Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was never on purpose.

One minute, Lance is shooting at a fleet of Zarkon's ships, and the next he hears yelling through the comms.

"Lance! Look out behind you!"

It had been Shiro, his voice breathy and full of warning.

Lance narrowly dodged a clean shot from behind where a galra ship had managed to evade his notice. "Thanks Shiro," he had grunted.

"No, that's not-"

"Lance, watch out!"

Before he could do or say anything more, there was a sudden jerk of his lion. Blue had jolted back so abruptly that the seatbelt of the pilot's seat dug into Lance's jugular and choked him. He was accelerating backwards at an alarming rate, and all he could hear was yelling and static through the comms.

"-Get out of there-!"

"-On the gas!"

"-Move your-!"

"- Don't just sit there, fight it!"

A bright light was engulfing him, and Lance - in that moment - had finally realized what was going on; he fought against the unbearable pressure against him, but was easily overpowered.

The last thing he can remember hearing was Keith's desperate cry. "Lance, you fucking bastard, you can't leave! We need you-!"

And then the black hole swallowed Blue whole, indirectly taking Lance with her. Except his vision had clouded with white, and if Lance had any sense of humor at that time, he probably would've laughed at the irony.

An unrelenting heat surrounds him when Lance opens his eyes.

Everything hurts.

He groans and lifts his head, reaching a hand up to touch the back of it with tentative fingers. Something hot and sticky greets his hand. He retracts it immediately, forcing himself to take a deep breath.

Something's wrong. Something's really wrong.

His leg sears with pain, as if someone is holding a torch to it.

Lance grits his teeth and looks up, ignoring the white spots still clinging to the corners of his vision, and scans his surroundings; he's half-covered in sand and lying in front of an old, beat up shack.

Blue is nowhere in sight.

What happened? He vaguely remembers getting sucked into the black hole, and then it gets all fuzzy. He looks around; there's desert on all sides aside from the shack, but it niggles at the back of his mind with distant familiarity.

Where is he?

Priorities, Lance thinks. I need to get myself cleaned up, first. Then I can look for Blue and get myself the hell out of here.

He forces himself up against his protesting muscles and staggers forward towards the shack. His left leg shrieks with pain the second he puts weight on it and gives out immediately. Lance lets out a startled cry, collapsing face-first into the sand.

This is bad. This is really really bad. He needs help, now.

Next to the shack there's a concrete structure with a single door and no windows. In front of the shack there's an equally beat up porch with a dilpidated overhang that's failing at its job of protecting said porch from the elements. The porch door is open the slightest bit, and Lance somehow manages to limp his way over to it and knock heavily on the splintering wood.

Nobody answers.

He gives it a few minutes before trying again. "Hello? Is anybody there?"

Again, no answer.

The Blue Paladin is tempted to just sit and wait for somebody to find him, not wanting to trespass (he's mildly surprised that his conscience is still intact and demanding after being in a cosmic war) but he reminds himself that he's in too vulnerable a state to wait for permission.

With a wince, Lance yanks at the handle of the door.

It won't budge.

He gives it another go, and the old thing groans miserably, refusing to move. "Damn door, you're asking for it now." Lance lifts an aching arm and gives the door the strongest open-palm strike he can muster with screaming muscles.

It gives a last wail of protest before one of the hinges comes loose and it drops, letting Lance inside. He hauls himself in and looks around for some kind of bathroom or kitchen or something.

The walls are dirty, the wallpaper cracked all over and ripping off in some areas. Lance has walked into some sort of living room, with a single large sofa and a slab of marble on some stacked cinder blocks as a makeshift table in the middle. The items that must've been sitting on that table are scattered across the sandy floor, some broken and others tipped on their sides. There's a knocked-over bookshelf in the corner, some surprisingly-intact radios and machinery next to it, and a huge pile of books on the floor. A rusty stove sits to the right of the door, looking like it's in its golden years of life. Despite the mess, the shack looks vaguely familiar - like he's been here before - but his brain hurts too much to try and fish out those memories.

It doesn't matter. Whoever was once here is now long gone.

Grunting, Lance makes his way over to the far side of the shack where there seems to be some sort of desk with a strange machine on it that somewhat resembles a computer. Only two of the drawers in the desk are still closed, the others strewn across the ground with their contents littered around them.

Lance throws open one of the drawers, sifting through the items inside for some sort of bandage or medicine, anything that can help him. He feels a twinge of guilt for snooping through someone's stuff like this, but he reminds himself that this is an emergency. And besides, the ex-resident(s) here have seemingly cleared out, and they probably would've taken their wanted belongings with them.

He pulls out handful after handful of junk and miscellaneous objects, indentifying the ones he can.

Crumpled papers. A broken pen. Some random parts of a computer. Half of a missing bible.

No bandages.

Lance throws it shut in frustration, opening the other one.

Folders. Newspaper articles. A quill...?!

"I give up! What the hell is wrong with this place? Was this person a hoarder or something?" Lance slams that cupboard shut and limps his way over to the sofa, sitting down slowly and propping his injured leg with caution on the cracked marble slab. "Why couldn't they hoard a bunch of first aid kits?" He mutters bitterly.

As if replying to him, the old shack gives a loud creak and something breaks outside. Lance rolls his eyes and tries to lift himself up off of the sofa.

He doesn't have time to sit on his ass in some worn down shack; he's gotta find Blue and get back to everybody. They're probably still fighting Zarkon right now, somewhere lightyears away. Lance instinctively plants both of his feet to get up and pushes his weight onto them.

He drops back onto the sofa with a yelp.

... Looks like he won't be moving for a while.

Lance's heart sinks; there's no way he can look for Blue in this condition. He props his leg back onto the table and leans back, letting himself breathe in the dusty air.

A gentle silence fills the room.

There's a soft breeze that rattles the windows behind blanket-curtains covering them, so quiet that Lance wouldn't hear it if he wasn't listening for it. He uses this time to remove his damaged paladin suit from himself, slowly assessing his injuries. He leaves the black skintight suit on underneath, instead feeling around his left knee to pinpoint where most of the damage is.

He puts a little pressure just under his kneecap with his thumbs and recoils immediately at the stinging pain. Found it.

And that's when he hears it.

A whimper.

It's faint and Lance blinks, wondering if he imagined it. He holds his breath, mentally blocking out the rattling of the windows and zoning into the background noise.

There it is again; a soft cry, muffled but not far away.

He brings himself to his feet - carefully this time, making sure to avoid from allowing his left leg to support any weight altogether - before wobbling his way over towards the back of the shack. He lifts up the knocked-over bookshelf and rests its weight onto his shoulder, heaving it upright again. He picks up some of the machines and electronics that must've sat on it and places them back onto the different shelves.

There's another whine, and this time it's much closer.

Lance's eyes fall to the large pile of scattered books on the floor, and he slowly lowers himself onto his butt against the wall so he can push them out of the way.

The crying becomes less muffled the more Lance clears away the books, and when he finally reaches the bottom of the pile, a small hand becomes visible.

Panicked, Lance begins tossing books every whichway as he uncovers other bodyparts attached to this arm: a small torso with a ripped red t-shirt, chubby little legs, fluffy black hair.

Finally, he lifts a half open book up to reveal a puckered face.

A small child that can't be more than two-years-old is laying on the ground, clothes torn and littered with paper cuts from the books that were previously covering him.

Once the little boy sees Lance, he bursts into sobs.

Lance chokes, picking up the crying child into his arms gently and cradling him into his chest. "¡Ay Dios mío, pero qué mierda!" The baby hiccups and balls his fists around Lance's suit, clutching at it desperately.

The Cuban coos soothingly, patting the child's back and bouncing him gently. "Who could leave a child like that?" He stares at the far wall, watching the curtains ripple with a sick feeling of disgust for the world rising in his throat like bile. Disgust for the cruelty of the universe.

After a few minutes of comforting, he holds the baby out in front of him, resting the child on his good knee. "What were you doing under there, hmm? Did you get left behind, too? Well, that would make two of u-" Lance freezes when his eyes land on the little boy for the second time.

Fluffy black hair, big grey-blue eyes, chubby cheeks, delicate pale skin with long fluttery eyelashes, chapped pink lips from the desert heat... Lance would recognize that face anywhere, baby-fied or not.

"K-Keith?!"

The small child whimpers at the loud noise and more tears leak out of those uncannily familiar eyes, streaking his cheeks further.

Lance winces, his paternal instincts to calm to the child overpowering his shock. He pulls Mini Keith back into his chest and bounces him gently, his thoughts and expression going blank.

... What have I gotten myself into?

Chapter Text

It's been three hours, and the raging sandstorm outside hasn't calmed down in the slightest.

Fortunately for Lance, he's managed to get Keith to stop crying.

They're currently sitting together on the sofa, Lance's leg propped again and Keith sitting on his thigh while playing with Lance's fingers. The Blue Paladin looks around the shack for another time, his eyes soaking in his surroundings differently now with the new knowledge of where he is.

Of course he recognized this place - though he'd only been here once before, this was Keith's home.

But where are his parents? Why isn't there anybody looking after him?

Lance's chest aches when he looks back down at the quiet child in his lap.

Was he always alone? True, Keith had never been much of an extrovert, but Lance had always figured that was because he was an asshole who thought he was better than everybody just because he was a superior pilot.

He feels a new wave of guilt wash over him; maybe Keith just didn't know how to socialize properly. He'd never really participated in the occasional conversations the team has had about their families back home.

Lance had grown up in a huge family, and - being the third child of four - was as used to an abundance of company as he was that of oxygen. He doesn't know personal space because he was never used to having any growing up, which might explain part of why Keith is uncomfortable around him sometimes.

Or was.

This Keith refuses to let go of him. And Lance doesn't have the heart to make him. Not after finding him abandoned under a pile of books like that.

He sighs heavily, drawing Keith's eyes up to him again. "I'm sorry, okay? I've been a huge jerk to you this entire time, and I had no idea what you'd had to go through. You probably have no clue what I'm saying either, and quiznak I'm talking to a baby right now. I've got to be losing my mind." He drags his free hand over his face and winces in disgust when the dry blood caked onto it drags against his skin uncomfortably. "I need to find something to clean us up with, Mini Keith. We look like we just came out of the Hunger Games or something."

Lance does another onceover of the place without moving from his spot, and his eyes skip over the telephone on the corner of the desk again.

He'd already spent twenty minutes trying to call every number he knows at least thirty times, and the last fifteen of those times were the respective numbers of his family members with broken hope. He'd then proceeded to cry for another twenty minutes - which then set off the actual two-year-old in the room - and they'd bawled their eyes out together (Lance wants to think of it as a sort of twisted bonding moment for them).

He shakes his head and looks on.

His eyes sweep past the useless radios that wouldn't turn on, and the broken speakers and unfixable TV cable system. Finally, his gaze lands on a small, half-empty (no Lance, half-full; think positive) water bottle perched beside the stack of boxes that he must've overlooked earlier.

Eagerly, Lance struggles to his feet, placing Keith down onto the sofa so he can make his way over to the small plastic container of heaven. Keith lets out a startled cry, but Lance hushes him, ruffling his mullet gently. "Now now, Mini Keith. I'm just gonna grab us some water. You're thirsty, right? Who knows how long you've been here without someone looking after you."

It's harder to turn his back on Keith's broken expression than he thought, but he still manages to limp over to the water bottle, bending over awkwardly and bringing it back over to the sofa quickly as to avoid another sob session from the small child.

Keith crawls into Lance's lap again the moment Lance's butt touches the cushions, and Lance opens the plastic lid, not noticing the dryness of his throat until he sees the clear liquid sloshing around inside. He feels an overwhelming urge to tip his head back and dump the whole thing past his parched lips.

He doesn't.

Instead, Lance ushers Keith to open his mouth and pours some of the water down the child's throat. Keith coughs and chokes, and Lance pulls the water bottle away immediately, soothing him. When Keith recovers a little, Lance manages to get him to drink more. Eventually, Keith takes the bottle for himself and drinks every last drop.

Lance swallows dryly, ignoring the scratchiness of his throat; Keith needs the water more than he does.

"Atta boy." Lance chuckles when Keith drops the empty bottle and mewls for more like a kitten. "Sorry kiddo, that's all I could find."

The to-be Red Paladin reaches forward and - without warning - grabs Lance's hair and gives it a harsh, merciless tug.

Lance flinches, "Ow! Geez Keith, it's not like it's my fault! No need to get your quiznak in a bunch."

Obviously this wasn't Keith's intent, but Lance frowns when the child continues to tug at his hair (though admittedly gentler this time). He shakes his head and sighs heavily for what feels like the umpteenth time so far.

The sandstorm rages on outside.

"What am I gonna do with you?" The Cuban doesn't expect an answer, and he doesn't get one.

It takes another hour or so before the weather is calm enough that Lance can step outside without fear of losing a limb. Since Keith literally hung from Lance's arm when Lance tried to put him down, they go out together.

Lance hobbles onto the unsteady porch, takes one look at the right side of it that has completely collapsed under a massive pile of sand, and walks the other way without so much as batting an eyelash.

He determinedly makes his way over to the attached concrete building - which, praise quiznak, is a bathroom - and places Keith into the plastic sink, letting the small child hold onto his hand while he turns to close the door behind them. Lance twists the cold water knob experimentally and grins with delight when a spurt of cold water explodes from the nozzle; it takes a few seconds, but eventually he gets a steady stream going. After taking a drink and getting Keith to drink some of the refreshingly cool water as well, Lance beams down at the child.

"C'mon Mini Keith, we're going to get you cleaned up!" He pulls the ripped shirt from the toddler's body and tries to ignore how unnaturally skinny he is for a child, despite the baby pudge still present.

When Luis – Lance's younger brother – was a baby, he was never that skinny.

Lance pulls Keith's diaper down too, also managing to ignore the kid's family jewels; he's sure Not-Mini Keith would appreciate that. "How long has it been since you've had a bath? You smell like Coran's cooking."

At first Keith flinches when he comes in contact with the cold water, but Lance reassures him with soft coos, and Keith eventually lets him gently scrub some of his cuts without as much fussing and struggling.

Lance is impressed when they're done; Keith only cried twice.

The Blue Paladin even begins humming some songs his mamá used to sing to him when he was younger and Keith just stares at him owlishly for the rest of the time.

... Cleaning himself is a little more challenging.

For one thing, Keith doesn't have a shower so Lance has to manage with the sink. But problems start to arise when Lance tries to strip; he fights against the pain in his knee when trying to pull the bodysuit off, and is tempted to just leave it three-quarters of the way down.

When he does eventually get it off, he wishes he hadn't.

The swelling is so significant that it almost looks like Lance has both knees on one leg. He swallows thickly and tears his eyes away from the bulging injury trying to remind him of how much pain he's in, instead taking a deep breath in through his nose and out of his mouth.

"I'm not gonna freak out when I have a child to take care of." He glances down at Keith and jokes dryly, "I ought to get a raise."

Keith gurgles and Lance nods in agreement.

"I'm glad you think so too, buddy."

In the end, Lance distracts Keith with his shoe (a sad reminder of how much younger and blatantly less intelligent this Keith is than the normal one) while he brings a cautious hand to the back of his head. There's a soft throb that greets his fingertips as soon as they brush the wound, but the blood has dried and is now caked into his hair in a crusty mess.

Lance exhales in relief when he realizes it is not a major injury.

It takes probably five minutes to get all of the blood out of his hair, and another ten-ish minutes to check out the rest of his bruises and scratches, as well as assess any other wounds and gently clean them - how does Keith find a shoe that interesting? - before Lance begins to wash out their clothing.

The nice thing about the desert, he notes, is that he isn't cold standing butt-naked in the concrete bathroom.

The water runs red when Lance washes his suit after clothing Keith in the toddler's damp torn t-shirt. He only puts his underwear back on so he can let his injuries breathe, and then Lance begins searching the bathroom up and down for a fresh diaper.

He doesn't find one.

"Carajo, your parents son cabrones, Keith." Lance avoids cursing in English in case it will imprint on him (although this Keith is at an impressionable-enough age that cursing in Spanish could be a concern as well), scowling as he picks the small child up. The Cuban finds himself cradling Keith in his arms tenderly, as if to shield him from the reality of the situation. "Good thing you've got me, huh?"

Lance limps back into the shack and grabs one of the two giant curtains, pulling it down. He plops himself onto the floor in front of the sofa where he had placed Keith, and gets to work tearing a few strips off of it. He also goes over to the desk to grab one of the newspapers, placing it down on the table and inspecting the curtain cloth again.

The material is thick and soft, and Lance makes a couple of trips over half an hour back and forth between here and the bathroom before he begins tying one of the strips around Keith's waist.

Keith - ever the quiet child - watches silently as Lance uses two safety pins he'd found in the mess of a desk to secure the clean makeshift diaper.

Lance sits back, proud of his work and creativity, and watches Keith blink back at him.

He then takes one of the other strips that he had just cleaned as thoroughly as possible and wraps it tenderly around his own head where the wound was. It stings on contact, but it's easy enough to ignore, and is damp so the wound will stay moist and - hopefully - heal faster with less scar tissue. He uses another strip of fabric to gently tie the rolled up newspaper to his injured knee as a splint just in case it's a break. He wraps the entire joint a little tighter with some other strips. Lance then uses the remaining strips he'd cut to wrap anything else that needs to be wrapped and pulls on the shorts he'd washed after he found them behind the desk at the back of the shack. They're a little big for him, and it dawns on Lance that these are probably Keith's father's pants, but they'll make do and they don't cover any of his injuries - which would keep them from breathing.

Lance is honestly a little proud of himself; he'd not paid much attention during the first few First Aid units at the Garrison, but he'd definitely paid attention to the other ones when they'd mentioned that it was mandatory for pilots if they ever got injured and stranded.

He'd remembered what to do in an emergency. "If only Shiro saw me now, he'd give me a good pat on the back," he chuckles.

Then - so suddenly that it makes Keith jolt in alarm - Lance chokes.

An abrupt ache sprouts in Lance's chest as the image of the Black Paladin's face - followed shortly by the other paladins' - appears in his mind. His ghost of a smile falters and his breathing shallows.

It's an all too familiar feeling; a deep, rattling loneliness. A longing for something he can't have, for someone he can't be near.

Lance doesn't realize he's crying until he feels soft little hands touch the corners of his mouth.

He blinks back into reality and looks down to see that Keith's expression has crumpled and he is pouting, and it takes him a second to realize that Keith is trying to push the corners of Lance's mouth back up into a smile.

His heart stutters.

"I'm okay," Lance musters a wobbly, half-assed smile. "See? All better."

Even the baby version of Keith doesn't look convinced, pushing at Lance's mouth more insistently.

The Blue Paladin groans, not even trying to fake it anymore, and removes Keith's hands from his face, taking them into his own. "Why is it that when I finally get back to Earth, I want to go back to space?" He chuckles humorlessly, "I wonder if my stupid masochistic heart will ever be satisfied. -"

I miss them, he sucks in a shuddering breath, slapped in the face by the cold realization of his single most deep, impending fear. It claws at his throat like a monster, and Lance is overcome with this feeling of hollowness that he's never felt before. The same phrase echoes endlessly in his brain like a broken record, and he hears it in the disturbing voice of a small, vulnerable child; I don't want to be alone.

Keith curls and uncurls his fingers within Lance's hand, entranced by the size difference and clearly not understanding what the other is saying.

Lance blinks and looks down at the movement; Keith wraps his entire hand around Lance's index finger and his little eyes bug out of his head when Lance wiggles it in his grip. The Blue Paladin takes a deep breath, and smiles a little at the child before him.

He's not alone.

"- And I thought you were the angsty one. Guess I shouldn't be all that surprised, 'cus I can get pretty greedy sometimes." Still, Keith has yet to respond or even acknowledge his words. "Not much of a talker, are ya?" Lance hums in bitter amusement when Keith looks up at that, blinking up at him with doe-like eyes framed by thick lashes.

Lance stiffens.

Keith's eyelashes flutter as he blinks innocently up at him.

Muttering a small curse under his breath, he moves his other hand to cover Keith's eyes, blood rushing to the apples of his cheeks and the tips of his ears. The toddler makes a startled noise and drops Lance's hand in order to reach his own up and paw at the large one on his face.

"Those eyes should be illegal," Lance huffs, finally removing his hand. "I'm definitely vetoing that facial expression, buddy. Can't have you using that one against me."

Keith huffs.

And Lance can't help but chuckle. He never imagined Keith to be like this as a child: clingy, sassy, and easily entertained. The quiet and pouty part he can understand, but since when was Keith so clingy?

... Is normal Keith secretly clingy?

When Lance gets back, Keith is never going to live this down.

Keith let's out a giant yawn that almost has him toppling over backwards, drawing Lance's eyes back towards him. "Tired, Mini Keith?"

He blinks up at Lance slowly. His head starts to loll to one side.

Lance chuckles and reaches out, scooping the child up into his arms. "Looks like we'll be sleeping on the sofa tonight." He gets unsteadily to his feet with the added extra weight in his arms, and manages to spread across the warm cushions.

Keith curls up on his chest and Lance's heart jumps into his throat at the sight. He forces himself to look away, instead reaching down for the drape that he'd made Keith's diaper and his gauze from, and pulls that up to use as a blanket.

He's hit by a pang of hunger as soon as he closes his eyes.

Lance grunts and shifts a little, making Keith whine softly.

How long has it been since Keith's eaten? Shouldn't he be hungry? Water isn't gonna keep him full for long...

Lance feels his eyelids droop over his eyes and the image of a sleeping Keith with a fist closed tightly around his shirt becomes blurry.

If Keith wants food, he'll wake Lance up at some ungodly hour for it. For now, they should sleep.

Predictably, the half-dimmed digital clock says 3:17 when Lance is dragged from the clutches of sleep by crying.

He groans, but forces himself to sit up and lift little sobbing Keith into his arms; Keith's eyes are big and watery, his bottom lip curled in a full pout, and his cheeks pink and streaked with tears.

It tugs at Lance's heart strings and he brings his hand up to rub Keith's back soothingly. "It's okay, buddy. Shhh, I know you're hungry."

The shack is a mess when Lance begins searching around for food with Keith whimpering in his arms.

He makes note in the back of his mind to dedicate today to cleaning inside.

So far, the only place Lance hasn't really gone through in this shack are the boxes next to the bookshelf. He limps over there - wincing when he realizes how stiff and achy his leg is - and opens the top box.

The Cuban grins triumphantly.

Cans upon cans of different non-perishables sit inside, all stacked neatly and sorted by type. The box beneath that is cutlery and dishes, and the rest of them are food and a few bottles of liquor.

It seems like Keith's parents were a least a little organized.

Lance pulls out a can of beans - those have to be soft enough for a child, right? - and it takes him only a minute longer to find a pot he can cook it in. He brings the old stove to life, and it makes a suspicious groaning noise that has Lance jumping backwards and shielding Keith into his chest, before a small flame appears under the leftmost burner.

Lance sighs in relief.

Still, he gives it a few minutes just to make sure it's not going to explode or anything. Once he determines that it's safe to do so, he places the pot onto the only working burner and pulls out the can of beans. They aren't expired, thank quiznak, and Lance uses a butter knife and cuts into the seal of the can, opening it and popping off the top. He dumps the beans in, all while holding Keith on his hip.

Keith watches the beans boil with interest, like it's some kind of magic. Lance chuckles.

When the beans are cooked, Lance pulls the pot off of the stove and places it down onto a newspaper on the table, plopping down onto the sofa - mindful of his knee - and heaves Keith up onto his lap. The child still has tears on his face from his hunger, but honestly Lance is extremely impressed by his patience.

Definitely nothing like the actual Keith, whose body wouldn't be able to obtain patience if you pumped it into him with an IV tube.

"Hey there, buddy." The Blue Paladin grins in hopes of cheering the kid up, but frowns when he realizes Mini Keith (just like real Keith) is completely ignoring him, instead staring at the food and actually salivating. He's not sure if the salivation is because Keith is a baby or if he's just that hungry.

Lance scoffs, low-key offended, and shifts them farther away from the still-steaming pot. "If you try and eat it now you'll be crying even harder than before, moron."

It's Keith's turn to huff in annoyance, and that makes the Cuban a little more smug.

And, for the record, Lance had to use the 'airplane' trick to get the food into Keith's mouth when the stubborn child refused to eat it.

... Keith will never live that down when Lance gets back.

" ~ Entra en mi vida, te abro la puerta. Se que en tus brazos ya no habrá noches desiertas. Entra en mi vida, yo te lo ruego. Te comencé por extrañar, pero empecé a necesitarte luego. ~ " Lance pauses his singing-and-tidying before continuing into the next verse, his eyes falling back onto Keith.

The boy had gone eerily silent when Lance started singing, his strange gurgling-baby noises completely gone.

Lance hadn't really noticed, too caught up in the childhood song his mamá used to sing to him to realize that the child could very well have fallen and cracked his head open without the elder of the two witnessing it.

Keith is currently looking at Lance - the shoe Lance let him play with still in his tiny hands - with a weird expression on his face, like he's confused-yet-not at the same time resulting in an extremely constipated expression. Lance snorts, rolling his eyes and returning to his singing-and-tidying while ignoring the boy.

Typical Keith; easy to read, hard to understand.

At least some things haven't changed. Lance grasps onto anything remotely normal that he can to keep himself sane.

" ~ Buenas noches, mucho gusto, ya no existe nadie más. Después de este tiempo juntos, no puedo volver atrás. Tú me hablaste, me tocaste y te volviste mi ilusión. Quiero que seas dueña de mi corazón. ~ "

When Lance is about halfway done tidying the entire shack, he and Keith have some lunch - admittedly, they both scarf it down and Lance has to remind himself that he is an adult - and Keith's diaper is washed and put back on. And when Lance is finally finished tidying for the day, they eat some canned soup, go to the bathroom, wash up, and Lance refreshes Keith's diaper a last time before they crowd together back onto the sofa for bed.

Keith gurgles out some weird-but-content noises that almost sound like words and Lance hums in agreement, warm and snuggled up on the sofa. The child is warm on his chest and extremely clingy, refusing to let go of Lance's shirt bundled up in his little fist for even a second.

... Lance wakes up at 2:47 in the morning.

The teen blinks tiredly, engulfed immediately by the darkness around him. He looks around with half-lidded eyes - groggy and confused - but they snap to the baby on his chest not even a tick later, his pulse spiking and body instantly alert.

Except Keith is fine, fast asleep and drooling on his chest with Lance's shirt still in his fist.

If Keith didn't wake me up, then why am I not unconscious right now?

Lance groans, albeit quietly as to not wake the sleeping child, and carefully lifts his arms to rub at his eyes, his muscles relaxing. "What the quiznak, brain?" He grunts to himself, "Why won't you let me get some sleep? Ugh."

He closes his eyes and tries again, readjusting himself the slightest bit and getting comfortable.

When, after 10 minutes, Keith's rhythmic snores don't even put him to sleep, Lance gives up. He opens his eyes again and moans in exasperation, "Whyyyyyyyy?"

Keith stirs and visibly struggles with blinking his eyes open, the lids weighed down with sleep. Lance bites his tongue, chastising himself internally, and winces as Keith's tired baby brain starts to realize that it is tired and his face scrunches up, tears beginning to form in his eyes.

"Hey, hey, shhhhh, it's okay." Lance forces himself into an upright position, hugging Keith into him as the toddler starts choking on his sobs. He feels the wetness soak into the t-shirt he's wearing and guilt swells up inside of him. "I'm sorry, Mini Keith. I'm sorry I woke you. Don't cry, we can just go back to sleep! Okay? Shhhhh..." He's rambling to try and soothe the bawling child, but Lance knows that it means nothing, and that there's no way Keith will be able to go to sleep again for a while.

It takes 15 minutes for Keith to stop crying - that kid's got lungs on him - and for Lance to notice that the snoring is continuing.

For a hopeful minute, Lance thinks that maybe Keith has cried himself back to sleep.

But when he glances down at Keith's face and sees the exhausted expression and hears the sniffles and red eyes looking back at him, he realizes that it is not snoring at all.

That it was never snoring to begin with.

The once-soft purr is definitely louder than it was 20 minutes ago, now that Lance thinks about it. He gets up in alarm, earning a yelp from Keith as he's squished against Lance's chest, and hobbles over to the stove. He listens for a minute, but the rumbling is not coming from it. Lance checks every appliance in the shack, and finally makes his way over to the front door that he had managed to fix the previous day.

The humming sound has increased to twice as loud now, and it is definitely coming from outside. Lance feels his heart give an alarmed throb in his chest, and his pulse spike.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

What is going on?

He contemplates opening the door and looking out, but then the purr (he can recognize it as engines now) gets so loud that Lance can tell they're right outside.

Keith is starting to cry again, and Lance begins having a panic attack.

Following his instinct, the Cuban throws himself into the closet area to the right of the front door - a place he hadn't discovered until yesterday while cleaning, and a place nobody would notice when first walking in - and tucks himself and Keith behind the closed doors in the darkness, swallowing his claustrophobia and trying to breathe deeply to prevent this panic attack from becoming major.

He can feel the migraine beginning to sprout from the frontal part of his head and Keith's crying gets louder, his arms wrapped tightly around Lance's throat in a desperate cling.

"Shhhhh, Keith. Maybe they'll just go by? You never know." He rubs Keith's back in circular motions, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

Be strong for Keith, Lance.

The sound of engines dies down and muffled voices can be heard outside.

Lance feels his chest cavity pounding as his heart threatens to burst out of it. He bounces Keith softly in his arms, but the child's crying is still loud enough to draw attention if whoever is outside gets closer.

He can hear two people talking, but only can decipher the words of one.

The current one talking has a deep, scratchy voice. "-And if the calculations that the lab sent are correct, then it could very well have been the Galra."

Lance feels an icy substance replace the blood in his veins as he continues to hush Keith, who is wailing into his throat now.

Galra? The Galra are here? Did one of them manage to follow him into the portal? He was passed out, he wouldn't remember...

But maybe that's why he can't find Blue?

"With all due respect, Sir, if it was the Galra don't you think our alarms would have been triggered? The only reason we know about it was the Unidentified Flying Object Radar pinged that there was an unlicensed and unannounced vehicle. We saw it crash land, Sir, and I don't even see evidence of a crash landing." Lance's eyes widen; he knows that voice.

Commander Iverson?

Keith chokes loudly on a sob and Lance coos to him softly, continuing to bounce him and rub his back.

"-It doesn't mean that they didn't return, Commander. You saw what they did not even a week ago; we are still recovering from the attack. The lab is still trying to erase the memories of your students." The first man speaks in a belittling manner, clearly dismissing Commander Iverson's statement as insignificant. There's a pause in the flow of conversation and Lance does his best to keep Keith quiet along with it.

Was that the reason why the shack was a mess when Lance arrived? Why Keith's parents aren't here?

... Why Keith was under a pile of books?

Suddenly, the man speaks again, "I'm honestly surprised this rundown old shack is still standing."

"Are you sure it was here, Sir? There is no evidence of anything happening." Commander Iverson sounds unsure, the least supercilious Lance has ever heard him sound.

Lance thanks the Lord that there was a sandstorm that covered any sign of his crash.

"Don't doubt that the Galra are hiding here somewhere." He pauses again and Lance flinches when Keith lets out a sob, hushing him desperately. "Check the shack, Commander."

"Sir, I don't think-"

"That was an order, Iverson."

"Yes, Sir."

Lance nearly chokes when he hears footsteps approaching and begins to start shaking. Keith catches onto Lance's terror and begins wailing.

He needs a way to silence Keith immediately. There's no time to spare.

Lance starts racking his brain, trying to think of something that made Keith quiet.

Food? There is none within arm reach.

A shoe? Keith wouldn't be able to focus on it.

... Hold on a minute. There is one more thing.

" ~ Buenas noches, mucho gusto, eras una chica mas. Después de cinco minutos, ya eras alguien especial. Sin hablarme, sin tocarme, algo dentro se encendió. En tus ojos, se hacía tarde y me olvidaba del reloj. ~ " He sings so quietly it's almost a whisper, but Keith's cries falter and Lance feels him shift to listen better, his arms loosening around Lance's neck.

That's right, Lance thinks. It's okay, Mini Keith. I'll protect you. They won't get you as long as I'm here.

He continues to croon to Keith softly, his ears still perked towards the approaching sound of footsteps, now creaking on the porch stairs.

Lance is almost shitting himself, but he warbles along, closing his eyes and rocking himself and Keith back and forth slowly. In his head he prays to God in Spanish, his throat tightening the closer the footsteps are to the door.

Padre nuestro, que estás en los cielos. Santificado sea tu nombre.

The door opens and the heavy sound of boots on the floor can be heard. Lance quiets his voice even more.

" ~ Entra en mi vida, te abro la puerta. Se que en tus brazos ya no habrá noches desiertas. Entra en mi vida, yo te lo ruego. Te comencé por extrañar, pero empecé a necesitarte luego. ~ " He is now whispering in Keith's ear with little musicality, and - blessedly - Keith is still somehow silent.

"Do you see anything, Commander?"

There's a halt in the footsteps, and the loud familiar voice booms in response. "No, Sir. It's pretty clean in here, but I don't think there's anybody around."

Venga a nosotros tu reino. Hágase tu voluntad en la tierra como en el cielo.

"Keep looking! Those bastards are sneaky; the rats could be hiding."

The thunk of the boots comes closer and Lance has to stop singing, hoping with all his being that Keith won't start crying in the silence.

Danos hoy nuestro pan de este día. Perdona nuestras ofensas, como nosotros perdonamos a los que nos ofenden.

They stop outside of the closet door and Lance starts crying, muffling his sobs with his hand and hugging Keith protectively into him.

No nos dejes caer en tentación y líbranos del mal. Amén.

He holds his breath, waiting in dead silence as the sound of a hand wrapping around the knob of the closet door handle pierces the air like a knife.

The doors begin sliding open and Lance curls into a ball, ignoring the throbbing in his leg and curling himself around Keith.

They won't take you. I won't let them. They won't-

"Iverson!"

By some miracle, the closet door is left at a crack open, and Lance freezes, feeling the presence on the other side of the door stiffen.

There are muffled voices outside, and then the yelling is back. "We just got a report in from the base. One of our fleets met a fleet of Galran ships. They need us back immediately. Let's go, there's obviously nothing living in this beat up old trash bin anyways."

There's a tired grunt and Lance feels Commander Iverson's presence leave, hears him exit the shack and the steps groan as there is weight applied to them, hears the engines roar to life, hears them fade into the distance, then... Silence.

Lance lets out a breath. He doesn't uncurl himself and leave the closet until the sliver between the barely-open closet door goes from dark to light. "Gracias a Dios."

And then Keith starts crying.

Lance can still feel his heart pulsing in his throat. He limps over to the sofa again and cradles Keith close to him, his brain white with shock.

He was almost found.

What would've happened if he'd been found?

He blinks and shakes his head, pushing the dark thoughts out of his mind and focusing on consoling the crying child. "Hey, hey... Sh... We're okay, Mini Keith."

Keith hiccups and is fisting the hair on the back of Lance's neck so hard that Lance winces. He just rubs slow, soothing circles into the small of the child's back, cooing softly to him until the hiccups turn into sniffles.

"You've been crying a lot lately, huh?" When Keith allows Lance to pull him away from his hair, Lance stands Keith on his knees and holds the child straight up so he can get a good look at him.

The child's grey-blue eyes are rimmed with red and fuzzy with tears, his chubby cheeks a blotchy pink, his nose running, his lips puckered, eyebrows furrowed, mullet a black pigsty. He's making grabby hands at Lance again but is otherwise silent.

Lance feels his heart break a little.

Of course Keith's been crying; he's a baby and his parents are nowhere to be found. Not to mention the fact that Lance found him under a stack of books.

Lance pulls him into his chest again, petting his hair and ignoring the wetness of Keith's nose and eyes soaking his shirt, and waits until the child's cries turn to sniffles. Even when Keith looks like that, he is still the cutest baby Lance has ever seen.

He tries not to think about that too much.

"Okay," Lance straightens and pulls Keith back again once he's seemed to calm down a little more. "We're going to try to get you to talk; maybe that will make you feel better."

Keith blinks at him blankly, sniffling again with bloodshot eyes.

Lance clears his throat before jabbing a thumb to his own chest. "Lance," he says. "Lance."

Again, Keith blinks.

"Can you try to say that, Keith? Say, 'Lance'." He grins at the baby and waggles his eyebrows, enunciating his name slowly. "Lance."

Keith - very suddenly - bursts into a fit of wet giggles and reaches for one of Lance's eyebrows that was previously wiggling.

"No-!" Lance groans as Keith pulls at his face. "Say 'Lance', Keith! Lance!"

The child squeals as Lance's eyebrows furrow in mild frustration. And maybe he's doing it on purpose a little.

"Lance," he repeats seriously. As seriously as he can with a toddler pulling at his eyebrow.

"Aghhahhaa!" Keith replies with a giggled shriek.

"Lance."

"Ahhhgagaha."

"Lance."

"Oohg."

"Lance!"

"Oooahahahahagah!"

"Oh ¡por amor a Dios! Keith, amigo, I'm starting to worry about your intelligence. How old are you?"

The child gurgles at him with a big gummy smile and begins pulling at Lance's bottom lip and 'popping' it, shrieking at his geniusness when it makes a funny noise. The Blue Paladin sighs through the small fingers gripping his mouth; oh well, it's better than the tears and crumpled expression a few minutes earlier.

He watches Keith's face light up as he pulls Lance's lip out and then releases it to hear the popping sound.

Why hasn't he ever seen Not-Mini Keith smile like that? Is he even capable of it as an adult?

Lance adds it to a list of things he has to do when he figures all of this shit out and gets back.

And even though he wants to be angry as Keith gives a particularly painful pull on his bottom lip, Lance finds the corners of his mouth twitching upwards at the beam Keith gives him. He sends Keith an over-exaggerated pout and the child gurgles.

And maybe he secretly isn't upset at all.

Chapter Text

A ground-breaking discovery is made when Lance is about halfway done cleaning the shack.

... Maybe describing the uncovering of a dollar store pocket sewing kit in one of the 'Shit Shelves' (Lance has nicknamed the drawers in Keith's parents' desk that) as 'ground-breaking' is a slight exaggeration, but Lance prides himself on it anyways.

Finding anything smaller than the size of a tennis ball in there is near impossible.

Like a needle in a haystack, if the haystack was made of vicious flesh-slicing tree skins that are out for blood (paper - devious pages of newspaper that are now black, white, read and red all over after their attack on Lance's poor fingers).

Again, maybe a bit of an exaggeration.

"Mini Keith!" Lance hollers, wobbling over to the sofa that the child had been crawling around on.

Keith jolts at Lance's sudden excitement, but only peers at him with confusion, as if he expects some kind of rational reasoning as to why Lance would be interrupting his vigorous workout.

The Cuban snorts; some things don't change.

"I can fix up your shirt now, bud." Lance makes his way around the sofa - not without stubbing his toe on the corner of it and cursing to the heavens in Spanish - before picking Keith up and plopping him into his lap. He grabs Keith's shirt softly in his sliced-up hands and inspects the large holes and cuts in the red fabric. "I'll stitch it right up so you can have some decency again. Don't want your current rebellious 'skin exposition' phase to grow into something more when you're older."

Obviously the holes and cuts aren't intentional, but Lance doesn't want to think about how they got there and why some of them suspiciously resemble the abundance of paper cuts Lance got not even two minutes ago.

The Blue Paladin covers it with a joke to try and build a wall up in front of that train of thought.

... He takes a deep breath and it rattles more in his rib cage than he cares to admit.

Slowly, Lance slips the torn shirt up Keith's torso, lifting the child's chubby arms to slide it over his shoulders and head, successfully removing it; Keith blinks, completely impassive.

Lance muses fondly that the older Keith would probably gape, yell, and punch him senseless if he were to do this same action to him.

He chokes.

Woah, okay... Weird thought. Let's not go there.

"Why is it th-that everything you own is either red, yellow, or black, huh?" Lance babbles nervously, his hand stuttering in pulling out the small needle from the kit and trying to match the colour of the limited thread options to the colour of Keith's shirt. He manages to find a suitable yellow and a perfect red for the job and sets to work on the biggest hole in the right side of the shirt.

Keith makes a frustrated gurgling sound at being ignored when Lance manages to get absorbed into his job, and Lance chuckles and momentarily puts the shirt down.

He helps Keith to his feet on the cushion of the sofa and adjusts the child so he is perpendicular to Lance, leaning his torso against the Cuban's shoulder in order to balance in his upright position. Lance picks up his project and resumes stitching, barely noticing when familiar chubby fingers ball up the sleeve of what is likely his father's old shirt that Lance is currently wearing, gripping it and making mindless sounds like normal children do.

Lance hums quietly and continues the easy work of his task at hand.

It's an old song, written so long ago that even his abuelita wasn't born at that time, and another that his mamá used to sing to him and his siblings as a kid. He remembers his mother smiling – as she interpreted the meaning of the song to be religious – and singing it to her children at any time they needed to calm down or go to sleep. Lance distinctly remembers himself telling her around the age of eight, "Estoy muy viejo para tus canciones de cunas, Mamá. Puedes cantar las canciones a los niños, pero soy un adulto; ya no los necesito." I'm too old for lullabies, Mamá. You can sing the songs to the kids, but I'm an adult; I don't need them anymore.

He regrets that now.

But, as he reminisces over his childhood while humming, his mind wanders to his family.

It was his mother who taught him and his siblings the basic necessities of life: cooking, baking, cleaning, sewing, laundry, almost everything he can think of. He'd complained incessantly when she'd sat him down one day and shoved his own shirt in his hand that he'd previously asked her to stitch the hole in. In his other hand, she'd placed a needle.

He can almost feel her scolding him with her usual, "¿Ves? ¡Te lo dije, Mijo! Deberías escucharme a veces, porque siempre las mamás saben lo que es mejor." See? I told you! You should listen to me sometimes, because Mamás always know best.

The humming slowly turns into lyrics.

"Un cactus suaviza mis yemas con su piel. Tiene cien años, solo florece una vez, en tu nombre, en tu nombre." Keith goes unnaturally still beside him, quieting at the sound of Lance's soft crooning. "Y tiene un veneno, más amargo que la hiel; con solo invocarte, voy a convertirme en miel, en tu nombre, en tu nombre." Keith makes a small noise in the back of his throat, but Lance doesn't look up. "Cuando te busco, no hay sitio en donde no estés."

He stills when a wet drop lands on the skin of his hand, and he realizes his fingers are trembling as they stitch the cloth within them.

Lance sucks in a shaking breath; he's crying.

Keith makes another guttural sound and the Cuban finally looks up.

The child's eyes are almost as watery as his own, and the baby Red Paladin coos as he presses at Lance's cheek insistently. He paws at the corner of Lance's mouth again with his little hands, and Lance suddenly can't breathe.

Tears are falling onto his skin at an alarming rate, only escalating when Keith's entire face starts scrunching and his lip wobbles and he, too, starts crying.

Lance puts the shirt down on the slab of a table and turns to pull Keith into his chest. He cradles the small kid close and rocks them back and forth, both sobbing now.

Mamá, te extraño. The sobs that rack his body are all-encompassing, and every shuddering breath feels hollower than the last. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss my team. Why do I have to choose between them? What did I ever do to deserve this?!

He looks down at the toddler in his arms and Keith looks up at him with dripping eyes, feeling the stare.

He sniffles and hiccups loudly, and Lance reaches forward and cradles Keith's cheek, wiping gently at the tears as they streak the child's face while he continues to hiccup. A deep ache gnaws at Lance's chest cavity while he looks into those familiar eyes, still brushing away the tears.

Keith... I miss you. I miss the older you, the one who snaps at me every time I rile him up, who can't help but rise to the bait whenever I challenge him to something because he's so innately competitive, and who rolls his eyes at all of my jokes but secretly laughs at them when nobody is looking. I miss the Keith that has the most passionate need to protect the family that he's made out of us, and the one who sucks at interacting with and comforting others but tries his hardest.

Lance closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

I miss my Keith. Nobody can replace him.

That night, Lance dreams that Sendak has sentries holding his family at gunpoint on one side, and the paladins on the other. Zarkon smirks down at him and says, "Choose."

He looks to his left and sees Hunk clutching onto Shiro's hand with white knuckles, Pidge in the older man's arms with their face buried in his chest. Coran and Allura have their heads down, and Shiro himself looks like his tough exterior is cracking trying to be strong for them all. Lance's eyes fall to the last of the group, who is struggling against his captors in desperation, trying to get to him. Keith's eyes are wild, lip split and caked with dried blood. Blue-grey eyes hold eye-contact. "Lance, don't say anything! You don't have to choose! We won't make you choose..."

He looks to his right and sees his siblings all holding each other while his father comforts them. Mamá is smiling at him knowingly from where she clutches Luis' and Veronica's hands, her eyes warm with unconditional love and forgiveness, like she already knows the choice he's made. "It's okay, Mijo. Todo estará bien."

Lance wakes up crying.

Keith becomes a little less clingy over the next few days, but despite Lance's non-stop mantra of "c'mon Mini Keith, say 'Lance'!", he still says next to nothing. Of course, aside from the unintelligible babbling and the occasional shriek (usually laughter; Lance is a good babysitter, okay?).

He sighs as he plops Keith's bare butt down next to the sink, washing out his makeshift diaper for the third time already that day. He washes Keith down while he's at it, tickling the child into an adorable squeal-laughing fit so he is distracted from the cold water.

While he's re-pinning Keith's diaper to him, he muses over the thought process that's been plaguing his mind lately.

At first, he wanted to get to the Garrison. As horrible as the situation could turn out to be, they would still be able to help him get in contact with others and try and figure out what is going on. This has got to be some kind of parallel universe, right? Surely, there might be someone who can help him.

Then he realized that a good chunk of the reason why he wanted to get there was because he could contact his family; it's excruciating how close he is to them – the closest he's been since Voltron – yet he is unable (and, honestly, would be stupid to try) to reach them.

How well would they take it if a man claiming to be the future version of their (presently) year-old son calls them asking for their help to get him back to space to fight a race of evil fluffy purple aliens who are trying to take over the universe, all while in a sentient and giant blue robot lion that can merge with four others to make the right leg of an enormous mecha man?

Yeah, probably not well.

Besides, it's not like he can make it to the Galaxy Garrison with his busted leg.

"Alright, Mini Keith," Lance forces himself to clear his thoughts and beams down at the toddler while putting his shirt back on. "The next time you need to go to the bathroom, we're going to potty train you, okay? You need to learn how to do your business on your own so you won't be helpless when I have to go."

His heart twinges with discomfort at the thought of leaving this orphaned child abandoned again after all of the trauma he's already been through. Lance clears the thoughts away immediately, subconsciously helping Mini Keith hoists himself up and lean against the Blue Paladin's chest in order to pull at his lip for his usual entertainment.

If in this universe, this Keith turns out to be anything like Lance's Keith, then he develops into a reliable and remarkable person; one who has many good qualities that most likely stem from the independence he's had to have growing up.

Keith gurgles in response to Lance's words, popping his lip painfully again and snorting with over-salivated giggles that causes drool to pool at the corners of his mouth.

Lance wipes it away with a fond smile, hoisting him back up in his arms and beginning their trek back to the shack.

By now, almost everything is clean and sorted into the places that Lance remembers his Keith's items being. He didn't know he'd have to recreate it when he'd first stepped into his universe's version of the shack, so he doesn't have a great memory of where everything goes, but he made do. The hardest part, by far, was trying to organize the Shit Shelves. He still has yet to get through one of the drawers.

Keith squirms in his arms as Lance huffs a sigh, sitting him atop the now-clean surface of the desk, leaving the child to eat from his bowl of beans.

He tries to ignore the way Keith squishes his hand into the bowl and stuffs the overflowing handful of beans into his mouth, smearing sauce all over his freshly washed face.

"I'm really starting to wonder if your parents are hoarders, Mini Keith." Lance talks mindlessly as he works, inspecting a knotted ball of various chords and wires before tossing it into the growing pile of trash behind him. "I mean, why do they have five versions of the same stapler? Like, don't they know that you can just buy staples, rather than having to buy an entire new stapler when you run out?"

Despite his words, Lance places the sixth one that he finds with the other five beside him for possible use later, making sure that Keith can't somehow get his grubby little hands on them; that would be like giving him a loaded gun.

It's not even ten minutes later before Keith starts making the fussy noises that means he has to go to the bathroom.

Lance sucks in a deep breath as he separates from his task at hand; this is not going to be a pleasant experience.

... After thirteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds of a confused Keith sitting silently on the baby seat of the toilet, Lance confirms that. "Look, dude, I can't help you here. You just gotta... Do it."

Keith makes a weird sound and reaches forward, making grabby hands at Lance's lip. Lance catches it before those hands can reach their destination.

"Nuh-uh! Not happening! Don't think I didn't see you touch your ding-a-ling not even two minutes ago."

The toddler huffs, frustrated that he doesn't get to have anything to entertain him while he just sits here with Lance staring him down (and growing increasingly impatient).

Lance scoffs and crosses his own arms. "Yeah, well this isn't fun for either of us, buddy. Just tap a kidney already so we can get outta here."

"Aghah gahafff," Keith snarks back.

"A-gah-blah-blah-blah," Lance retorts, and the toddler gapes at him like he just insulted his great ancestors. "Oh, what? So you can bitch at me in gibberish, but the minute I say anything my tía's nieto's neighbor's goldfish should be ashamed of me?"

It takes another ten minutes of no results before Lance gives up. He pulls up Keith's diaper for him, muttering miserably to himself as he washes Keith off.

He hobbles into the living room area and shuts the shack's still-rickety-but-mostly-fixed door behind them, letting out a puff of frustration as he collapses down onto the sofa. Keith squirms in his lap, making a weird face. Lance eyes him suspiciously, but doesn't say anything.

Babies are fuckin' weird; it's probably nothing.

The wind blows in through the windows, casting a cool breeze onto the back of Lance's sweaty neck.

It's funny how his body has begun to get used to the heat. For the first week or so, he had been sweating like his white brother-in-law facing the meals at their family reunions. But now he's only got a light sheen going on, and it could be mistaken for highlighter when in the right lighting.

While basking in the nice feeling of the wind cooling his body, Lance glances down at Keith, who is still wearing that weird grimace. "You know, you kinda look like Iverson when you make that fac- ¡Ay! ¿Qué carajo?"

A wet warmth starts soaking into the shorts Lance is wearing, causing it to stick disgustingly to his thigh; he gawks and watches in horror as Keith's expression goes from 'Iverson with a front wedgie' to pure bliss, the wetness pooling more and more.

"¡Mierda! ¡Carajo! ¡¿Me estás jodidamente bromeando?!" Lance scrabbles to lift Keith up and tuck his dripping bottom half into his oversized t-shirt so he can capture what's left of the leakage, flipping into Spanish the minute he starts cursing like a sailor. His mamá would smack him with the nearest object if she could hear him right now. "L-Lo siento mucho, Mamá – Dios, Dios, Dios, ¡ew! ¡¿Me estás tomando el jodido pelo?! ¡Puaj!"

Keith has the audacity to look like he's experiencing some great afterglow while Lance mops both of them down three times over.

The Cuban glares at him, naked and coiling up his shirt so that it can force out the water and soap he'd rubbed into it again. "Feel free to look relieved, gilipollas. Bet it feels good, doesn't it? To drain the main vein after being a complete tool and holding out for twenty minutes? Huh?"

He doesn't get a response – not that he was expecting one – but that kind of makes it worse.

Keith has to go to the bathroom again an hour later.

... This time, it's not liquid.

Lance sighs, washing down Keith's shoulders with a soapy rag for his daily bath while the child coos indistinctly, the water dripping down his little chubby arms and visible (but, thankfully, less so than before) ribs. The Blue Paladin wipes at a couple of suds that are caught on the toddler's cheek and reaches to the side to pump more soap onto the rag.

The bottle is empty.

Still continuing to hum to himself, Lance turns around and reaches for the large refill bottle, heaving it up into his arms and popping open the cap so he can pour it into the pump dispenser.

He pauses when he realizes that Keith's babbling has stopped.

Looking back curiously at the child to make sure he hasn't gotten himself killed, Lance freezes.

In place of where Mini Keith was a moment ago, sitting awkwardly in the sink – completely and entirely nude – is Not-So-Mini Keith. The teen blinks at him innocently with big grey-blue eyes.

The chubby baby fat lining his arms has turned to a firm layer of muscle, his chest solid, pudgy baby tummy replaced by confident abdominal muscles. The water droplets previously dripping down Mini Keith's torso now slide tauntingly over prominent collar bones, carve the path through the maze of abs, follow the small trail of hair nestled beneath his belly button, and collect into some well-placed soap suds in the sink.

Lance drops the bottles. Thick soap spills around his feet.

Confused and with a puckered brow of concern, Keith reaches out for him. "Agha?" It's disturbing, a teen speaking with the voice and words of a baby. "Hahahga ha?"

"I-I don't-" Lance begins.

"An-ans?" Keith's eyebrows furrow more, looking progressively more worried. He reaches towards Lance more insistently now. "Anens? Ans? Ans-"

In shock, the Blue Paladin can do nothing but stare, watching his teammate and friend's mouth move as the words stop reaching his ears.

What the shit is going on?

I'm nuts.

I'm locked in a shack with an orphaned child in the middle of a desert where I had been transported by a blackhole in a robotic blue lion and now I'm seeing shit. I'm fucking off the wall.

"... -ance? Lance!"

He startles, blinking rapidly until Keith comes back into focus.

Keith scowls, finally leaning far enough to grab Lance's soapy wrist, tugging him forward so that they're right in front of each other. He's still sitting in the sink. "Hey, Lance, mind telling me what's going on? Are you okay? You don't look so good."

Lance blinks because that voice.

That's not just Keith.

... That's his Keith.

The one who snaps at him every time Lance riles him up, who can't help but rise to the bait whenever Lance challenges him to something because he's so innately competitive, and who rolls his eyes at all of Lance's jokes but secretly laughs at them when nobody is looking.

That's Lance's Keith.

"Keith," Lance breathes, and Keith's eyes turn soft.

The Red Paladin smiles at him, and it's soft and tender and everything that Keith pretends not to be, and if Lance thought his lungs weren't working before they definitely aren't now. "Lance."

His hand is much bigger than Mini Keith's when it comes up to soapily caress the side of Lance's face, but the Cuban discovers that it's just as soft. And when he meets Keith's eyes again, he sees a look that has recognition triggering shivers all the way down to the marrow of his bones.

It's the same look that Keith had given him when they'd faced Sendak all that time ago; a look filled with so much unspoken emotion, and feelings that Lance did not welcome. Feelings that scared him. That still do as they come snarling forward from their banishment at the back of his mind with more vigour than ever before.

Lance's breathing speeds up and he slips on the soap pooling deviously on the floor, desperately trying to get away. Trying to run from those feelings, to escape from the claustrophobia of them tying him down and strangling him.

"Lance?" Keith is back to looking worried. He tries to reach out again as Lance stumbles over his own limbs to move to the other side of the room. To get out. "Lance, what's wrong?"

"Keith, I don't-"

"Lance! Lance, you need to calm down." Keith looks startled. "Breathe with me, okay? In... Out..."

Lance tries. He really does.

But it feels like his left lung is punctured, and every breath that comes in is poisoned, leaving his body on each accelerating exhale with the life force necessary for Lance to make it through this.

Things are starting to go fuzzy and Keith's distressed voice blurs and stretches and pulls into a humming in the back of his mind as he starts seeing white.

It ends with a choke.

Lance jolts rigidly upright, his chest heaving as he sucks in much-needed oxygen.

It takes him a minute to realize that he is still on the sofa where he'd laid down to sleep a few hours ago, and not standing on a slick bathroom floor. It takes another minute for the heartbeat in his ears to slow down enough to notice the wailing coming from somewhere off to his side when he can't find Mini Keith anywhere near him on the sofa.

The Blue Paladin leans over the edge of the cushions, almost sobbing when he sees the child sprawled on the floor crying and reaching up for him. Lance doesn't even hesitate to scoop the kid up into his arms - ignoring the painful protests from his left leg - before cradling him to his chest. "Keith- Keith ