{ Sorry for taking so long to get this up. These past few days have been hectic and I'm lucky to be posting today.

ALSO

SLIGHT NONCON WARNING! Keith has a nightmare/flashback in this chapter which some readers may find triggering! Read with caution, Loves! }

Keith smiled as Romelle snapped a picture of he and James. They were both wearing dressy clothes, shy but polite.

" I can't believe you both are going to homecoming." Romelle gushed, Keith ready to snatch the phone away from her to end the photo op.

" Please. I heard enough from Mom and Kolivan already." Keith told her.

" Me too." James chuckled, snaking a hand around Keith's waist. " Now... shall we, m'lady?"

Keith rolled his eyes and they walked out the door. Romelle waved them off. She hadn't been asked so she'd decided not to go, but she was still excited for her brother.

Keith hopped in James' car and the alpha got in the driver's seat. They'd already planned on going out to eat before homecoming and both boys were excited.

The omega had only been watching out the window until he felt James grab his hand. They had just pulled into the local pizza joint's parking lot together.

" I never thought you'd agree to go with me, Baby..." James chuckled. Keith had always hated dances or places with large gatherings of people.

" And why is that?" Keith asked with a playful scoff.

" Cause most of the time me crashing at your place and morning sex are enough to make you happy." James teased and Keith instantly turned bright red.

" We agreed not to talk about that!" He exclaimed in a flustered tone, then opened his car door.

Yeah... they'd been dating for a few months then, having become intimate enough for sex to happen regularly. They were both legal, after all.

James only laughed and followed after his omega, pulling him against his side as they walked into the pizza restaurant. There were already some other people from the senior class in there, but the couple didn't mind.

Keith had become pretty known among his classmates after hitting 5 million subs on YouTube.

They had pizza and everything, having many laughs along the way and Keith blushing the whole time. When they finished, James reached across the table and grabbed Keith's hand.

" Come on, Baby." He said, pulling him up from the booth. The alpha laid 2 twenties down on the table and they exited, Keith leaning his head on James' shoulder as they did.

It was a while later before they arrived at the high school and James opened the car door to let his omega out. He smirked and looked into Keith's practically purple eyes, leaning down. He was so beautiful.

" Can't wait to grind up on you in there..." James whispered and bit his lip.

Keith gulped and felt his cheeks heating up.

" Yeah? What after that?" The omega purred back. James helped him out of the car and held his hips, leaning into his neck.

" Maybe we pull my car out onto the lookout and have some fun in private?" James used a deep voice and Keith shivered while nodding. He knew he'd be taking him up on that.

Continuing inside, Keith felt content and was happy James had taken him. He wished things would stay like that forever, filled with love and trust.

But not all wishes came true.

...

Nothing had ever been more physically painful in his entire life, and there was no contest in that moment. Keith had pretty much gone limp. His eyes grew tired of crying because no one cared anyways, and his muscles found it useless to fight back or tense any longer. Resisting just made it hurt worse, which he'd figured out the hard way.

" See... I don't think you've earned me yet, Baby..." James purred and bit at Keith's ear. Keith was pressed with his stomach on the sheets and his wrists bound. He couldn't even see what had been shoved inside of him, though he knew it was too big and he wasn't near ready to take it.

Normally sex would've been a reward in James' mind, with he himself having such high thoughts on his own ability to please. And if it wasn't a reward, there was only one other thing that it possibly could've fallen under, and that was a punishment. Since Keith hadn't been good, instead of giving him his cock anyways, James had come up with something else.

Equally as rough but less taxing on himself.

Keith whimpered a bit as James drove it in again, going all the way to the base. He didn't know it then, but James had picked the largest dildo he could find, one that had a considerably sized knot at the bottom of it.

It stung like hell, like he was being ripped apart one cell at a time.

And Keith didn't even know how long it all went on for. At some point there had been vibration back there, and he couldn't even keep track of what James did to him for a while. It was like his brain had all but blocked out certain parts of it, creating memories which were just out of his reach. Others were set in stone and he knew he'd never forget the certain aspects.

It haunted him... it all haunted him.

...

Lance sat in the hospital room with Keith, holding his hand and still not having left his side. It was just he and Romelle left there with the omega. Pidge and Hunk had to leave to work on other issues after the second day, and Krolia and Kolivan were at Keith's house, keeping watch and taking care of Kosmo.

Keith had to remain at the hospital until the results of the exam came back, which could've been any moment at that point.

Lance was just in a whole different headspace than he'd ever been in before. He thought about everything that he knew happened, then everything he didn't know the answers to yet. For one: the whole world had seen his and Keith's nudes, and Keith hadn't even asked how someone had managed to get a hold of nude pictures of him. Keith hadn't asked anything.

If someone had nude pictures of Keith, Lance would've wanted to know the details of why and how- but oh right. James did and he knew about that.

There were just so many things that no one knew yet. Lance and Keith hadn't even addressed the scandal publicly, though there were rumors of Keith being in the hospital. Pidge and Hunk had kept their mouths shut about everything, and Shiro and Matt remained in the dark.

Keith had been sleeping until that moment, but he shot awake with his eyes bulging. He sucked in a deep breath and panicked, looking around the room and seeing Lance sitting there. He couldn't help but yank his hand back from his boyfriend's, not sure what was happening at first.

Romelle jumped and Lance realized Keith must've been having a nightmare.

" Shh... hey... you're okay. KitKat, we're right here." He assured and stood, and Keith's heart was still racing as he looked over at him. It took a minute before he came to terms with what was happening and realized that they were in the hospital and that James wasn't there.

Keith felt a single tear slip down his cheek and his lip quivered, and Lance watched him anxiously.

" L-..." Keith struggled. He closed his eyes and swallowed.

" Don't force it. I know you're scared." Lance leaned down and the omega wrapped his arms behind him. He could feel Keith's hands trembling even if only a little bit.

Keith nuzzled by Lance's neck and focused on his scent. Romelle carefully left the room, wanting to give the couple some privacy.

They stayed there in an embrace for a long time. That was until the door swung open with a knock. At first they thought it was just Romelle coming back, but Lance turned to see it was Keith's doctor.

" Mr. Kogane?" She asked, walking in with a clipboard.

Keith perked up when he heard his name and wiped his eyes. He nodded.

" We have your results back..." She began, and Lance stayed quiet but still held his omega's hand.

Keith waited for her to continue.

" The swabs from your skin and clothing tested positive for semen and we have DNA evidence, however... there was no semen or DNA from the anal swab we performed. There were signs of abuse and trauma but... there's no way that rape could've occurred without leaving a trace, even if there was a condom. I'm sorry, I'm not saying nothing happened, because clearly you were penetrated with something... but it was not a phallic member."

Keith sat there with beading eyes and Lance made a face.

" So you're saying he as covered in that asshole's seed and you can't prove he was raped?" The alpha growled.

" He was assaulted, we know that. We're not sure about what the object was. I'm sorry." The doctor said. " In the meantime, Keith, we're prescribing some mild pain medicine and discharging you. Expect to hear from us in a couple days to check on you."

She approached with a clipboard and handed it to Keith, who grabbed it.

" What's this?" Lance asked.

" Discharge paperwork. He has to sign before we release him."

Keith shakily picked up the pen that was attached to the clipboard and read the paper. He ran it over and signed his name, then handed it back.

Lance felt bad about being rude, but at the same time, he was angry. His poor omega had been through so much... couldn't even speak about what happened... and they wouldn't be able to file a rape charge.

" Don't cry, KitKat... we'll get through this." He whispered.

But then Lance remembered something. He didn't have his car. How was he supposed to get Keith home? It didn't seem like Keith would be able to handle some stranger in an Uber right then.

Romelle came back into the room, having heard the whole thing from the hall.

" Romelle, did you drive here on your own?" Lance asked.

" No. Mom drove me here." She replied, looking at Keith in a saddened way.

Lance looked back at Keith, then decided they'd have to call someone for a ride.

The first person he thought of was Pidge, but when hers went to voicemail and Hunk's rang out, he didn't know.

All he knew was that he needed to get Keith home.

...

" Matt!"

" You cannot be fucking serious."

" Do I look like I'm joking?!" Shiro whined and stayed back against the wall, and Matt deadpanned. His heat was on break, which meant they were over halfway finished with it. In the middle of heat, there was a time when the symptoms calmed down for a few hours.

But the thing was... he'd been on break all day. He was starting to wonder if it was coming back at all, but then he snapped back into reality.

There was a huge ass spider on the wall, which was apparently enough to make Shiro scream like a little girl and back to the very end of the room.

Matt shook his head and waltzed to the closet, pulling out a pair of Shiro's louffers. He took a shoe and stood on the bed, whacking the bug and splatting it on the wall.

Yep.

He was the one to kill bugs in the relationship.

Shiro would quake if he saw a spider, let alone had to kill one.

" Happy now, man baby?" Matt asked, tossing Shiro's shoe at him playfully.

" GROSS!" Shiro dodged it. " You little-"

He pulled Matt off the bed and into his arms, playfully angry at him.

Matt smirked.

" What are you gonna do?" He asked.

Shiro neared their faces and was about to say something clever when the phone rang. It was sitting on the nightstand, lighting up and showing Lance's contact.

They both wondered why Lance would be calling, since there was no way he would've known Matt was on break. As far as everyone else knew, Matt was still under Shiro with a knot up his a- ... yeah.

" Should I get that?" Shiro asked his fiancé. Matt scooted out from under him and nodded.

" Yeah, probably. I don't think he'd be calling right now if it wasn't about something important." The omega replied.

Shiro reached over and picked up the phone.

" Hello?"

" Shiro... hi. Are you... um-... busy right now?" Lance asked. He prayed that he hadn't interrupted their session.

" Not really. What's going on? Is something wrong?" Shiro questioned. Just from the tone in Lance's voice he could tell that something was off, and he had to say... after all the bullshit that had been going on recently... he was worried.

" We didn't call you guys since Matt's heat and everything is happening, but I've been in the hospital with Keith for the past few days..." Lance gulped. He had the feeling that Shiro was going to be outraged.

" What are you talking about? The hospital?!" Shiro exclaimed and covered his mouth. He hadn't been on his phone for days. When his omega went on heat, that didn't mean he had sex with him a couple times and then got a break afterward. It never really stopped at first. They barely had time for anything, let alone checking Twitter.

Lance realized that Shiro knew absolutely nothing about what went down, and that made his job all the much harder. It was like dropping a bomb over the phone. He explained what happened and stammered the whole time, and by the end of it, Shiro's phone looked like it might've crushed in half from the grip he had on it. It was like what happened when someone crushed a soda can on their forehead, but it didn't happen.

" Please, Shiro... I've called everyone else I can think of." Lance told him. But that wasn't quite true. He could've called Keith's mom and Kolivan, but he didn't want to if there was any other option. Being stuck in a car with the stepfather of his omega after the man had picked a fight with him wasn't something Lance trusted himself with. His temper was already at its end after everything, and he was willing to do whatever he could if it would avoid more conflict.

" I'll be there. Just me. Matt has to stay here for now." Shiro said. He was pissed yet worried about his brother after learning that he wasn't even talking. And plus... with Krolia in town, things had to be serious.

After hanging up with Lance, Shiro looked back to Matt and sighed. The omega had heard most of it over the phone. He would've gotten up and hugged Shiro, but walking was out of the question right then. Hell no. Matt was in the aftermath of having taken Shiro for so long.

" Keith will come around. They'll find James and it will all pass." He assured as Shiro collapsed on the bed.

" I fucking hope so." Shiro groaned. He knew he should've just beat the rapist out of James the last time he'd seen him.

Matt scooted by Shiro and held him, nuzzling closer. He kissed his cheek and hoped that the other wouldn't get himself in trouble.

Shiro let Matt calm him and tried to think logically. He had to shower, get dressed, and go be there for his brother. He would see Keith's mom and everything like that, and it would all be fine.

... 

When Shiro arrived at the hospital, Keith had been told to just wear the gown out. They obviously weren't going to give him the lingerie back and make him wear that out.

Keith leaned on Lance as they walked out. Thankfully he was capable of walking, only having a slight limp. He felt ashamed of himself, like even showing his face was embarrassing. James had managed to do whatever he wanted even in spite of Keith resisting, and that made him feel like a powerless human being.

Why even talk if no one would hear him and no one would listen?

Keith didn't even stray from Lance's side on the way to Shiro's ride, and Romelle walked awkwardly by Shiro. Of course she knew him, since he was a half sibling through adoption, but it sure had been a while.

Lance looked around himself in a paranoid way, ready to punch anyone who stepped foot near his omega. He got in the back of Shiro's sports car with Keith and had the smaller male curl up by his side.

Shiro had barely said a word the whole time, which was the opposite of what Lance was expecting.

" Let's get you home, Keith."

{ Okay but a few things
1) Shiro having a sports car works in this AU but feels weird to me after writing INE/TIE where he has a van
2) We stan Matt
3) I need to stop writing so mUCH ANGST }