Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(This takes place during the time that shiro was missing)

Keith hung his jacket on the coat rack by the door in his room and laid down on his bed, boots still on. He crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the industrial-looking castle ceiling and wondered, 'is shiro even alive?... how could he just disappear? he couldn't have-' Keith winced at his thoughts and turned over on his side, 'No... he's been captured by the galra or something- he'll make it out. He'll come back this time.'

Ever since shiro had gone missing, Keith couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't even think knowing that Shiro could be being tortured at that very moment.

The sound of keith’s door opening snapped the man awake from his thoughts, he sat up quickly to see Allura waiting by the entrance for an 'ok' to come in.

Keith only grunted in approval. He felt a coldness grip him as she walked inside. To him, it felt like an invasion of privacy, of his thoughts, and that had already made him unwilling to listen. Why couldn’t the rest of the team understand he wanted to be alone? Keith’s eyes studied allura’s movements as the girl warily stepped into the room, stepping over items Keith used to put in its place, but were now left, forgotten on the floor.

"I just- wanted to let you know that pidge and hunk have prepared a dinner for us. In honor of shiro.." allura started, Keith shot her a glare and she immediately realized her mistake.

"n-not assuming that he's dead of course just- that- we hope he comes back soon if- um.." the princess sighed, giving up on her attempt to talk with Keith and took a step back. "just... please come, you don't have to eat- everyone's been worried about you, and it’d be great to know you’re still apart of us even after all that’s happened." She lingered in the doorway for a moment, as if waiting for keith to pounce on her, but when such an attack didn’t come, she walked back down the hall, back to the dining area, where laughter could be heard.

Keith was angered by the very thought that anyone could be laughing at a time like this. how could anyone be happy? Their leader was gone, they couldn’t form voltron, nothing would be the same. Keith knew this was the beginning of him being all alone again. none the less, he decided to join the rest of the team. He admitted to himself, it would be nice to relax and try to escape his troubled mind, and who knew? maybe that’s just what everyone else was doing.
When Keith had arrived at the dining table everyone suddenly went silent. Keith narrowed his eyes and took the only empty seat beside Lance, who happened to be the only person on the ship he could say with his whole being he really couldn't care less for. Of course, that wasn’t really true, but from the banter Lance and Keith would engage in, Keith was sure Lance wasn’t very fond of him. Keith crossed his arms, and sat back in his seat. Then prolonged silence. No one knew what to say, who should speak first, if they should address Keith. As the quiet dragged on, Keith began to feel really really uncomfortable. Hunk glanced at Allura, who shrugged and diverted the gaze to Coran, who cleared his throat and began to speak about the castle. The tension immediately fell and the group sprung into commotion again, but that didn’t make Keith feel any less out of place. In fact, he felt worse.

Hunk and pidge exchanged a look when they realized that Keith wasn't talking- or really doing anything at all. Keith just sat there with his arms crossed, glaring down at the food in front of him with a scowl, as if it’d taunted his hunger, poking at his stomach.
Lance was digging into some sort of Altean styled meat when he turned to Keith, "want a piece?"
"I'm not hungry"
"But you haven't eaten since-"
"Since what?" Keith's voice was sharp, cutting through the conversations around them and drawing the attention of the group, daring Lance to finish his sentence.

Lance accepted this challenge and was quick to snap back, "since shiro went missing. It's not healthy for you to just refuse to eat, Here." Lance broke off a piece of food and slid it onto Keith's plate. "We're all worried about you, you know?" Lance murmured.

The second Lance touched Keith’s plate, Keith's hand darted to Lance’s and grasped his wrist with a tight hold. “I am sick and tired of people being telling me how they feel." Keith started, "and I especially don't need to hear anything from you-" The man squeezed Lance's wrist tightly, causing lance to wince. Keith had spoken quietly, but his voice had held such a threatening edge, such a point, that it could scratch a diamond.

"All you’ve ever done is mock me and now you wanna say that you're worried about me?!" Keith continued, his voice growing louder.

Pidge took notice of Keith's unbridled anger and tugged on his shirt sleeve. "Woah! hey, there's no need for-"

"Don't touch me!" Keith pulled his shoulder away from Pidge and raised his hand, the backside facing toward her cheek.

Everyone froze to stare at Keith, who's opposite hand still gripped lance's wrist so hard that it was turning pale. Keith looked around at everyone in the room, his breathing heavy.

He threw Lance’s hand down on the table and lowered his other hand from pidge's face, who was watching his movements with wide eyes.

"I'm going back to my room." Keith grumbled. Without making eye contact with anyone, he started on his way down the hall. Then he was gone.

Lance held back tears from having his hand gripped so hard, and thrown down on the table even harder. He watched after Keith with an unreadable expression in his eyes. Lance rubbed the sensitive skin on his wrist and examined the bruise Keith left, feeling his chest twist with hatred.

"Do you need something for that? An... what do you call it? An Ice pack?" Allura asked with concern.

Lance shook his head and stuffed his hand in his jacket pocket which had started to bleed from a cut that was created by the edge of the table. "No, I'm fine. Thank you, princess. I'm gonna- excuse me." He grabbed a handful of altean food from the table, edible beads of alien food that fit nicely in his pocket. Lance then quickly hurried out of the room after Keith. Allura wasn't exactly surprised that Keith reacted the way he did, In fact; Allura expected something like this, Keith seemed to always be on edge these days. She at least wanted to try and see if anyone could get through to him, it became clearer with each passing day that shiro was the only one in the group capable of calming keith down.

hunk's eyes trailed after Lance as he left. "If you don't mind, princess-" Hunk began.

“Of course. Go on." Allura flashed an innocent smile before glancing at pidge, wondering if she would go as well. The green paladin snapped out of her trance and grinned, "Nah, I'm staying here. So what were you saying about altean ears?"

(----)

Keith stomped down the hall, half dreading going back to his room alone, but not daring to go back to the dining area.

ever since Shiro’s disappearance he couldn’t figure out why he was so upset all the time. Every word he heard was like ice piercing his skin, and the mere mention of his friend hurt like a bitch.

"You look pissed, something on your mind?" Lance's voice came out apologetically, testing the waters. It made Keith stop in his tracks.

Keith turned slowly to face the blue paladin as he searched for words to say. He wanted to say he was sorry but it just wouldn’t come out. His eyes trailed Lance’s body and watched while the Lanky boy stuffed his pockets with his hands.

"hey look, I'm-" Keith started to speak but was silenced by Lance’s hand raising, telling him to stop.

"No, it's fine. I shouldn't have pushed you. You miss Shiro- we all do. But Keith, you can't keep reacting like this everytime his name is mentioned." Keith's eyes flashed as he caught sight of lance's bruise.

"What's that? Hey, let me see that-" Keith asked. Lance realized his mistake and tried to stuff his wrist back in his pocket, but Keith had already gotten a hold of it. Lance hissed as Keith inspected the wound on his wrist.

Keith’s eyes widened as he saw the mark he had made when gripping Lance’s hand, only to then slam Lance’s hand onto the table. “Lance... I'm so sorry I didn't mean to-" Keith started. Lance pulled his hand away while averting Keith's gaze.

Hunk, who was watching from behind a castle pillar, tried his hardest to make sure he didn't give himself away. From the angle he was watching them, he could only see the back of Lance’s head and a little bit of Keith's face. He didn't really like spying on his friends, but he felt an underlying tension between the two the moment they left the table. He had followed them to make sure they wouldn't strangle each other whilst the others were eating.

"It's not like this is the first time you've hurt people in your anger- you don't need to act so concerned." Lance narrowed his eyes at the ground, demeanor suddenly changing as his fingers fiddled with the lint in his pockets.
"I'm not acting!-"
"No need to be defensive either." The Cuban man sighed in frustration.
"Look, I won't force you to come back but just- here." Lance held out the beads he'd grabbed from earlier in his opposite hand. Keith took a step forward and hesitantly grabbed a few from him.

"Thanks..." Keith muttered softly, refusing to look up at Lance. He couldn’t look up at Lance, he’d already felt guilty enough for hurting his friend, but seeing the wave of anger in those blue eyes? Keith didn’t have the heart to face that just then.

Lance shrugged in reply, turning to go back to the dining area.

a tug to his jacket pulled Lance’s body back and he whipped his head over his shoulder to see Keith, holding the fabric of his sleeve. Keith, who was looking down at the ground, eventually brought his eyes up to meet Lance’s with a glint of pain and hung his mouth open for a few moments. He had to pick the right words. He didn’t want to piss lance off, it seemed they easily got on the other’s nerve, but that was never keith’s intent.

Keith took a breath, he searched through all the words that he could possibly come up with to make it up to Lance but, nothing. How could he come up with anything when Lance was looking at him like that? Shoulders hunched defensively, eyes narrowed, muscles tense, nothing about that screamed Lance was in the mood for any poorly worded speech Keith could possible whip up in that short amount of time. So he decided short and simple was the best way to go, though, he might have wasted a lot of time in his process of deciding this, because Lance seemed like he was getting impatient.

"Im sorry." Keith finally mumbled, letting go of lance's jacket and returning his gaze back at the ground, his hair falling over his hazel irises.

Keith waited a couple seconds in the deafening silence before darting back to his room. Not seeing any point in hanging around much longer

Lance snickered to himself.

"cute." He spun around expecting to see the same hallway he came from, but instead, he was face to face with his best friend, Hunk, who was staring back at him with a rather unusual smile.

"What's cute?" Hunk asked, a look of confusion and curiosity on his face. He couldn’t make out much of the words from what the two were saying to each other from behind the pillar so he just watched. Lance leaped back in shock at the sight of his friend.

"What?! PSSSH nothing! I was— thinking about Allura." Lance stuttered.

"Lance, you don't need to overcompensate. We know you're-" hunk began.

”HAHAHA YOU’RE SO FUNNY SHUT UP AND DON’T FINISH THAT SENTENCE.”

"Alright Lance, come on. let's go back to the table."

"...yeah." Lance took a final glance in the direction Keith had headed off in and then followed after hunk.

(----)

The next day Keith stayed in his room again. The rest of the group sat in the lounge. Having decided that one of them had to talk sense into Keith, they began to bicker amongst each other of who should be the one to confront him.

"We need to find a new black paladin, and we need Keith to fly his lion or we'll never be able to form voltron. he can't stay in his room forever!" Allura argued.

Pidge's eyes were cold when she replied, "It won't be forever! Just until shiro get's back-"

"We also have to accept the fact that... Shiro might not come back." Hunk said with a frown. The room was swept over with silence.

Coran shared a look with Hunk. he didn't expect him to be the first to throw that idea, but then again... it was true. Someone had to say it.

Lance stood, but didn't look to any of their faces. "I- I think Pidge should talk to him." Pidge jumped up, "what?! Why me? I barely ever talk to him, in fact other than shiro, you were the one who talked to him the most, what with all your bickering!"
"Exactly! Which is why he wouldn't be too happy if I was the one who went to cheer him up! heck— he'd probably kill me!"

Hunk put a hand on Lance's shoulder, an austere expression on his face. "Listen Lance, right now, I think you're the only one he'll listen to. He'll just shove the rest of us away but for you... he's too busy keeping his 'I hate you front' to actually hate you right now. You’re a safe spot for him to be ‘normal’ since he doesn’t have to expect anything nice coming from you.” “What’s that supposed to mean?!” Lance scoffed. Hunk rolled his eyes. “With the rest of us, Keith hasn’t made much of an impression, and he wouldn’t want to ruin that impression with vulnerability. However, you and Keith have an established relationship of fake-hating each other, he’s not gonna worry about what you think of him cause he already knows what you think. Am I making sense?”

Lance contemplated this thought before looking to the rest of the group. They all nodded their heads.

'Ugh when did Hunk become Shiro?' The blue paladin thought.

"Please Lance, we need to find a new black paladin, we can't do that without Keith." Allura pleaded.

Lance closed his eyes and straightened out his back. "Alright fine- geez." Putting his hands up in defeat, Lance took a step out of the room, giving a final glance at his fellow paladins before heading down the confusing twists and turns of the castle.

After a while, Lance almost begun to think he got lost, every part of the castle looked the same to him.
But after a few sharp turns he was able to detect where he was.

Finally, he made it to Keith's door. Lance took a breath. 'alright Lance. Just cheer him up and be done with it. I can do this.' He thought. Lance knocked on the door and waited for it to open

...

.......

..............

Lance knocked again.

...

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..........

’Welp he's not in there time to-' the sound of the door opening interrupted Lance's thought and he groaned internally. ‘Damn it Keith- why??'

Lance walked into Keith’s room and took surveyed the room. Keith's jacket was hanging on a coat rack to the right of lance. Keith was on the bed holding his Galra knife in his hand- not looking up at lance. Lance sighed and sat beside him, hands awkwardly placed on his knees.

"Hey man... listen... I know you miss Shiro-"
Keith gritted his teeth with cold eyes. "feels like I'm the only one who does."
"But you can't let this be the reason you give up- you're a paladin of voltron."
"You think I don't know that?!" Keith sat up and glared at Lance, who jumped in surprise at his sudden outburst. Keith's eyes softened and he looked back at his dagger. "Back on Earth, I was alone. no family, no friends, I had nobody who actually cared about me. But Shiro? he was always there for me, Especially when I really needed it."

Lance felt a slight pain in his chest, Shiro was the only one? No one else? He clenched his fist on his knee in guilt. 'and I helped him think that...'

Keith sheathed his blade and sighed. "And now he's gone... he's not coming back... is he?" The red paladin looked up at Lance with pitiful eyes, making his heart lurch.

"I can't say for sure, but the team can't afford to lose another member." Lance said, putting his hand on Keith's.

...

.....

"What are you-"

"SORRY-SORRY! I WAS JUST!-" Lance pulled his hand away lightning fast, his face hot with embarrassment.

"It's fine, Lance." Keith laughed to himself softly and scratched the back of his head. "I just miss him... I- really liked him..." Keith's eyes flashed with a hint of something Lance didn't catch after that line. "I don't know why I'm telling you this." He looked up at lance, half expecting the boy to mock or make fun of him.

Lance felt a sharp needle through his heart. “Damn. Well if we're sharing secrets I guess I should tell you that I'm-"

"Bi? I know. Everyone does." Keith finished his sentence, the blue paladin's face turned red again. 'Of course he already knew- stupid stupid stupid!'

Lance simply nodded his head and looked back at the floor, He tucked a bit of hair behind his ear. "...we need to find a new black paladin."

Keith's face twisted in shock as anger flashed in his eyes. "What? No it-it's too soon-"
"Keith."

Keith’s violet eyes shut tightly and tears began to form. Keith wiped them away before they could run down his cheeks and he sniffed. "Right. You're Right, we-We need to do that."

(Basically picks up with the end of season 3. AND NOW THE STORY TAKES A COMPLETE TURN)

Hunk stood in the kitchen preparing food for a diplomatic meeting with the next planet they had freed from the galra's control while Pidge sat on the counter to his right.
"Do you think Matt is eating right now? What if he's starving? What if he's over eating? Oh no my stomach is turning..."

Hunk let out a sigh and crossed his arms. "Pidge relax, by the looks of the footage you found in that Galra base I’m sure Matt is just fine."
"But what if he isn't?"
"Then you'll find him."
"But what if I don't!?"
"But what if you do?" Hunk said with a hint of annoyance in his tone.

He put the last tray into the oven and set a timer for 10 minutes. "You'll find him Pidge- I know you will."

Pidge nodded with a steady look of uncertainty, jumping off the counter she decided to explore the castle more.

Allura sighed heavily and slouched into her chair. 'might as well sit like this now before they get he-'

"Miss Allura?" A nasally voice made the altean jump straight up in her chair.

She looked up to see the 7 ft. Jutin king of the yumtee empire— the civilization she was to meet and ask to join their coalition.

"Yes of course! I'm so sorry, please sit. The food will be ready shortly and then we can discuss the more important matters." The king nodded hesitantly, he urged his 2 guards to sit beside him.

Usually Allura would ask to meet with several leaders at once but the king had requested to meet with Allura one-on-one. She sighed as the alien picked up the altean equivalent of a fork and examined it throughly- placing it on his shoulder. Allura groaned slightly, 'I hope lance and Keith are having better luck then me right now.'

"Watch it you're gonna get us both killed!" Keith yelled at the new red paladin as he dodged an attack from the training guardian he was fighting. “You're the one who's gonna get us killed if you don't shut up and focus on yourself!” Lance retorted. "You little-!" A loud beep rang out filling each corner of the training area, making Keith and lance cover their ears.

"you need to learn to work together!" Coran's voice spoke over a speaker above the boy's heads.
"But it wasn't my faul-" Keith started, but was Interrupted by the sound of the training guardians starting up once more. "Oh quiznak..." the paladin's groaned in sync.

(----)

When the day was over, everyone (except for Pidge and Coran) sat tiredly in the lounge with a loud 'thump' which was slightly dusty from not having been used in a long time.

"Why can't we just go to Lotor and take him out now?" Keith muttered, sweat visible on his forehead.

"Because we aren't ready, that would mean certain doom if we rushed in there without a plan or proper training- how have you two still not been able to get along?" Allura answered, narrowed eyebrows mirroring the same annoyed look that flared in her eyes.

"Well don't look at me! Blame hothead over here" Lance said in a hushed voice.
"I heard that" Keith rebutted.
"Good!"
"FINE!"
"ALRIGHT THEN!"

"ENOUGH!" Everyone screamed in unison besides Lance and Keith.

The two crossed their arms and turned away from each other.

"Clearly we can't move forward unless you too start getting along. so from now on-" The white-haired Altean stood and pointed a finger at them. "You two will be staying in the same room. Keith's."

The dark-skinned boy was now looking at her in shock- the expression copied onto Keith. "Wh-hey now, I didn't give you permission to-"
"It's my castle and my rules. You brought this upon yourselves. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go lock Lance’s room door."

"Hey wait but my phone's in there!" Lance protested, jumping over the back of the couch to chase after Allura. "Good, you can talk to Keith instead of taking pictures of yourself." Allura rebutted as the door shut behind her, trapping Lance on the other side, helpless to stop the girl from forcing friendship onto him with Keith. Lance looked down at the ground, completely devastated as Keith snickered.

"Oh shut up, mullet." Lance hissed.
"That insult is getting old." Keith shot back.
"Not as old as your hairstyle."

"I think it's time we all go to our rooms and get some rest, Mine is right next to Keith's so you two better zip it." Pidge growled before turning and walking through the main entrance to the hallways, leading to the other rooms of the castle.

"Yeah I think I'm gonna clock out too. Coran?" Hunk asked, stretching out his back. Coran nodded in agreement and walked away with Hunk, leaving Keith and Lance in silence.

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.......

..........

...….………

"Are you tired?" Keith asked after a long period of silence.
"No. Are you?" Lance replied, cocking an eyebrow.
"Nope."

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.........

…………

Tension between the paladin's started to grow with each passing moment as they both grasped at straws for something to say.

Finally, Keith stood without a word and began making his way to his room, leaving Lance tripping after him.
"Hey! wait up, Keith!"
Keith only grunted in response. He opened his door and walked into the familiar space, following his usual routine of taking off his jacket and hanging it on the coat rack to the right of him. Lance inspected the room, the same way he had the night before. Now he could see there was not too much decoration, but then again, who had time for that? Lance’s eyes shifted toward the unkept bed. ’Ugh. It's such a tight space.'

When he walked in, the bed was in the back towards the left, on the right were a couple of boxes filled with clothes and other accessories. There was also what seemed to be a dresser beside the bed.

Lance walked over to the bed and started fixing it, making it neater and folding the sheets as they should be.

"What are you doing?" Keith said in a low growl as he put a hand on his hip, His eyes trailing Lance's swift movements on the bed, his bed. Lance’s body was spread across the entire width as he reached for the corners and For a moment, Keith felt his heart skip a beat—but his expression held nothing but a hostile curiosity.

The younger teen rolled his eyes, "what do you think I'm doing? I'm making the bed. Why do you keep it such a mess?" He muttered the last part under his breath.
"Whats the point of cleaning it if I'm just gonna mess it up again later? Besides..." Keith sat on the covers right as Lance finished making them. "I wasn't expecting guests." He said with a hiss.

The Cuban glared at Keith for a moment before grabbing a pillow and throwing it as hard as he could at Keith, unknowing that it was filled with feathers like old fashioned pillows. Keith's face scrunched as the cloth hit his features.

Keith didn't seem upset though, in fact, he smiled. A genuine smile, stretched to the sides of his cheeks. It was so pure and innocent. To Lance, it almost seemed to glow against his pale skin. He didn't expect a look like that at all. Before he could admire Keith more, he was hit with the force of a pillow.

For a while, both of the boys were giggling and laughing as they pelted each other— it was fun...

...until one of the pillows burst.

Feathers flew around the two as they stared at one another in silence.

"That was your pillow." Lance said, grabbing Keith's out of his palms and jumping to lie down on the bed which was now covered in feathers, one of which, fell on the boy's nose making him sneeze, light and high-pitched like a tiny animal's.

He lay back on the bed beside Lance, huffing as he caught his breath. He didn't realize how tired he was- from training to the pillow fight he was ready to just close his eyes and fall asleep right there, He let his body relax and felt himself close to losing consciousness.

It was silent until he heard the sound of a zipper being pulled down beside him.

Keith’s eyes shot open but the rest of his body was frozen in place, his pupils followed the noise as Lance began to undress. It was clear that being in the same room was going to be very difficult for these two to accomplish.

Keith sat up swiftly in shock. "woah woah woah! What are you doing?"

Lance raised an eyebrow, "um...getting ready for bed. What are you doing?"
"You sleep without pants on?!"
"without pants and without socks." Lance corrected, not making Keith feel anymore comfortable with the situation.
He actively tried to avert his gaze from Lance's body and focus only on his face but somehow... that felt wrong too. Everything about this situation was wrong.

Then Lance spoke, "You sleep in the clothes you wear all day?"

Keith bit his tongue. "of course I don't! But I mean- warn me. next time." He got off the bed and made his way to a box which he'd shoved into the corner of the room upon the first time of arriving to the castle.

Inside were clothes stolen from the space mall they had gone to. He shuffled around in the box, simultaneously pulling off his belt. He did have a dresser, but he'd been too lazy to put any of his clothes inside of it. The black paladin's eyes shot back at Lance to see if he was watching him undress, but Lance already seemed fast asleep. Keith sighed and changed into loose grey pants and a white shirt much too big for his body, The right sleeve hanging off his shoulder. He turned off the light and reluctantly, the smaller male climbed into bed beside Lance, his movements slow and deliberate as to not wake the other.

Keith swiveled under the covers and pulled the blanket over him. Lance's eyes shot open, and he pulled the blanket back. Keith growled, and soon there was a full tug-of-war occurring for the blanket.

"Lance you're such a bed-hog!" Keith hissed.
"I am not! You're just used to sleeping alone so you get to sprawl out like a pig!"
"Well at least I don't smell like one!"
"Nuh-uh! You smell like a pig!"

Eventually they both became tired and gave up, the blanket resting evenly on both males. The entire fight was completely pointless. Surviving this was going to be difficult.

Chapter Text

What had Keith done to get into this mess?

There he was, soaking wet as the blue paladin's laughter filled the warm, humid air around him. Lance's laugher was then suddenly cut off by a sneeze.

While plans were being made between Shiro, Allura, and Coran on how to defeat Lotor, The rest of the paladin's had decided to stop on one of the newly galra-free planets that was much like earth. They'd landed far from the planet's Inhabitants in order to not disturb them. The light buzzing of bugs made Keith feel uneasy as the group settled down beside a pond not far off from the castle. Light from the sun peaked out between the spaces in the leaves and landed gently on the water, smelling of sweet honey and dampened flowers. The water was a clear blue-green as there seemed to be no pollution from the surrounding civilization. It was truly a beautiful sight to see. The trees even resembled the Earth’s palm trees, leaves swaying gently in the tropical winds.

"Remind me why we can't stop at a planet without any bugs?" Keith groaned, swatting away at the planet's version of a mosquito as it tried to bite his neck. No one gave him an answer.

The red paladin was more on edge then usual. Keith was frustrated that Shiro suggested Keith join the others in taking a quick break. Keith had protested but soon agreed, he hadn't been leader for that long so he wasn’t sure if he was ready to contribute to the plans in the first place.

Lance set down the bags he was carrying which contained snacks, sunscreen, a towel, and everything else they needed for a picnic by the pond.

Keith remembered Pidge commenting 'how gay' when Lance threw the idea, who had just came out as bisexual the day before. Apparently, rooming with Keith made him realize he should be more honest with himself and others... But really, he just couldn't stand the fact that everyone already knew and he wanted to tell them himself.

"It'll be fun I promise." Lance protested as Keith raised an eyebrow.

Unanimously, they decided they needed the break. Everyone had come in their swim clothes except for Pidge and Lance. Pidge complained that the water would splash on her computers, The computers which she used to focus every second of her free time to search for her brother, Matt, and her father, Sam. Lance wanted to go swimming, but he came in swim trunks and a T-shirt.

Lance always liked swimming, he actually found it one of the most relaxing activities, but ever since the incident of the explosion with Coran, he'd refused to do anything that would require his shirt to possibly come off, however, he really wanted to go swimming, so that’s what led to his wearing a T-shirt to swim.

"I'll watch you guys from over here though." Pidge smiled to them as she fixed her glasses.

Lance felt the water with his foot and a shiver ran up his spine.

"Its cold!" Lance complained.

Hunk had climbed a cliff that over looked the water. "of course it's cold! Why would it be warm?" He called out as he cannonballed into the water; Pidge yelped in anger at him as the water almost hit her computer.

Keith dipped his feet in after Lance, hissing at the water dancing between his toes, along with multiple, tiny, alien fish, Who took it upon themselves to brush up against Keith’s ankle and make him feel increasingly more uncomfortable.

Lance slipped in enough so that the water had gotten up to his chest. "oh you know what, this is kinda nice. You just gotta go in all at once you know?"

He stuck his head under water and came up a few seconds later, visibly shivering. "S-see? Nothing t-to it."

By the time Lance and Hunk had gotten used to the water, Keith was only knee deep in.

Keith rolled his eyes as Lance waved to him. "come on Keith, by the time you get in, we'll be ready to get out!"

"I plan on not torturing myself like you did." Keith said, crossing his arms whilst narrowing his eyes.

"Aww boo."

Keith looked over at Hunk, understanding him as the one who spoke. The man was floating buoyantly on his back.

"Keith~" Lance voice's rang in Keith's ear, becoming higher in pitch at the end of the pronunciation of Keith's name.

"What?"
"Get in the water."
"no."
"Get in the water!"
"No!"
"KEITH!"
"LANCE!"

Lance held up his fist and rested his other hand on his hip, a devious smile plastered on his features.

"One." He put a finger up.

Keith continued to stare at him with his arms crossed.

"Two." Another finger rose.

Keith glared harder. "I swear to god Lance, you better not do anything or I'll-"

"Three!" Lance pulled Keith into the water suddenly causing Keith to let out a yelp of surprise.

Oh... right... that's how he got into this mess..

There Keith was, soaking wet as the blue paladin's laughter filled the humid, warm air around him. Lance's laughter was then cut off by a sneeze.

Keith sat up in the water, He felt his ears grow hot with anger. Keith looked over to his side—trying to find Lance, who had hit his head on the ground when they fell back; But when he turned around, Lance wasn't anywhere behind him. Keith opened his mouth slightly in confusion. 'he couldn't have just disa-'

"Boo!" From the side, Lance grabbed Keith's arms and pulled him even further into the water.

Keith let out wild screams that were no where near what was expected of a paladin of Voltron. The water was so so cold, Keith hated the cold. Hunk and Pidge couldn't stop laughing as Keith spun around and pushed Lance down into the water.

"I swear Lance, I'm gonna drown you!" He shouted playfully.

Lance pulled himself up from the water and took a big gasp of air, "Ok ok I'm sorry I'm sorry! But... let me ask you this. Are you cold?"

Keith's face melted from anger to shock. His cheeks turned red from embarrassment ‘Till he narrowed his eyes again.

"That doesn't matter! You pulled me into the water without my consent!" The pale boy wrapped his fingers on lance's shoulders as he started pushing him down again.

"I gave you more then enough warning-" Lance said as he gripped Keith's hair in his hands.

"What you gave me was only one option!"

The playful glint in their eyes were gone and the two were back to their usual bickering. Pidge rolled her eyes while she plugged in her earphones and Hunk groaned and submerged under the water.

The two seemed to fight endlessly- no matter what it was about. They fought over shows, they fought over food, they fought over the reason that they fight but in the end, they always knew not to take the arguing too seriously between each other.

After a few more minutes of bickering, Lance stopped, erupting with laughter.

Keith seemed confused at first, but couldn't help laughing along.

Keith stood in the water and ran a few fingers through his dark hair, holding out a hand for Lance. The blue paladin accepted the offer and used Keith's hand to pull himself to his feet. One thing was for sure, It seemed that after they would fight, they came out with a deepened sort of mutual respect for each other.

Pidge and Hunk saw this and sighed in sync. Keith and Lance were definitely an odd pair, but no one, not even them, could deny they worked well together, As a team.

From afar, the group could hear Coran calling for them. Though they were all sad to have to leave so early, evident in their multiple groans, they stretched out their legs and got ready to pack up and leave.

"Welp. Looks like duty calls." Lance said with closed eyes, accompanied by a wide smirk.

"You think they came up with a plan already?" Hunk asked, pulling his shirt over his head.

Keith turned to face the castle with crossed arms, "I don't know, but we should get there as soon as we can. Get your shit and let's go."

Once they made it back to the castle, Coran's face lit up. "Ah! Paladins! There you are! Where were you? I called for you 5 Vargas ago!"

Keith rolled his eyes and rested his body against a nearby wall. His hair stood flat against his neck, still dripping wet from going through the mandated quarantine that washed their bodies of any diseases or infections that could have arose from swimming in alien waters. "it hasn't been 5 Vargas."

Lance put a hand on his hip and groaned. "it was an exaggeration." Lance's face scrunched up as he prepared to sneeze again.

"Ok, but it still wasn’t five Vargas."

"*sneeze* do you not get what an exaggera-"

"Would you two be quiet for one second?!" Pidge yelled. The girl pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration and turned to Coran again, nodding for him to continue.

Coran cleared his throat with a fist to his mouth. "Right! Well... The plan we have right now has many moving parts to it. it won't be like last time since Lotor wanted the comet, and now he has a ship, but we're not exactly sure what for."

Hunk scratched his head. "Hey guys- I don't want to freak anyone out but what if... what if he's trying to build his own Voltron?"

Everyone was silent for a moment as they pondered the dark thought.
Keith couldn't help but side glance at Lance to see how he was taking this.

Lance clenched his fists, staring intently at the ground, As if waiting for the floor to speak to him and ease his troubled mind. Pidge exchanged a look with Shiro, who raised an eyebrow to Allura.

"Impossible.” Coran started, “He'd have to know how the lions were made or at the very least- some knowledge of how they work." Coran twirled his mustache. His voice was firm, but his eyes held a steady uncertainty.

Zarkon had seen the plans for the lions- if Lotor was somehow able to get that information, it would mean big trouble.

The paladins remained silent once again, the possibility sinking in. Allura stepped forward and motioned with her hand to the right—a flash of blue glittered in the groups eyes and a hologram appeared of the galra's main ship.

"Lotor has taken over for Zarkon, which means the main ship he uses should still be the same. We've gotten in before so we'll have some idea of the layout."

Shiro spoke next, hands on his hips. "The first thing we need to do is find out what Lotor is planning. We can't keep being surprised."

"So what you're saying is: go over to his ship, spy a bit, learn what he's planning, destroy the ship with a BLAM POW, and crush the Galra Empire!" Lance said excitedly with a pointed finger to his chin, clearly proud of his deductive abilities. “Then we’ll get some sweet dates with some hot ladies~”

"No." Shiro said plainly.

Lance groaned, his head hanging down.

"Not yet anyway, Pidge is the only one with cloaking on her ship- so she'd have the easiest chance of getting in and out, but she can't face the Galra by herself. Do you think you can put cloaking on the rest of the Lions?" Shiro turned his attention towards Pidge- who was still holding her laptop and typing swiftly on it.

Pidge looked up and smiled, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "It's going to take a few days for me to make the modifications, maybe a week. I need to make sure that not only will we be cloaked- but that heat sensors can't pick us up either. I'll need a few more materials. I'd like to take Hunk with me to get them if that's alright."

Allura nodded. "Whatever you have to do. In the meantime, the rest of us need to train and be prepared for anything. Lance, Keith, and I should try and build a stronger bond with our lions since we’ve all gone through a recent switch."

