Shklance - Despair
“SHIRO!” Keith stormed his way into their home, Shiro not even bothering to glance up from the book he was quickly thumbing through, his barbed tail flicking distractedly. Keith stepped in front of him, arms crossed in exasperation. "What’s with the new roommate?!”
“Oh yeah,” Shiro’s flicked up to meet the other’s, memorizing his page number before setting the book aside, “we got a new roommate. Surprise.”
“But why?” Keith pressed.
Shiro’s lips pursed. “Did you not see the guy? Poor kid’s desperate. It’ll be easy to feed off him. Plus, we’ve accidentally chased off our last four roommates. Hopefully Lance is desperate enough that no matter what we throw at him, he’ll stick around for a while longer.” Shiro eyed his lover. Keith was biting his lip, eyes averted, body language suggesting discomfort, which wasn’t unusual for him, but it was still… curious.
“I just thought-“ Keith broke off, spinning on his heel and huffing out a breath. Shiro teleported in front of him, grasping his upper arms tightly and preventing him from escaping. “Keith.” And in the face of his boyfriend’s quiet determination, Keith found himself spilling.
“He’s cute. And you’re right; he is desperate. It… it hurts.” Shiro’s face softened. Keith was still new to this, and while he usually didn’t let his emotions get the better of him, Shiro was glad to see that exceptions could still be made. It was good that he hadn’t lost this small spark of humanity. “Keith. You know we won’t let it get out of hand. Just a few small scares, doors slamming and crashes at night. That kind of thing. We wouldn’t ever hurt him.” Reluctantly, Keith nodded, closed his eyes briefly, offered Shiro a tremulous smile.
Shiro took a deep breath. They could do this, easy.
Lance didn’t understand it. He was just so clumsy. It had caused more than one problem with previous friends, roommates, and even lovers. Yet after maybe a week of small accidents, he hadn’t had a single problem. It was more obvious in the house. Those problems he usually caused, such as small fires, doorknobs breaking off, accidentally locking his keys in his house, etc., had yet to really trouble him. And interestingly enough, Shiro and Keith seemed to pay him more attention than really warranted that of a housemate, a third wheel. (He didn’t care what they said, they were absolutely in a relationship. And he didn’t know why they could possibly feel a need to lie about it.)
But even outside home, he’d never gone more than a couple of days without sustaining burns on his hands (and sometimes even elsewhere on his body, when he was especially clutzy and spilled coffee all down his front. School had even become hazardous to his health, before his new living arrangements. It wasn’t uncommon to have a near-death experience of some kind at least once a week. Lance knew it had really only been about he’d been living accident-free, but it didn’t dampen his optimism about the situation.
After all, you had to take the victories where you could get them, right?
Keith and Shiro could only stare in shock. How… the hell was this kid so fucking clumsy??? “…is he cursed???” Keith finally asked in amazement. Lance’s despair and misery had hit the point where they couldn’t even feed from him anymore; it was just making them sick. Keith couldn’t tell if that was cause it had become too much at once, or if it was just too… strong, but it was making life harder. And those few times in which Lance had felt like a winner, and they had felt a surge of triumph shoot through him, it had tasted… good. Better than his despair had. And wasn’t that the weird part? Demons normally fed on despair, yet somehow this kid had such strong emotions it was overwhelming, and his positive emotions were more nourishing than his fear. Shiro didn’t want to think about what that might mean. He forced himself to instead focus on what Keith had just asked.
“Maybe…? I wouldn’t… be surprised.” It had barely been over a week since Lance had come to live with them, and yet Shiro had never found a human who struggled as much as this one did. Though you couldn’t tell for talking to him. If Shiro and Keith weren’t demons, they probably would’ve been deceived by his bright and vibrant attitude. And Shiro knew that Keith found him attractive; they both had already established their interest in their young roommate. They were hoping to pull him into their relationship as their third lover, but Lance appeared uninterested. They knew this wasn’t true, but it was something they needed to work on.
Keith suddenly hissed and dug his nails into Shiro’s arm, just as the door rattled. Shiro saw a flash and realized Lance had left his keys in his room again. Shiro sighed, waving his arm to unlock the front door and let Lance in before he realized his streak of good luck was over. Keith rolled his eyes as they heard Lance talk to Red, Keith’s kitten. Despite his attempts to get Lance to stop training her “the wrong way”, Lance had continued to tell her all about his day. Shiro found it endearing.
“-and then the car completely swerved and didn’t even hit me! Can you believe that? I mean, I’ve only been hit a couple of times, usually they only graze me, but this one looked like it was dead set on hitting me and there was nothing I could do about it, and then it missed! Completely!” The laugh that followed was as bright as anything else Lance did, yet Keith and Shiro could only blink at each other in horror. Their boy had been hit by a car? Multiple times??? Shiro opened their link, ‘Did you pin a talisman to his bag?’
‘And sealed one to his person, in case he somehow managed to lose his bag.’
‘Good. He’s gonna need the extra protection.’
And Shiro was going to do his damnedest to figure out what was happening to Lance.
