avoided Keith's gaze just as realization dawned on the shorter man's face. His mouth hung open for a moment, and he shook his head slowly, and then with more vigor.

"What the hell." Keith almost whispered, disbelief coloring his face like a purple shadow. "Are you thinking of going alone?"

"I..." Lance scratched at the stubble gracing his cheeks, blue eyes anywhere but on Keith, and for the second time he was at a loss for words.

As Lance stood frozen, Keith felt something incinerating within him. His arms exploded away from his body as his voice did out of his chest. "You can't do that! You'll die, Lance, he'll kill you!"

"Better to kill me than you!" Lance shot back, pointing first at himself and then Keith, passion dripping off of the words. His chest was heaving and Keith could see the glint of tears coating his eyes again. He almost wanted to reach over and wipe them away, or punch him in the face. Maybe both.

"But– oh my god, Lance, if he kills you he's won." Keith tried to be patient in his explanation, but Lance's stubborn pout pulled anger out of his bones. Adrenaline pumped through him and Keith balled his fists at his sides. "That's it. He's brought the apocalypse, why in god's–"

"No, no, you could still kill him and stop it!" Lance interrupted with a pathetic, phony smile, as if it would placate Keith. "There's more than just killing me to end the world, there's ritual and–"

"Lance, I am not letting you go back. Why? Why would you do that–"

"I can't let you die, Keith!" Lance interrupted with a new firmness. His head shook, and his eyes dared Keith to keep arguing with him.

"Why do you think I can watch you fucking waltz to your death?" As he talked, he could see something building up within Lance, a tsunami of emotion about to crack his ribcage open. Keith stepped closer, daring the dangerous waves. "I care about you, you asswipe!"

Lance didn't even take a breath before starting his screaming, taking a matching step towards Keith, His eyes were the brightest Keith had ever seen them. "Yeah, you wanna talk about care. You wanna talk about care? Well, I love you, Keith!"

Lance stopped, taking a shaky breath in. A honest smile cracked his face even as tears started to fall again from Lance's blue eyes. Rain calming stormy ocean waves. "I love you. I love you so much. I can't... I can't watch him do something like that to you again. I need to keep you safe."

Keith stood inches from Lance, mouth agape. He searched for something, anything, to say and breathed out an eloquent "What?"

Lance scoffed, first at Keith and then at himself, before his face fell into something more serious. "I need to keep you alive. I can't... I love you. I can't let you die."

Keith didn't respond for another moment, and the increasingly uncomfortable Lance filled the air with a low apology that the other man barely noted. "I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, I just... I figured this was the best chance I had to tell you, but–"

And without warning, Keith slammed his body against Lance's, wrapping his arms tightly around the other man's body and entwining his fingers through short brown hair. He's tugging Lance's face down and neither of them breathe before their lips meet and Keith is pulled out to sea.

Lance’s lips were chapped and he tasted like chocolate milk and morning breath and blood. Every move they made together jostled Keith’s bones and made him wince in pain, and Lance was holding him so tight he didn’t think he could breathe, and Keith didn’t think he had ever had a better moment in his life. He wished it would never end, but soon Lance pulled away and stared down at him, blue eyes wide. They were frightened, and tired, and there were crow’s feet gracing the corners that weren’t there three days ago and yet that was all second to the pure adoration pouring out from his eyes. Keith pulled him down for another deep kiss.

“Dammit.” He pulled back enough to spit out some words, and peppered kisses in between each one. Lance tried to keep up but Keith’s grip was firm and kisses desperate. “Dammit, Lance.” A kiss tinged with blood from Lance’s split lip. “I–” A kiss that tasted like incense. “I love you.” A kiss like fire. “You dumbass. I love you too.”

And Lance. Lance just laughed, in disbelief and in joy and in desperate adulation. “I get it. Okay, babe, I get it.” He said, smiling and speaking against Keith’s mouth. His words were quiet as if Keith were the only person in the world. “Just kiss me again, please.”

But Keith refused. He pulled back, hands weaving out of his hair and instead locking around his neck. He tried to school a seriousness onto his face, but Lance’s delight was infectious even in this world. “Lance… You don’t need to keep me safe.”

"Yes I–" Lance tried to fight back, but Keith interrupted with an honest and soft smile.

"We keep each other safe. You've got my back, I've got yours." He pulled Lance closer again, desperate to be near him. "We make a good team."

"I..."

"If you think I'm going to let you go to that apartment alone. You got another think coming."

A deep kiss. "Can we... Can we spend one more night here. I just..."

"Yeah. We need to rest up. Church?"

"Church"

And they cuddle, and bone, and cuddle some more, and when the red light of morning comes, they know it's time.

"We'll drive back together"

Scene 18.2: They go back into the church, sleep together. Spend one last night before they drive back to South Ashfield. Keith is not letting Lance go alone.

Scene 19: When they get there, it’s more fucked than anywhere yet. Ultimate Otherworld and Lotor’s playground.

Scene 19.1: As they wander through, Lance starts feeling . weird. He gave his only medallion to Keith— Possession is Coming.

Scene 19.2: They reach Lance’s apartment where Lotor is just chilling outside and everything is weird and bloody and Lance runs towards him swinging and yelling

"I am bringing back my father," he said, and his voice shook on each stilted word. "I am bringing him to life, giving myself to him, the god of a new world."

“You’re insane”

“And you are standing in the way of God” “He will have no mercy on you when he comes”

“He’s the one who will be needing mercy from me”

“That–”

“I know, did not sound as cool as I was intending”

“You can’t stop what has been started.”

“Well, I’m sure as hell not gonna sit back and watch it happen” And Keith had to admit that his fury here was actually pretty cool

Scene 19.3: And Lotor reaches out his hand and suddenly Lance’s eyes are yellow and Keith is like FUCK.

Scene 19.4: Lotor heads back into the apartment; Lance and Keith fight. Keith begs Lance to come back to him; when he doesn’t, he stabs to incapacitate, and goes in to take care of Lotor who’s already pulling some eldritch being from some pentacle or whatever.

Scene 19.5: IDK how, but Keith kills Lotor— “This is for Hunk, Pidge— Allura— this is for Shiro— this is for Lance.” The Power of Love cover by Air Supply plays in the background.

Scene 19.6: Once that’s all over and the dust has settled, things look normal, if red-tinted. Keith runs out to the hallway to find it normal— and empty. Lance is not there.

Scene 19.7: And when Keith runs to the front door of the apartment building, he finds himself exiting in Silent Hill. Weird magic shit, man.

Act IV: Go in Peace

Scene 20: Keith walks back to where he parked his car, in full view of the lake. There, he sees Kuro.

Scene 20.1: Basically Kuro implies that Shiro sent him, that he’s part of Shiro, that Shiro is gone etc. But that Shiro was the one to bring Keith here, to help him fight Lotor, and meet Lance.

Scene 20.2: Keith says goodbye to Kuro and lets go of Shiro, too.

Scene 21: Keith is standing at his car, saying goodbye to the town— still so foggy, but quiet like an early morning, breathing as though there are people alive within it (in a good way). He wonders what that all was, if any of it was real. He misses Lance, but just before he gets in his car, he hears a voice.

Scene 21.1: Lance’s body slams into his. They hold, they kiss, they both realize they saved the town and the world without even knowing what the hell was going on.

"Keith? Keith!" and he turns around, grey eyes sweeping over the grey sky and grey asphalt before landing on a vision in blue.

"Lance," he whispered. "Lance."

"Keith!" Lance yelled again, long legs sending him flying into the arms of the shorter man, and before Keith can even ask what he's doing or why he's here or how he's real, Lance is picking him off the ground and kissing him. Kissing him deeply and desperately and with everything in his heart, and after days of living in the realm of death, Keith felt warm and alive.

Scene 22: And with that, Keith asks where Lance is going, and Lance says he was about to ask him the same question. They smile and, holding hands, drive off into the sunrise.