"And while you're off doing that I'll work with Shiro on the castle's defenses." Coran smiled.

"Alright then, let's get to work team." Shiro rotated to the control panel while Hunk and Pidge ran off to their lions.

Allura, Keith, and Lance looked uncertain at each other. Keith excused himself from the two for a moment and made his way to the former leader of voltron, Shiro. He held his arm nervously before speaking. "Shiro- I don't want to build a closer bond with the black lion. You're the leader—way better then I'll ever be—I'm not going to take black away from you."

Shiro's eyes were slits but there was no anger in his tone when he replied. "You’re the leader now, Keith. The black lion chose you, and from what I heard- even Lance accepts that fact. Trust me, this is for the best." Shiro put a hand on Keith's shoulder and he was suddenly reminded of how Lance had done that when Keith doubted himself... But it didn't feel right. Part of him wanted to shove Shiro’s hand off his shoulder, but he stood frozen in place.

Keith bit his lip, his eyes holding a fiery gaze. "But I don't WANT to be chosen. I don't WANT this, please, can’t you try to-"

Shiro put a hand up as if to say enough.

Keith searched Shiro's eyes for any signs of hesitation or regret, but he found nothing. He wanted answers from those eyes, wanted to learn from Shiro's experiences without having been through them himself, be able to understand how different the world can look between a few years of age, he wanted to see how something to Shiro can hold an entirely new meaning for Keith, a man who has yet to experience the same version of the world himself through his own set of eyes, but he was given nothing.

Keith sighed and gave Shiro a quick hug, and that's when he felt something snap in him.

It was the moment he embraced Shiro that he realized something, something that made him take a step back and walk silently back to the other paladins without saying a word.

Allura, wearing her paladin armor, looked at the paladins with cupped hands folded neatly in front of her. "I'm going into space with blue so I can bond with her, you two stay here and try to form a bond not only with your lions, but with each other to."

Lance, who was still in his usual shirt and jacket, took a step forward in protest. "Wait a minute but what if the Galra attacks us while you're gone? what if they attack you?" The blue paladin sneezed at the end of his sentence.
"You can handle yourselves if Lotor arrives, and you can call me through your lions if that happens. I'll be fine; the blue lion will help me if I'm in danger and I will alert you all if anything goes wrong. Don't worry, Lance." She embraced him for a few moments. Keith stood slightly far off and rolled his eyes.

Allura waved a final goodbye before taking off with her lion.

..

...

......

"So... Keith."

"Lance?"

"Uh... how should we go about this? Just sit in the lion and what? Hope for a connection?" Lance looked expectantly at his new leader, his face holding that same crooked smile and cocked eyebrow.

Lance’s eyes however, held a tiredness Keith wasn't used to seeing in Lance, his whole posture was different. His hands were stuffed awkwardly in his pockets and his normally bright blue eyes seemed dull. On top of all that, his skin was a dry and dusty tan instead of a milky caramel.

Keith kept these observations to himself and shrugged. "We can try."

With that, the two hopped into their respective lions. Keith put his hands on the levers of the black lion in front of him, slightly uncomfortable in the chair that was obviously meant for someone bigger then him.

Lance reached forward to his own controls in Red. In contrast to Keith, he felt cramped.

Then silence.

...

......

........

...........

"Ugh this isn't working- Come on! I’m bonding with you!" Keith's voice was laced with venom as he spat at the lion. A low growl sounded from the ship's throat.

"I don't think it works like that, Keith. Listen, this will sound stupid but maybe we—" Lance's words were cut off by yet another sneeze, and following that was another, then he sniffled.

"Oh great, don't tell me your ass got sick. You've been sneezing all day." Keith rolled his eyes as he heard the man's coughing via the mic's and headphones in their helmets.

Lance shot a glare at Keith through the screen on his lion and sniffed again, his voice sounding nasally; It was clear that he was trying his best to hide it all day, But now that he was discovered he completely dropped the act. "I’m not sick. How would I even get sick in space?"
"Are you allergic to feathers?"
"I-... that doesn't have anything to do with-"
"Are you. Allergic. To feathers?" Keith repeated, deliberately elongating the word.

His dark violet eyes studied Lance's face intensely as it became hot with embarrassment.

"Yeah- but I couldn't have gotten sick just from that! Plus- I didn't think anything would happen for Altean birds." Lance sneezed again, he rubbed his nose as he looked back at the screen.

Keith raised an eyebrow.

The Cuban quickly crossed his arms and turned his head away from Keith. "I'm. Fine."

Keith sighed and got out of his lion, Lance did the same. As they walked towards each other, the red paladin thought of ways Lance could possibly get sick besides the feathers.

Keith put a hand on Lance's shoulder, making the younger male tense. Keith muttered a 'relax' as he inspected Lance—and then he smelled it. The water from the last planet they were on smelled of flowers and honey and now, so did Lance.

"You didn't go through quarantine after getting out of the water?!" Keith yelled suddenly, making the hair on the back of Lance's neck stand on end.

"N-no why would I? It was just water." The blue paladin felt beads of sweat pool down his forehead, in fact— was it getting hot? No, it wasn't just hot-

it was boiling.

Lance's knees buckled and he stumbled to grab onto Keith's shoulders for stability, shutting his eyes tight as he audibly breathed in and out through his mouth. The paler man wrapped Lance's arm around the back of his own neck, holding him up.

The timing of his sickness couldn't be more perfect, if he had fallen at any other moment he would have hit the ground, hard.

"Jesus, Lance! Ugh. Come on, I'm gonna put you to bed and then we'll figure out what to do with you." Lance opened his mouth to detest but no words came out.

Lance pushed Keith away from him, claiming he could walk on his own, but he continued to fumble all the way to the room.

Lance laid himself on the bed, eyes closed. His eyebrows were twisted, displaying discomfort. His nose, cheeks, and ears were bright red and he was sweating profusely despite the obvious shivering.

A sneeze wracked his body to the core and Keith put a hand to his forehead. "Damn it... Lance, the team needs you."

Lance sniffed. "no amount of encouragement can cure a sickness, Keith."

Keith felt those words hit him right in his chest, remembering how Shiro was sick before being taken into space.

Lance's eyes remained closed as he bit his lip. "It's cold in here.."

Keith mumbled a retort as he threw a blanket at Lance. The Cuban cuddled up into the blanket with a soft smile.

Keith glared at Lance. "I'll be back, I'm going to tell Shiro. Allura should be back soon so I'll tell her too." Without waiting for a response from Lance, Keith rushed out of the room.

His heart pounded in his chest- 'why am I so worried for him? It's not like he's gonna die, then again... what if he does? ‘ this wouldn’t be the first time Keith has had a close friend of his come down with a sickness, he didn’t want to be helpless again. Keith was lost in thought as he turned the corner to find Allura humming happily to herself. "Keith! Guess what! I've bonded with my-"

Keith cut her off and grabbed her arms. "Lance didn't go into quarantine after being on the last planet."
"What?"
"Lance might have been a bit sick when he went to Yuansti, the planet where we swam in the water, and he didn't go through quarantine."
"W-what?!" Keith felt Allura's body shake in alarm. He had never seen her with such a look of dread before.

"Keith, he's not- that water- it's not—" the girl put a hand over her mouth and she stared shakily at the ground.

It was so unexpected, Allura's demeanor changed so fast that Keith barely had time to react, The sight of it all made him feel uneasy.

He held her hands and breathed in and out slowly, trying to get her to do the same. He didn't know how to help Allura, she was still recovering from her shock in learning Keith was part Galra, he knew she wouldn't be welcoming to have him there during this.

Her arms fought with him for a moment until she started to breath slow like him, the unsteady and vigorous beat of her heart calming to a normal pace. For a long while, the two just stood still.

Allura finally spoke. "That water you were swimming in... was not safe. I mean, it was obviously safe enough to swim in if you go into quarantine after getting out, and I thought it was fairly obvious that after swimming in unknown waters you'd immediately go into quarantine, and I thought you all went in together."

Allura's face was shot with concern as Keith stared at her. "I knew Lance was ready to hear the plan too quickly, I knew the process took much longer then that-" she mumbled, seemingly blaming herself. "Most of the things on that planet are contaminated, poisoned by the locals who lived there. Though everything seems beautiful and very inviting, It's slowly dying from the inside. The pollution isn’t as obvious as it is on your planet. I knew after going through quarantine you’d be fine but if Lance didn’t... I'm- I'm not sure what will happen to Lance. I've heard that people who've swam in that water they... they change. If he doesn't get help soon-" Allura took a breath. She needed to be calm.

The altean rested a hand on Keith’s shoulder comfortingly. "...I’m going with Shiro and Coran to find a way to help Lance, in the meantime, you need to take care of him with Hunk and Pidge, monitor his health, it shouldn't be contagious."

Keith looked at her with furrowed brows. "but Pidge and Hunk aren't back yet!"

"Then you watch him by yourself! This is no time to let your rivalry with Lance blind you to the reason you need to keep him safe. He's a paladin of Voltron... he's our friend." Allura shot back.

"He may be your friend, but he isn't important to me. The only reason I'm going to take care of him is because he is a paladin of Voltron. I. Hate. Him. He's annoying, he's loud, he's obnoxious, and on top of all that he's an idiot." Keith spat, his words cold as ice. He spun around and padded back to his room. He was harsher than he meant to be, and he didn’t really mean any of those things he said, but on top of being worried he was confused of his own feelings toward Lance and didn’t want to be told what they were. If Allura had seen his face when he turned back around, she would have seen the regret on his face clear as day.

Allura watched Keith walk away, her eyes wide with surprise. Now she was sure, they needed more time then just a week of staying in the same room to get over whatever tension was between them.

Keith's hair kinked in all different directions, he felt it was going to fall out soon. He couldn't handle all this stress alone, he didn't want to be in charge, He didn't want people to look at him for guidance or stability. He wasn't ready.

'Stupid Lance stupid Lance stupid Lance' he repeated in his head like a mantra. 'Why'd you have to go get sick? Now I have to watch your dumb ass and be all worried and shit for no reason!'

When he opened the door to his room he saw Lance standing with his back towards Keith, the blanket at his feet.

"Lance, were you walking around? Come on, you're supposed to stay in b—" Keith reached out to place a hand on Lance's shoulder but the boy immediately shrugged it off.

Lance turned around with bloodshot eyes, as if he had been crying or holding back tears. Keith contributed this to his sickness until he heard Lance speak.

"He isn't important to me. The only reason I'm going to take care of him is because he is a paladin of Voltron. I. Hate. Him." Lance hissed through his teeth.

Keith felt his heart drop. Lance had heard him, He'd heard what he said. “L-lance no, wait a minute, you don't know the rest I-" Keith said.

Keith didn't know why he was trying to apologize, he never hid his feelings towards Lance before. Did he want to hide them because Lance was sick? Did he not want to kick Lance while he was down? No, the rivalry was one thing— they always made sure the other could understand it was lighthearted. That outburst with Allura was different, Lance wasn’t there, meaning what Lance usually took as playful banter might hold truth to it, and that's what hurt Lance the most.

While Lance would hold up the fake hatred only around Keith as a way of being playful, Keith had taken it a step too far, and made it seem like he truly hated Lance. However, that wasn’t true for Keith, he just blurted something stupid out in a moment of overwhelming stress.

Lance continued regardless, he had remembered every word. "He's annoying, he's loud, he's obnoxious, and on top of all that he's an idiot."

Keith bit his lip, eyes tilted. "Yeah, so what? You know it's true." He growled, trying to keep up the usual banter they had.

The timing was wrong, Lance wasn't in the mood for banter. Keith took a step back, He'd never seen such anger in Lance's eyes before, such hatred, Such sadness.

"I don't need you to tell me everything that's wrong with me! You think I don't know those things already?!" Lance's eyes stung from the tears he dared not shed. "Why don't you just tell me that to my face then? TELL ME THAT YOU HATE-"

Lance suddenly broke out in coughs. He fell to his knees and then all the way to the ground, his arms wrapped around his his stomach as he spat, body twitching feverishly. His vision became blurry as he tried to focus on the blood that just slipped out his mouth.

"Oh God- LANCE!" Keith knelt down beside Lance as his body convulsed. "I- I don't know what to do— ho-how can I help you!?" The man spoke, not expecting an answer.

Keith quickly picked Lance up and rested him on the bed, leaning Lance on his side. Lance's coughs calmed down and he started to whimper, tears falling down his cheeks. He looked up expectantly at Keith, the white's of his eyes a dull yellow.

"What's happening to me?.." Lance’s voice quivered.

Keith bent over the man and held him tight in his arms. Keith's body tensed in surprise when he felt Lance's arms wrap around his shoulders, hugging him back, Mostly from fear.

"I don't know Lance... Shiro and Allura are going to fix you, ok? You're gonna be fine, Lance." Keith assured him.
"But what if-"
"Shhh." Keith rocked Lance slightly back and forth, cradling him softly.

Keith closed his eyes, too afraid of the reality that might meet him if he opened his eyes. He let himself believe everything was fine. That Lance had just stubbed his toe or something and was being dramatic. That he would make fun of him when this was all over.

“I’m sorry, Lance...” Keith said quietly.

He felt Lance's hands go limp around his body and Keith’s heart dropped. Keith put an ear to Lance's chest and to his relief, he could still hear a heartbeat. Lance had only fallen asleep.

Keith sighed, his eyes drifting to the blood on the floor, Lance's blood. He cupped his mouth for a second, Remembering the state his comrade was just in.

His yellow eyes,

His pale complexion,

His dry skin,

His high temperature,

His tears,

Him.

Keith rushed out of the room to the kitchen and threw up in the trash. His breathing slowing, he shook his head to try and get a hold of himself. 'He'll be fine. He'll be fine.'

Keith tied his hair back and walked to the hanger where the black lion was. why did I say all those things? Keith thought to himself. Lance always went out of his way to comfort me and I just— I really screwed up this time... Taking his seat in the lion, Keith called Pidge and Hunk.

*ring* *ring*
*ring* *ring*
Keith rolled his eyes when nobody answered and called again,

*ring*

*ring*

"KEITH? WHAT DO YOU WANT? WE'RE KIND OF BUSY HERE" Pidge's camera shook after she finished her sentence, her face contorted as if she was bracing for impact.

"Woah wait, Pidge, is everything ok?" Keith stuttered.
"Fine, just a little trouble. Nothing we can't handle-"
"Did you bond with your lion?" Hunk interrupted with a gummy smile, explosions clearly audible in the background.

Keith couldn't help but smile back at the sight of his friend. "Not yet I'm afraid, listen. You guys need to get back to the castle, Lance is-"

"OH SHI-"

/:€_~--transmission ending--)*¥_•

"Pidge?... Pidge? Hunk?" Keith was silent for a few moments before he punched the control panel in a rage.

After a while Keith groaned, head hanging in his hands. 'What am I going to do now?...'

It was late, Keith was tired. He'd try to contact them again tomorrow. He walked back to the room and lay down on the bed beside Lance, letting him hog the blanket this time. But just before Keith could fall asleep, he caught a glimpse of something, something that made him squint his eyes in the dark room and move closer to Lance to inspect it further.

Lance was sleeping with his backside to Keith, one arm behind his head and the other near his own face, the covers spread loosely around his legs. His shirt was risen in the back, revealing a huge scar. Keith reached a hand to touch Lance's back. is this why he doesn’t want people to see him with his shirt off?... Keith’s eyes trailed to more scars that littered his arms.

Keith gasped slightly as Lance pulled his arm away and brought it close to his chest, he then pulled his shirt down. "do you need something?" Lance growled with narrowed brows towards Keith, his eyes held a glare he'd never seen on the rambunctious boy before.

Keith shook the image from his head, he didn't see what he thought he saw, There's no way.

"No, your arm was just invading my space is all."
"How much space do you need? You got an entire galaxy out there."
Keith rolled his eyes and turned his back on Lance.

For a while, all that Keith could see in his mind was the horrible scars that covered Lance's arms and back, but eventually, as it does with everyone, sleep took hold of him and he slipped into darkness.

Chapter Text

Lance opened his eyes to the darkness of the room. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, blanket sliding off his chest. Lance looked around and felt his heart begin to race before remembering whose room he was in. He couldn't help but wonder... what the hell happened recently?

The door made a hiss noise as it opened. A figure entered, a steaming and damp towel in it's hand, the light from behind the figure shining much brighter than the luminosity of the rest of the room. The door closed and soon, Lance's eyes adjusted to the darkness of Keith's bedroom. He recognized the figure immediately as Keith, who almost dropped the towel in his hands when he saw that Lance was awake.

Keith ran to Lance and hugged him tight. "Lance! You’re ok! I was so worried! I thought you- you were on the ground and I-"

Caught off guard by the hug, Lance awkwardly placed his hands on Keith’s back. Keith pulled back from the embrace with a nervous frown, realizing how sudden his reaction was. He sat on the edge of the bed.

"What's that... in your hand?" Lance asked, clearly disoriented from having just woken up.

Keith looked at the towel. "oh. Uh. I um. See, I've never had to take care of a sick person before. And I've seen people on tv just like- put a hot and damp towel on their foreheads and that seems to work so..." He struggled to find the words, his eyes darting about the room.

Lance let out a small snicker. "Ok, Keith."

Lance seemed a lot more lively then before, at least emotionally, but his eyes were still a sickening yellow, and the bags underneath them were strongly evident. His muscles looked weak, as if something was slowly eating away at his body.

Keith's eyes were filled with concern as Lance broke into another cough and he requested that Lance lay back on the bed so he could rest the towel on Lance's temple. Lance laughed again, but was stuck coughing on the way down to the pillow.

Keith waited for the coughing to die down before he placed the towel on his head, and they were left in silence.

...

.....

.......

............

Keith averted the other's gaze for a moment. "Listen, Lance, About yesterday I-"
"It's fine Keith, really."
"No it's not fine I—"
"Keith, look at me."
Keith reluctantly stared at Lance's feverish face, which despite his condition, was still holding a warm and comforting smile.

"I literally could not care less with the state I'm in right now."

Lies. That entire sentence was a lie. He was lying right through his teeth, but he would never let Keith know, he could never let Keith know. He was very good at hiding the fact he was lying though, he considered himself an expert on lying; After all, He'd had lots of practice.

Lance was pissed at Keith but for once he wouldn't show it. He hated him. He couldn't stand to look at his face right now, but he wouldn't dare look away.

There was an awkward silence that filled the room, considering Lance couldn't fall back asleep, and Keith wasn't about to leave him alone.

"So... when's your birthday?" Keith asked, his voice cutting through the silence.

He knew it was a dumb question, a conversation starter that usually led nowhere. Something so insignificant in conversation, yet one of the most important parts of life— the beginning of it.

Lance scoffed, "how do we even keep track of time in space? Who knows how long it's been since we left earth."
"Just answer the question." Keith pouted.
"...it's July 28th. If you must know." Lance turned over on his side and Keith put his hands on his own knees, using them for support as he stood up and crouched beside the dresser next to his bed. Lance raised an eyebrow as Keith revealed a calendar and watch from inside the drawers and started flipping through it.

"I've been keeping track of time best I could since we left earth— Just using a simple watch that I'm sure needs calibration, but it should only be a few minutes off. Right now, it's... July 20th, Your birthday should be coming up soon." Keith thought for a moment, he'd never had a chance to celebrate his own birthday ever since his dad died, Shiro tried to celebrate it with him but Keith would always lock himself in his shack and refuse to leave.

Without family, who was he going to celebrate with? The thought of Lance sitting down, laughing with his family, his friends, anyone... all because he was born on that day... it was something Keith hadn’t gotten to experience in a long time, something he longed for. It was cruel that Lance could have what he could not. Though most of their fights were initiated by Lance, Keith found comfort in participating; he could yell out all his jealousies undetected as they crept into his mind.

"So what do you want for-" Keith cut off short when he saw Lance's eyes, he put the calendar on the top of the dresser and sat on the side of the bed, a hand resting on Lance's shoulder.

Keith didn't have to say anything, Lance appeared to know why he was questioning his demeanor.

"My family. I want to spend my birthday with my family before-..." Lance rubbed his clouded eyes, trying to change focus. "I just miss them..."

Keith never really had a family to miss. He'd grown up without his real parents for most of his life and jumped around foster homes; That is, until he ran away after being kicked out of the Garrison.

He remembered that feeling of loneliness and isolation, always feeling lost and no where to turn, But once he was in Voltron he finally felt like he had a real family... after they defeat zarkon, what will happen to that family?

Keith looked again at Lance, who was both homesick and literally sick. If he was to die out in space, what would his families reaction be?— never knowing he was fighting an entire empire just to keep them safe, Thinking he was dead only to find out he was alive for a time and died in space during an intergalactic war? From a stupid, avoidable sickness?

Keith almost felt fortunate he never had a family to care for. He'd never have to worry about going home, there was nothing for him back on earth. He didn't have to think or care about what might happen.

For Lance, though, Lance’s family was his world. That was the curse of family and the definition Keith grew familiar to, the worry over each member, the fear of death for each member, wanting to protect everyone no matter the cost but at the same time—not being able to wait till you can move out of the household.

Keith frowned. Unlike Lance, Keith’s family was the team. Lance knew when he went home his family would be safe and waiting for him, but Keith didn’t have that luxury. Keith’s family was with him, in space, fighting evil every day in a battle they may not return from. Keith felt in that moment he’d have to apologize for what he’d said eventually. He couldn’t let his found family fall apart just because he was too afraid to admit that they were really found family to him.

The sound of the hanger doors opening interrupted the two, "Keith!" Allura's voice rang out through the halls.

Lance tried to get up so he could greet Allura with his usual flirting but Keith pushed him back down, giving him a stern look as he reminded him of his state.

The red paladin stood and left the room hesitantly, turning the corner to see Shiro and Allura waving at him from the end of the hall. Stumbling over himself, Keith ran up to the pair with panic in his eyes. "Guys! Are you ok? What happened? Where'd you go? Did you find anything to help Lance?"

The adults exchanged a look, "that's too many questions for us to answer at once, Keith." Allura responded simply.

Keith let his mouth hang open for a moment before he closed it again. He gathered the thoughts in his head to formulate the first question that came to his mind: " Is Lance going to be ok?"

Shiro and Allura's desposition changed immediately, as if it was something they were dreading to tell Keith. He saw the look in their eyes and staggered backwards. 'Lance isn't gonna die... he can't die... voltron needs him. The team needs him. I....'

"woah, Hey hey hey! Keith! Keith, stop spiraling, look at me." Shiro rushed forward and grabbed hold of Keith's arms, forcing him to look up at the man's face as he rushed to keep his attention. "We just don't know. We spoke to the planet's inhabitants- they said depending on the species that swam on the water, the effects could vary. They'd never seen a human there before so we have no idea what will happen, Lance could turn out to be fine in a couple of days."

The thought still lingered. "but what if he doesn't?" Keith protested, wiggling out of Shiro's grip.

Allura stepped forward with determination flashing in her eyes. "Keith, you'll drive yourself mad fixating on the 'what ifs', for now we have to do what we can to help Lance fight through this." The Altean and Shiro exchanged a look before Shiro finished off Allura's point.

"I think you should watch over him."

Keith took a step back in confusion, anger forced on his features.

"What?! Why me?!" He snapped.

"Like I said before, we can't get anywhere as a team if the leader and his right hand are arguing." Allura insisted. "on that note, who's watching Lance at the moment?"

Keith's hair stood on end as he ran back to the room without a word of explanation.

'STUPID! I shouldn't have left him by himself!' His thoughts came to a halt as he got to his bedroom door.

He was relieved to find lance was standing upright and changing.

...

.....

.......

Wait a minute.

"KEITH?! A LITTLE PRIVACY?!" Lance grabbed his pillow from the bed, and threw it full force into Keith's face.

"PERVERT!" Lance shouted.

Keith covered his eyes and closed the door, apologizing aloud while blood rushed to his cheeks. Why would Lance even be embarrassed? He basically slept in his underwear anyway.

With a relived sigh Keith returned to Shiro and Allura, who were now in the lounge. "he's fine. Changing right now, but guys— Hunk and Pidge sounded like they were in trouble."

Allura thought for a moment. "I'll try to contact them. In the meantime, worry only of yourself and Lance."

Keith bit his lip in protest. "I know you want us to bond right now, but isn't it more important that we figure out what happened to Pidge and Hunk, so that we ALL can try to help Lance?"

Allura sighed, her skin illuminated by the light of the castle. It was horrible to see her like this; she looked defeated. There was only a glimmer of hope in her eyes, and her smile was faltering. This war had changed her, as months dragged on she wasn't sure they'd ever win this. Even in the way she stood, she seemed weak.

Keith saw something else in her eyes however, he could see she felt the same way he did about Shiro.

Allura didn't want to be around Shiro right now. He didn't seem like—himself. She put a hand on Keith's shoulder and started to walk away, leaving Keith looking up to Shiro.

Shiro, the one that Keith lo- no. Liked. He never loved Shiro did he? At least, not as more than a brother. Keith was in a dark place and then all of a sudden, Shiro showed up—Giving him advice, helping him, encouraging him.
Keith didn't know what else to do, he gained a crush that would never develop into anything more, a type of crush you have on celebrities despite them being much older then you. It was a stupid thing. It was really just mislabeling due to the fact he didn’t have much parental figures in his life. There was a different reason for the twisted feeling in his heart though; A different reason for why being alone in the same room with Shiro made Keith's mind scream at him to run.

‘It's not Shiro.'

The look-a-like stared back at him with dull eyes and walked away without saying a word. No motivation, no encouragement, just silence. Keith felt the racing of his heart subside when Shiro was finally gone.

Keith decided he would speak to Allura about this later. He could very well be wrong, imagining things from his stress, that’s what he hoped at least.

As he turned to check on Lance once more, the thought of the peril Hunk and Pidge could be in, Shiro, and Allura's defeat pulsed in the back of his mind.

Keith knocked on the door and could hear shuffling as Lance turned over in the bed. He coughed before yelling an 'ok' for Keith to enter once more.

Keith opened the door hesitantly and scanned the room for Lance, who was sitting on the bed gazing to the wall on his right. He was wearing his usual white shirt with short blue sleeves. Keith sat beside him, noticing the towel thrown on the ground.

His ears twitched as he realized Lance was speaking- wait no. He was muttering, Something in Spanish?

"La puerta... pendejo, la puerta... abre.. Estoy frío... la puerta..."

Keith, knowing only the word 'cold' looked instinctively at the door. He got up with a sigh and pressed the button to close it, looking back somberly at Lance, who had stopped muttering.

Silence.

"When’s your uh... fuck I can’t think..." Lance mumbled.

Keith raised an eyebrow, "what?"

Lance shook his head, he was speaking spanish before. How strange, he never had a problem switching between languages before, especially not random words. ‘This goddamn sickness...' he thought. It was the only explanation for why he’d struggle with something so simple that he’d been doing his whole life.

It was deteriorating Lance’s thought process, his sense of self, his logic and reason, his physical body, everything. He could feel every bit of it corse through his veins, but he mentioned none of this to Keith, instead, he translated his word.

"When's your birthday?"

"O-October 23rd." Keith stuttered.

Lance didn't respond as he looked again at the wall. Keith was almost scared to sit back on the bed.

The silence in the room was unnerving, broken suddenly with the sound of Lance's soft cries.

With a jolt, Keith jumped onto the bed and wrapped his arms around Lance, who didn't protest.

Instead, Lance bent over and held onto Keith's arms, turning to nuzzle his face into the crook of Keith's neck with a quiet sob.

His cries slowly grew louder and louder— the crying turned into mumbles, which soon formed words.

"I just want to go home. I want to go home. Let me go home... please." Keith only held on tighter, he didn't know what else to do.

They just held each other. As Lance's cries died down, Keith murmured into his ear, telling him he had his back, that he was going to be with his family soon, that everything was going to be ok.

Keith had no clue if any of this was true of course, how could he? He just wanted Lance to feel better. Honestly, it was painful to listen to Lance beg to go home. There was nothing for Keith there, earth was the place that twisted him into being a loner. He was even considering leaving the team for good, just packing up and leaving. But... Allura reminded him, though she didn't realize it, that he can't leave, because he was a paladin of Voltron. Now there was no escape. he couldn't run this time, And that made him feel uncertain. But what he wasn’t uncertain of, was how close he felt to Lance.

“Lance...” Keith started, cupping Lance’s cheeks with his palms softly, watching the boy stare at him with wide eyes, “I’m sorry.” He choked out.

Lance looked confused for a moment before Keith continued, “I’m sorry for everything I said about you yesterday, and I just want you to know I didn’t mean a word of it. I... the truth is, I was scared of caring about you, because if I cared about you then I’d have to feel the burden of seeing the people I care about get hurt. So I thought if I just denied it- if I just told everyone else that I didn’t care, eventually I wouldn’t.” Keith rested his forehead against Lance, who closed his eyes and relaxed in Keith’s hold.

“I was wrong. I still care, and I’m not gonna run away from that anymore. So please... make it out of this ok.” Keith ended.

Lance nodded his head a little, not daring to pull away from the contact, “ok... I promise I will.”

Opening his eyes, Keith found himself looking at Lance's arms. Now he knew- he definitely wasn't dreaming last time he saw them. There was no mistaking it. Keith heard the sniffling stop and he reluctantly pulled back to stare at Lance.

Lance knew Keith had seen the scars, but refused to meet Keith's gaze. The light pink scars which had started to fade away, and the ones who still had newly picked at scabs. The look in Lance's eyes made Keith's heart drop- it was so... depressing. The red paladin stared into his eyes. What a pretty blue, tears didn't fit right on them; They were the type of eyes that made little wrinkles when you smiled, the type that squinted so much you could barely see the whites of them, the type that made you want to stare and stare and get lost in their gaze— But Lance wasn't smiling now.

Keith blinked, opening his mouth to speak, but was cut off by the blaring of the castle's alarms. A flashing red filled the room wall to wall and Allura's voice cut through the sounds like a sharp knife. "Keith! Lance! We've just received a distress signal from Hunk and Pidge, they're trapped on a planet that's being invaded by the Galra!"

Keith muttered a silent "I knew it" under his breath as he crawled out of bed with Lance not far behind. Keith still uneasy as he watched pure determination spread across Lance's face. He tried to stop Lance but nothing would stop him from getting his best friends back.

With a huff, Keith climbed into his lion and took off, Lance and Allura following after him.

(---)

Pidge held back a screech as a galra soldier rammed into her already broken arm. She stood and tried to attack but was knocked off her feet again. She watched her blood fall on the ground in front of her with disoriented eyes.
They were toying with her.
Trying to break her.
She examined her surroundings weakly, searching for where they might have taken her helmet. Just behind them was a cliff, providing shade from the planet's hot sun, scorching desert, and simultaneous rocky terrain.
Hunk screamed out as another soldier poked him with a stick- one that sent electrified pulses throughout his body. The Soldiers poured water on him to keep him awake.

It was torture, Pidge kept herself sane thinking of Matt. 'I can't die here, not like this. I have to find matt. I have to find-'

Another scream from Hunk ripped through her thoughts, burning her ears. 'Please... get here soon...'

she pleaded in her mind.

As if on cue, a bright blue laser shot from the sky and blasted a galra robot soldier till he smoked, the rest scattered in preparation for a battle against voltron.

Allura, who had fired the blast from the tail of her lion, jumped out of blue to grab Pidge just as she landed. The green paladin climbed into her own lion with the help of Allura, using the blue lion as protection.

Lance landed red and ran after Hunk. The paladin helped Hunk stand up and started to guide him back to his lion when a blast suddenly struck the ground in front of them. Smoke covered the area in an instant.

"Lance!" Allura shouted.

After a few moments, Hunk appeared from the smoke, staggering to the team before collapsing. Keith picked his teammate up and slugged the man's arm around his shoulder.

"Hunk- where's Lance?" Keith asked.
"He's... he's still back there... I think he's hurt."

Keith looked up to Allura and unwrapped Hunk's arm from around him.

"Take him!" Keith yelled.
"But-"
"There's no time- take him!"

Allura nodded and helped Hunk into his lion. She and him flew off the ground just before another blast could strike them.

As cloud and fog flew around the area in violent and crashing winds, Keith searched desperately for Lance, he turned on his helmet mic and headphones and called, "Lance! Lance are you ok? What's going on?"

Static returned to Keith, he could hear Lance's coughing between the frequencies. All this debris was probably bringing back the worst of Lance's current sickness.

Everything else happened so fast.

Keith ran into the vicious smoke, caused by the blasters and explosions which kicked up the planet's barren dust into the air. He got hold of Lance as chunks of rock came tumbling down around them and from their helmets they could hear Allura scream their names.

The light around them was getting blocked out and suddenly,

everything went dark.

........

......

....

..

..

...

"Lance?..."

.....

.......

........

"Lance get up."

.....

.....

"Keith?... where are you?"

...

....

Keith's eyes adjusted slightly to the darkness until his suit illuminated in red, he looked to his left and saw the same illumination in blue. He crawled over to Lance, crouching from the low ceiling.

"Keith?... what happened?..." Lance coughed, propped against the wall behind him and hand resting on his stomach, he looked around to try and piece together where he was.

Panic set in as Lance noticed the tight space they were in and he began to hyperventilate.

"No- no no no no— Lance-"
Keith held the blue paladin's face in his hands, trying to shift his focus. "Hey Look at me- look at me.” His hands moved from his face to his shoulders. “You're fine, Everything's fine, I'm right here. You're okay, ok?"

Lance's eyes shook to every direction and finally rested on Keith's dark violet eyes. His breathing slowed. Keith sighed, "you good?"

"... I'm... I'm good." Lance mumbled.

Keith touched the walls around them. "We've been caved in. The hill above us must have collapsed. We're lucky to have survived."

Lance coughed, "but for how long?"

Suddenly Allura's voice caught the attention of the two boys. "L@nce? K3*th? Are ÿ0< a|ri£ht?"

Keith turned on the mic in his helmet. "Allura? Can you hear me?"

He heard a sigh of relief rush through the mic. "thank thę/ stars, Is L*nce the¥e with you?"

"Awww someone's worried about me~ don't worry Allura, I'll be back to give you a kiss before you know it." Lance purred, his crooked smile plastered on his face. The paladin's helmet was crushed and pushed off to the side, so he had leaned in Keith's face so that she could hear his flirty comment through Keith's headwear.

Allura audibly groaned. for five minutes Keith and Allura discussed an escape plan:

First, Allura was to make sure Hunk and Pidge could make it to the castle safely and into the healing pods.

Second, after Hunk and Pidge were ready to fight, they'd devise a more stable plan to save Keith and Lance.

In the meantime, Lance and Keith would have to survive till then, enough of the Galra soldiers had fled so that Keith and Lance could handle themselves while Allura started step 1 of their short and not-throughly-discussed plan.

Before taking off, she advised that they find shelter from the inhabitants of the planet and that the weather was known to change drastically and unpredictability.

When Allura signed off, Keith suddenly felt a sudden feeling overtake him, fear. It was only him and Lance now, no back up if something went wrong, no Voltron, no certainty they'd make it out alive. He gazed back at Lance, who was looking off to the side, his eyes still a frightening yellow.

Keith felt completely helpless, it wasn't him and Lance against the Galra there, It was just him. Lance was in no condition to fight any longer.

Keith swore aloud, causing Lance to snap to attention and stare at him.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be so useless." Lance laughed.

"No-no Lance, it's not you I'm just-..." Keith trailed off, he looked around at the rock walls again.

"There has to be a way out. One that doesn't draw attention." His eyes kept trailing back to Lance, why did he feel so worried? Keith clenched his teeth.

After a long while, Keith was beginning to lose hope, He had no clue where the Galra soldiers were stationed and he couldn't cut through the thick rock; not only that, but there was no telling how long it would take Pidge and Hunk to heal.

Suddenly he heard firing, he got his blade ready but soon realized the lasers weren't being shot at them.

The boulders began to crumble and Keith instinctively shuffled to Lance and wrapped his arms around him, to protect him from the falling rocks.

"There Is someone here!" A voice spoke, "I was right! You owe me 5 gak!"

Keith's eyes were slits as his pupils constricted and adjusted to the bright light.

Standing in front of him was a small alien, peering through a newly formed opening in the boulders.

Keith didn't waste anytime, he held Lance in his arms, who was now slipping in and out of consciousness.

"Please! Please help him! I-I don't know how much longer he can-" Keith's voice started to crack as he tried to save face.

"Chill Romero, we'll get your July to safety before the storm rolls in." The alien joked, he snapped his fingers and immediately more of his kind poured into the opening, Grabbing the pair. Keith, though he had asked them to help, protested when Lance was pulled from his arms.

The short alien muttered something under his breath and continued to drag Keith as his soldiers followed after him, carefully carrying Lance.

Chapter Text

"So... who are you?" The tallest asked after a long period of silence, Keith remained silent.

The terrain around them was still, deserted, and rocky; Keith couldn't see a thing for miles. His ears twitched to every slight sound as his hands itched for a fight.

The alien handed his spear to a soldier behind him, "silent type huh? My name's Jhawuide Ulj (Jah-wee-day) (oolg) Mittekaoul (me-tay-cow-ool) but you can call me Jitte (G-tay)"

Keith stared at the ground and huffed, "...Keith... Kogane. where are you taking us?"

Jitte rolled his eyes. "We're taking you to our leader, Dfeaud (deh-fee-ya-odd), and the Honored Committee." He informed.

"Hold on a minute what about Lance? He needs help now." Keith crossed his arms and refused to walk, eyes narrowed with a icy cold glare.

"So that's the ugly one's name— He'll be fine, we will take him to the Medicine Yune." Jitte responded, not stopping to turn to Keith.

Keith's face went a bright red, "Lance isn't ugly!" He bit his tongue. That— was a weird thing to say. Keith had always thought Lance was attractive despite the other man's constant self praise which usually turned Keith off. Of course that was just a case of Keith admitting another guy was attractive, he did not harbor any feelings for the other.

“...who’s Romero and July?” Keith asked after a few moments of silence.

“Ah, it’s an old love story on our planet. Two families that had a long feud, Romero and July fall in love despite the fact that they belong to those two rival families, I think they die in the end.” Jitte responded.

Keith distantly thought he’d heard of something familiar in school, but it never came to him.

Soon they arrived at what looked like a large village, surrounded by a mint green force field. Keith assumed this was to protect the village from the planet's weather.
Small depressions in the soil allowed water to run throughout the entire perimeter and streets. Mini bridges crossed just above the streams, Though they were hardly considered useful as the width of the alien-made holes were skinny enough to jump over. The stream was clearly for decoration and water transportation. Each house was small, only one story and all looked exactly the same, Keith couldn't tell what the houses were made of. Slight variations to each building were able to tell Keith that some were more public then residential.

They walked for what seemed like 10 minutes, Keith now beside the alien who carried Lance. During this time, Keith examined the alien's that saved them.

The tallest, the one that saved Keith, looked to be 4'2. He assumed them to be the leader of the small army. With 31 in total— each of the alien's heights ranged from 3'9 to 4"0. Their skin color's varied between a dull blue and a light pink, all eyes were grey. Each had a different kind of dark purple marking on their face and a small tail unique to each individual- resembling a shark's tail.

Finally they arrived at a house— noticeably larger than the others, "mansion" was a more fitting word; it stood at least 5 stories high.

Keith was suspicious about who this "Dfeaud" character was the more he examined how the aliens interacted with each other.

When they stepped inside, part of the army began to take Lance down the hall to the right, while Keith was ushered down the left (despite his protest). Keith did constant double takes as he was led to a pair of doors bigger then him, he looked up at them with prejudice.

He felt strangely intimidated by them. The doors themselves were a dark brownish-red, but the more he stared at them, the darker they seemed to become. His fingers reached forward to feel the carvings in the door, a powerful energy pulling him towards them, an energy that reminded him of his lion. He couldn't quite describe it.

"My lion... where's the black lion?" He narrowed his eyes at Jitte who simply shrugged. "I have not a clue what you're talking about."

Jitte rested his four-fingered hand on a slab next to the doors. He muttered a foreign language under his breath causing the slab to glow and the doors slid open slowly.

Keith's mouth hung open in astonishment, the room was huge. White walls, decorated with gold chandeliers lit with bright candles. The stunning color of gold was dyed onto the drapes which hung from the ceilings. The floor was carved with an ancient design of what looked to be a tiger crossed with a hawk and another indescribable creature— a griffin type creature.
The Tables were littered across the floor covered with a soft, white cloth with patterns of gold and royal blue.

Towards the center, far back in the room, was Dfeaud and her honored committee.

Dfeaud looked almost identical to Jitte though much skinnier, the tail was much longer then the others and resembled that of a cat's. Keith snapped to attention when the Alien spoke.

"So, who's this?" Dfeaud asked with a raised eyebrow.

It was then that Keith realized Dfeaud was a female, and not just a female, She was young- very young.

"A 'Lance Kogane' and-" Jitte started, cut off by Keith who corrected him swiftly.

"Keith- my name is Keith. The boy you took away was Lance... Mcclain."

"Right." Jitte finished, he knelt down on both knees and elbowed Keith to do the same.

Dfeaud stood and walked eerily to the two, she inspected Keith closely. He stared into her eyes, which were a violet much like his own, and tried hard not to flinch.

"Well 'Keith'..." she purred, trying his name out on her tongue, "what brings you to our little kingdom? I've never seen a species like yours before."

The paladin looked up at Dfeaud, "I'm a paladin of Voltron, I fly the black lion, me and my comrade, Lance, got trapped here by the Galra until your army saved us."

"Those little Yasteks... well, we can hold off our own against them." Her long tail swished back and forth as she began to laugh, "it's a good thing we saved you, that storm is not looking pretty."

Keith's eyes flickered, slight panic across his features as he faced towards her. "Storm?"

The leader clapped her hands together with a smile before continuing, "this planet has close to unpredictable weather, but every once and a while we can detect when a bad storm is about to hit. Of course our defenses can work just fine against anything this planet has to throw at us but anybody outside of it..."

Keith gulped, he couldn't help thinking what it'd be like if he were still trapped outside the field, Lance dying, all alone...

Lance...

The half-galran stood suddenly and bowed his head. "Im sorry. I need to see La- the person I came here with."

The mood changed quickly when Dfeaud's eyes narrowed towards Jitte. The general nodded. After a long silence she then shrugged and motioned with her hand.

The intimidating and fierce eyed leader sat back down on the throne behind her, she looked to her council with a raised eyebrow, ushering them to continue their previous discussion.

Jitte muttered a salute and got to his feet, leading Keith out of the room and down to the medicine Yune.

"I can tell you really like the other one who came with you." Jitte said.
"I guess— He's my friend, a close friend of mine."
"Yeah, yet you acted like if he died... you would too."

Keith said nothing in response, He didn't have to listen to some random alien he just met. Besides, it was kind of true. If Lance died, there’d be no Voltron, without Voltron, the universe would be at the hands of the Galra and he might as well be dead at that point.

When they got to the doorway Lance was sitting upright on what looked to be medical bed. Keith felt his heart lurch while another one of the aliens (who Keith assumed to be the Yune) started to inspect Lance's arm. Lance himself seemed to be much more awake and lively then he had been the days before, his shirt off to the side exposing his lean and skinny build.

"Curious... what form of creature are you?" The alien squeaked with a high pitched voice.

"UHm. Homo sapien?" Lance answered nervously, the blue paladin looked up to Keith and smiled with relief. "Keith! Oh my god! I never thought I'd be this glad to see your face!"

Lance pulled his hand away from the alien's wondering gaze to wave at Keith, who was still stunned in place.

Keith let a sigh escape his lips with angry eyes, "You scared me, Lance!"

"Is this your mate?" The Yune asked.

Keith and Lance immediately looked away from each other with hot faces.

"No Inea, it's not like that. he's just a friend." Lance muttered, almost under his breath.

Inea fixed the glasses upon her nose and nodded, she was just as short as the rest of her kind with an uncertain aesthetic surrounding her. She cupped her hands together sheepishly and looked between the two. "What exactly is it that the tan one has?"

"If I knew. I would tell you, sorry." Keith responded, he did tell her what planet Lance got the sickness from though.
"well, I won't be able to help him if I can't figure out what exactly is the problem with him. And-"
"Actually can we get a moment alone please?" Keith said as he uncrossed his arms, his expression was filled with concern but his body posture conveyed intimidation.

The girl nodded quickly and rushed out of the room leaving the teenagers alone for the first time in what felt like ages.

Lance laughed, "it seems you only ever see me when I'm lying on a bed these days huh?"

"Well that's where you should be in your condition." Keith rebutted.

Lance looked cross as he reached over to grab his shirt; he pulled it over his head and let out a few hoarse coughs, a smile creeping onto his face. "There's been enough doom and gloom for a while, let's try and enjoy our time here while we can."

Keith blinked and smiled warmly back at Lance. For a fleeting moment, he felt truly connected with his so called "rival"... Then he remembered every time he had been called 'mullet' and rolled his eyes.

"Hold on a minute Lance, do you really think that's a good idea?" Keith asked, his voice laced with concern.

"Psssh. don't worry I'll be fine." Lance held back a cough and smiled nervously, "See?"

Keith wasn't so sure about it, he sat down beside his teammate and rested a hand on his shoulder. "I'm serious Lance, you shouldn't strain yourself. It wasn't too long ago you were unconscious."

"Yeah, but if I woke up this quick I've gotta be ok, right?" Lance spoke in a tone that was clear, Keith wasn't going to be able to change his mind.

Keith sighed and scratched his nose. "Why would you even wanna spend time with me? You're always going on and on about how you never want to be around me."

"You really believe that?" Lance said with a shocked look.

It was silent for a few moments.

"I mean- like. Yeah, I'm your rival and all but..." Lance sounded like he was having trouble explaining his feelings toward Keith- probably because he didn't understand them himself.

Lance shrugged his shoulder and met Keith's gaze again. "Whatever, That doesn't matter— you're the only one here so who else could I possibly hang out with?"

Keith sighed, that sounded more like Lance. "So, what'd you wanna do?"

(About 20 minutes later...)

Keith and Lance went into the village center, merchants lined the streets with the same 3-4 foot aliens Keith had admired before. Citizens bustled the streets and it seemed as if that's how this center was at all times. Lance was dressed in his usual baseball Tee, looking much more alive now that he was back on his feet. Keith, having not brought a change of clothes had to wear what the aliens offered. He wore a red hoodie that (because the aliens were so small) fit on him like a crop top, Jean shorts, a blue beanie, his fingerless gloves™, and loosely made sandals that Dfeaud's soldiers had whipped up quickly for his feet since they had no size that matched Keith's. He felt uncomfortable in his own skin since so much of it was showing.

Lance ran to random shops with Loud and short coughs, Keith struggling to follow close behind, wincing every time Lance would sniffle or sneeze.

The jumpy teen picked up various coins he found laying on the ground which he used to buy snacks.

Keith scoffed, "seriously, that's what you're gonna use the money for?"

Lance stuck out his tongue in reply which made Keith laugh. It was something else, seeing Lance in this whole new environment. Completely relaxed, genuinely happy, and just being himself. A feeling bubbled inside Keith, starting in his stomach and then reaching up to his throats making his ears grow hot and his head feel heavy. It was something Keith never experienced before, he had no words to describe it— it almost hurt to think about.

For a long while they stared, smiling at each other, drawing the attention of the people around them.

Suddenly, a cough erupted from Lance, snapping the two out of their trance.

At first Keith thought it was a cough to excuse the awkward tension but he soon realized Keith was legitimately coughing from being sick. Keith rested a hand on Lance's shoulder as the dark-skinned boy fought furiously to hide his sickness. Lance's eye bags returned, reminding Keith of how bad his friend was doing.

Before Keith could suggest that they go back, Lance held a finger to Keith's lips.

"I'm fine." Lance spoke under his breath. "I just need a moment."

Lance hunched over and held his arms across his body; it was then Keith realized the man was visibly shaking.

Keith felt his friend's forehead to feel how cold he really was. The temperature was rather mild outside, so if anything Lance should have been dying of heat—but the blue paladin was as cold as an ice cube.

Quickly Keith looked around for anything he could use to cover Lance, 'damn it. Why the hell did he leave his jacket? Think think think!'

In a panic, Keith wrapped his arms around Lance. It took a moment before Lance slowly returned the embrace. They held their position for a while, Lance's shivers becoming softer and less frequent as Keith's body heat warmed him up. The red paladin's heart skipped a beat when Lance snuggled his face into the crook of his neck, allowing him to feel the tickle of Lance's eyelashes on his pale skin.

Keith felt Lance's body begin to return to a normal temperature and gave a sigh of relief. Keith could feel every hot and rapid breath Lance let out, accompanied by soft groans that almost sounded painful.

"Keith... what if you..." Lance mumbled.

"Allura said it's not contagious, besides I don't care about getting sick if it means not losing you... we need you to fly the red lion." The last part Keith added in with flustered stutter, holding onto lance's body tighter.

Lance chuckled softly, "right. That's all I'm good for..."

After a good three minutes, Keith began to feel tired, almost as if he could fall asleep on the spot. Plus being so close to Lance had warmed him up too, and it was getting too hot to bare. "Lance, are you good?"

Lance pulled away without warning and smiled. "I'm fine."

The way Lance had left him so fast, made Keith chase after the warmth for a second, his body leaning close to Lance's before eventually crossing his arms and turning away.

They continued down the large and confusing market place. Lance was happily gnawing on a corn dog (or what looked to be a corn dog), when his eyes caught a glimpse of a mini stuffed shark in one of the store windows. He dropped his food and pressed his face against the glass, gasping loudly.

"KEITH! OH MY GOD KEITH LOOK AT THIS-"
"...it's a shark."
"ITS NOT JUST A SHARK- ITS A TOY SPACE SHARK. CAN WE GET IT PLEASE?" Lance grabbed onto Keith's arms with a pleading pout.

"We can't, you used the last of our money to buy that corn dog, which you just threw on the ground, remember?" Keith squirmed lightly at Lance's touch.

Lance began to tear up, ready to cause a scene. Keith couldn't stand people looking at him and lance knew that; but before he could draw anyone's attention, Lance sneezed.

A smile plastered onto Lance's face once again when another store caught his eye, as if he hadn't been on the verge of fake tears a moment before.

Keith lingered around the window for a moment before hurrying after Lance.

They sat down on a bench after much time spent window shopping; during which, Lance had found more coins on the ground which he, again, used for food. Keith was about to speak, but a flash of light from one of the stores hit his face, it was A glare from one of the objects in a store, far to their right.

"Stay here a minute, I gotta check something."
"Um.. ok?" Lance shrugged and continued to eat his foreign desert.

As Keith approached the object he realized that it was a necklace. A sapphire necklace in the shape of a teardrop- the outlining of the teardrop being of resemblance to human gold and turquoise inlaid on the chain. Keith tried to walk away but his feet seemed glued in place, He remembered how close Lance's birthday was, and how he couldn't buy the toy shark for Lance. Maybe he could...

'I can't afford this...' he thought.

From afar, Jitte caught sight of the paladin and waved a hello. He came up beside Keith and stared at the necklace as well. "do you want this or something?"

Keith quickly shook his head and smiled. "oh no sorry I was just looking."

Jitte laughed under his breath, "you've been staring at it for a while, why don't you just buy it?"

"I don't have any money. But it's fine. Really, I was just leaving." Keith mumbled, his sight focused solely on the jewelry still.

Jitte scoffed and handed the shop owner a wad of cash. They began to speak to each other in a foreign language, nodding and seemingly debating a price.

The Alien then turned to Keith. "well, it's yours now. Unless..." Jitte's eyes drifted to Lance. "you plan on giving it to someone else."

Keith followed his gaze and his face turned bright red. "What?! No me and Lance aren't- Im not!- We're friends!" he stuttered.

Jitte walked away with a subtle smirk, his eyes holding a sadness Keith didn't catch, nor would he even be able to understand. "I strongly advise you give that to him, you never know when it'll be too late."

Keith didn't even have time to open his mouth and say 'thank you' before he left. He stared back at the jewelry the soldier had bought for him, and a smile appeared on his face. slipping the necklace into his back pocket, Keith made his way back towards Lance.

"Damn Keith, why don't you wear clothes like that more often? You got a nice body- you should flaunt it." Lance laughed, not realizing how flirty his comment sounded.

"Whatever sickness you have must be getting to your brain. You're not one to compliment me." Keith tried to reply in a mocking tone but his voice came out clearly as a mix of worry and confusion.

"I can assure you my brain is crystal cl- HEY A CRYSTAL!!" Without warning, the blue paladin shot forward, twisting throughout the crowd to a small shoppe.

The shoppe had a sign posted on its table reading, "fortune teller, first fortune free! all other fortunes 15 gak! :)"

The list went on to explain prices for different kinds of fortunes, Keith simply rolled his eyes as Lance pressed his face up against the glass container protecting the crystal ball, "OOOOOH KEITH LOOK! ITS SO SHINY!!"

A girl popped up from behind the table and purred. "Hehe~ do you want your fortune or the ball?"

Lance clapped his hands together in a pleading manner, fake tears forming in his eyes. "can I have both?"

"Hehe~ sorry, no can do, paladin Lance McClain."

Lance gasped and grabbed Keith's forearm. "HOW DID SHE KNOW MY NAME?!"

Keith rolled his eyes. "obviously she knows what the Paladins of voltron look like and what our names are, We aren't exactly hiding ourselves— This is clearly a scam like the ones back on earth."

The girl leaned in close to Keith's eyes. "oooh so Keith Kogane is a non-believer eh? No worries. The hands of time have sown in your fate wether you chose to believe it or not. I'm Pajd'ú (pah-do)"

"CAN YOU READ MY FORTUNE PRETTY PLEASE?" Lance pushed Keith to the side, gaining the attention of the fortune teller once more.

Pajd'ú giggled, "only the first fortune is free, what about your future would you like to know?"

"Well obviously, the future Mrs. McClain" Lance purred.

The girl frowned. "im so sorry honey, love life is strictly for paying costumers."

The Cuban stared in awe at her ball. "How about... what I'm going to get for my birthday?"
"That I can do."

She looked into her crystal as a dark purple mist covered the glass, her eyes studied the fog intensely. Lance looked into the ball too, hoping he could see something himself if he just stared hard enough. The girl’s face fell into concern, eyebrows stitched together in an expression missed by Lance, but not by Keith. Placing a hand over her mouth, her gaze shot up to Lance and then turned its attention to Keith. “ I- I'm so sorry I-" She motioned for Keith to come near as Lance watched with a fiery curiosity.

"Is this man your friend?" She asked him.
Keith nodded. "yes... why?"

The girl staggered on her toes a bit before leaning forward and whispering Lance's future into Keith’s ear.

Keith's eyes narrowed with fury and he grabbed Lance's arm, storming off in the opposite direction without so much as a glance back to the girl.

Lance, however, resisted with all his might. When they were far enough away, Lance pulled his hand away from Keith's grip.

"Hey! What the hell was that about!? I wanted to hear what I was-"
"That girl is a fraud. She's just going to tell you something so— unbelievable that you pay her into giving you another false and idiotic fortune." Keith spat, fortune tellers were supposed to tell you something fortunate... not unfortunate.

Keith's gaze softened when it met Lance's. "besides. Don't you want your presents to be surprises?"

Lance tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, eyes blazing. "Why do you always have to be so dramatic? So what if it's fake? I still want to hear it. You have no right to control me like that!"

Keith frowned. "Lance why don't you ever just trust me for one second and-"
"Why can't you trust me. You always act like I'm some idiot!"
"That's ridiculous Lance, I don't think you're an idiot, but you sure are acting like one right now!"
"So you do think I'm an idiot!"
Lance looked furious now, Thank god no one else could hear the arguing over the commotion of the market; This would have drawn a lot of unneeded attention.

"Oh now look who's being dramatic— god, I hate you." Keith hissed. The second the words came out his mouth Keith threw his hands over his lips in shock. That wasn’t true at all! “I mean- I hate when you act like this, I don’t hate you I-“ Keith could tell by the look in Lance’s eyes that he wasn’t buying his backtracking, he’d already screwed up.

"You-...” a look of disgust covered Lance’s face, replaced by betrayal and finally anger, “Fuck you! Asshole!" Lance growled. He stormed off in the direction of the mansion.

Keith stared at the ground, he was right wasn't he? Lance was just being dramatic, he tried to explain himself and Lance just wasn’t listening.

He rolled his eyes and walked in the same direction, clearly not in a hurry to catch up to Lance. He fiddled with the pendant he had in his back pocket. even if it was an accident... I shouldn’t have let my anger get to that point anyway...

When they arrived back at the mansion, Dfeaud greeted them with a serene smile.

"I see you're back from the shops, tell me, was everything to your liking? We'd love nothing more then to help Paladins of Voltron."

Keith glanced at Lance, who held his own arm and refused to look anywhere but at the ground. "Actually is there a kitchen?” Keith asked, “I didn't eat much while I was out."
"yes yes, I can have some cooks whip you up something right away!—"
"Actually- I'm going to make it myself... If I may."

Lance took notice of this. 'Keith knows how to cook? Huh.' He still refused to make eye contact with the other.

The leader looked confused but shrugged it off.

"Ryu, show our guests where the kitchen is!" She called to an older man who was sweeping the dust off the floor, Keith figured he must had been working at the mansion for a long time.

Ryu began to lead them to the kitchen with his hands behind his back, Dfeaud jumping in the other direction.

When they got to the kitchen, Keith wasted no time. He grabbed different materials from different shelves and stack piled them on the counter, while also grabbing bowls and spoons too. Lance watched with a glare, wondering what cooking talents Keith held.

Keith took a breath preparing himself to work.

...

"I don't know how to cook." He mumbled.

Lance groaned. 'of course.'

He got up from the chair he was seated at and inspected the random ingredients Keith had pulled out, they resembled Earth's resources very closely. All the names were different but the descriptions were relatively the same.

Keith watched the tan boy's hands work like magic, Lance called out each step as he completed it with complete perspicuity. Keith tried to remember his movement but quickly forgot, all he could do was stare. When Lance was finished a feeling of satisfaction seemed to have cancelled out his anger... well... most of it.

Lance laid out the food on the island he was at before, now sitting across from the plate, Keith shifting in front of it.

Keith looked up at Lance, his mouth hung open in shock. "Lance, you- I can't accept th-"
"What? after all that trouble you're not even gonna eat it?"
"It's- you didn't have to—"
"Does it... look bad?" The blue paladin half-joked.

Keith shook his head. "no no no! Lance, it looks amazing. It smells amazing. I bet it will taste amazing too. Thank you."

Keith hesitantly picked up what looked to be some sort of meat with a fork, painfully aware of Lance's eyes studying him.

When he took the first bite, he felt suddenly relaxed. He could imagine being back at home in his shack, no one to bother him, Peace and quiet, warm and safe but also.... alone. Keith hungrily dug into the food as if he hadn't eaten in weeks.

Lance chuckled, "slow down it isn't going anywhere." His eyes hardened as he watched Keith enjoying his meal, he was still clearly upset at him.

Keith continued to dig in while Lance talked. "I used to make the meals for my niece and nephew back home so I've had plenty of practice, plus I've picked up a few things from rooming with Hunk. He leaves a lot of cook books around."

Keith took a break from his binge and let his eyes drift back towards Lance. "this is really good, how come you've never cooked with Hunk to make food for us before?" He said as he stuffed another piece in his mouth.

Lance shrugged. "I tried once but Pidge told me to get out of the kitchen. I know she didn’t mean anything by it but I think she thought I was too clumsy to ever be good at cooking."

Keith was about to reply when Dfeaud returned, she explained that they were going to throw a party in a week and wanted to know if they would be staying.

"It all depends on if that storm out there clears. But I'm sure we can make it." Keith responded.
"That's wonderful! is there anything else you require that I can get you?"
"Is there a place we can stay while we wait for our friends?"

Dfeaud nodded. “Of course! I've already prepared a room for the two of you in the mansion." She began to walk back down the hall to her throne room when a thought crossed her mind. "oh and by the way, we found those lions you mentioned. We don't have the resources to bring them here, least of all get you to them, but once the storm passes they should be in the same place." With that she skipped away, leaving Jitte ready to lead them to their room.

Keith didn't know wether or not to feel unsettled by this news. He felt like a rabbit in a foxes den, drawn in by welcoming tones and overly generous hospitality... Only to find that the foxes were just waiting for the right moment to strike, when there was no possibility of escape.

When they arrived at the room on the second floor Keith shut and locked the door. He scanned their room quickly.

there was two short steps down only for decoration it seemed. Light tan walls accompanied by a darker shade of wood for the floor. The middle of the room had a tan marble circle with a design of a crystal spreading outwards. There was a big window on the wall which looked out to the vegetation behind the mansion, and to the right of that, a desk that had a bookcase just behind it. Keith and Lance's paladin suits were floating in glass cases similar to the ones in the lion's castle. to the left of them there was a bed, big enough for the two of them. The two groaned simultaneously at the sight of it, even on a different planet it seemed they'd still have to share the same bed.

'Well, it could be worse.' Keith thought.

Chapter Text

light peered through the window and lit the room in a calming orange tint, at this sight, Lance piped up and ran to the window, looking out excitedly at the lush green vegetation. Keith walked to stand beside him.

Keith noticed Lance's glimmering eyes, Lance was truly happy to see something to remind him of earth. Something like home.

Keith suddenly became aware of the chain he still had in his back pocket, he pulled it out and grasped it in his hand.

"This room is pretty big huh?" Lance murmured, turning around to examine the room further. He stifled a couple of coughs with a fist at his mouth.

Keith was startled when he spoke, and he held the necklace behind his back. "Y-yeah. Actually I think I'm going to get ready for bed."
"Bed? But it's so early."
"Well- no I guess not bed. I'm getting ready to just Relax. They have a training hall in this place so..."
"Is that you're way of relaxing? Training?" Lance started, "no no no, We gotta relax the right way. Go get changed into something comfortable, we're going to do something fun. Plus, those clothes look too tight man." With that, Lance jumped to the drawers to see what clothes Dfeaud might have given them.

Lance raised an eyebrow, The drawers held clothes that were obviously modified to fit the larger teens, he picked a random outfit and threw it at Keith.

"I won't look!" Lance called as he closed his eyes.

Keith scoffed and began to change.

feeling a lot more comfortable now that all his skin was covered, Keith strode to the bed, dragging his feet across the floor before eventually laying down. The pillows were so fluffy and silky that he felt he could just melt, and the sheets were just as soft with the smell of lavenders emitting from them.

Keith's eyes glanced at the window and back to Lance, who had changed out of his clothes so that he was only in his boxers.

'Oh yeah I forgot he does that...'
"Is there a paper and pencil over there somewhere? Or... something resembling them?" Keith asked.

Lance searched the area around him; While he was distracted, Keith took this opportunity to hide the expensive jewelry under his pillow. Maybe another time.

The tan-skinned boy shook his head, letting Keith know that his search had resulted in nothing. He climbed onto the bed to lay beside Keith.

With a sigh, Keith pulled out his phone he received from Allura and enlarged the corners, making the screen wider; He hated drawing on this, but it would have to do.
Keith sat up and began to sketch the view outside the window exactly as he saw it. He tied his hair back so that it wouldn't fall in his face.

Lance began to talk endlessly about random thoughts that popped into his mind while Keith listened in silence, enjoying the background noise.

"Hey are you listening?" Lance whined at one point.
"Mmhm..."
"Oh yeah? then what did I just say?"
"You said you don't understand how some people find bears scarier then sharks."
"NO I DI- oh. Yeah I did... Anyway, as I was saying—"

Keith let out a soft laugh under his breath which made Lance, who was now blushing in embarrassment, pause again.

"W-what?"
"You thought I wasn't paying attention."
"Well- yeah! You're drawing on that thing so I assumed you weren't... sorry, I've been told I talk too much."

Keith smiled at Lance but said nothing. This was not the same guy he knew from the Garrison, or maybe he was the same guy and Keith just never got to know him till now, he was not ignorant and competitive like Keith first assumed him to be. This was someone Keith wanted to get to know better, someone he wanted to talk to, someone he would actually like to hang out with.

'Keith. You're crazy. Stop being crazy.' His conscience yelled. He had no time to be anything more than... what he was with Lance. Keith knew it was better to just keep his distance, it'd worked for him so far.

Of course, whatever forces were at work had other plans then to let the pair be happy. Lance gave a few hoarse coughs that made Keith's heart drop. Lance's skin was dull and he still looked feverish.

The paler paladin stared at Lance who shrugged it off as he continued to talk. Keith wished he could do something— anything — to help Lance from being slowly ebbed away by this stupid sickness.

Time passed until it was finally night. Keith was still on his phone while beside him, Lance tried to fall asleep; He couldn't however, because He kept being awoken by his own coughs and sniffles. He tossed and turned endlessly, letting out a few whimpers until, almost instinctively, Keith put a hand on Lance's head.

Keith rubbed the other's temple slowly before his fingers traced up to run through his dark locks. Keith didn't seem to notice he'd done it either until his hand was already in the man’s hair, nor did he move his head to face Lance as he was more focused on his drawing.

He moved with delicate and gentle movements to make sure he wouldn't tangle any of the hairs on Lance's head. Keith didn't think much of it, He used to own a dog that would squirm until his gloved hands caressed its fur, and it felt almost impulsive to do the same with Lance when he tussled in the bed beside him, not that Lance was a dog but the movement to sooth whatever was moving around him was instinctual.

Lance froze in place. Not only from shock, but from reminders of past memories. Opposite to Keith, Lance was never alone. He always had some family member to count on, and whenever he'd feel scared or worried his older siblings would caress his head reassuringly, but a big family also meant getting lost in the crowd. The attention rarely ever on one person alone, Lance had turned for other ways to get that attention. He'd act like a goofball, or focus on his looks so others would notice him.

Of course, his family was always there for him, even if the attention didn't always stay on him. Nowadays, Lance felt that sense of belonging less and less; Every time he went back to his room, every time they separated to do their own thing in the castle, every time they went on a mission, he was reminded that he didn't have his family to fall back on. He didn't have a sister to bother, or a brother to play with, or a nephew to tease—He was the seventh wheel.

But in this moment, as Keith's pale fingers massaged his head, Lance began to tear. He nuzzled closer to Keith and as he fell asleep, Keith's fingers continued to work.

.....

....

...

"Keith?...."

....

....

.....

...

....

"Keith?!..."

....

...

...

....

...

"Where—" Lance cut off with a whine as his foot banged against a hard surface. Lance struggled in the darkness, was he still sleeping?

Soon he realized that his eyes were wide open, and that the room he was in was pitch black.

He turned around and called for his friend, "Keith? KEEEIIITH!!! WHERE ARE YOU?" But no one answered.

He was alone. A sudden shiver ran down his spine, a cold was starting to grip him. He felt like a deer in headlights, frozen in place, fearing that any slight movement might cause a lion lurking out of sight to pounce.

Lance squinted his eyes, trying to see anything in the darkness. "...anybody?..."

Then he saw something move in the corner of his eye, he took a step toward it to inspect the figure closer. 'Keith?...'

As if hearing his name, the figure turned to face Lance.
"Keith?"

A black hood was draped over Keith's head and his eyes were dull and lifeless. Suddenly, Keith began to run in the opposite direction from Lance.

"W-wait Keith!" Lance called, he chased after the hooded figure, but couldn't keep up. "Wait! Keith!" Lance felt the ground drop from below him, he caught his breath as he felt his lungs fill with what he thought to be water "KEITH!-"

"Lance? LANCE WAKE UP!"

Lance shot up from the bed, gripping his chest as if he was trying to break through the skin and stop his heart from jumping out, He could feel the sweat on his body so thick he could drown in it.

Keith was holding Lance's arms with fear and concern in his eyes, he had probably just finished shaking him.

Lance felt a drop of water on his face. 'Was I... crying?...'

"Are you okay? You sounded like you were having a nightmare." Keith mumbled softly, his finger trailed Lance's face and wiped his tears. For some reason, this soft tone made Lance want to melt in his arms, and being too tired to keep up his front, that's exactly what Lance did.

Lance rested his head onto Keith's shoulder, stuffing his face into the crook of Keith's neck. 'His neck... it's so soft...' Lances hands reached up and wrapped around Keith in a hug.

"I-... what?..." Lance murmured.

"You kept screaming my name, Was I... was I hurting you?... In the dream?" He sounded sorrowful, like as if he thought himself responsible for whatever might have happened in Lance's dream. Keith hesitantly wrapped his arms around Lance, The future from the fortune teller was now ringing clearly in his mind.

Lance muttered a "no" and glanced out the window, his arms still hugging Keith.

A dark blue hue was filling the room—dots of light scattered visibly in the sky outside, it wasn't even morning yet.

He turned back towards Keith, "Keith... did I wake you? I'm sorry I-"

"No no it's fine." Keith interrupted, "I'm glad you're ok." He moved his hands off Lance's waist.

Lance griped the blanket beside him and muttered something inaudible.

"Come again?"

"I..." Lance wouldn't make eye contact with Keith, he sat up straighter and put his hands in his own lap. "that thing you were doing... can you do that again?..."

Keith raised an eyebrow. "what? You mean this?"

Keith moved his hand to Lance's head, beginning to caress his hair lightly—having to reach over since they were both sitting up.

Lance closed his eyes and moved in sync with Keith's relaxing rubs, he was completely exulted at the other boy's touch. "...yeah... that..."

Keith let out a small chuckle. He laid down and Lance followed him—not wanting the black paladin to stop and facing him while his fingers continued to glide through the darker one's hair.

Lance felt Keith's scent overwhelm him and soon, With a deep breath, he fell into a calming sleep again; Keith followed suit close after, his hand resting still on Lance's cheek.

…

Keith opened his eyes slightly, vision blurred from having just awoken, his purple eyes scanned beside him to see that Lance was already up—Sitting at the desk across the room. Lance's helmet was in front of him, and his face held an austere expression.

"Allura said Pidge isn't looking too good."

Keith was wide awake now. "Huh? Pidge? What's wrong?"

Lance held his head in his hand and sighed outwardly. "Allura says Hunk seems stable for now, but she doesn't know how long it'll take for Pidge to heal. And she can't come for us until then so, they're hiding in a space pocket from the galra just outside this planet's 3rd moon. Also I told them about the party, looks like we're attending."

"What? If Pidge is hurt doesn't that mean we should leave as soon as possible? Why would we stay to attend some party?" Keith complained. of course he told Dfeaud he'd think about it, But he wasn't seriously thinking of going.

Lance scratched his chin. "Listen up cause I'm only gonna say this once. Allura says she thinks Dfeaud might be working with the Galra. So While we're here, we need to investigate. That includes, attending this party."

Keith's hair stood on end. "But, didn't they fight the Galra in order to get us free?"

"That's what I told her, she's still suspicious." Lance sat up and stretched. "So, how's about we explore this castle a bit huh?"

Keith re-tied his hair. "explore? Are... we allowed to?" He blinked.

Lance shrugged. "beats sitting here all day waiting for the rest of the team, and we gotta do this as part of our mission anyway so why not have a little fun in the mean time?"

With that, the Cuban jumped up and changed into a new set of clothes: A black T-shirt that hung over his shoulder, denim shorts, and white socks.

Refusing to comb his hair, Lance coughed and headed out the door, leaving Keith stumbling behind him.

Keith cringed when his feet touched the cold floor. Unlike Lance, Keith barely had any time to change as he was struggling to wake himself up. He only had time to put on a dark red top and some tiny black shorts.

Lance smiled brightly at Keith as they walked down the halls, admiring the beautiful artwork that hung on the walls and the expensive furniture that littered the floor.

Keith felt his heart skip a beat when Lance looked over a balcony and almost fell over, his coughing threw him off balance.

"Jesus Lance, I can't even look away from you for one second." He groaned.

Lance only snickered in reply, and they continued to bounce around the castle rooms. Keith followed close behind lance, he was always trying to make sure Lance didn't come across any danger.

It was weird, Lance seemed to be coughing less and a physical sickness was deteriorating, But along with that Lance was seemingly becoming a little less rational—a little less careful, it was truly puzzling to Keith.

But Keith noticed something else too... those scars. Now that he had a better look, he could tell they definitely weren't suicidal scars thank god, they were training scars.

Lance had been training harder and harder everyday, even if it was clear he wasn't ready to be working so intensively.

"Hey Keith, how come you don't like Beyoncé?" Lance asked, as Keith stopped to inspect a wide window in front of him.

"That's a weird question— It's not that I don't like her, I just prefer other music." Keith responded.

They'd had a conversation about music before, it ended with a fight over music types. Lance kept teasing Keith for having an interest in 'emo music' and K-pop, and Keith punched him in the gut.

Lance crossed his arms and stared out the same window. After a full 5 minutes Lance scoffed. He enjoyed the serenity of nature, but he couldn't sit still for a long time just looking at it. He needed to be doing something.

"How could you find this so entertaining?"

Keith frowned at Lance. "you don't get it. Maybe you will someday."
"I'm not a kid, you don't have to speak to me like that. Why do you even look at this stuff anyway?"
"I like looking at nature. It's quiet, reminds me of home.”
"Yeah but. I know you. you don't really miss Earth... do you?"

Lance's face was calm and he smiled lightly, his words sounded more like a statement then a question. The tone caught Keith off guard, He had completely forgotten how much Lance himself missed home.

The raven-haired boy frowned. "I don't."

Keith glanced up to admire the view once more. From this angle of the castle, they could slightly see the shoreline of the beach and the glistening blue water which was outside the defensive forcefield. Though it was really far, it was nice to see, but not enough for Lance to sit as long as Keith did.

The red paladin couldn't help but to throw another glance at Lance.

Lance seemed so calm, the light from the window reflected off of his face making his skin seem golden. his hair was messy, but had a certain style to it; It almost made Keith want to run his fingers through Lance's hair again—to take out every little knot and twist or anything if only to see him as serene as this one more time.

"I can tell you're getting bored, come on. There's still a lot of other rooms we haven't explored." Keith said. He bit his lip, he was sort of enjoying Lance without his constant blabbering, but even then he wouldn't mind if Lance was talking either. He didn't want to stay there if it made lance uncomfortable. 'Eugh, what's wrong with me?...'

Keith shuffled his feet, he still didn't feel like they should be running around without letting Dfeaud know. Something about her made Keith feel... wrong, like any mistake by them could cause her to snap.

Without a second thought, Lance bolted to the ballroom. His feet skidded across the floor as he spun around, Keith stood by the entryway with his arms crossed.

The floor was clean and slippery enough for him to glide on the floor with his socks as if he were an ice skater. He wasn't the best at it, but he seemed happy.

"Don't be such a downer Keith," Lance started. "come dance with me!"

Keith raised his hands to his face and shook them. "oh no no no Lance, this is all you. I don't dance."

Lance rolled his eyes and grabbed Keith's raised hand, pulling him towards the center of the floor. Keith tried to pull his hands away in a frantic panic, his constant protests not seeming to get through to Lance, who held back his sneezes and sniffles to make sure he had a tight grip on the other paladin.

"Seriously Lance, I don't want to-"
"Oh shut up."
"There's not even any music playing."
"Then make up a song."

Lance began to hum a tune, adding random notes as he went along and holding Keith's hand tightly. He rocked them back and forth. It was definitely a slow song Lance was humming, but why? Eventually the darker one's lips separated and mouthed words. Keith looked on with interest, he couldn't tell if lance was making up a song or if it was his own. soon a soft sound came out and Lance was quietly singing with his eyes closed.

"Please if you love me... *mumble* look in my eyes..."

Keith didn't know what to do, he'd been stiff almost the entire time. Now that Lance was singing, he wasn't sure if he should snap the boy back to reality. His ears twitched at the sound of Lance's voice, 'He sounds... so pretty...'

Lance continued, his lyrics sounding more evident, though the meaning went right over Keith's head, Lance didn't seem to be singing with the realization that he was creating a love song.

"If only you knew, what I wanted to do. How I wanted to hold you, till the end of time. To call you "mine" would be such a dream, but again you see, You don't belong to me. And there's not enough time. Oh there's not enough time. I just hope to see you again, believe that at my count of ten, I can hear you sing..."

Lance paused making Keith shiver, did he do something wrong? Why did Lance stop?

Lance’s eyes were still shut tightly, and Keith realized he was counting, well—count singing.

"...Eight... seven... six... five..."

Lance gripped Keith's hand tighly.

"Four... three..."

"Lance?"

"Two... One."

Lance hissed and grabbed at his neck. "Ow! what the—"

his ocean blue eyes suddenly opened to stare longingly at Keith, who seemed very concerned.

"Did you like my song?" He asked, a smile as innocent as a child's.

Keith hesitantly nodded. "Lance are you-"

Lance pulled him close. "you know Keith... some of those lyrics were meant for you."

Keith's face turned bright red against his pale skin. "W-what are you talking about?"

Lance chuckled and rested his forehead on Keith's. Keith could swear his heart was beating loud enough for the taller boy to hear, but he didn't make a comment on it. Keith had that same nervous feeling you'd get right before going on a roller coaster, or while watching a horror movie when everything goes silent.

'Why am I like this? Never mind that, what the hell is Lance doing?'

Lance smiled. "have I ever told you that I actually really like your mullet?"

Keith was totally confused now... A prank, this must be some sort of prank right? Surely Lance wouldn't ever say this in his right mind unless he was joking.

The caramel-skinned boy traced his lips along Keith's ear, making the other man shudder. His hand traveled down his spine and though each movement was slow, it was purposeful. Lance's fingers slipped underneath Keith's shirt slightly, the gentle and cold touch of his hand making Keith gasp lightly.

'This can't be happening. What even IS happening? Why so suddenly? Why now?' Keith held back tiny erratic breaths from his mouth.

With a sigh Lance murmured, "What do you think of the name... Keith McClain?"

At this, Keith finally pushed Lance away with a jolt. "Lance! what the fuck?!"

In reply, Lance leaned forward suggesting a kiss.

Keith scoffed, face still bright red, and turned tail. 'And to think! I was actually starting to-...'

Lance was a player, and Keith actually almost fell for it.

He scurried down the hall as far as he could, checking to see if Lance was following every 5 seconds or so. Eventually his pace slowed down as he caressed the bridge of his nose, contemplating if the recent events had actually just happened.

Keith glared down the empty hallway. Was someone... running towards him?

Coming down from the opposite end of the hallway was Dfeaud and her servant, dfeaud was holding a glass container and waving it around frantically.

When the girl got to Keith she stopped and shrieked, making keith cover his ears in response. 'What the hell is happening with everyone today?'

"There you are my little love bug!" Dfeaud shut the jar with a smile and handed it to her servant, "make sure she doesn't come out of that again, she could cause trouble." She smiled at Keith with her hands folded neatly in front of her.

Dfeaud's posture changed when she saw that Lance wasn't with him; immediately, she inquired of his whereabouts. Keith crossed his arms and watched the servant amble down the hall.

The leader followed his focus and spoke freely. "oh! I should explain. I was playing with my Love bug in my room earlier today but she jumped out of my hand and slipped under the cracks of my door. She's extremely tiny so you probably didn't see her, I just hope she didn't cause too much trouble."

Keith's mouth hung agape as he tried to process whatever it was Dfeaud was talking about.

She shook her head. "... A love bug is a creature that our kind likes to keep as pets. If you know how to act around one, they don't bite."
"What happens if they bite you?" Keith asked.
"The person bitten will feel a sudden attraction to everyone around them, touching, flirting, kissing... especially if they already liked the person— ha! they'd barely be able to control themselves!"

Dfeaud laughed over Keith's uneasiness. It was starting to make sense now. "how long does this last?"

She raised an eyebrow. "oh uh... it depends on where they bit you. The 'poison' has to rush to the brain so if it's in an area further from the brain, it has longer to travel and therefor has less time to survive in the body... if it was on your leg let's say, the effects would probably last 2 hours? For arms it would be around 4 hours... no wait was that for hands?"
"What about the neck? What if you were bitten on your neck?"
"Oh, well then I would say the effects would last at least 6 hours or so. Anyway, Where's the other one that was with you? The one who came in blue armor?"

Keith let his eyes drop to the floor, 6 hours of Lance acting like that? 'He acts more flirty to the people he already likes she said? If he acted like that towards me... I wonder how he'd act towards someone like allura haha.'

"I think... he got bit by your bug. I left him in the ballroom." Keith scratched his neck in embarrassment. Now he felt regret for leaving Lance by himself, what if his sickness caused him to collapse again and he wasn't there to catch him? What if he hurts himself? What if he's lost?

Dfeaud's eye twitched and her smile wavered. She twirled her hair with a sigh. "oh I apologize! If you want to know how to catalyze the effects, all you have to do is give in to his sexual advances, whichever works. wouldn't want him running around trying to flirt with everyone now." she laughed, not realizing that Lance would flirt with the bug's poison or without.

Keith's face tinted with a dusty rose. "s-sexual advances? Like... if he tries to kiss me?..."

Dfeaud nodded, it was obvious that her culture didn't find that to be something so intimate that it could only be done between lovers, they probably thought it as something friends who loved each other could do, But Keith couldn't imagine the thought.

"Really, I am truly sorry for this trouble, is there anything else I can do for you? I wish you guys weren't stuck here." Dfeaud seemed sincere, of course she held that same smile she always had, but it looked honest.

"No it's fine. You've done more then enough for us." Keith stared at the ground as he lost himself in thought.

"Please, if you need anything you let me know. Paladins of voltron deserve the best treatment." Dfeaud jumped up excitedly.

The sound of Lance sneezing from the ballroom was enough to trigger Keith in motion and run towards the noise. Why did every time Lance seem even a little in danger did Keith's body naturally run to him? Lance could protect himself.

Dfeaud was frozen with a humbug smile on her face.

Keith stopped at the ballroom doors to see Lance leaning weakly on Jitte, despite the fact that Jitte was much smaller.

Lance turned his face to Jitte with a smirk. "do you have a map? Cause I'm getting lost in your eyes"

Jitte groaned and walked towards Keith to hand the sick boy over. "love bug's don't give him horrible pick up lines... he just knows them." Jitte shuddered.

Keith wrapped Lance's arm around him to help him stand. "Thanks for... helping Lance." He caught his breath, for some reason hearing Lance flirt with other people always made him angry. Probably because it was annoying to hear how bad they were. seriously, who would ever find that attra—

"Hey Keith, I gotta say... can you please stop coming near me? Because I value my breath and I can't stand you taking it away." Lance winked.

Keith's face flushed a deep red and turned away.

Jitte crossed his arms. "why do you leave him on his own? Bad things can happen like that."

"why do you care anyway? It's not your business how I treat my teammates." Keith hissed back, his eyes widened immediately. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

Jitte raised his hand for Keith to stop. "I understand. When it comes to the people you care about, you can get a little defensive. I was like that too."

Keith thanked the alien before heading back to the room, holding Lance close to him.

Lance cuddled into Keith's arm, which convinced Keith to push him away in response. "yep, your legs work fine."

Lance wobbled on his own and made a loud groaning noise, "I don't want to go back to the room~ I got a better idea!" Lance ran down the stairs as fast as lightning, leaving Keith with his mouth agape.

It was gonna be a long 6 hours.

Chapter Text

Keith chased Lance out the open gates of the castle but lost him somewhere in the market place. 'Damn it Lance!' He cursed in his mind. It wasn't like the boy to just run off, he was usually more stable than this.

Keith felt a vibration in his pocket and pulled out his phone, answering the call.

"Keith?"
"Allura?"
"Oh thank god I reached you. Lance hasn't been answering his phone, I assume he broke it?"

Keith rolled his eyes, Lance had left the phone on the desk in their room that morning.

Allura began to speak again, "Pidge is in stable condition, she and Hunk are up and walking around. We'll be there in 3 Vargas."
"Yeah ok but listen princess, Lance ran off and I don't know where he went, I have to find him-"
"He ran off? You let him run off?" Allura sighed into the phone. "Keith, when we get there we are going to land the castle. We are still attending that party so we aren't leaving yet. Please try to find Lance before we get there."
"And Allura- can you bring my calendar? It should be in my room."

Allura hung up right after he'd finished his last sentence, Keith was barely paying attention to his phone either way. He hoped she heard him. He kept scanning the crowd to see if he would find the boy but no luck. The bustle and hubbub of the alien folk was too loud for him to hear Lance's voice either.

Keith bit his lip, he remembered every time Lance had wondered about home. 'Home... Water!'

Keith tapped on the shoulder of one of the planet's inhabitants. "do you know a place that's secluded... somewhere with water?"

The alien thought for a moment. "there's a couple of places like that. The bath house, the farmers watering area, the pool, the streams that run around back of Dfeaud's mansion-"

"That's it." Keith ran off without saying thank you to the alien, He needed to make sure Lance was safe.

When he finally made it to the back of Dfeaud's mansion he stood in awe of the beautiful gardens. Benches lined the pavement paths that ran through out the maze like vegetation. Keith looked up to see the window of the room Lance and him were staying in, this was what they were seeing. It was high enough that they weren't able to notice the the pavements or flowers in the garden below, just the tall growing trees.

Lance had to be here, Keith could feel it. He ran into the jungle-like garden and wondered around for what seemed like ages until he finally found Lance, sitting on the edge of a white marble fountain.

The water spewing out of the fountain was a clean and sparkling blue which reflected off of Lance's eyes beautifully. His short hair was filled with flowers that Keith assumed he put there himself.

Keith approached him and couldn't help but smile. Lance looked so calm, so peaceful, so relaxed. Keith'd give anything to see Lance like this all the time. 'I'm only thinking that cause he's usually annoying.' He told himself.

Lance looked up and waved to Keith, a smile stretching across his cheeks and up to his ears. A wide and innocent smile; The type of smile that wrinkled your face and made you look squished, the type that showed you were truly happy, the type that was full of teeth and could light up a room just by being there- even if no one else was around to see it.

"Keith! Come sit with me, I made you a crown~" Lance said, holding said crown (which was intertwined with flowers and round ended twigs) up to his face.

Keith rolled his eyes, how could he refuse?

The red paladin sat beside the Lance, cringing slightly at the cold marble. "Lance, you really gave me a scare."

Lance set the crown atop the boy's head and cupped his hands together. "You look so beautiful..."

Keith blushed but shook the feeling away, 'it's cause of the bug, it's cause of the bug. Lance wouldn't say that otherwise.' He told himself.

Bright yellow light from the Planet's sun shone on the garden, illuminating every flower and leaf with a soft and gentle glow. The sound of the water quietly hitting itself as it spouted from the fountain helped in providing this calming display.

Lance put a hand on Keith's and stared into his eyes. "Your eyes are such a pretty violet too."

Keith froze up, he knew why Lance was acting like this, he knew that Lance was flirting with him unintentionally... So why wasn't he backing away?

Lance leaned close so that their faces were only centimeters apart, Keith didn’t dare try to breathe.

Keith could feel Lance's heavy breaths on his lips, like magnetic waves hypnotically pulling Keith closer. He kept telling himself to back away, why wouldn't he? His body wouldn't move.

Finally, Keith snapped out of his trance and turned away. "Stop flirting with me. It's disgusting."

Lance looked hurt, his eyes trailed back to the flowers on his right. They were almost every color imaginable; some sprouted with two different colors at it's roots, others were a whole mix of colors—like a rainbow. But out of all the colors and designs, a plain purple-looking dandelion caught his attention. He felt drawn to the color, it filled him with a sense of dignity and pride, yet it also made him feel vulnerable and insecure. He wondered... what would Keith think of this flower?

Lance picked the violet plant and held it up for Keith to see, he loved the look of it.

Keith turned his head over to look at it. "Why are you holding a weed?" He said with narrowed eyes.
"Cause I find it pretty. Don't you?"
"It's just a weed. If it kills the garden it lives in then it's safer to just remove it."

Lance was surprised by the tone of Keith's voice. He slowly put the plant on the ground. "Well, just because it can kill the garden doesn't mean it will." Lance mumbled.

Keith didn't understand. "But it's a liability, Who cares if it looks pretty or makes you feel good, it's dangerous."

"This isn't the same as flowers back home though Keith, it's an alien flower. If you give it a chance, maybe it could help the garden grow instead." Lance stuck the flower into Keith's hair.

Keith didn't know how to respond, the way Lance said those things with his soft, relaxing voice with his legs gently kicking back and forth against the fountain wall, was just very... peaceful. all Keith could think to do was try and change the subject, but he couldn't open his mouth to say anything.

"Do you have any siblings?" Lance asked after a long period of silence.

"No... I'm assuming you do?" Keith replied, still refusing to look at Lance in fear he would be pulled in by his attraction.

Lance nodded with a smile towards the ground. "3. I have Marco, he's 27. Luis, he's 20. Veronica... oh man, she must be 24 by now."

Keith stared in comfort, just listening to Lance speak about his family. He could hear the way Lance felt about each member by the way he said their name, and the little expressions he made when referring to them.

"You seem really close to your relatives..." Keith said after a while.

"Well of course!" He started, "They're all I got! I mean... They were..."

'All he's got huh?...' Keith looked to the ground, his flower crown almost falling off.

Did that mean Keith never had anything? If he never had a family to depend on? Keith rubbed his arm, suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. His eyes had a sense of loneliness that Lance caught onto right away.

Lance saw the uncertainty in Keith's body language and pulled him into a tight embrace.

"of course... now that we're here, You guys are my family too." He added.

Keith froze, he wasn't prepared for that. He reluctantly and awkwardly placed his arms around Lance. It took Keith a second to smile, beginning to enjoy the hug while it lasted.

It wouldn't last long though, as Lance snuggled into Keith with a sort of soft purr. "Mmmm Keith, you smell really good!~"

"Ew dude gross, get away from me!" Keith chortled, pushing Lance's face away with a hand.

The other boy started to laugh with a wide smile. The lovebug poison must have kicked in again. God... Keith couldn't wait for all this to be over. It seemed everything was going wrong for Lance.

"So what about you?" Lance asked finally.
Keith raised an eyebrow back at him. "what do you mean?"
"I mean... we talk so much about me, my interests, my life back home. But What about you?"
"I... no one's ever asked me about my life before I... I don't know where to start."
"Just start anywhere."

Keith held back a smile, he'd normally tell Lance to fuck off but he seemed so happy in that moment, why ruin it? Plus, he felt someone should know, and Lance was all ears.

"I was an orphan, I mean... I am an orphan—I had a dad... But he died when I was... I think 7? and I never knew my mom. Considering we know now that I’m half galran I can only assume she’s somewhere in space.. Anyway, I jumped around foster homes for a while, No one wanted to adopt me cause they thought I was 'unstable', that I had too much trouble with 'respecting authority.’ But what do they know? they never showed me any respect anyway."

Lance stared at Keith with a calm face. This was the real Lance; No sickness, no love bug, no nothing, just a boy who was looking at Keith through understanding and caring eyes.

"I ran away a lot. I stayed like that until Shiro found me. Then I got involved with the garrison... You pretty much know the story from there." Keith said. He glanced towards his friend.

"That's... that's so sad!" Lance teared up, it was clear he was forcing it, but the feeling was there. "I'm so sorry Keith..."

Keith stared at the ground, he couldn't understand when people said that. He heard it a lot when he was younger, but he never knew what it was like to live with a real family, so he didn't understand why people felt sorry for him. "it's... how I've always lived. You don't need to feel sorry."

Lance put a hand on Keith's. "I know… I just feel like you deserved better, and I wish you got to experience a happier childhood. You won't live like that again, Not anymore. Voltron will always be there for you, you know?" Lance paused before continuing. "I'll always be there for you."

Keith didn't pull his hand away. He smiled up at Lance, staring into the other man's eyes for a long while.

"Keith?... are you ok?" Lance asked with a nervous grin. He wasn't used to Keith being open like this.

Keith blinked and then frowned at Lance. "I'm fine. Thank you." He pulled his hand away and stretched. "Come on, the others will be here soon. We gotta get back to the castle."

Lance groaned, "No~ I don't want to go back," The man wrapped his arms around Keith's waist, "I want to stay here with you!"

Keith rolled his eyes, that was definitely the lovebug talking. He pushed Lance's arms off him and started towards the exit of the garden. "I'm leaving without you!" He called.

Lance stumbled after him, He held on tight to Keith's arm and snuggled into it. "I want to go explore!~ how long have we got till they get here?"

Keith let Lance cling to his arm, "uh... she said 3 Vargas I think? It's Probably 2 by now."

Lance had a devious look, he led Keith away from the castle and into the village. Keith was protesting the entire way until they stood in front of a building, some alien writing and a picture of what looked to be a microphone was on a sign in front of the building. Luckily for them, the inhabitants of this planet liked huge public areas so they were the perfect size for the larger Keith and Lance.

Keith yanked his hand away from Lance's grip and glared at the building, unimpressed he sighed, "the hell is this?"

Lance smiled and pulled Keith inside, "so I know how much you love to sing-"
"I don't sing."
"... I know how much I love to sing, and how much you love spending time with me... so I thought why don't we go to a karaoke place?"

The red paladin's eyes traced the inside of the place. 'oh god no.'

Before Keith had the chance to turn tail and leave, Lance grabbed his hand and forced him inside. Keith groaned and let himself be dragged to the front desk.

The place had a very cabin-like aesthetic to it, the desk was wood and metal while just beyond it was a secure fire place and lounge area. The light dimly laid on top of the furniture around it, it was very relaxing.

"Lance, how are we paying for this?" He asked with a raised eyebrow, Lance was already way ahead of him.

After letting the people know they were Paladins of Voltron, the workers decided to let them try a room for an hour for free.

Keith was suspicious of the planet's overwhelming hospitality but seeing the excitement on Lance's face was enough for him to play along. It couldn't hurt to have some fun, right? He'd just let Lance sing and enjoy himself and Keith could watch from the sidelines.

The manager went over the instructions of how to choose songs and how to change the settings before letting them into the room and leaving them to their own devices. Keith listened intently, as he usually did when someone gave instructions. Lance didn't pay much attention.

She'd left them with refreshments that Keith helped himself to and Lance admired the room's size and the huge TV. Keith sat down on the couch that ran along the sides of the room and tried to ignore the flashing lights.

Lance picked out a song at random and entered the number into the screen, but before the song started he turned to Keith, "aren't you going to sing with me?"

Keith narrowed his eyes, "we don't know any of the songs here, the one you picked isn't even in English. Plus, I don't sing."

Lance put a hand on his hip and rolled his eyes, "don't be a downer, Keith! Sing with me!"

Lance reached forward and pulled Keith up off the couch to stand beside him, handing him the other microphone and beginning to sing the words he saw on the screen. He was a good singer, but having not known the tune or how to pronounce most of the words... it wasn't the best voice out there.

Keith smiled at his friend's attempts, but no way was he going to embarrass himself.

Lance pouted. "Keith, sing with me!"
"Lance, I have dignity. I'm not going to-"
"Dignity? No one else is here but me!"
"I already said-"
"Keith plea-"
"I'm not doing it!" Keith shouted, tossing the microphone to the floor.

Lance took a step back, his body tense as he stared at Keith in silence. Keith's gaze softened when he saw the look in the other man's eyes.

In a few moments Lance was whimpering, tears beginning to form. He was quite the actor, of course, Keith couldn’t tell.

A bead of sweat came from Keith's forehead as he spoke, "I- no no no Lance I'm sorry. Don't cry- I'll-" he picked up the microphone he had thrown on the ground, "I'll sing with you, look! Uhm..."

Keith began singing in a raspy and cracked voice, it sounded terrible.

Lance tried to hold back a smile but soon burst into laughter, making Keith blush in embarrassment.

He knew Lance would judge him. Lance was always searching for his vulnerabilities just so he could insult them further—
'this is exactly why I refused to sing before...'

"Keith! I wasn't actually going to cry. If you don't want to, you don't have to." Lance gave Keith a warm smile that flared Keith up inside. "You sound great."

Lance spun around and danced like an idiot beside Keith, singing and mumbling words that didn't even attempt to go along with the song anymore. Keith laughed along, singing a little louder.

The song ended and Lance immediately went to put on another, Keith crossed his arms with a small grin. Lance was a real big dork.

They continued to sing and dance randomly until the middle of the song, when Lance got an idea.

"I'm gonna sing a song, you gotta finish the lyric ok?" Lance spoke.

Keith laughed, "what? N-no I didn't listen to much musi-"
"Hey there Delilah what's it like in New York City?"

Keith was silent for a long while. for a second—Lance thought Keith didn't even know the song.

"...I'm a thousand miles away but girl, tonight you look so pretty yes you do." Keith sang hesitantly.

"Times square can't shine as bright as you." Lance felt his heart lift as Keith sang the next verse back to him.

Keith flashed a nervous toothy smile. "I swear it's true."

By this time, the actual song that was playing had ended. They were singing together with no background music; it was just the sound of their voices echoed through the karaoke mics; This made Keith's singing shake because now, he could hear himself and Lance clearly, and since Lance knew the tune and words he actually sounded pretty amazing.

"Hey there, Delilah, don't you worry about the distance." Lance started the next line.
"I'm right there if you get lonely
Give this song another listen
Close your eyes." Keith continued.
"Listen to my voice, it's my disguise
I'm by your side."

"Oh it's what you do to me, oh it's what you do to me." They sang this together, Lance picking up a harmony while Keith stuck to the melody.

Because Lance's voice was on top of Keith's, it didn't sound that bad. They ended up singing through the entire song, Grinning at each other like their IQ's had dropped to -5 without a care in the world. The paler man felt himself getting lost in the moment. How could repeating a stupid song in an empty room make Keith feel such emotion rising in him? Even though he’d never felt it before, this feeling was almost… nostalgic.

"A thousand miles seems pretty far but they've got planes and trains and cars I'd walk to you if I had no other way." Keith took hold of Lance's hand, an unreadable look in his eyes.

It was a strange sight for Lance, because Keith was singing every word as if meant it.

The younger man flushed but continued to sing without so much as a hint of hesitation in his voice, "Our friends would all make fun of us and we'll just laugh along because we know that none of them have felt this way."

"Delilah, I can promise you, that by the time that we get through, the world will never ever be the same! And you're to blame."
Lance giggled, "hey there, Delilah, you be good and don't you miss me, two more years and you'll be done with school and I'll be making history like I do."
"You know it's all because of you, we can do whatever we want… to."

Lance rested his head on Keith's shoulder, He stopped singing as he rocked back and forth with the red paladin.

Keith froze, not knowing how to react as Lance mumbled something under his breath.

"Lance... um..." Keith started.

Lance looked up with a blush and apologized, quickly putting on another song. Keith had a bittersweet taste in his mouth from his ending the song before the next chorus.

Time passed and they were both swung into the karaoke once more—Singing with words they didn't know how to pronounce and dancing like as if they were performing in front of an audience. At one point, Lance pulled Keith toward his body, spun him around, and dipped him when the song ended.

Keith wasn't prepared for what happened next.

Lance leaned down and pressed his lips against Keith's, holding him tightly.

Keith's face flushed red and his eyes were open wide; but soon, he let them close. His body leaned into the kiss and his hands reached up to tangle in Lance's hair.

Everything about Lance was perfect to Keith in this moment: he wasn't talking, his lips were soft, his hair was silky, and his touch—god his touch—it made Keith's heart beat so incredibly fast that he was sure it would win an Olympic race if it could run.

When they finally pulled away, both Paladins were standing straight up from the dip, looking into each other's eyes—completely shocked.

"Lance, what the fuck…?” Keith mumbled after a few moments, pushing Lance away from his body.

Lance stammered and took a step back. "I-I'm sorry. I... I didn't mean..." he stuttered.

Keith caressed the bridge of his nose. "No it's... it's fine. I understand."

Lance stared at Keith, unmoving. A new glint in his eyes, as if making a realization, or snapping from a trance.

Keith gulped. What was that? That feeling when Lance's lips touched his... it was addicting. He tried to ignore the feeling crawling in his throat, the one telling him to run back into the man's arms and kiss him all over again, just for a hint of his taste.

For the rest of the hour, Lance continued to dance and sing and move until he was completely out of breath, though, it seemed like he had less energy than before, like a light on low battery flickering in and out of luminosity. The refreshments must have had something similar to alcohol in it because Lance was acting like a drunken fool. Keith hadn’t joined Lance in dancing or singing since the kiss. It had confused him too much and at that point, he was just waiting for the opportunity to go home.

Ready to go back to the mansion, Keith took Lance's hand to take him away. Lance protested and fought against Keith's grip when the other man pulled him out of the room, "Nooo I'm not done!~" Lance pouted.

Keith rolled his eyes. "The hour's up so. Yeah, we're done."

Lance yanked Keith close to him so that their faces were only inches apart. "Carry me? I'm tired~"

The Korean almost rejected him before thinking of Dfeaud's suggestion against the poison. This could count as romantic... right?

He sighed and turned around so that Lance could hop on his back, which Lance happily did so.

As they began to walk, Keith could feel Lance snuggling into his body, making small noises as he rested his head against the other. Keith couldn't help but blush at this, slowing his pace so he could revel in the moment.

They reached the mansion after about 20 minutes or so. Keith dropped Lance on the floor, who made a noise, attesting to the movement.

"Keith you can't just drop me like that- I could have hurt myself!" Lance whined.
"If only." Keith replied. He opened the door to see Jitte was waiting for both of them.

The man looked up and smiled. "You've been gone a while." He spoke.
"Yeah. Lance was being difficult."
"I'll be as difficult as you want me too baby~" Lance held tightly on his arm.
"That doesn't even make sense— god can you take him or something?" Keith motioned to Jitte, trying to get Lance to get off his arm. Lance wouldn't move however, he was stuck to the other like glue.

Jitte's eyes flashed with an unreadable look and he smiled lightly. Jitte cupped his hands neatly in front of himself. "Please, follow me." He spoke, leading the two down into the main room.

The doors opened to reveal the same beautifully decorated room with high ceilings, specially designed floor, and lavishly set tables. Dfeaud sat in her chair looking bored as the rest of the Paladins stood in front of her, hands in chains.

"Oh goodie! It's the ones from before!" She said happily.

Keith growled with Lance beside him seemingly coming to his senses.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Keith hissed.

Dfeaud looked confused, but her smile stayed the same. "What ever do you mean? These intruders barged into my castle uninvited. I'm simply detaining them as any rightful leader should do."

Keith took a threatening step forward but Lance held him back with a hand. "Those are our friends. The other Paladins of Voltron!"

Dfeaud's gaze flickered before she broke out into laughter. "Oh why yes! What a silly mistake! Guards- unchain them will you? These are our guests! We will treat them as such. Jitte come here."

Jitte ran to Dfeaud's side as she whispered into his ear.
After a quick nod from Jitte, A few others and himself ran to the group and led them out of the room to another area where Lance and Keith couldn't see.

"Where are you taking them?!" Keith yelled in anger.

"Don't worry, the chains are just a bit hard to take off. The tools to get them off are just in the other room. They'll be back in a moment." Dfeaud giggled.

Just like that, the group was rushing back in with their hands untied and guards coming up behind them to make sure they didn't stray.

"Hmm. We don't have many rooms for you, since all my servants live in this mansion as well." Dfeaud started, her eyes holding an odd sort of concern.

"It's alright… We can stay in the castle." Allura spoke carefully, rubbing her wrists where the chains were just moments before. Her tone was uneasy.

The princess smiled and bowed. "Apologies for treating you so barbarically. We hope our first impression wasn't too much on you, we really just want to become Allies with you."

Keith exchanged a look with Lance and stared back at the two leaders as they shared their diplomatic conversation. After what seemed to be an hour of talking, Allura glanced over her shoulder to Lance and Keith.

"Shall we get going then?"

Chapter Text

Keith's face held a suspicious look. "Wait, you're not even gonna say anything about how they just had you in chains?"
"They were scared, It's only natural. Especially when you didn't tell them we were coming." Allura spoke with an air of annoyance.

Despite the obvious stress that should have accompanied being held captive, Allura's hair was perfectly combed and fell neatly on her shoulders, her armor was clean and unscathed, and her posture was straight but relaxed.

"Don't you find it a little odd that she was so willing to give you guys up?" Keith said, clearly anxious.

Allura and Shiro looked at each other in confusion. "Keith," Allura started, "are you alright?"

Keith shook his head, a small curiosity running up his throat. "W-what do you mean? of course I'm alright, why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, ever since we got here Dfeaud has been nothing but nice and you've had a lot on your hands." Lance mentioned.

"Like what?"
"Like, everything."
"What do you mean 'like everything?'"
"Y'know. Like... stuff"
"What do you mean 'like stuff?!'"

Allura raised a hand to her temple as her voice raised over theirs. "Ok be quiet! Let's go back to the castle and just… figure out what to do from there."

She motioned her head towards their ship and the rest of the team quickly followed, all expect for Keith and Lance.

Keith threw a glare towards Lance who merely shrugged in response.

"You're not gonna say anything?" Keith crossed his arms.
"Keith- relax. You're being paranoid." Lance replied.
"I'm being paranoid?! Ugh. Allura didn't even sound like her usual self.... sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that makes sense here."
"You're an idiot."
"Fuck you!"

Lance opened his mouth to reply but was so outraged by Keith's simple yet powerful expression of anger. He stormed off back into the mansion to pick up his things without another word to Keith.

The red paladin stared after him. 'The poison from that bug must have worn off' Keith concluded.

Keith's eyes were heavy, everyday seemed to stretch longer and longer... how much more of space could he take? In the beginning, he loved space. He thought there was nothing to miss back on earth, but what he was missing in space was seclusion. Everyone was always in his business and he couldn't get them to go away, not to mention he had no idea how to deal with people's feelings. He'd rather just let them blow off their steam and hate him forever then try to fix the relationship, but he couldn't just leave the team—there was no where for him to go. He was stuck.

When Keith arrived at their room inside the mansion, Lance was already a tempest as he stomped away with his things, purposefully bumping into Keith as he walked by.

Keith scoffed and began to gather his own belongings.

He felt like he was forgetting something.

' oh right. I got him a necklace- where did I put that?...'

As Lance's back was turned Keith grabbed the jewelry from under the pillow and stuffed it into his back pocket. 'Why did I even let Jitte get me this? I should give it back to him when I have the chance... he could give it to someone else.'

Keith and Lance started to walk back to the castle, both were holding small belongings and walking side by side in silence. Keith suggested they investigate more but Lance refused.

"Why not?" Keith growled, getting even more annoyed then before.

"Because Jitte is right behind us. He's definitely gonna see us if we take a different path to the front door." Lance spat back, keeping his voice low in order to not be heard.

Keith peeped over his shoulder to see Jitte actually was there, he was following quietly with an austere expression that made Keith feel uncomfortable. Keith was planning on giving Jitte the necklace back but the man seemed too upset to be accepting any presents at the moment.

Allura was waiting outside the castle entrance when Keith and Lance walked in.

"I'm going to work out a few more things with Dfeaud, You can head to your rooms in the meantime." Allura said.

Lance became serious again. "Hey, how are we going to investigate Dfeaud if we aren't on the inside?"

Allura raised an eyebrow, curiosity lapping at her features. "Investigate? Oh, right. I'll tell her that we suffered a blow to our castle or something and that your rooms are inhabitable, so that you can stay longer."

Keith was ready to protest, but Allura was already walking back into the mansion.

Keith's eyes flared up in anger and he clenched his hands into tight fists. The frustration was pricking at his eyebrows and lips causing him to hiss when he prepared to speak.

"That's a stupid plan, there isn't any damage visible from outside, plus it's a castle— there should be a million rooms and Dfeaud would know that, she isn't stupid." Keith complained, mostly to himself.

Lance was silent for a moment before agreeing, "Why would Allura think this would work?"
"So you agree with me! Something weird is going on."
"I-I trust Allura, Keith, it'll be fine. if I believe things are ok then they are."
"I'm being realistic, unlike you! God— can't you just listen to me?!"
"Fine, fine explain away."
"I- I don't know how to explain it I can just feel it."
"Mm," Lance sighed before rubbing his eyes, "...ok, Maybe we can find out more later- she's probably just frantic after worrying over Pidge and Hunk and from just being captured."
"That wouldn't make her irrational would it?"
"It could. I mean, everyone is a little irrational when they're anxious."

Lance was boring holes into Keith's eyes with his own anger and deniability.

This caused Keith to rub his own arm. He didn't wanna leave their relationship in a bad spot- it was already pretty bad anyway.

Lance was the first one to speak though, "I-I'm sorry if I was too harsh on you, or if I made you think your feelings didn't matter to me. I just… Allura usually knows what she’s doing, I wanna trust her."

Keith appreciated the apology. He put a hand on Lance's shoulder and smiled. "There's no reason to feel sorry, I'm probably just over-reacting. I know I can be a bit… hard headed. Thank you, Lance.”

Lance's body seemed to tingle when his name was said, he looked happy.

Suddenly Lance went silent, debating something in his mind. His blue eyes darted back and forth on the ground, like he was calculating the next action he should take in a video game, flipping through the options and trying to decide which would be the best one.

Finally the timer on his decisions ran out, and Lance looked up with a smile and suddenly latched onto Keith's arm. "Baby~ let's go to our room. In the castle."

Keith rolled his eyes. Did the poison come back? Why didn't Jitte warn him of on-and-off effects? "1. don't call me baby, 2. it's my room and 3... let go of my arm."

Lance pouted, acting like a child who'd been told he couldn't have any candy. "You're no fun!"

It seemed Lance was insistent on holding Keith's arm regardless of the other man's input.

Keith and Lance ambled the halls of the lion's castle, barely inches apart. A few times Keith had tried to pull his arm away but that just made Lance hold on tighter.
"Lance please- I'm getting sweaty."
"That's cause I'm so hot~"
"Jesus Lance that wasn't even funny-"
"Shut up, I know you love me~"
"Now that, That was funny."

The second they arrived to Keith's room, Keith went to his bed and planted himself down with a huff. He sat with crossed legs, back to the wall where the bed lay against, and front facing the wall directly across from the bed. Keith tied his hair back, enlarged his phone screen, and began to draw; a very curious Lance stood watching his every movement.

"Lance, the screen is transparent. I can see you staring." Keith growled, still focused on his work.

"Watcha drawing?~" Lance purred, now walking around to sit at Keith's side for a better view.

"None of your-" Keith remembered Dfeaud's words. 'Give in to his sexual advances?... ugh...'

"You. You're just the perfect muse." Keith smiled warmly at the boy who blushed back.

Lance beamed, he sat on top of the bed facing Keith. "in that case, let me give you a better view~" He winked.

Lance got into a posing position in front of Keith.

The red paladin laughed and erased his previous drawing of the garden he remembered seeing outside the mansion room they'd shared. The drawing wasn't coming out good in his opinion anyway.

He studied Lance’s face before continuing and he had to admit—Lance was attractive as hell. Keith found it much easier to draw someone if they were attractive.

Keith began with the shape of his face, working out where the eyes, nose, and mouth would be. The hair was probably the most fun to draw; every strand of those chocolate locks were perfectly combed in place, and when a hair stuck out Lance still looked good, better even. His collarbone was prominent from underneath his shirt and he could see the defined shape of the other man's developing muscles.

God was that alluring.

"Wow Keith... that's actually pretty good... how have you not brought this talent up before?" Lance said with astonished eyes, able to see an inverted version of the drawing through the screen

Keith didn't look to him except for reference. "it wasn't important. Wouldn't help us in any way so I felt there was no point mentioning it."

Keith drew for maybe 20 minutes before the tanner boy shifted his position.

"Lance, I can't draw you if you keep movi-"

Lance pulled Keith's face toward his with a hand under his chin. Keith's eyes were wide with surprise, he cut off his sentence with a halted breath, trying to make sense of what Lance was doing.

Lance was on all fours on the bed, his eyes were clouded with a look Keith had never seen before... or at least Keith had never seen this look on lance.

Lance leaned in, and Keith felt himself leaning in as well.

'What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?!?!' Keith's mind panicked as their lips finally connected.

Keith had to admit, this feeling was amazing, he could feel lance's damp and warm tongue prodding his lips, requesting entrance to his mouth. Keith had kissed other guys before with no strings attached, he just had to pretend this situation was the same, right?

After a few moments, Keith split his lips, let go of his stylus, and reached a hand up to Lance's cheek—eyes closing as he got lost in the feeling. Lance mirrored the paladin, reaching a hand to get tangled in the hair of Keith's ponytail.

Lance explored every part of Keith's mouth, every movement was slow as if asking if Keith was fine and if he could keep going, then once he got the ok, he would go all in.

Lance's hand traveled up the bottom of Keith's shirt, and that caused Keith to snap back into reality.

Keith finally opened his eyes and pulled their lips apart. "LANCE!? WHAT THE HELL?!"

Keith pushed Lance off him with all his might. "why did you do that!?"

Lance fell to the ground with a bang, he wiped his chin of his own drool and groaned, "what are you talking about?! you kissed me back!"
"Don't change the subject! What's wrong with you!?"
"What’s wrong with Me? I just-I thought—“

Keith groaned and sat up on the bed. 'I can't do this I can't do this' he peered at Lance on the floor.

Lance himself now seemed confused, his eyes were staring at the ground, filled with a gaze Keith couldn't place.

Guilt?

He'd been through so much in the past few days... they'd been through so much in the past few days. Honestly, it was confusing for Keith; Here was a boy who had been nothing but rude to him since day one, but now Keith felt something very different inside of him. And every time Lance looked at him, or recently, flirted with him, he felt he could melt on the spot.

It wasn't just the kissing that had set this feeling off either, he just felt a lot closer to Lance than he did before. He liked that.

Keith crouched beside Lance and brought his hand up to the blue Paladin's cheek. "I'm sorry Lance... did I hurt you?"

Lance lightly smacked Keith’s hand away. “You can’t keep doing that to me…”

Keith seemed confused for a moment before Lance continued.

“I-I know you get shocked and you react without thinking but— you keep apologizing but then the next time we get close you push me away again…” Lance curled his legs into his chest.

Keith brought his hand back down to the floor with a small frown of reflection. All he knew growing up was fighting, he should never have let those reactions come out of him around Lance, around any of his friends.

Keith sighed and sat beside Lance. “you’re right.” He started, “I’ve hurt you too many times, and I don’t think sorry will make up for that until I start to change. So, I’m gonna try, ok Lance? Cause… you’re not just my teammate you’re… you’re my friend.” He put a hand on Lance’s shoulder, “and I’d never wanna do that to a friend.”

Lance smiled back at Keith and put his hand over Keith’s, thumb rubbing against his skin.

“Is there anything I can do to make it better?” Keith asked.

Lance nodded slightly, "I think a kiss will make me feel better~"

Keith rolled his eyes. "yeah, you're fine. Stand up." Keith demanded, leaving Lance staring back at him with wide eyes.

"Oh?~ Leading me back to the bed?~ what are we doing here?"
"Oh— come on. I'm just going to finish drawing you. Sit in front of me."

Lance sat down obediently and crossed his arms.

After Keith was done, he sat up straight and stretched out his back.

"Ooo! I wanna see! Let me see!" Lance spoke with an abundance of energy, as if he had been forced to sit down for over a month.

Keith turned his drawing over for Lance to see.

Keith couldn't get everything drawn perfect. He had no doubt that he could if he had more time, paper, proper pencils, some erasers, he could make it look really nice, but for now, it was just ok.

Lance seemed happy none the less, his smile turned up in his cheeks and he tackled Keith with a hug. "It looks just like me! Thank you Keith!"

Lance pulled back a little with a small blush on his cheeks. “Can… can I kiss you?” Keith stared at Lance with wide eyes. This was all to cure him sooner, right? Keith gulped a bit, “uh… yeah.” Lance grinned and quickly pressed his lips against Keith's, catching the other man off guard. Keith's hands reached up to tangle in Lance's short locks once the shock has worn off.

Allura arrived a few moments after the whole ordeal with cupped hands. "Dfeaud says she needs to think about it. Tonight though, I think we should all relax and get ready for the party."

"Can I go back to my own room?" Lance asked with a small pouted frown.

The Altean looked confused for a second before snapping to and hesitantly speaking, "...noo."

With that, Allura left the room, leaving Lance and Keith sighing sadly.

Lance's hair fell over his eyes, it was clear he hadn't been able to cut them in a while. Maybe he was growing his hair out on purpose? Whatever reason, Lance still was really attractive to Keith.

In those few moments of admiring and staring at Lance, Keith forgot everything; He forgot about his responsibilities, he forgot about the party, he forgot about his life on earth—everything. Keith put a hand on Lance's forehead, brushing the man's hair out of his face as he gave a gentle and serene smile.

Lance looked back to Keith and grinned as well, resting his hand on top of Keith's. "Are you happy I have to stay?~"

Keith narrowed his eyes and brought their mouths close. "You know what?... I am."

Keith brought Lance into a passionate and addictive kiss. Keith couldn't tell what was wrong with himself, logic told him to stop— he couldn't be using Lance this way because of a stupid bug but... something about Lance made Keith feel like this was not the product of some bug.

Why did he feel like he was kissing the real Lance? Why did he feel like he could actually like Lance in a way he never thought he could like anyone?

It was only "like" though, He didn't want to fall in love with Lance- there was no way he could.

Lance was... childish and immature, he liked to insult Keith for the heck of it and even though Keith didn't always listen, it got to him sometimes. A relationship like that could never work out, unless Lance changed.

'But has he changed already?' Keith thought. If Lance was his right hand, that must mean he was some sort of mature... 'am I just refusing to see... he's changing? Aren’t I changing too?’

"Keith, get out of your head." Lance said softly, lips trailing on Keith's as his lidded eyes stared into keith’s own.

Keith gulped and stared up to Lance. "W-what?"

"You're thinking too much, I can tell. Stop fussing over things as if you're dealing with them alone. I've told you before, we're all right there with you." Lance's voice was clear in conscience, he could read Keith like a book.

Keith froze. 'That definitely sounded like the real Lance... but there's no way—'

Keith laughed nervously and stared to the ground, "This isn't even actually you."

"The words are coming from my mouth aren't they?" Lance chuckled.

"Yeah but- it's not you! You're not flirty with me, you're not happy around me, you're not compassionate towards me, you hate me."

"If you think I hate you, then you really don't know me."

Keith mouth hung open as if he was trying to catch the words he'd need for a reply, but he had no clue what to say.

After what seemed like ages of silence Keith found his voice and spoke up, "Lance... we can't.. do that."

Lance stared dumbfounded at Keith for a few moments, a small smile tugging at his lips while his eyes glued to the ground—but it wasn't a happy smile. "Right… sorry…"

Lance got off of Keith, allowing him to sit up while Lance sat on the edge of the bed.

Keith felt a sudden coldness fill his body, the air around them starting to flow with tension as Keith scratched his own neck.

Lance rubbed his eyes and stared at the floor, silent for a few moments. "I'm gonna change and… go to bed."

Keith was going to reply but his mouth stayed closed shut, like a ghost was holding his jaw. This was for the best, Keith was taking advantage of Lance's state under the love bug's influence and it wasn't fair. 'When Lance returns to his senses he'll thank me for not letting it get any further.'

As for Keith, he'd pretend as if he didn't enjoy that session just before. He'd erase it completely from his mind, or at least try to.

Lance stripped off his shirt and pants while Keith looked in his drawers for pajamas to wear, or at least something that wasn't the clothes he was wearing now.

Lance laid down on the bed and curled into himself. Keith turned his back towards Lance and closed his eyes, lips still twitching as he tried to imagine the feeling again. Keith pictured their session for a little longer before tiring himself. He fell asleep and tried to forget what happened.

{morning}

By day, or the planet's version of morning, Keith was up and ready to train. Lance was still curled up in bed, awake on his altean phone but he refused to get up.

Keith put on his fingerless gloves, glancing over at Lance sprawling out on the bed. "You sure you don't want to train with me? That party could turn ugly and we should be in top shape."

Lance made a small grunt and continued to play on his phone.

The bed's weight was shifted as Keith eased down carefully beside lance's resting body. He couldn't stop thinking about those kisses; those unexpected but... surprisingly welcome kisses.

"Lance, about last night I-"
"Don't worry about it."
"No, Lance seriously I-"
"Don't. Worry. About it."

Lance put his phone down and sat up to look at Keith, but he wasn't upset; On the contrary, he was smiling with calm eyes. "you don't have to say anything. I wasn't myself last night so, thank you for stopping me..."
"That's because of the love bug."
Lance froze. Slowly, his eyes trailed back up to Keith’s, and almost without permission from his brain, Lance repeated, "The what?” "some stupid insect this planet has. Don't worry about it. Actually it should have worn off by-"

Allura walked in the room with cupped hands, interrupting the pair's dialogue. "Good news, Dfeaud is letting you stay."

This sentence turned Keith right back into his anger again, he straightened his back and glared to Allura. "That was fast, it must be a trap or something! Lance, come on, you agree with me right?"

Lance was still looking off into space in shock.

“Lance!” Keith repeated

Lance snapped out from his trance and looked from Allura to Keith and sighed, "I trust Allura. you've got a lot of stress right now having had to take care of me, having to still take care of me- how do we know you're at the best mindset? I think she knows what she's getting into."

"You mean what she's getting /us/ into, we're the ones risking our asses going in there—And what do you know about how I've had to take care of you? We're back with the team now, we’re all gonna be helping you from now on." Keith said with indignation. Allura frowned, “Keith, enough. This is the plan we made. We need to stick to it.” Keith glared at the Princess before walking past her with a growl.

"The hell is his problem?..." Lance huffed.

Lance wondered if maybe he was just too trusting, but nothing seemed inherently off putting about Dfeaud. She could have left them to die and then steal their Lions but she didn't. That’s a sign of a good person, right?

Allura coughed, "Um... I think you should follow him. If we're going to find out anything we need you both on your top performance level."

Lance sighed and rushed out of the room to catch up with Keith.

Keith hated that about Lance, how willing he was to just help him after he'd tell him to fuck off. God, He hated Lance. Everything about Lance annoyed him, everything he did made Keith's face flush hot and his throat tighten and his heart beat fast, That could only be caused by the one emotion, and Keith was sure it was loathing. Or rather, he hoped it was loathing.

"Will you slow down? For five seconds?" Lance called, breaking into a run. Keith walked really fast.

"why should I?" Keith replied.

Keith stormed out of the castle with curses underneath his breath. when Lance caught up to him, Keith grabbed his arm and pulled the other man close vigorously and whispered into his ear, "something's not right. You have to believe me on this."

Lance blinked and narrowed his eyes. "Keith, rela—"
"Don't tell me to relax, listen. Let's investigate a bit more, I'll prove you wrong."

Lance shrugged and pulled his wrist away from Keith's grip. "Fine. But when I turn out to be right you owe me something to eat."

With a groan, Keith dragged Lance into Dfeaud's mansion.

Keith looked around the now familiar halls with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. "Listen Lance, you know I'm not one to trust people but how wrong could my intuition be?"

Lance was about to throw a rude retort before finally giving in, nodding his head to follow alongside Keith.

After almost an hour of searching, they relaxed against a wall in one of the open hallways.

The hall was practically empty besides the chandeliers that hung from the ceiling, Keith and Lance, and the royal red carpet that ran through the center walkway. Big windows faced to the outdoors allowing perfect view onto the subjects below— the light was too bright to see anything though.

Keith curled himself into a tight ball while Lance held a more relaxed position.

"Why are you so uptight?" Lance said after a few moments of silence.

"I'm..." Keith took a breath in, before finally letting it out, his whole body relaxing with that. "I guess.. I'm just scared. I don't want a mistake that'll cause the death of us."

Keith pouted red and puffy lips. his skin was such a milky pale white, and his ebony hair fell messily on his temple. It was clear there were a lot of emotions and thoughts going through his head.

Lance was surprised, Keith gave him an actual answer.

Lance decided an answer like that deserved an appropriate response. "I'm... scared too, Keith. I understand what you're feeling, it must make you feel terrible that no one is sympathizing with you."

"How would you know? The only emotion I’ve ever seen from you is when you’re flirting with some random alien or fawning after Allura." Keith rolled his eyes, a hint of annoyance at the thought.

"... I know...” Lance said with a sigh, making keith turn his head up in surprise. “It's pathetic, right? I'm Always looking for someone else's approval, I can't even make decisions on my own anymore without second guessing-God, this feels weird to admit out loud." Lance whispered every word, as if he was talking to himself and not the shocked boy sitting beside him.

"I-I'm sorry I didn't mean to make this about me." Lance smiled.

"No no, Lance. It's fine. Say what's on your mind, we've got time… We should talk about what’s on our minds." Keith prodded, releasing the tension from his body and now sitting comfortably.

Lance brought his knees close to his chest and sighed. "It's just... I feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I'm just a boy from Cuba- I'm just a kid, what am I doing out here in space? Defending the universe in a giant robot from a alien race hellbent on imperializing all the planets out there? I'm not even one of the best on the team, literally anyone could replace me. I just feel kinda... useless I guess? T-this feels weird to admit. I don't even know why I'm saying this to you but... I guess I just needed to say this to somebody."

Keith thought about Lance’s words very carefully. It was hard for him to come up with a response, he didn't know Lance ever worried about these things, sure Lance had come to him with insecurities before but he never connected the thought that Lance was just a sort of insecure person to begin with... maybe that was because of people like Keith not talking him seriously.

Keith gulped before speaking, "When situations arrive we'll know how to handle it. You'll know how to handle it. You're amazing under pressure and a great shot with your bayard, I want you to trust yourself as much as I trust you."

Lance scoffed with a sad grin. "Yeah? And how much do you trust me?"

"With my life," Keith said confidently, it was almost like he was just now admitting it to himself,but there was no hesitation in his voice, "that’s why you were chosen as my right-hand man. We don't all know what we're doing out here, but you've got my back- and I've got yours. No matter what. That’s enough for me.”

Lance smiled at Keith, those words comforted him. "Thank you, Keith… that actually really helped me… a lot.” Lance shook his head, “Let's talk less about how I'm feeling though, what would someone like Keith Kogane, best pilot of the garrison, have to be scared of?"

Keith played with his own hair. "Well, now that i'm the leader it makes everything so much more difficult. if I make a wrong decision it could cost people their lives, I don't want anyone in danger because of something I did."

"So... you're scared you're going to hurt others because of the way you choose to handle things?" Lance asked.
"Yeah. I guess I am."
"Well that's stupid. It's true you don't always make the best decisions, and it's also true you won't always know what the right answer is, or what the right thing to say is,” “Is there a but coming?—“ “BUT… the choices you make aren't easy. They're not even choices that have a whole right or wrong answer. No matter what you choose, we'll back you up, I'll back you up. and if something goes wrong, we get through it as a team."
Lance held out his hand for Keith to take hold of.

“Like you said… you’ve got my back, and I’ve got yours. That’s enough for me.” Lance smiled

Keith looked at Lance's hand, caramel skin sunkissed from the soft orange light of the window behind them. He brought his head up to stare at the owner of that hand, a bright and warming grin on Lance's face, a grin that made Keith's heart stop and start all over again.

Keith smiled and took Lance's hand, pulling him into a hug.

"Thank you, Lance."
"No problem, team leader."

They shared this hug for a long while before getting up to start the search again.

"And thank you, Keith. For what you said before. I think I can really calm down a little now." Lance mumbled.

"No problem Lance, now come on. Let's explore a little more. There might have been something we missed."

Chapter Text

"Hey dude there's something I've been wondering." Keith started as he brought his final pair of clothes into the room Dfeaud allowed them to stay in, "was there something... specific... you wanted for your birthday? Since y'know. It's coming up and all."

Lance shrugged. He was sitting on the bed in his usual clothes and just kind of relaxing with his eyes closed. "Um... I dunno. I think I'm just gonna make a birthday list and hand it out to everyone. That's if I can even think of things I want. The only things that come to mind are... well. Things from earth."

Keith fiddled with the necklace hidden in his grasp. "Let me know soon, your birthday's gotta be in like— what's today's date?"

Lance sat up and checked his phone, which he set according to earth time using the clock Keith had before. "Uh.. July 24th. Oh hey that party's in 4 days! That's my birthday!"

Keith smiled warmly. "Well then, I guess we have to ask Dfeaud if we could turn this into a birthday celebration too. And hurry up on the list, we don't have a lot of time."

Lance chuckled and fell back against the bed, resting his eyes once more.

Keith had to be honest, he really enjoyed spending time with Lance... actually he had always enjoyed spending time with Lance- he was just too caught up in the rivalry Lance created to realize that.

Keith sighed, it'd only be a matter of time till lance's love bug thing came back. It had been going on and off ever since, he'd asked Dfeaud about it, but she said she'd never seen anything like it before. She contributed it to the fact that Lance was human and not like their kind so that's what Keith was rolling with.

"Alright birthday boy, you ready to do our job?" Keith chuckled to Lance.

Lance jumped off the bed and walked to Keith's side. "Mhm! You really think we're gonna find anything? In all honestly I feel like we'd have better chances if we just asked Dfeaud about the galra and see if her reaction is-"

"Hello Paladins." Jitte's voice cut through their conversation as they exited the room.

Lance hopped up and grabbed onto Keith's arm in fright. "Ack! Jitte!... What were you doing standing outside our door?"

"Dfeaud asked me to make sure you guys were comfortable. are you guys comfortable?" Jitte tilted his head with a small grin.

Lance and Keith glanced at each other before staring back down at the tiny alien. "Um... yeah. We're fine. You can go back to doing... whatever you do." Lance said nervously.

Jitte nodded his head and walked off, leaving Keith and Lance in confusion, wondering if he heard what Lance said about their investigation.

Keith motioned Lance to follow him in silence. The pair walked the halls of the still mansion and checked in any places they felt they could have missed something.

"Maybe they have like, a trap door!" Lance spoke excitedly.

Keith rolled his eyes. "I doubt it Lance, we're not in some dumb action movie."
"You gotta admit it'd be really cool though. Just like you~"

Lance suddenly clung onto Keith's arm. "Lance, please tell me you're not under the influence of the bug again."

"What bug? You mean this little butterfly feeling inside when I'm close to you like this?~" Lance's face was clearly lovestruck, he looked up to Keith with the sweetest expression and puckered lips.

"Yep. Bug's definitely back." Keith pushed Lance's face away with a sigh and caught the visual of a black figure behind them.

Keith yanked his loopy friend down and around the corner in order to inspect what he saw from a safe distance.

It was Jitte. He was walking right to where they were.

Keith motioned something to Lance and led him to the next open room in order to avoid detection.

Lance held his breath as the door shut. They were in a very tight space, it had to be a closet of some sort. The red paladin adhered himself tighter onto his friend's arm as Jitte walked past, the alien's footstep's making small thumping noises as he slowly came by the door.

Keith's heart pounded out of his chest, if Jitte opened that door he couldn't imagine the trouble they'd be in. It'd be clear to Jitte they were snooping around.

...

....

....

....

...

....

The footsteps continued on. Keith waited until he could not even barely hear the sound of Jitte's feet against the cold ground.

Keith and Lance carefully opened the door to the closet and inched their way out.

"Oh my god... that was so close." Lance let out the air he was holding.

"Come on, we can't stop now." Keith pressed.
"But why? We didn't find anything Keith. We should just relax."
"Don't start this again with me, Lance! You know something's up with this place. These people are too nice."
"What do you mean 'too nice'!"
"I mean they're suspicious what else could I mean?!"
"Could mean you just hate them for no reason!"
"And why would that be?!"
"Because!"
"Because what Lance?!"
"Because you never trust anyone!"
"I trust people!"
"Yeah?! Like who?!"
"I TRUST YOU LANCE!"

Lance shut up. Keith was panting and heaving, trying everything he could to keep his composure. He couldn't handle Lance questioning him all the time. He couldn't handle the situation they were in. he felt like he had no control over any of it.

Keith's hair kinked out in every which direction and his shirt was all wrinkled and a mess, his tired eyes had deep black marks underneath and his lips curled in a frown.

"I trust you with my life! A-And I trust Shiro and I trust the Paladins—but that's it! They've proved to me I can count on them. These people though, Lance—These people haven't done anything."
"They're nice to us."
"For now! Remember Rolo and Nyma? We thought they were nice. And they tied you to a tree! Lance, please. listen to me."

Keith, to Lance's surprise, took hold of Lance's hands and rested his head on the man's chest. Keith was too tired to hold up any sort of front right now, He needed the contact.

"Lance, I need to know that there's someone on my side. Please. Just give me that much." Keith's voice was cracking. He could almost feel weight on his shoulders, shoving him down into the ground as if trying to dig his grave. The terrible feeling pushed down on his body, only causing him to further cuddle his head into Lance's chest for shelter. He didn't feel like he could do this alone.

Lance wrapped his arms around Keith and held him close. "I'm here for you Keith. You know that."

Keith found comfort in Lance's arms. He felt safe. "For how long?" Keith mumbled.

"Always. We're a team, Keith. I'm not gonna let you down." Lance held Keith tighter, letting Keith know he was there for him, Letting him know he cared for him.

That sweet hold, Lance's warmth, Lance's voice, all the pressure melted away. Now Keith felt as light as air, he could walk on clouds as long as Lance was there to help carry him.

"Thank you, Lance. It means a lot to me." Keith pulled his head back from Lance in order to look up at him.

As he stared up into Lance's eyes, a sudden realization smacked him in the face. He didn't want it to be true. He'd been denying it for the longest time.

'I... I like him... don't I?'

Keith didn't want it to be true, feelings and emotions always messed everything up. But he knew he wanted to stay cuddled up into Lance's arms, he knew he wanted to kiss Lance again, he knew he wanted Lance to just be around him. Lance was one of the only people he really really trusted.

Keith shook his head now and firmly pulled his body away from Lance. This was ok, as long as it was only ‘like’ keith shouldn't have to worry about it turning into something more. He knew he didn't love Lance. Love was something stronger than this squirming feeling he got; At least, that's what he thought.

"Keith. Are you ok?" Lance asked, his eyes were filled with concern.

"I'm fine, Lance. Come on, we got a long way to go before- AUGH!"

Jitte was standing right there.

"How... long have you been there for?" Keith asked, arm instinctively reaching in front of Lance to protect him.

"That was sweet. Seeing you two. I can see how much you care for each other." Jitte winked at Keith, making Keith narrow his eyes and immediately get defensive.
"Hey don't-"
"I must tell you something. Follow me. We're going to the market." Jitte motioned with his hand.

Lance and Keith shared an awkward stare before nodding to each other.

They followed Jitte with caution. Keith could feel nervousness ride up in his throat. Jitte seemed serious but.. why now? What did he have to say.

whatever he does... I have to protect Lance.

Lance took Keith's hand in his own, squeezing it tight.

Keith caught Lance's gaze after that. Lance looked determined and sure of himself, he knew just how to comfort Keith and it was working. Keith grinned to Lance and mouthed a small "thank you" but he wasn't sure Lance had seen it.

As they headed down the halls of the mansion, Dfeaud was appearing from the other side, coming in front of them.

Dfeaud stopped and waved. "I was just looking for you two, tell me, how long do you plan to stay after the party? I need to know how to prepare the room."

"Not long," Keith said swiftly, "we have to go back to the fight out there against the Galra soon so..."

Dfeaud shook her head and shivered at the mention of "Galra"

"Those Galrans... they scare my people. I want my people to feel safe..." Dfeaud turned her head away, her eyes looking solemn and hurt.

There was something... different about her now. She seemed worried and shaky.

"You know how it feels to want to protect someone don't you?" Dfeaud said in a hushed voice.

The pair slowly nodded.

Dfeaud let out a very quiet and timid chuckle as she wiped a tear away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to throw my stresses on you. Our species is so small we can't contribute much to the fight. We can't even get off our own planet. I'm glad someone's out there defending us."

"Of course. We're glad to be out there to defend you." Lance tugged on Keith a bit, signaling they should end the conversation.

Dfeaud beat them to the punch and bowed her body, her tail swinging and sweeping the floor behind her. "I'll leave you to your own devices then."

As Dfeaud began to walk away, Jitte took them outside the mansion.

Lance grabbed Keith's hand with a small smirk.

"Goddamn it Lance, not the fucking bug a—"

"You mean the love bug? Sorry Keith," Lance smiled warmly, "This is all me. I'm a little nervous."

Keith flared up inside and gulped. "O-oh. Well don't hold my hand for too long. Your hands are sweaty."
"Says you."
"Shut up!"
"Oo is 'sweaty hands' getting-"

"Please. Please stop talking." Jitte said with two hands over his ears.

Lance and Keith followed Jitte in silence, he seemed awfully sketchy. He checked around every corner and walked with very light and airy steps.

as they approached the bustling streets, Jitte motioned into the crevice between two little shoppes.

The tarps that were used as roofs connected between those shoppes, and just behind the shoppes were two buildings that were just as close. It left enough space for a dark alley way where it seemed bums and crooks hung out.

"Here. This is a good place." Jitte traced his hands over the dirty building walls and kept his head low. He finally stopped once they were far enough in and turned to face Lance and Keith.

despite the height of the aliens, the buildings beside them were likely apartment buildings, so they were tall enough to cover Keith and Lance as well with a lot of room to spare.

The shadows fell dark on the Alien's face making it hard to recognize him.

Jitte began to speak, "I'm going to tell you the story of my people. A long time ago, the Galra invaded our home. They promised to spare us as long as we gave them all the materials we could scavenge... since our resources are unique to our planet, they kept coming back for more—but the quota is always hard to meet and scouting always costs lives because of that storm outside. Dfeaud found out that In the next 2 visits, we'll have run out of supplies to give and our planet will be destroyed."

Keith crossed his arms. "What does that have to do with-"
Lance put a finger on Keith's mouth to shut him up.

"Dfeaud figures if she hands you in to Zarkon, she'll be able to save us from the Galra ever returning."

"But the Galra won't do that." Lance interrupted, "once you've lost value they're going to destroy you all!"

Jitte was silent for a long while, he checked to make sure no one was around to hear. "Zarkon has convinced Dfeaud otherwise, but I know he won't keep his word... I want to help you escape."

"But why? Why try and helps us?" Keith narrowed his eyes.

"I believe it is too late for our planet. We were doomed the second the Galra stepped foot on our world, but you and your friend have reminded me of feelings i'd long forgotten. I want you to be able to spread your peace throughout the universe. I believe the Paladins are the only thing that can save the rest of the universe from suffering our fate."

Jitte glanced around nervously, his eyes seemingly following a shadow only he saw. "We mustn't stay. there is more to explain, Follow me."

Jitte dragged them out of the alleyway and back onto the streets. Lance clung tight to Keith's arm, after hearing all this information he didn't know what to trust. Who out there was just looking for some sort of bounty? What if this was all a trap to just capture them?

Again, another narrow alley. This one was harder to squeeze into. Jitte led them into this thin space and made sure no one was around.

Lance was still clinging tightly onto Keith's arm, his heart was beating so loud that Keith could feel it against his skin.

The alien closed his eyes as a glow emitted from his body, Jitte's form began to twist and churn with Lance and Keith looking on in surprise.

When the transformation was over, Keith found himself looking into a perfect copy, a reflection of his own image.

"Our species are able to copy the looks and voice of anyone we've come into contact to. The Paladins you spoke with earlier, are not the real Paladins..."

"Then where are our friends?! The castle there was definitely ours!" Lance questioned loudly. Keith put a hand over Lance's mouth to shush him.

"Every time we hand in a criminal, or someone the Galra are searching for, they give us more time to reach our quota. When we first found you, we knew the Galra wanted you because you were Paladins of Voltron, but Dfeaud didn't get the idea to turn you in until the rest of your friends arrived. She told me to make sure you didn't try to escape."

"That's why you've been spying on us?" Lance asked. He didn't know how relaxed he could be around Jitte knowing this information.

Keith grabbed his copy by the collar and pushed him back against the wall. "Where are you hiding them?!"

"Woah! Keith! Calm down!" Lance tried to tug Keith's arm away.

"It's alright Lance. He has every right to be upset. I can take you to your friends, but you'll have to follow me back to the mansion." Jitte gulped.
"And how do we know this isn't all a trap!?"
"If it was a trap I would never have told you anything so they could catch you in the end!"

Keith pondered this and caught Lance's pleading gaze. With that look at lance, he finally dropped Jitte back to the floor, who shifted back into his original form.

Lance narrowed his eyes at Keith. "What was that for?!"

"I'm sorry Lance I just- I wanted to know what he did with our friends. I wasn't thinking." Keith apologized awkwardly.

With a sigh, Lance put a hand on Keith's head and rubbed his hair with a grin. "Geez, What to do with you?"

Keith smiled back at Lance.

Jitte made a coughing noise and snapped them both back to attention.

"...Anyway, if you would just follow me." Jitte gave a cheeky grin as he exited the alleyway with Keith and Lance close behind.

Lance yawned and put a hand on his forehead. "Eugh. The sun's too bright."

"Do you want me to buy you a hat?" Keith asked.
"Dude you don't have any money."
"I could scrap some up from that fountain over there."
"Nah don't get yourself wet."
"I don't mind getting a little water on me."
"Keith I said it's fine. Geez, you're so stubborn~"

Keith caught Jitte's gaze only to see him holding back laughter. "What's so funny?" He asked.

"Nothing nothing. I'm just remembering a video my guard friend showed me."

Something told Keith that wasn't the reason he was laughing at all.

When they were back through the gates of the mansion, they caught sight of Dfeaud sitting in the grass of her huge front lawn, beside her were 3 of her alien guards.

Dfeaud looked up to all of them with a happy smile. "You're back! I was wondering where you guys had gone."

Unease filled the air around Keith. The tone of her voice was a bit suspicious and it was hard to pretend everything was fine knowing what he knew.

"Where did you guys go? I'd love to hear all about it." Dfeaud's eyes locked onto Jitte's.

The lead soldier knelt down in front of dfeaud, and Keith and Lance followed suit.

"We went to the market. They wanted to explore the village more." Jitte answered quickly.

"The market? Again? I guess they thought they'd missed something the first time." She plucked a flower out of the grass with a grin.

Lance nodded. "Last time the sickness I had made me faint so, we rushed back before finishing our exploration." He lied.

Keith could feel Lance's hand gripping his own very tightly. Keith leaned on Lance's shoulder in order to calm him down.

Dfeaud was silent a moment before letting the flower slowly drop to the grass. "Jitte. Come here a moment. You two can go back inside, I've had the chef prepare you a little something."

Jitte threw a stare at Keith, and Keith immediately understood. He pulled Lance into the mansion without another word.

Guards were already inside, making sure Lance and Keith went straight to the kitchen to eat.

The aroma of freshly baked cookies and sweets mixed with the scent of other healthy and delicious products cooked to perfection. Keith and Lance were practically drawn in by the smell.

The food even looked good! What was really surprising was how much it mimicked the food back on earth. Warm air could be seen flowing from the top of the food.

Keith stared at the food and gulped. God, he was so hungry. But he couldn't trust any of the food here, not if it was prepared by them. Oh god... they'd dodged a bullet by preparing the food for themselves since they got here.

A female alien, who Keith assumed to be the chef, smiled wide and folded her hands behind her. "You're just in time, you can start eating whenever you want."

Her smile was sweet and innocent, nothing about her said anything about ill intent.

"Guards? Would you please stop breathing down their necks? Let them enjoy a meal in peace." She shook her head, seemingly tired of their company.

The guards nodded and walked away, there was silence as their footsteps slowly faded.

"Wow you really have a talent for cooking." Lance said, taking a bite of his bread.

"Thank you." The chef replied.

Keith sighed, at least the chef wasn't suspicious of them.

Wait did Lance just eat bread from the table?

"Lance! What are you doing?!" Keith shouted, smacking the bread to the floor and making the chef jump in response.

"Wh- I'm eating! What are you doing?" Lance cowered underneath Keith, normally he would have yelled back at him but he was so shocked at the sudden shift in mood.

Keith froze and looked at the chef for a moment. "What are you doing not- saying your prayers first..?"

"It's a thing our species does before sitting down to eat a meal." He explained to the chef, now rolling with his excuse.

The woman nodded her head. "Oh! I should leave you two to your food then. Enjoy." She stalked off out of the room, not even glancing behind her.

Lance had now turned to anger as he normally would. "Keith, What was that?"

"I'm sorry Lance, but we can't trust this food. They could have poisoned it." Keith said, picking up the bread he'd smacked to the floor and trying to inspect it. "And we still have to wait for Jitte, he needs to show us where the real Paladins are."

Lance gulped. He'd eaten a piece of that bread. If it was poisoned- what could happen to him?

Keith saw the fear in Lance's eyes and held both his hands, leaning forwards onto lance's body once more. "Lance, you know I'm not gonna let anything happen to you right?"
"But… what if you were right?"
"Don't worry, if it was poisoned remember that Zarkon wants us alive. The worst it would do is put you to sleep, and you didn't eat enough for that to happen."
"How do you know?"
"I can tell by all the food she made. If it was heavily poisoned she would have given you a cupcake on its own or something. Lance look at me."

Lance reluctantly looked down at Keith with sad and anxious eyes.

Keith put a hand on Lance's cheek. "I promise. You're gonna be fine. I'm gonna be right here. Lance—"

"There you guys are!" Jitte sighed, coming in through the doorway.

Lance and Keith sprung away from each other and tried to pretend nothing was happening.

Keith's mind was blaring alarms all over the place. What was that just now?! What was he doing?! It felt so right, So natural to just hold lance tight and reassure him with physical contact.

'It's probably just because I'm a little touch-starved and Lance is nervous.' He told himself. Who was he kidding? He was smitten.

"Sorry, Dfeaud wanted to talk to me about safety measures. I'll take you to your friends now." Jitte smiled politely.

Lance and Keith nodded, following behind Jitte as he led them to a library. He flipped over a carpet on the floor where underneath, a silver trap door lay.

Lance nudged Keith's shoulder. "I told you it was a trap door."

Keith rolled his eyes. Lance and Keith filed into the basement and looked up at Jitte.

"Aren't you coming?" Keith asked with a curious and suspicious glare.

"I can't. One of us has to keep watch. If we all went in I wouldn't be able to put the carpet back over the trap door. Your friends are just down that hall." Jitte explained.

Keith didn't trust this, not one bit. Lance pulled Keith along down the hallway anyway. "Imagine me being Allura's knight in shining armor! She'll be all like, 'lance! Thank you for saving me! Can I kiss you?'" He mimicked her voice.

"I can hear you yknow! Though... I'm actually quite relieved to." A voice answered back. It was definitely Allura.

Keith could hear sighs of relief as they neared their friends. All of them had their hands tied behind their back and were switched out into prisoner-like outfits.

Each prison outfit was identical, it was basically a black skin tight suit with a purple tattered shirt on top.

"Thank god we found you! We have to get you out of here!" Lance walked toward them but was held back by Keith's hand.

"Keith? What's-"
"How do we know you're the real Paladins?" Keith said with a hiss.

Shiro spoke up. "You stole my car when I first met you at the garrison, Keith."

"Ok. They're the real Paladins. How do we get your handcuffs off?" Keith said, crouching down in order to inspect the cuffs.

"I don't think we can without our bayards or a key." Lance replied.

The pair tried every which way to get them off when suddenly a voice from above called down, It was Jitte.

"Guys! You should hurry up down there." He warned.

"We're trying!" Keith hissed back.

Lance could sense Keith beginning to panic from the tone of his words.

"What are we gonna do- what are we gonna do?!" Keith gasped, his hands were shaking.

Lance stood up and put a hand on Keith's shoulder. "Take deep breaths Keith. I won't let anything happen to you, Ok? We'll figure a way to get them free don't worry."

Keith searched Lance's eyes for a moment and nodded. "Ok... ok Lance. I trust you."

Hunk made a suggestion. "Hey maybe- we're thinking about this all wrong."
"What do you mean?" Pidge spoke up.
"Well, I mean. We know the lions are really powerful, and we all know if we had any of our bayards we could get out of this real quick, maybe we can just try... summoning our bayards?"
"Summoning your bayards?" Coran repeated.

The group fell silent.

"It's.. worth a shot." Shiro said softly.

"Shiro, are you sure?" Keith could feel his heart skip a beat, no way was he letting Shiro leave him again.
"We don't have any other options."
"If we can't get those cuffs off we're staying here with you."
"Don't be ridiculous—"
"I'm being serious!"

"Hurry up!" Jitte's whisper bounced off the walls and rang in their ears.

"Paladins, close your eyes. Focus, you too Keith." Shiro spoke.

Everyone closed their eyes as told.

It was quiet, no other noises but the sounds of each other breathing in and out.

...

...

...

...

...

...

A sound of whirring and sparking made everyone's eyes flash open.

"It's my bayard!" Allura said with glee.

"Good job Allura! Keith, use allura's bayard to form your blade and cut through our handcuffs." Shiro instructed.

"Already ahead of you." Keith grabbed Allura's bayard from her hands and swiftly cut through the binds.

"We have to go. Now." Lance helped everyone up and got everyone ready to move.

They climbed out of the basement and shut the trap door, shoving the carpet back over it.

"You got all your friends?" Jitte asked in a low, hushed whimper.

"Yeah. Let's move." Keith nodded.

Keith and Lance had to lag behind a little in order to help the other Paladins stalk the halls back to the room Dfeaud had given them, The Paladins were clearly out of energy.

It took some time, but they finally made it back to the room, safe and in one piece.

"Alright... so. What do we do now?" Keith mumbled.

The Paladins and Jitte looked at each other than back to Keith.

"You're the leader Keith, what do you think we should do?" Shiro spoke.

Keith straightened his back, shocked. He hated this feeling, he felt like he was being pushed into a leadership role again. He didn't want that. "M-me? I- I'm not sure I don't..."

Lance put a hand on Keith's shoulder. "We can work out a plan together. All of us."

Keith grinned at Lance and put his hand on top of Lance's.

"Uh... did we miss something?" Pidge watched Keith and Lance with a weary eye, as the rest of the group was doing.

"Don't worry about it. What we need to worry about, is the plan." Lance spoke in a clear voice.

Keith stood close beside lance. "So, Where do we start?"

Chapter Text

The plan they'd worked out took the whole day to prepare, but this was the best idea they could come up with.

First, they needed to find the aliens that were mimicking the Paladins and detain them in the castle, just until the party was over and Dfeaud was caught.

second, the Paladins would pretend to be the aliens copies.

The last thing they'd have to do was wait for the party.

Lance and Keith would be in charge of causing a distraction so the Paladins could sneak in and take out the guards by the entrances so the group wouldn't be outnumbered.

Once all of them were there, Jitte would grab Dfeaud and the party would be over.

"And I guess, Lance and I will just go on as if nothing else is happening." Keith nodded his head to the plan.

"It's decided then. Jitte, do you know where we can find our doubles?" Coran asked.

"Yes. Ill write down the routines of each of your copies so you can carry out the missions on your own. In the meantime, Lance, Keith, Dfeaud wanted to tailor some suits for you two. You can find one of the guards and they'll lead you to the tailors."

Lance and Keith nodded. Lance walked out into the hallway while Keith lagged behind.

"Jitte... I wanted to say.. thanks. For everything you've done. I'm sorry I keep doubting you." Keith held his own arm in embarrassment.

"It's fine. I wouldn't trust me either. Keep an eye on that boy, he needs you more than he lets on." Jitte added the last part quietly.

If that was true, then Lance must be pretty clingy. Keith didn't mind that though.

"Just one question... since we're planning an attack, and not a getaway... why do you want to help us? I thought you said it was too late for your planet." Keith made sure to speak quietly so no one else would hear them, the Paladins wouldn't hear them either way since no one in the room was paying attention to Keith and Jitte.

"Your friends convinced me otherwise. Dfeaud had saved me in the past, Now I want to save her from herself."
"Dfeaud saved you? How?"

Jitte's eyes flashed with a look of pain, then cooled back down to a calm stare. "A long time ago, the shields that protect our town from the storms malfunctioned, my house was destroyed with my wife and daughter trapped inside. Dfeaud took me in, let me live in her mansion and I worked as her right hand in military forces and was appointed head guard."

Keith put a hand on Jitte's shoulder. "...I'm so sorry, about your family."

"Thank you.. you never realize how much you miss someone till they're gone… Keep an eye on Lance, would you?" Jitte's eyes were wise and aged with his experiences, but he wasn't too old himself. In fact, he was probably only about 30 in earth years.

Keith waved goodbye to his friends before following Lance to find a guard that could lead them to the tailors.

…

The men working on the designs asked Lance and Keith all sorts of questions about what they wanted on their outfit's.

Lance, had a million opinions of course. He had every little detail picked out already, from the color of the suit to the radii of the buttons.

Keith had no particular thoughts on the manner so Lance made a bunch of suggestions for Keith.

The aliens had obviously pre-made the suits (otherwise it wouldn't be a fitting) but Lance and Keith would be able to make adjustments to the designs once they had the measurements correct.

"You know, I used to be called the tailor back in my garrison days." Lance raised an eyebrow with a smile, clearly trying to impress Keith.

"Oh really? Why is that?" Keith rolled his eyes playfully.

"Because of how I thread the needle!"

Keith gave Lance a blank stare.

"The move we learned at the garrison for when you're moving through a tight space with your ship?" Lance tried to prod Keith's memory.

Keith shook his head when suddenly a thought struck him. "Oh- oh my god..."

"Haha! You remember me don't you? I knew you were faking." Lance wanted to cross his arms and be smug but was stuck in a t-pose as the tailors did their work on measuring his arms in the suit.

Keith laughed nervously. He was remembering something completely different. From what he remembered, there was a boy named taylor who was known for being a ladies man and a pilot who's only good skill was being able to get through tight spaces. This boy also happened to be very cute, cuban, and really short. A boy that Keith fantasized about back then, It was only now that Keith realized "Taylor" was actually "the tailor" aka Lance.

"What should we do after this?" Lance wondered out loud.

"wanna... get something sweet? Like, go to a candy shop or something if they have one?" Keith wasn't very decisive but he wanted to pick somewhere that'd make Lance happy.

"There's a bakery that doubles as a candy shop just outside the market." One of the aliens working on Lance's suit spoke, "I can give you directions."

"That's..." Keith looked to Lance, who was excited as all hell.

' I guess we have to eat something... And I doubt the people here would know of Dfeaud's plans.' Keith thought.

"That's a great idea. Thank you so much." Keith smiled, as long as Lance kept grinning that beautiful grin, Keith was fine.

The tailor nodded. "Yeah, you can go now actually. I've finished measuring you out."

Lance and Keith hopped down from the little risers and followed the man to his desk.

The alien began sketching out tiny symbols and a route on a note. "Here, I've mapped out where it is on this paper. If you get confused you can ask someone around, they'll understand it."

Keith thanked him again and followed behind Lance.

"Keith... I think we make a pretty great team." Lance smiled.
"You said that already." Keith rolled his eyes and caught up to Lance's side.
"I did?! When?"
"Like, A year ago, When Sendak attacked our ship on that Arusian planet?"
"Oh yeah~"
"You're just admitting you remember that now?"

Lance shrugged and held onto Keith's arm. "Lets just run away together, you can me. We can kiss and cuddle and—"

"The fucking bug shit is back?! How?! Why?!" Keith took the note from Lance and took responsibility of leading them the rest of the way, deep down though, Keith felt a little happy.

Lance tried to kiss up Keith's arm and neck while Keith brought them to the front of the sweets shop.

"Hey Lance, how would you pronounce that?" Keith pointed up to the sign that read out the name of the store.

"Mm... 'Keith is really cute and I love him.'" Lance hummed, still clinging to Keith's arm.

Keith pushed Lance away from his arm and sighed, "No you don't Lance. Come on, let's go get something to eat."

They walked into the shop and examined the walls, the whole place was like a cute little coffee shop.

"Keith can you get me something?... I'm gonna go sit at a table." Lance purred.

Keith sighed and shrugged lance off his arm. "Fine."

Lance kissed Keith on the cheek and ran to sit at one of the empty booths towards the window.

Keith felt his throat tighten as blood rushed to his ears.

A few minutes later Keith came with their food—at least, he was told it was food. Lance's nose scrunched up in disgust.

"Eugh. What is that?" Lance exclaimed.

"Uh... I tasted a bit of it on my way here. It kinda tastes like pizza and cotton candy." Keith sat down across from Lance and set the tray of "food" down on the table.

Lance didn't hesitate to dig in despite his disgust at its appearance—he had to eat something and that description sounded sort of ok.

Keith ate much slower, he couldn't stop thinking of Shiro. What if he was caught? What if they killed Shiro? How did they know that Shiro isn't in danger? And what about the rest of the team?

"Something on your mind?" Lance looked up from his meal, face stuffed.
"No I'm fine. Just worried for the team is all."
"No you're not."

Keith blinked in shock. "What?"

"I said you're not. I mean- you're worried about the team for sure but you're mostly worried about Shiro right?" Lance had a very calm and knowing expression, he could read Keith better than Keith could read himself... which honestly wasn't saying much.

"I... well of course I am. Shiro took care of me when no one else did and I feel like I just left him to fend for himself."
"Keith, He's a grown man. He'll be fine. Besides, he's not alone."

Lance reached across the table and grabbed Keith's hands holding them tight. "As long as he's got you worrying about him he'll be ok."

stop that

"And also Jitte is with him." Lance laughed.

stop talking.

"Well. I'm not sure if Jitte is with him but Shiro's strong." Lance's words were help with reassurance and care.

please stop.

"My point is, he'll be fine. He knows how much you care for him. And he'll- Keith?"

Keith could feel tears on his cheeks. He wiped them away with his hand in confusion but they wouldn't stop.

Lance moved to Keith's side of the booth quickly and sat beside him. "Oh no... no hey W-was it something I said? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you, y'know."

Keith couldn't take it, he put a hand over his mouth and clenched his chest with his other fist.

Lance embraced Keith, who hesitantly held Lance back, cuddling his face into Lance's chest so that no one would see him crying.

He'd never had someone care for him like that. Sure Shiro made sure Keith stayed on the right path and he cared for his physical health, but the emotional support of someone his own age, he hadn’t experienced that since he was a child.

Shiro wasn't bad for this of course, he wanted Keith to be the best he could be. But like any parent figure, his desire to help Keith succeed sometimes blinded him to Keith’s emotional turmoil.

Keith tugged on Lance's shirt. This was bad. This was really bad. He shouldn't be opening up like this to anyone. He told himself to never do this or he’s get hurt when they eventually left him.

Keith tried to pull away but Lance held onto him a while longer. "If you need more time, take it. I'm not gonna go anywhere till I know you're ok."

Keith melted back into Lance's arms happily and sniffled. "Thank you.... thank you so much, Lance."

"Don't mention it." Lance grinned.

Keith didn't care anymore. He let himself fall apart in front of Lance, and Lance sounded comforting and soothing hums.

It took a long while before Keith finally cleared up, eating some cares away and talking to Lance about the few happy things he could remember of his past.

"And once I- well... nevermind." Keith looked away with a red hot face and toothy smile.
"What? No you can't just cut off like that, tell me!"
"You can't judge me, ok?"
"You've got my word. I won't even laugh."
"Alright.... Once I had a crush on this guy and I didn't understand why I liked him so I wrote him a note asking him why he was attractive."

Lance was clearly holding back laughter while Keith grinned ear to ear. "You said you wouldn't laugh! You better hold that shit in or I'm gonna smack you!"

Lance burst out laughing and Keith did too, finishing their last bits of food.

Lance and Keith shuffled out of the booth and walked out of the bakery, laughing, holding hands, talking, the whole nine yards.

…

When Lance and Keith arrived back at their rooms in the mansion, they're voices were filled with joy—smiles were bright on their faces and they jokingly and gently punched each other in the gut, as if they wanted to keep their rivalry if only to save face.

Jitte smiled at this. "Your friends were able to complete their mission successfully. They've taken over the rooms of their clones, I wanted to tell you that myself when you returned."

Lance kept his ear to ear grin, holding tight onto Keith's arm. "Thank you, Jitte. You've done more for us than-"

Jitte silenced him. "I won't accept your thanks. I'll be going now." With a solemn nod and an almost cumbersome stare to Keith, he left the room without another word.

With that look from Jitte, Keith was reminded of the pendant. Keith had bought a necklace for Lance, and he still hadn't given it to him.

Keith was sucked out of his thoughts as Lance tugged on his arm. "Keith, everyone at the party is probably going to be bringing someone..."

Keith nodded. "Yeah?..."

"I... want you to come with me- I mean... I know we HAVE to go together and do all the things we're gonna do but— for the little time we have before the plan begins, do you want to accompany me to the party?" Lance stared at Keith with pleading eyes.

Those eyes. Those cold blue eyes held a deep warmth that made Keith all hot inside, like a blue flame rising up in his throat and reaching to touch every inch of his body. the tips of his fingers came to a boil with this feeling and his lips urged to say something his mind didn't even understand yet- all because Lance looked at him that way, spoke to him with that voice, it was maddening for Keith.

"Accompany... that's a big word. I've never heard you use it." Keith laughed nervously.

Lance giggled in reply. "Well... what's your answer?"

Keith rolled his eyes playfully and rested his hand atop Lance's.

"I'm honored to go with you, Lance Mcclain. Under 1 condition. Sing me that song again, the one you sang in the ballroom." Keith smirked as he walked himself to the bed and sat down.

Lance stammered with a flushed and red face. "t-the song? Oh boy I... listen it's not even a real song. My mom made it up when I was little- I asked her for a sad love song and that's what she came up with it's really old- I probably got the words wrong and-"

Keith stopped Lance's rapid fire speech by resting his hand on his shoulder. "I don't mind Lance. Sing however you want"

Lance smiled and sat beside Keith.

The light behind them was orange and bright, the golden hour of this planet. The room was filled to the brim with this beautiful bronze, shining off the faces of the two Paladins, two boys, who were doing nothing but grinning to each other.

"I- I think it went... 'If only you knew, what I wanted to do.'" Lance started.

Keith beamed with a joy he hadn't felt in a long time. he laid back on the bed and closed his eyes to further enjoy the sound of lance's singing, despite its unsureness.

"How I wanted to hold you, till the end of time. To call you "mine" would be such a dream, but again you see, You don't belong to me. And there's not enough time. Oh there's not enough time."

Lance's body swayed to his own song. He leaned over Keith and grinned.

"I just hope to see you again, believe that at my count of ten, I can hear you sing..."

Lance trailed off, was Keith still listening?

"10.. 9... 8" Keith continued the song where lance left off, eyes still closed.

Now, they were both sing-counting the same tune. Keith had a remarkable memory, and he was sure he wasn't going to forget this moment anytime soon....
So long as Lance tried to remember this too.

When the song was over it was silent. There was only the very faint sound of tiny buzzing and humming from the creatures outside their window.

The night was coming quick now, and the natural light of the room wasn't enough to really be able to see.

"Lance... you're birthday is soon right?" Keith asked.

"Same day as the party. So let's try not to die yeah?" Lance laughed nervously.

"Yeah." Keith already knew what he was gonna get for lance-What he got for Lance. That stunning blue necklace he had was not going to be his own for much longer, Keith planned to give that necklace to Lance on his birthday.

Lance sighed and stood up. "Well. I'm gonna go change, take a shower, then go to bed."

Keith smiled to Lance. "I think I'm gonna sleep now, Goodnight."

Lance waved his hand signaling his version of "goodnight" and hopped into the bathroom which was connected to the office part of the room.

Keith stared after Lance for a few moments before curling up in the bed. What was he doing? Was he insane?

Keith put a hand on his stomach, he felt so weird and tingly on the inside, every time he saw Lance nowadays he just bursted with joy-and every moment Lance wasn't with him, Keith spent thinking about Lance.

It was dark outside now, the moonlight falling gently onto the sheets of the bed and dancing across Keith's face. Indisposition was crawling around in his mind and was clear in his eyes.

Keith stared out the window and sighed, he didn't want to like Lance more than he already did. Lance loved Allura, he knew that. He couldn't allow himself to get wrapped up in any more of... whatever was going on between them.

Lance soon came out of the shower with his boxers and yawned. "Keith? I thought you were gonna go to bed?"

Keith chiefly brought his attention to Lance and shrugged. "I couldn't sleep."

Lance got into bed beside Keith and snuggled under the covers, followed almost immediately by Keith who did the same.

The caramel boy shuffled close so that their bodies brushed against each other, their faces barely an inch apart.

"Then I'll help you fall asleep." Lance played with Keith's hair happily.

Keith felt an urge rush over him, an urge he decided to act upon. He pulled Lance close and cuddled into his chest—tangling their legs together.

If Lance didn't mind, and Keith wanted this, it was ok to do this just as friends, right? He could do that. There's no reason it had to go beyond that since he knew Lance wasn't interested.

"Lance you know we don't have to be this close..." Keith mumbled.
"I know," Lance said simply, "but I want to be."

Keith could feel his heart swell up being so close to Lance, he wasn't used to so much affection. "Why are you being so... nice to me?"

Lance laughed and combed Keith's hair adroitly. "Cause you deserve it. I admit that the way I used to act toward you was... immature, and I believe no one should ever treat you the way I treated you."
Keith stared up at Lance with stars in his eyes. "Lance..."
"Hey listen, I'm just saying sorry cause I'm not an asshole alright? It's late, you should sleep."

Keith nodded slightly with a grin on his cheeks, and let himself drift off to sleep with Lance's scent filling his mind.

Chapter Text

Keith was up before Lance this time. The mansion had a functional training hall so Keith got up early in order to exert some of his emotions onto something physical.

His mind was flooded with thoughts, not all particularly about training. The red Paladin wondered what Lance’s favorite food was, what Lance’s favorite thing to do back home was, why Lance decided to join the garrison, just any question he could think about Lance’s life that he didn’t already know. He would have loved to know it.

After a few hard hours of nothing but training, Keith was beat. He walked back to the room to find Lance was up now too, writing fervently onto a note.

Keith tiptoed behind Lance and peered over his shoulder. "What's that?"

Lance let out a shriek and covered the note with a bright blush on his face. "Nothing!"

Keith tried to see it from another angle multiple times but Lance moved his body to obstruct his view every time.

"It can't be nothing if you're trying to hide it," Keith pouted, "is it for Allura?"
"What?! No it's- ugh... if the plan doesn't work out the way we want it to I-... I wanna leave something behind."
"Lance..."
"I know it's stupid and I'm not gonna die or whatever but... just in case. This is for you." Lance put the letter into an envelope and handed it to Keith. "Promise me you won't read it unless something happens to me."
"Lance, you're not gonna—"
"Promise me."

Keith looked at the envelope that was placed in his hand and then up to Lance. Keith didn't want to think about any possibilities where he got hurt in any way during this fight, not to even entertaining the idea of him dying. He'd never let that happen anyway, might as well just go along with Lance's worries. "I... I promise."

Lance sighed, seeming like a weight had been lifted off his chest. "Thank you, Keith. I'm gonna make some for the rest of the team but, you can hold onto yours now since you walked in on me."

Keith grabbed a towel from the back of the chair located in their room and grinned. "Nah, just keep it, I'm gonna go take a shower."

Lance nodded and took the envelope from Keith's hand.

Lance's eyes connected with Keith's for a split moment before he smiled. "Hurry up and get dressed. Today's the day."

"Damn right it is," Jitte said as he entered the room, "Are you guys ready?"
"As we'll ever be." Keith shrugged.
"Remember, the distraction you cause has got to be big- enough to draw the attention of armed soldiers."

Lance clung to Keith's arm. "A lil kiss would certainly do the trick right?"

Jitte and Keith stared at Lance unamused.

"...What?..." Lance tilted his head innocently.

Keith grinned to Jitte, "Thank you for everything you've done."

Jitte smiled and leaned to Keith's ear. "You better make good use of that pendant I bought for you."

Keith shoved Jitte away with a grin and stood up again. "Alright get outta here, the other guards might get suspicious."

Jitte nodded and waved his hand goodbye, leaving Keith and Lance is silence.

"Hey, Lance..." Keith spoke finally, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest—trying to break free of the rib cage that held it back—it was almost painful.

Lance clearly had no idea of Keith's inner turmoil when he answered with a beaming voice, "yeah?"

Keith stammered over his words, only getting out some "um"s and "uh"s until he eventually got to the words he meant to say since that morning:

"Happy birthday, Lance."

Lance let out a small sigh and laughed, "thank you- for a second there I thought you'd forgotten. Where's my present?"
Keith chortled in return. "You'll get it when you get it."
"Keith! You didn't get me anything?" Lance pretended to be hurt by this.
"chill out Lance, I just haven't wrapped it yet. I'll give it to you after the party."

Lance smiled and turned to the window, he walked to the glass and rested his hand on it.

"Do you think... Dfeaud will change?" Lance said softly.

"What do you mean?" Keith came to his side and looked out to the garden.

"I mean, if we do this, and everything goes according to plan... what will happen to Dfeaud?"
"I'm not sure. It's something her people will have to decide."
"And what about a new leader? How will that be decided?"
"Lance."

Keith put a hand on Lance's shoulder, admiring how the light fell on Lance's face. Lance looked so sweet and innocent like this, he wanted to preserve that image of Lance in amber to warm him up on a cold, winter day. "We can't solve all their political problems. They'll decide what they do, our job is to save them from the Galra- and the only way that can happen is if we defeat her."

"But why can't we just talk it out with Dfeaud?" Lance mumbled.

"Not everyone can just be talked down, not when they're as obstinate as her. Don't worry so much Lance, it's not good for your looks." Keith threw a small uncertain grin.

"D-did you just— you made a joke!" Lance giggled, hopping up and down like a child.

"Don't be dramatic. I'm not as serious as you think I am."

Keith let out a small breath of air as Lance suddenly pulled him into an embrace. "I can't thank you enough for all you've done for me."

Keith awkwardly put his hands on Lance's back. "Don't mention it. We're a team remember?"

Lance nodded. "The best team."

…

1 hour before the start of the party, Lance and Keith were already in their suits, both wearing a bit of make-up. Keith was against the idea of putting on make-up but the second Lance started to accuse Keith for "judging him," he allowed Lance to do him up. Lance wasn’t one for makeup either, but he just thought some foundation and contour couldn’t hurt the two of them.

The rest of the team met up in Lance and Keith's room soon after, all seemingly distressed.

"Why don't we just leave? We've got everybody we need- we can sneak out while the party goes on." Pidge suggested.

"I don't know if you realize this, but Dfeaud still thinks she has you in captivity. She'll have armed guards everywhere in case you escape, she doesn't underestimate you." Jitte hissed.

Keith gave an irritated groan. "We can just fight them off then!"

"Keith!” Allura cut in, voice sharp, “We're not leaving these people like this. If Dfeaud promised us to the Galra and we’re not here when they arrive, what do you think the Galra will do to them for lying? And if the Galra continue to take their resources, they'll die out. Could you really handle that on your conscience?" Allura pressed.

Everyone was silent.

"That's what I thought."

"Alright let's not fight each other... we're a team." Lance's eyes scoured each uncertain expression with his own look of hope.

Keith nodded. "We can do this guys, we've been in worse situations. If anything, Lance and I are the only people who would get hurt if something went wrong."

"We wouldn't let that happen. We're all gonna get out of this, together." Shiro put his hand in the center of their body-formed circle.

Allura put her hand in right after shiro, a bright smile on her face.

Lance and Keith threw their hands in at almost the same time.

Pidge put her hand in with a happy giggle as Jitte's tiny hand followed right after.

Hunk gulped, "How do we find ourselves in these situations?"

Hunk sighed and put his hand in, grinning ear to ear.

The team smiled to one another other before breaking away.

"Let's kick some ass!" Keith grinned.

Lance's eyes widened. "Oh right! Everyone I've got some letters for you, don't read them unless I die."

"Then I guess we'll never get to read these huh?" Hunk laughed, "you always find a way to do something ridiculous, we'll hold onto them."

With that, the plan was set into motion; Keith and Lance arrived to the party a few minutes after it had started and tried to seem as normal as possible.

The party was set in the throne room that Keith had seen when he first arrived to the mansion; however, it was much more extravagant now. Streamers hung from the ceilings while the tables were nicely outfitted with expensive-looking dining sets.

The guests weren't too out of the ordinary, most of them were from the same planet while others were from planets just one jump away.

Dfeaud sat in the center of her throne, hopping down when she caught sight of both Keith and Lance.

Her dress was almost more exquisite than the room, beautiful golden designs running up and down a teal blue dress that blended to a foamy white like the sea. It was a pure and delicate white, seeming to be unable of hiding shame or sin behind it.

"I'm so glad you were able to come today Paladins. We know you must be very busy." Dfeaud laughed in her high pitch voice.

"Oh it's no problem at all. Thank you for inviting us." Lance shook Dfeaud's hand and she pointed to a clothed table with multiple little papers folded neatly, names spelled out on each of the papers.

"You can find where we've arranged for you to sit on that tiny table there. Your paladin friends should be arriving soon. I hope you enjoy your time here." With those words Dfeaud was off to her throne. It was clear that would be how she'd plan on watching over the party.

Lance was able to find out where they were seated and dragged Keith along with him.

"Hey they got an open buffet," Lance observed, "I'm gonna get something to eat, you want anything?"

Keith shook his head. "Go on ahead, I'll catch up in a second."

Lance flashed a smile before running off with the energy of a young child who’s just been given permission to join his friends on the swing set, all just to grab a plate.

Keith watched after him and felt his heart lurch.

'God... what the hell's wrong with me?'

He couldn't go on like this. He wished he could just make his feelings go away, he wished he could stop melting every time Lance touched his arm or said his name, but he was just putty in Lance's hands.

Keith shut his eyes. What could he do to get out of this? He didn't have the heart to push Lance away again, not when they were so close, not when Keith was so infatuated with him.

After a few moments, Keith's blanched fingers trailed to his pocket and he felt the pendant in his hands. He could imagine Lance's surprise at the gift. He could imagine the way Lance’s smile would make his eyes crinkle. Keith's heart swelled up at the possibility of even getting a hug for the kind gesture.

"God help me..." Keith muttered under his breath.

Lance returned and set down a plate. "What happened to catching up with me?"

Keith grinned and immediately took his hand out of his pocket. "Sorry, I'm just... not hungry."

Lance set another plate in front of Keith and scooted his chair closer to him. "Well lucky for you, I got you food anyway~"

Keith rolled his eyes playfully and shoved Lance lightly. "You're a dork and I hate you."
"Aw you don't mean that~"
"..Yeah, I know."

They are together with wide smiles on their faces, talking about inconsequential memories from earth. It was hard to ignore the fact that they were going to be crashing this party soon, but something about Lance’s company instantly relaxed Keith. With Lance around, he was sure everything would be ok.

Music soon started to play, it didn't sound too different from the music back on earth, it was definitely party music.

Lance got up excitedly. "Come on, dance with me!"

Keith shook his head quickly. "no no no! I know we danced before but that was in private- nobody's even on the dance floor yet!"

Lance pulled Keith up onto his feet with tremendous force. Keith had no idea how strong Lance was, Lance had never been able to pull Keith up with so much force before, then again, he wasn’t sure he could remember a time that Lance tried.

"They're not dancing cause they're shy. Let's show them a little spirit yeah?"
"Lance," Keith whispered into the man's ear, "We have to cause a distraction towards the middle of the party. Let's save the dancing for later, ok?"

Lance pouted and sat back down. "You're no fun."

"I can be fun!" Keith said defensively, his hair stood on end as he got into place beside lance.

"Oh yeah? Prove it." Lance leaned in close.
"How? I'm not gonna dance." Keith crossed his arms.
"Hmmm... play truth or dare with me."
"Lance that's a children's game, I'm not going to-"
"Chicken!" Lance started to make chicken cooing noises and giggled a loud.

"Oh my god, you're so immature! Ok, alright, I'll play your stupid game." Keith covered his face in shy embarrassment.

"Alright Keith, truth or dare?"

Keith hummed for a few moments. "Truth."

Lance bit his lip. "damn. I was hoping you were gonna say dare. Um... ok, did you actually forget who I was when you saw me during the time we were saving Shiro?"

Keith laughed a little. "Ah... ok so I thought you kinda looked like a kid I knew- but he was really short and I thought his name was Taylor... then you told me at the fitting you used to be called 'the tailor' cause of how you—"

"Thread the needle!" Lance finished quickly. "You thought my name was Taylor?"

"Yeah. My bad I guess. Your turn, truth or dare?"
"Hmm. Truth."
"Chicken."
"I am not!"
"You're a chicken!"
"Shut up! Fine, dare."

Keith chuckled and looked around the hall, it was starting to get hard to hear because of all the people at the party now. Lights were dim and the guards were in position.

"I dare you to get me something to drink."
"That's not a dare!"
"Yeah it is, would you have gotten it for me otherwise?"
"Of course I would."

Lance and Keith stared at each other with flushed faces until Lance stood up. "I-I'm gonna get you that drink."

Keith rolled his eyes and pulled Lance by his wrist back down to his seat. "Wait no I'm not thirsty- I'll come up with something else."

Keith thought for a moment. "I dare you... to chat up a girl who's clearly not single."

Lance smiled. "That happens to me by accident more often than you'd think. I'll be right back."

Lance stood up and walked to one of the very attractive female aliens who had a female's arm wrapped around her waist while her other three arms laid limply beside her.

After a few minutes of talking and disgusted looks from the girls, one of them splashed water in his face before they both walked away.

Lance returned and laid his soaking wet head on the table. "I think I just realized something..."

Keith seemed thoroughly amused. "What?"

Lance looked up. "1, that I hate you, and 2— hitting on someone when they're taken is an ass thing to do."

"You didn't know that before?" Keith raised an eye brow.

"No... I-i mean— look, believe me, I've never hit on someone who I KNEW was dating someone else, but that's the first time I've ever been splashed in the face with water."
"What usually happens?"
"I get punched."

.....

Keith and Lance broke out into laughter and forgot all about their plates of food.

It seemed like hours had passed while Keith and Lance talked, despite it having only been about 30 minutes, they'd even moved their seats just so they could be closer together.

Lance put a hand on top of Keith's and leaned in close to his face. "People are dancing now... dance with me?"

Keith was about to say no, he wanted to say no, he meant to say no, but when he opened his mouth—

"Yes."

Lance dragged Keith over to the dance floor with a wide smile on his cheeks. "Just like at karaoke night, ok? You're a good dancer Keith."

"I highly doubt that but, ok." Keith made sure they were in the center so that no one who was sitting would see them.

Lance vivaciously danced and sung with the song, looking like a huge dork. It wasn't enough to draw attention from the other people dancing though, aside from a few awkward glances and laughter.

Keith didn't know when it happened, but Lance had pulled Keith close so that they could be embarrassing together— and Keith didn't mind one bit.

"Lance! We still gotta do... what we gotta do remember?" Keith referenced to causing a distraction for Allura and the gang.

"What? I can't hear you! The music is too loud!"
"What?!"
"Just dance with me, Keith!"

Lance literally swept Keith off his feet and began to spin him around to which Keith began to grin and giggle like a child.

Keith held on to Lance so he wouldn't fly out of his arms, but he knew the paladin would never let him go. He trusted Lance. He trusted Lance completely.

This feelings was worse than 'like.' And Keith was starting to realize that. But this time he couldn't just up and leave or pull away from Lance, his own mind wouldn't let him. He could feel his cheeks getting hot and his heartbeat growing faster and louder with each passing moment- it hurt. This feeling hurt. He almost felt like he could cry. He just wanted to hold Lance close and forget about everything else.

It hurt especially when he thought of all the times he tried to suppress these thoughts just because he was scared of rejection. He was scared of acceptance too!— everything was so confusing, and he was almost 100% sure Lance wouldn't return the feeling anyway since he was always so infatuated with Allura

"Lance, put me down!" He meant to sound commanding but his real intonation was laced with happiness.

Lance put Keith on his feet, but he didn't plan to just let Keith walk away from him—he yanked Keith close to his chest and grabbed lightly onto his hips. "Keith... a slow song is starting, we can start the distraction in the middle ok?"

Keith searched Lance's eyes. That look, it wasn't playful. It wasn't the same giggly persona he had on before, this one was serious.

Keith nodded and rested his head on Lance's shoulder, letting the other man lead his feet in their swaying.

Keith closed his eyes as his hands gripped onto Lance's shirt. He held Lance so tight, as if he was scared that if he let go, Lance would leave him- never to be seen again. Keith didn't want that to happen. He wouldn't let that happen.

He remembered the fortune tellers words.

"Your friend’s eyes will forever be closed before he lays them on his present. "

Those words were glued in his brain all day. Couldn't he just give Lance the present right now? Would that prevent the prophecy or only speed it up? That's assuming the prophecy is even real.

Lance's voice snapped Keith back to reality. "Keith... I've got something I need to confess."

Keith looked up to Lance reluctantly.

Lance brought a hand up to Keith's face and brushed his dark black hair behind his ear. He looked so incredibly nervous, his hand was even shaking.

"Lance?... are you ok?" Keith mumbled.

For a long while, Lance said nothing, he just looked at Keith with terrified wide eyes.

"L-Lance?..." Keith said again, more hesitant this time.

"Keith I-I've been lying to you." Lance said suddenly, as if it had suddenly burst from his lips unintentionally.

Keith gave him a confused glare and laughed, a little bit of nervousness trailing on top of it. "What do you mean?"

"This is the real me. It's always been me. That love bug? It's effects wore off a long time ago." Lance mumbled, his grip on Keith loosened.

Keith felt his world start to crash to the ground. No. That couldn't be true. There was no way. "W-what do you mean? Lance, you're not making any sense."

"All that flirting and touching wasn't caused by a bug, Keith, It-...that was all me..." Lance said with a bit less confidence than before.

"You're lying, I saw the effects." Keith protested.

Lance didn't answer, he just hung his mouth open and closed his eyes, getting ready for the storm that was Keith's anger.

Keith's rage came soon after Lance's silence, "How long ago?” Keith said through his teeth, almost like a demand more than a question.

Lance didn’t answer, instead choosing to look at the floor.

Keith only got more angry and grew louder, “I said how long?!”

"Karaoke night. It wore off karaoke night." Lance whispered.

Keith pushed Lance away and glared at him harshly. "So- so you've just been making a fool of me?! You were— was it funny to you?! Ugh- it probably was you- ugh!"

Keith stormed off towards the buffet table and crumpled his hands into fists, crouching over the table where the plates were. His legs felt weak and his brain was scattered. ' That fucking liar! He probably had such a fun time seeing me get all worried and begin to- begin to... '

Keith's thoughts were so hectic he couldn't even settle on one way to express his anger- a single sentence wouldn't have enough time to form in his head before he jumped to the next.

Lance ran to Keith's side. "Keith please, just listen to me."

"What is there to listen to?! You're an asshole, you know that?!" Keith shoved Lance back, causing him to bump into another person.

That started attracting attention.

"Keith, please just- hear me out! I didn't mean to upset you. I thought- I thought you wouldn't feel the same for me unless.. god I'm a mess."
"What the hell are you talking about?!"
Lance gulped before he began to speak again, “I started feeling like I... like I wanted to... 'be with you' I guess a-and the love bug excuse let me be with you in ways that I didn't have the courage to try to be with you before. At first, I didn’t even know I had been bit, b-but then we were in your room and I thought— I thought our kiss ruined our friendship so when you told me that I was bit by a love bug or whatever, I thought that if I just kept lying or playing along with that, That I could pretend it wore off when—"
"When I started to feel the same way for you?! You can't even say how you feel about me properly! What did you think was gonna happen?! You thought that you were just gonna trick me till I fell for you?! That I'd eventually come around to feel the same way?! Well I hope you're happy cause—" Keith's shouting melted into tears, his mouth hung open for a few moments as his sadness grew from the dead leaves of his anger. His voice was much quieter when he spoke now.

"It worked... you made a fool of me."

When Keith began to cry, He didn't want to. It was embarrassing- but he couldn't hold it back. All the frustration and feelings of hurt stirring in him tipped his eyes over the edge. It was clear some attention of the room was turning on them now, but Lance didn't pay any mind to it, he was too worried about Keith.

Lance shook his head, "No, no! I'm so sorry—I made a mistake! I was stupid! I never meant to hurt you, you've gotta believe me on that."
"Never meant to hurt me?! Ever since you met me that's all you've tried to do! You insulted me, you made fun of me—"
"I was there for you!" Lance cut into Keith's words, getting defensive, "When no one else on the team was there for you, I was! I even had your back when Shiro was gone!"
"And what a great job you've done! I should never have been picked to lead this team in the first place!"

The crowd was building around them, no one was dancing anymore but the music was just as loud as always. Keith was just getting more and more panicked the bigger the crowd grew.

Keith's face felt hot, his chest was heaving, his throat was tightening, his ears were on fire, and he felt like he couldn't breathe.

"Keith, no I- fuck I messed up again. Look, I'm sorry that I played with your feelings, but I didn't lead you on... I was using the love bug as an excuse to hold you but, I truly wanted to do all those things, and I do feel the way I said."
"Feel the way you said?! You can't even say how you feel! How do you feel about me huh? You-You hold such low regard for me that you think the only way you could even have a chance with me is to lie?! You're not even brave enough to admit your feelings to yourself!"

Lance froze in place. Keith could tell he had definetly hit the right note there.

"Keith, please I—" Lance put his hand on Keith's shoulder.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” Keith's eyes flashed a bright yellow as he grabbed Lance's arm, flipping him over onto his back.

Everyone gasped, shocked faces all around as murmurs began to rise, there was even a person who let out a high pitched yelp.

When Keith's eyes went back to their natural color, he stared down at Lance groaning on the ground.

with a muted gasp, clasping two hands over his mouth. Keith had promised he’d change… he promised he wouldn’t hurt lance like that again just cause he was emotional… and he did it anyway. Keith sputtered, "Lance! I-I didn't mean to—"

Lance twitched with widened pupils, the realization that Keith had really just flipped him over clearly flooding into his brain.

Suddenly Keith felt hands on him, pulling and tugging on him every which way, the guards had rushed over to hold him down.

Keith struggled and squirmed in their grip and Lance stood up from the ground.

"Hey! What are you doing with him?!" Lance rushed into action and tried to pry Keith away from the guards.

Keith couldn’t understand... after all that, Lance was still trying to protect him, Lance still cared about him.

"Lance, it's fine- I'm fine just—"
"I'm not gonna leave you, Keith! Let him go! He didn't mean to hurt me!" Lance protested.

It was at that moment the screaming started. Since the guards weren't at the door that meant—

A shrill and upset scream from Dfuead filled the room, "It's the paladins! They've gotten into the mansion!"

All attention was on the team of Voltron as they entered the room.

"So much for the element of surprise." Shiro said quietly.

Chapter Text

It was dark, Keith could hear nothing but muffled screams and lasers echoing through out the room.

Slowly, Keith rose from the ground, the noises only becoming louder as he regained consciousness.

One of the guards had knocked him out cold and he was only now awaking in the midst of battle.

Keith's blurred eyes crudely adjusted to the dim light as his pounding headache began to subside, he rested a hand to his skull in pain.

"Watch.... Keith! Ke..... ok?"

The red paladin looked up to the figure crouching beside him. "Lance?..."

"No- no it's me, Hunk." The voice was clearer now.

Hunk's arms held Keith up gently as Pidge fought off the guards immediately in front of her. The only lights in the hall now came from the blasts of the lasers and Pidge's glowing bayard. The lights had cut out.

"Are you ok?" Hunk asked again.

Keith sat up in a panic and scoured the room for any sign of Lance but couldn't find him. "W-where's Lance?!"

"We thought you would know!” Pidge started, “Shiro is trying to get all the civilians out of the mansion but we're swarm— AH!" Pidge's explanation was cut off as she dodged a spear slice aimed at her head.

Keith rolled away from shot fired at his hip and rose his voice, "You weren't supposed to come in yet!"

Hunk threw Keith a bayard which Keith grabbed quick in order to join the fight.

"We heard you and Lance yelling! We assumed— DOWN!" At that signal from Hunk, they all recoiled behind the food table which had been flipped over.

Keith tried to calm his erratic breathing. This wasn't the plan. Everything was going wrong. He could barely even hear himself think over all the noises and screams.

Keith glanced down at the bayard in his hand and felt a shiver tear through his body, shaking him down to the very core of his being.

The darkness of the hall made it very hard to distinguish anything, especially colors, but Keith could see very clearly which color the bayard in his hand was, and it wasn't black.

"This— this bayard is red! This is Lance's bayard! Hunk where did you find this?" Keith held it up to Hunk with an almost threatening gaze.
"J-just on the floor right next to you- I thought it was yours! I—"
"If I have Lance's bayard then... oh no..."

Keith jumped out from behind the table and pushed through the crowd, he could hear Pidge and Hunk screaming wildly at him to get back but he didn't care.

Keith called Lance's name, barreling through the guards and getting nicked and cut with every alien he passed.

"Lance! Where are you?!"

There was no response, at least no response that Keith could hear.

Keith whipped his head around to doge a blow aimed at his neck, he promptly knocked the attacking soldier onto her feet.

"Lance! Lance please! Where—"

Keith felt a sharp pain break into his side. He'd been getting cut and bruised while he ran through the crowd but this hit was different. It was specifically directed at him, it was an accurate hit.

Keith grabbed onto his side and caught a glimpse of his now bloodied hand and wounded flank.

The man cried out in pain and felt a sharp edged sword at his neck.

"How dare you!" The owner of the blade shouted.

Keith's stare trailed the edge of the sword all the way up to its holder, Dfeaud.

"You ruined everything!" Her eyes were flushed with a wild blaze of anger and her once lavish dress was now torn and shredded like a squished leaf in autumn, her hair kinked out in all different directions, and her lips were curled back in anger.

Keith's left leg swiped under her feet while the right leg kicked her knees out, causing her to fall on the floor. Keith rolled out from underneath her to protect himself from her landing body.

Pain erupted from Keith's side as he was, again, nicked by Dfeaud's sword.

Keith grabbed Lance's bayard and flipped to his feet, ready to strike, but when he turned around he couldn't see Dfeaud anywhere near.

A screech that pierced his ears sounded from behind Keith as Dfeaud leaped onto his back, a dagger from her hand aiming straight toward his neck.

Keith put his hand up in protection and ended up having the blade sink straight through his hand. Despite the immense pain, Keith was able to muster enough of his strength to flip Dfeaud off him and onto the floor.

Keith wiped the sweat and blood from his forehead and bit his lip. She was a better fighter than he thought.

"You little—" before Dfeaud could finish, she was kicked to the side by a alien with a similar stature, Jitte.

In shock, Dfeaud glanced up to see her once loyal soldier pointing a spear towards her head.

"You- you're supposed to be mine!" She hissed.

Jitte didn't have a chance to respond as she reared up and grabbed the wood of the spear, using her strength to throw Jitte back and onto Keith.

Both Jitte and Keith fell to the ground with a hard and loud thud.

"I'm the leader- me! I'm the one in control! I know what I'm doing!" She shouted, running at them with the spear she'd stolen from Jitte.

Jitte and Keith rolled to opposite sides to dodge the blow and came back to strike her flanks.

Keith pulled a dagger from the inside of his torn suit and dug it just below her rib cage while Jitte used his claws to scratch her opposite hip.

She let out an scream as she swung the spear over her head, causing Keith and Jitte to back off.

In her rage she snapped the handle of the spear in half and pulled the dagger out of her side. "I'll destroy you!" She hissed.

Jitte tried to leap on her from behind but was in a matter of seconds on the ground as her hand grabbed onto his arm and flung him across the room.

Keith was able to use this moment of distraction to kick Dfeaud onto her injured side.

Dfeaud landed quick on her feet and threw her head up to glare and hiss at Keith.

god... why the hell wont she stay down?

Keith didn't know how much longer he could keep fighting, he felt such incredible pain in every inch of his body, he didn't even remember anything of what had happened before this fight.

Dfeaud crawled to her sword and aimed it to Keith's chest.

Keith blocked the blow with his own sword.

Their blades met in battle.

Dfeaud glared harshly at Keith, she looked nothing like the calm and bubbly leader she was before.

Every attack Dfeaud made was quickly rebutted and returned by Keith, and every time Keith tried to finish the battle with one quick strike, Dfeaud would counteract it with her own weapon.

They clashed in the center of their blades, struggling to throw the other off balance. Their arms shook as they exerted the same amount of force against each other.

"I could have saved them! I don't need any help! Not from you, not from Jitte, and certainly not from the Paladins of voltron!" Dfeaud screamed above the roar of the other fighting going on around them, "Where were you when the Galra enslaved my planet, huh? Why are you only coming now?! to screw everything over?!"
"You're doing this all wrong," Keith shouted back, feeling his arms becoming numb, "Just stop this fighting!"
"I know how to rule my own people! Voltron claims to be there for the universe, but you and your paladin's just ruin everything!"

Keith pressed his injured hand against his own sharp blade, letting his palm get cut again in order to gain a strength advantage over her—knocking Dfeaud to the ground.

The leader struggled and tensed on the ground with strong curses and growls, her wild eyes strained as they darted around to catch sight of her opponent.

Keith stalked over with his sword in hand, aiming it to Dfeaud's head.

"You'll regret this." Dfuead growled, turning her face to the tip of his bayard's weapon.

"You know what? I don't think I will."

Just in that moment, his form was pulled down to the ground, leaving his chest and upper body exposed while his knees held him up.

Two guards were pinning his arms to the ground. They kicked the red bayard away from his reach and in front of Dfeaud.

Keith struggled in their grip, but the injuries he'd sustained before hadn't left him with much strength. The guards were holding him firmly in place and there was nothing he could do to break himself free.

The aliens were immensely strong for their stature, Keith felt he should have expected this. This had to be part of their evolution to withstand the storms of the planet.

The leader picked up the red bayard and squeezed it tightly, inspecting the technology. "So how does this work?- oh!"

The bayard shifted its shape, a long and thick string reached out of it while the end of the rope held a big metal ball with sharp red spikes on its exterior; a morning star.

"Ooo la la, this would be fun to swing around. I was hoping for a sword like yours though." Dfeaud frowned.

"Drop it! That's Lance's bayard! Not yours!" Keith shouted, his squirming increased when her fingers trailed the morning star's handle.

"Lance? The one who came with you? I wonder what his weapon was..." Dfeaud had an unreadable expression as she watched the rope of her weapon carefully.

"That's Lance's! You can't touch it! You can't..." Keith's head hung low. He just wanted to get her filthy hands off that thing- he'd given it to Lance during the lion switch. Only Lance could touch it.

"You seem to care a lot about that one. I'll be sure to tell him that before I finish him off myself." Dfeaud laughed.

She threw the bayard off to the side again, leaning down to pick up her own sword.

"Any last words? Make them brief. You've caused me a lot of trouble and I'm usually not this courteous." She pointed the edge between his eyes.

"Fuck. You." Keith spat.

"I don't know what that means. Oh well," Dfeaud reared her sword back.

' she's gonna kill you if you don't do something! Think think think!

His thoughts quickly switched from logic to fear:

' I don't wanna die!–I'm not ready to die... I don't want...'

Keith couldn't let this happen. He wanted to fly with Shiro again, he wanted to learn how to cook with Hunk, he wanted to relate to Pidge about their awkwardness, he wanted to learn more about Alteans from Allura and Coran, but more than anything...he wanted to see Lance again. He had to see Lance again.

'Lance... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...'

Keith's eyes shut tight and his teeth clenched together as his body braced for impact.

But the impact never came.

in its place, was a blood-curdling cry that erupted from a figure now standing directly in front of Keith, defending him from the fatal blow.

Keith's eyes trailed the edge of the sword, from the tip to the wound it opened by going straight through the figure's side, becoming covered in blood. Keith's head tilted up to catch sight of the person's face.

"Lance?..." Keith's voice was barely above a whisper.

Suddenly Keith couldn't hear anything else. He was too stunned with disbelief and the immense pain he felt in his own body.

Lance fell to the ground limply as Keith let out an aching wail, the sight of Lance's body was enough for Keith to muster the strength to free himself from the guards restraints and rush to Lance's side.

During this time, Jitte had returned and was fighting Dfeaud away from Lance and Keith while Allura defended the Paladins from the guards.

Lance stared up to Keith and shook harshly. "Keith—... are you Urgh! Are you ok?..."

"I'm ok Lance, I'm ok—why would you do that?!" Keith rushed out the words in his state of panic; he felt like he was going to pass out.

Lance looked as if he was about to reply, but shut his mouth, his eyes closing slowly.

"Lance?..." Keith mumbled softly.

"Keith?! Keith! We have to go!" Allura shouted while she continued to hold off the guards, struggling to split her attention.

Keith couldn't hear her. He couldn't hear anything.

He brushed the hair out of Lance's face and tapped him lightly with a fearful and shaky hand. "Lance- Lance open your eyes! Lance! wake up!"

Allura dashed towards Keith and grabbed his wrist. "We have to go! Now!"

This snapped Keith back into reality. All the screams and blasts were sounding off in his ears once again, ringing with an annoying persistence.

"We can't just leave him here!" Keith protested, glancing between her and Lance’s body.

"We'll end up like him if we don't go, now!" Allura pressed.

"Just— help me get him out of here!" Keith growled before a small gasp escaped him.

It was now Keith could see the princess was crying. He could see Allura didn't want to leave Lance, but she wasn't in the best shape either. If she stayed, she would surely die.

"Go without me! I'll carry him!" Keith decided quickly.

Allura shook her head no with gritted teeth. Keith pushed Allura toward the exit and ordered, "Don't feel guilty! Just go!"

Allura reluctantly nodded and ran out of view with the other Paladins following her trail.

The guards rushed to follow the Paladins out of the room- any who lagged behind were promptly knocked out by Keith.

Soon, the only other living and conscious beings left in the hall were Lance, Keith, and some of the guests who never had a chance to escape and were cowering under tables and chairs.

Keith took no notice of them. His whole focus was on Lance and only Lance.

Only the slight twitch of Lance's fingers and the faint rise and fall of his chest was able to signify to Keith he was still alive.

Keith held onto Lance's soft, caramel hand and squeezed it tight. "You're gonna be alright Lance, you hear me?"

Lance weakly flickered his eyes open, wheezing as he struggled to speak. "Keith...?"

"Don't speak, you need to save your strength." Keith tried to keep a level head as he said this.

"I-I don't wanna die Keith... I'm s-scared." Lance said with a shaky voice, fear etched every inch of his face. His body was twitching uncontrollably, his eyes never leaving Keith’s, as if hoping the calming violet would be able to patch him up and keep him safe in it's sweet lavender gaze. There was so much blood pouring out from the wound, not to mention Lance had been in battle just before without a weapon so he was already covered in scars.

"You're not gonna die Lance, you're—you're gonna be fine I promise, ok?" Keith felt water prick his eyes.

"Keith... Keith it hurts—it hurts so bad.." Lance's body continued to quake in Keith's arms, tears forming quickly in his dulling blue eyes.
"I know it does, I know.. I’m gonna p-pick you up now ok?"

Keith started to lift Lance up off the ground but a shrill shriek from Lance caused Keith to drop him again.

"I-I'm sorry! I didn't—I didn't mean to..." Keith couldn't hold back his own crying any longer, water poured out of his eyes uncontrollably.

Keith shivered in disbelief. "I-I don’t know what to do! Tell me how to help you! You can't... you can't die like this... I have to give you your present..."

"Keith..." Lance started, "Y-you still have my letter?..."

Keith nodded, he traced a trembling finger ever so gently across Lance's jawline, his thumb rubbing his skin softly.

Lance gulped, "Good... make sure you read that, ok?"

Keith's voice shook in crackled pieces when he gave his reply, "don't— don't say that! you're gonna be fine..." The knot in his throat was so tight he felt like he could barely speak.

Keith applied pressure on Lance's wound, trying hard to stop the intense bleeding. Keith's face scrunched up with a sorrowful look. His mind was still busy trying to catch up to reality, he couldn't understand how something like this could happen- he was right there. Keith was there. He could have done something.

With a horrid cough, Lance put a shaky hand on Keith's cheek, which was able to stay there because Keith helped hold it up.

Lance put on a smile, "Listen to me Keith... it's ok."

Keith shook his head again. "No... No Lance..."

"..I love you, Keith."

Lance's teary eyed smile grew wider, he looked so happy he could finally say it. He let out a tiny and hoarse laugh as he repeated it again, just for good measure, "I love you."

Keith shook his head, "Lance, please don't leave me... I still," Keith's voice hicked and he switched to a whisper, "I still need you... please."

A sigh escaped Lance's grinning lips, and he fell silent.

Lance's hand fell from Keith's cheek and his eyes stared up to the ceiling, focused on nothing in particular, his smile faded to a neutral frown.

Lance's entire body was now limp in Keith's arms.

"Lance?... No… no no no, Lance—stay with me please!" Keith tried to shake Lance awake but his eyes never came back to their bright lively selves.

"No, don't leave me! Lance please! I never even- please I'll do anything just don't die!... don't die Lance..."

Through his cries, Keith set Lance down and began to pump his fists on Lance's chest, trying to push the life back into him.

This couldn’t be real. This wasn’t happening.

Keith's pounding faded as he pleaded with Lance’s unresponsive form. He held onto the man's warm body, which was quickly turning cold.

"This can't be happening... Lance, please— I... I..." Keith choked up, "I love you too. Do you hear me Lance? Can you hear me? I love you! Tell me you can hear me!"

Lance said nothing. His chest didn't move.

Keith now began to wail and scream.

He could feel his own heart swell and explode all at once. All he could manage to do was cry and cry and repeat Lance's name till he wore out his lips.

He felt like he couldn't breathe.

His ears were so flushed with pumping blood he could barely hear anything. He wanted to claw at his throat to try and stop it from tightening any more before it strangled him from the inside. He wanted anything to just make the pain stop, it hurt so much more than any physical wound he'd ever felt.

His pained screams eventually cut out and died down to small whimpers.

The rest of the Paladins were soon returning to the hall, no guards on their tail.

"Oh my god— Lance!" Pidge was the first one to scream. She rushed to the body being cradled in Keith's arms and put her hands over her mouth.

Very quickly the rest of the Paladins gathered to check the body themselves.

Keith's tear-stained cheeks felt heavy, but when he turned up to look at Allura he felt even worse.

Allura looked so tired- so defeated. She was no longer the young and determined princess from before.

But maybe...

"Allura... Allura, you have to save him!" Keith begged.
"s-save him? Keith, he's already—"
"Please!... Just try... try anything!"

Allura’s heart was heavy with the bleak severity of the situation. She pressed her hand to Lance's bloodied chest and shut her eyes.

...

...

...

...

.....

"Nothing..." Allura concluded silently. Removing her hand from the man's chest.

Out of all the pain Keith had felt in his life, this was definitely the worse. Not even shiro's disappearance was close to the grief he felt now.

"He's gone..." Shiro mumbled quietly.

Chapter Text

(This chapter is short and optional, it shows the fight between the Paladins, Jitte and Dfeaud while Keith is with Lance. You will be able to skip this chapter without any missing information.)

(This chapter will follow Jitte in third-person)

Jitte was the first out of the mansion, he turned on his heels to face the doors of the building he'd called home, now ready to face the girl who'd allowed him to live in peace after he'd hit his lowest point.

The Paladins were soon at his side, ready to help in any way they could.

Dfeaud ran out at the head of the crowd. Her eyes were wild with rage and insanity.

She barked, "guards! Get the Paladins— the traitor is mine!"

Dfeaud lunged forward towards Jitte.

The paladin's would have tried to protect him, but in a manner of moments they were swarmed with enemies.

Jitte grabbed Dfeaud's waist and fell on his back, using his feet to kick her off. He grabbed his dagger from the belt around his waist and got into a fighting stance.

Dfeaud laughed, "you're really going to fight me? I gave you a home, I gave you a job, I've done everything for you— and you repay me like this?!"

Jitte's eyes were solemn. "I'm sorry you lost your parents when you did. The Galra had no right to take them and leave you in charge at such a young age."

Dfeaud was incensed at those words, she reared up her legs and ran to Jitte again, knocking him off his feet and onto the floor.

Her hand gripped his neck and held him down as she pointed a dagger between his eyes. "I can handle it! I've been handling it! I don't need you—" she shouted, a bit of spit landing on Jitte's face.

Jitte's hand struggled to reach his dagger; Seeing this, Dfeaud lifted her hand from Jitte's neck in order to throw it away. The lifted pressure from Jitte's neck allowed him to break free and make a run for his weapon.

Dfeaud chased after him, her blade ready to attack.

Jitte grabbed the mini sword and flipped over on his back, swiping it across Dfeaud's face.

Dfeaud let out a scream and staggered back. Blood started to pour from the deep wound.

Jitte's breathing was starting to become erratic. He didn't want to fight her. She was right, when she was sane, she'd taken good care of him. She'd taken good care of her people. Without Galra invasion she probably would have been a great leader.

But no one handle's stress well, especially someone who was put into power so young.

Jitte got to his feet despite the aching pain in his feet and arms. He got into a fighting stance once again.

Dfeaud wiped the blood from her face and screamed at the top of her lungs. "Fight me! You can't keep falling back on defense or you'll lose."

Her eyes flashed. She gripped her own dagger tighter. "That's what you want isn't it. You're trying to distract me long enough for those other two Paladins to return and form Voltron."

Jitte bit his lip. 'damn it... I knew she was smart but I didn't think she'd be able to figure it out so quickly'

"You might as well fight me now, that one in blue won't be piloting a lion anytime soon." She looked up to Jitte with those crazed eyes again and laughed, "he's gone! I made sure of that."

Jitte felt a pang at his heart. Lance was a good man. He could tell that much. Keith would surely be too upset to pilot after losing Lance.

Suddenly, Jitte found himself on the ground again, stomach to the rough concrete and blade out of reach from his hands.

"You are too easy!" Dfeaud's voice giggled, her weight on Jitte's back keeping him down as her dagger pointed at his spine and pressed against the skin. If he tried to get up he'd stab himself with her blade.

"You're a terrible leader, your emotions got to you so easily. You wouldn't last a day running a civilization like this."

Jitte struggled to reach for the dagger, but felt a staggering sharp pain run through his body as Dfeaud stabbed his forearm. "You don't even last fighting your leader."

Jitte cried through the pain and got a loose hold of his blade. Dfeaud flipped him over on his back and gripped her dagger with two hands above her head.

Before she could strike the finishing blow, Jitte struck her in her side, not very accurate. The wound definitely wasn't lethal.

Dfeaud dropped her blade and grabbed onto Jitte's handle. She pulled it out of her side with an agonizing scream. Her body laid directly on top of Jitte as they fought for control of the dagger.

"Why are you fighting for the Paladins? Where were they when we were suffering?! How do you know they won't just disappear and let the Galra come straight to us again?" Dfeaud grunted.

Jitte gritted his teeth and shut his eyes in concentration. "You're better than this Dfeaud, I know you."
"You know nothing about me!"
"I know you don't want this! I know you care for your people but you're not making the right choices—"
"Stop criticizing me! I know what I'm—"

Dfeaud's eyes flashed.

She looked down to her chest.

Her hands were on the dagger, Jitte had turned it to face her. He knew he could never land the blow to end the fight, but she could.

Dfeaud fell off Jitte's body and he immediately went to catch her. "Dfeaud, I'm so sorry." he stammered.

Dfeaud looked up to Jitte with scared eyes, "You... you..."

Her lips curled into a soft smile, her stare was filled with understanding. A moment of clarity.

"You... you did what you had to."

She reached to her neck and yanked off a necklace. "You'll be a great leader."

"M-me? Dfeaud I can't-" Jitte argued. He knew what he was doing when he flipped the blade to strike a blow on Dfeaud, but he still didn't want to kill his leader... his friend.

Dfeaud nodded. "You can... Thank you for serving me all these years. Ill say hi to your family for you, ok?"

Jitte felt himself tear up for the first time since his wife and child passed. He grinned to Dfeaud.

Her eyes were filled with happiness and peace when she closed them. She didn't move on after that.

The guards stopped fighting seeing their leader was gone.

Jitte laid her body on the grass of her garden and pulled the dagger out of her chest. He stood up to face the army staring at him.

Jitte reluctantly held the necklace up for the crowd to view. He then clipped it around his neck and held the tiny gem at the end of it, green and bright.

The soldiers were the first to kneel before Jitte, then the Paladins, finally the group of citizens who began to gather.

"From this day on... the Galra are our enemies. And the Paladins our friends." Jitte grinned to the group.

Allura looked to the entrance of the mansion and back to Jitte. "Please- allow us to go see our friends, two Paladins are still inside."

Jitte nodded for them to leave. Allura handed him a small device before rushing inside.

Jitte turned to his subjects and began a speech

Chapter Text

(This chapter is not optional)

"No- no Lance is just faking. Lance its not funny anymore. Get up." Hunk stammered. He collapsed beside Keith and grabbed Lance's limp arm.

"C'mon buddy. Don't make me read that letter you gave me. Don't do that to me." Hunk bit back his pain and squeezed Lance's arm tight.

Keith shook his head. "T-the cyropods... can't we try those?"

"I'm sorry, Keith. The cyropods can only heal your body, Not bring you back to life." Allura spoke quietly.

"Then... Then we do that. I'm not saying goodbye to a flayed corpse. No way." Keith brushed some of Lance's hair out of his face.

"Let's get him back to the castle. We can all read our letters and when Lance's body is healed... we'll give him a proper send off." Keith spoke silently, taking the lead role once again. Anything to take his mind off of this before he went mad.

"Keith..." Pidge spoke quietly.

"Don't— I'll be fine." Keith felt if he focused on Lance's death too long he'd cease to function. "What happened with Dfeaud? Why are you all back here?"

Shiro spoke with a gentle tenderness that was careful not to break the thin casing holding the team together from breaking down over grief for Lance, "Dfeaud is... dead. Jitte and her were fighting for her dagger whilst on top of each other and it struck her. Jitte, having been the one who 'killed' her is now the leader."

Keith picked up Lance's body cautiously from the ground. "Where is Jitte now?"

Shiro pointed out the door. "He was giving a speech to the soldiers and citizens."

"I'm going to bring Lance to Jitte. Let him say goodbye, talk about what he should do about the Galra and then... then we can go." Keith mumbled. He picked Lance's body up carefully and started on his way down the halls to the outside with no protest from the team.

These halls were so foreign and cold to him now. They were filled with painful memories of Lance and himself.

Keith looked down to Lance's face once more and began to tear again.

He kissed Lance's forehead gently. "I hope you know you were important..."

Keith shook his head in an attempt to clear it as he went out to the front of the mansion.

Jitte had finished his speech and was talking to a small group of the hundreds of citizens around him.

Jitte caught sight of Keith and sighed, "oh no..."

The little alien pushed through the crowd and put a small hand on Lance's arm.

Keith gave a diminutive nod and closed his tired eyes. "He's gone."

Jitte lowered his head respectfully. "Gone too soon. I'm sorry. I know you cared more for him then you let on."

Keith held Lance's cold body tight and gulped. "Voltron will be on your side if the Galra come back. Just let us know."

Jitte's eyes were still glued to Lance's unmoving corpse. "Yes The princess gave me a communicator. Will you be alright?"

"I'm not sure. I'm going to have to be." Keith answered truthfully, though he wasn't sure he'd be able to do that.

Keith couldn't help but steal another glance at Lance's face. Lance had died with a strained and subtle smile that had relaxed to a frown, his cheeks stained with tears.

the black paladin bit his lip and looked away. The sight was too much. The reality was too much.

"We're gonna give you a proper goodbye, don't you worry... I'm gonna take care of you..." Keith whispered to Lance softly, as he walked back to the ship to lay him in the cyropod.

It took a month, but the Paladins were able to fight off the Galra from Jitte's planet and emancipate Jitte's kind from Galra control. Jitte thanked them over and over and apologized for their loss.

It didn't even slightly help the pain Keith was going through.

Every night Keith felt like Lance was talking to him- trying to tell him he was ok or something. He brushed the dreams aside until they began to overwhelm him, and he finally told the rest of the team.

"You hear that too? I thought it was just me dealing with my own grief..." Allura spoke up, sitting in the main room of the castle with all the other Paladins.

"Does anyone else get these dreams?" Keith looked to the rest of the tired group who all shook their head no.

Everyone was silent. If two people had the same dream something had to be going on, but what could it mean? How could they both be getting the same dream?

Allura spoke up suddenly, calling the attention of everyone around them. "The lions! We're connected to Lance through the Lions!"

"The lions?..." Keith repeated. He couldn't wrap his head around it. If Lance was dead, how could the lions have anything to do with his passing?

"What does that mean?" Keith sat down beside Allura, crossing his arms.

Coran was the one to speak this time, "The lions can connect to the astral plain. Meaning you two are actually hearing Lance."

"W-we're talking to his ghost?" Keith stood with clenched fists, his face etched with shock.

"Essentially, If the lion's are able to reach the astral plain.. couldn't I use my powers to transfer Lance's essence back into his healed body?" Allura suggested.

Keith couldn't believe it. This would mean bringing Lance back! We could have Lance back! Lance could be with us again! He thought excitedly.

Coran scratched his mustache. "It's hard to say Allura. seeing as you both talked to Lance, it's probably the red lion that he's most connected too."
"Why not the blue lion?" Pidge questioned.
"Keith never piloted blue."
"But Allura never piloted red." Keith responded.
"Allura has a connection to red through her father, who was the first pilot of the red lion."

"But I... I don't have the powers to get Lance back. If only..." Allura trailed off.

"If only what?" Keith turned his head toward her sharply. He was willing to risk anything to get lance back.

"Oriande. There are many alchemic secrets I could unlock there that may be able to give me the powers I would need but... I-im not sure if it's even real, nor if I’m a ‘chosen one’" Allura stammered.

"Then we find Oriande and we get Lance back. And we'll do whatever it takes, Right?" Keith made eye contact with every other person in the room as they all nodded silently.

'Yes- yes this could work! We could save him!'

Keith was ecstatic with the thought.

"What about the letters?" Allura mumbled.

It took a moment for Keith to realize what Allura was talking about, but once he did, he looked offended. "What about them? We don't read them."

Pidge shuffled in her seat. "I think... we should read them. If this doesn't work I wanna know what Lance's final words to me were."

Hunk nodded his head in agreement.

Shiro put a hand on Keith's shoulder before he could protest. "I know you want to keep Lance alive, but he wanted us to read these if he died. I think the most respectful thing you can do is read his final words."

Keith looked up to his mentor, at first with disdain, but it quickly melted into understanding. “Do you really think he’d want that?” “Yes, and I think you need it too, Keith.” Shiro rubbed Keith’s shoulder comfortingly. Keith pulled Shiro into a hug. He needed this. He was so lucky to have someone care for him like Shiro did. "Thank you, for everything Shiro... You’re the best brother I could ever ask for... I love you."

Shiro grinned, he wasn’t shocked Keith was suddenly getting personal, he was dealing with something traumatic, "Same goes to you. Let's all go to our own rooms and get some sleep. Read the letters if you want."

Keith sniffled and sighed. It was time to read the letter. It's what Lance wanted.

After returning to his room, Keith sat down on his bed and took a deep breath.

He grabbed the letter from atop his nightstand and began to tear. That sound, that tearing sound made his heart stutter. Did he really want to do this? Maybe he should put the letter back.

'be strong goddamn it. You know he left it for this reason.'

Keith bit his lip as he unsealed the envelope and took out the paper, reading the last words he'd ever see from Lance:

"Hey Keith... I guess the plan didn't go so well... I'm sorry I died. I just hope it wasn't a stupid death, you know? I'd never let myself die stupidly actually so scratch that, i'll just get straight to the point. I planned to tell you about my love bug situation so, I hope I did. If I didn't, long story short; I haven't been under its control since karaoke night. And from then on I kept pretending I was under its influence because I really like you... I think I love you. I mean I hope it's love, I'm pretty sure it's love? yeah. I know that was wrong and I'm sorry you had to hear that after I passed away. I at least hope the feeling was reciprocated... actually no I don't, because if it was then you might take my death really hard and I don’t want that. I really liked you, I wish we could have had more time together. Those few days with you were amazing, and I'm happy my moments were spent with you like that before I died. Ew I hope my death didn't hurt— this is gonna sound messed up, but… I hope you were there, cause I don't wanna die alone. Anyway, If I died it was on my birthday, that kinda sucks but it’s fine. It can be like symbolic or whatever. So, you don't have to worry about the gifts, it's ok that I never got to see them. The only thing I ask of you is this: if my death is too painful for you...

Please,

Forget me, for my birthday..."

Chapter Text

Keith sat on the edge of a small sandy hill overlooking the water. He was on earth. He tied back his long black hair and rubbed his face of the small sand particles that had decided to stick. The man then used his hand to fan himself from the heat, despite the sun being less visible from the sunset.

"Hey Lance... just wanted to update you on.. well. Everything these past 2 years. I know I haven't been able to visit you much- and that every time I do visit you I don't normally say a lot but... I'm here now. Anyways, after you ‘died’ we came home to tell your family the news and they made this little memorial for you here. I hope you can see it, or at least hear me from wherever you are."

Keith sat with his knees curled into his chest, as he looked at the picture of Lance in his garrison uniform, he felt his heart twist in his chest. Keith stared back out to the calming ocean waves lapping at the coarse shore.

Keith began to describe the events that took place after Lance's death. He explained How they had captured Lotor and how Lotor killed his father, Zarkon. He also explained that Allura was able to unlock the secrets of oriande with Lotor's help.

"The power Allura gained from Oriande is... it’s not enough power to keep you alive. She says that using her power right now is keeping you in this state of switching back and forth from sleeping to the astral plain."

Keith bit his lip, talking about this made his brain all fizzy. all he wanted was have Lance suddenly appear, tell him everything was ok, and hug him as tight as he could, the way he never got to. The way they never got to. Keith would always came to this beach when he wanted to talk to Lance, not being able to bare seeing Lance's body in the cyropod as he fought for his life. Keith hoped Lance was in the astral field at the moment and would be able to hear him through there.

"Lotor is trying to get the Galra to back him up as the new emperor. We're trying to help him with that but it's a lot of battles. I can't lead as well without you... we never found a replacement. I don't think red wants a new pilot if it's not you. Oh! But here's some good news, Lotor has a hidden colony of alteans so that was cool, Allura was reunited with her people. Also, Lotor and Allura are a thing. They're dating. And i'm still... hung up over you." Keith admitted with a pang of sadness, running his hand through the sand with a light graze.

Keith's tone brightened a bit. "I found my mom. After you died I needed a while to clear my head so, I worked with the blade of marmora where I found her— and her pet wolf. I'm waiting for him to tell me his name but the rest of the team is calling him Kosmo, sounds like a dumb name only you would come up with…I bet you would have loved that." Keith laughed to himself, thinking of what else had happened in this short time.

Keith's disposition changed when he remembered the worst of the years.

"...Shiro turned out to be a clone. I'm guessing you knew that though cause you probably saw him in the astral plain with you. You also know that his clone body was able to accept his conscience so he's... back amongst the living as of a month ago."

He gripped onto the necklace he had planned to give Lance for his birthday. He brought it with him every time he visited the beach. "I wanna wish you a happy birthday today but I mean... it's also the day you... you passed away. I hope you're happy at least. Allura wants to take you out of the cyropod, she says it's time we move on and accept that you're gone. But she only says that because you're taking longer than Shiro did to come back."

Keith's throat tightened once again as he felt himself start to tear up. his voice cracked into pieces as he tried to save face, "Please come back to us, to me... show her that she's wrong. Show her you can come back to us if we just wait a little longer."

There was no sound other then the waves, taking up parts of land before retreating back to the ocean, warm wind blew ever so softly in his ears.

"You know... I stopped hearing you. I don't hear you in the astral plain anymore- not that I was ever able to understand what you would say in the first place but.. I wish you would see me again."

Keith was quiet for another 5 minutes. He wanted to see lance. He really wanted to see Lance. At times like these it almost became unbearable, and he would go back home. But he needed to stay, for Lance. The buzzing in his ears subsided and he slowly built back his composure.

“You really fucked me up somehow...” Keith said quietly.

Keith wrapped the necklace around his wrist before walking to the edge of the shore, allowing the water to rise up past his ankles.

The Red paladin sat on the beach again, now allowing the cold blue to lap up to his bathing suit shorts. Keith stared up at the blue and orange sky with a pained sigh. He wondered if Lance would even be able to see him or hear him. Shiro said that he could only see them through the lion's eyes but... he hoped Lance's situation was some how different.

"I also still remember the lyrics to that song you sang to me, well, most of them. I think it went like... How I wanted to hold you, till the end of time. To call you 'mine' would be such a dream, but... something something... And there's not enough time. Oh there's not enough time. I just hope to see you again, believe that at my count of ten, I can hear you sing;

10.

9.

8.

7.

6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1."

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Keith sighed, curling his legs up into his chest again. He just wanted to see Lance, one more time.

"You remembered my song?"

"Yeah, I guess I—" Keith froze.

Didn't Lance make up that song? If so, who said that?

He slowly turned his face to examine the owner of the voice.

tan skin, blue eyes, short and almost curly locks, and a distinguished satisfied look that Keith knew he couldn't misplace.

"Lance?..."

Lance smiled with upturned eyebrows and nodded.

Keith had to be dreaming— or maybe he was becoming delusional. Maybe he was experiencing some cruel crazy fantasy land brought upon by his mind where Lance was alright. For a few minutes, he was convinced he’d finally gone crazy.

"T-that can't be- you're—"

"Dead? Yeah… Allura’s powers worked. I pulled through."

Lance was wearing his regular everyday clothes, and his hair was combed and crisp... also white, but god did he look happy. "Yeah, you look confused. I... I woke up during Allura's visit. She told me where to find you so I stopped off home and then came straight here to see you."

Keith stood up to face Lance, he rubbed his eyes and blinked rapidly. Every time his eyes opened he was sure Lance would disappear, but he was still there, beautiful smile and all.

Lance took Keith's hands in his own and smiled nervously. It wasn’t a dream. Keith could feel Lance’s skin. He was truly here, in front of Keith. "So... are you happy to see me or, are you still upset at me?"

Lance asked, a small swing of their arms to remind Keith he could speak.

Keith was brought to tears. Lance's hands were so soft, so warm, so real. He squeezed onto that hand tightly and let his heart race and jump and do whatever the fuck it wanted in that moment.

Keith decided he wasn't going to wait any longer, he pulled Lance by his collar down into a deep passionate kiss.

Lance’s eyes widened in shock, but he leaned into the kiss as well.

Keith popped off Lance's lips and scolded him playfully, "Lance, I love you too—I didn't get to say it because you died before I could you jerk!" Keith collapsed into Lance's arms, cuddling into his neck as he cried tears of joy.

Lance held Keith just as tight, finding a place for his face in Keith's long hair.

After a few moments, Lance moved to hold firmly onto Keith's waist with one hand while the other cupped Keith's face. "Do you really? Even… even after the shit I pulled?"

Keith didn't bother giving a worded answer; rather, he pressed their lips together again with the intensity and passion Keith had wanted to show Lance since the night of the party.

Keith flung his arms around Lance's neck while both of Lance's hands fixed themselves onto Keith's hips.

After a about a minute, Keith took a step back in order to take another look at Lance's face. Lance's beautiful face.

"That was... wow..." Lance said softly, "I missed you. I could feel time passing in the astral plain and it was lonely as all hell. Also extremely boring."

Keith gave a small giggle through his tears. Lance's playfulness was still there, god did Keith miss that.

"Also why was Lotor at my pod with his arm wrapped around Allura when I woke up- is that a thing?" Lance raised an eyebrow, that alluring smile of his plastered on his face."
"I explained that to you, but I guess you can't hear me from the astral plain can you?"
"Nope!"
"God I love you, I'm ok explaining it all over again."

Before they could lean in for another kiss, a screech sounded off from behind them.

"I found them! He's here! Lance!" Pidge shouted excitedly, Hunk and the rest of the team just behind her.

Lance's face lit up and he ran from Keith's grip to his friends.

Keith didn't mind, he followed very close behind Lance in greeting their friends

The whole meeting was a flurry of cries and hugs and laughter being shared.

Lance gasped at the sight of a tall woman with purple skin. "Is that your mom?" He whispered to Keith.

"The one with the giant space wolf next to her? Yeah." Keith chuckled.

Lance walked up to the woman and stretched out his hand. "My name's Lance."

She shook his hand with a small and stern smile. "I know who you are. I've been told a lot about you, I'm glad I get to meet you in person. My name's Krolia."

Lance kneeled down to the wolf. "And who's this little big guy?"

"That's kosmo." The whole team said in unison, aside from Keith who said, "He doesn't have a name."

Lance scratched behind the wolf's ear. "Kosmo? You like the name Kosmo don't you boy?"

Kosmo barked in agreement, wagging his tail happily. Keith could tell Kosmo liked Lance, it was probably cause he smelled like Keith at the moment.

Lance raised an eyebrow at a strange altean with long blonde hair that was tied beautifully into two pigtails. "I'm Romelle, Before you ask. I, on the other hand, was only quickly briefed on you and your situation a few minutes ago."

Lance stood up quick in shock and pointed to the pale skinned girl. "Y-you're altean!"

Keith put a hand on Lance's shoulder. "You've missed a lot. But I'll fill you in on everything. Oh, and It's your birthday..."

Lance turned around to grin at Keith. "It is?"

"Mhm. So, before I forget," Keith removed the necklace from his wrist and handed it to Lance, "Happy birthday, Lance. I wanted to give this to you at the party but I mean, a-and I'm sorry the chain is like worn out and—"

Lance took the necklace and wrapped it around his neck, putting a finger to Keith's lips. "Thank you, Keith. And I have something I need to change. On my letter I said if I died I wanted you to forget me. Well, I've got a new request."

“Two birthday presents? Wow you're pretty spoiled aren't you."

Lance held Keith's hands in his own with a small chuckle, "Can I please be your boyfriend, Keith?"

Keith wiped his watery eyes and nodded his head ecstatically. "You're so fucking dumb if you thought I was gonna say no. Just don't die on me again alright?"

Lance giggled and leaned in for another quick kiss. "You taste like saltwater."

"Lance! Stop ruining the moment!" Keith growled with a joking smile.

"Shut up, you know this is the best moment of the past two years for you."
"That was a low blow Lance, You're wicked."

Lance took Keith's hand and smiled to all his friends. "Let's all go back to my house. I can spend more time with my family and we can all catch up."

Pidge, Hunk, and Romelle decided to race eachother to Hunk's jeep. While Pidge and Hunk were caught up in their running, Romelle held on tight to Kosmo, who teleported her to the car first.

Krolia walked alongside Coran as Lotor and Allura linked arms to make their way to the car.

Shiro put a hand on Keith's shoulder. "I'm happy for you, Keith."

Keith and Shiro shared an embrace, which was promptly interrupted by Lance, "Shiro has white hair?!"

Keith laughed. "I can't wait to get you to a mirror when we get to your house."

"No way- don't tell me I have—" Lance pulled out a strand of his hair.

White.

Lance let out a large gasp. "I'm gonna have to dye my hair brown! I'm gonna look so old!"

Shiro laughed. "Don't worry Lance, your roots start growing back." He parted his hair back for Lance to see the man's black hair was returning.

"Oh thank god." Lance squeezed Keith's hand in relief.

Shiro now made his way down the dune to his own car where everyone was gathered.

"You ready to go birthday boy?"
Keith hummed as his thumb rubbed Lance's hand.

Lance took a quick glance to the beach and back at Keith. "Yeah... Let's go."

Lance and Keith made their way down to the rest of the group with bright smiles on their faces.

"Hey Keith?" Lance hummed.
Keith responded with a tiny, "Mhm?"

"I love you."

Keith shook his head at the floor, a grin wide on his face. He kissed Lance's cheek.

"I love you too."

Chapter Text

-deleted as of April 2020, might return after I edit the chapter a bit :) -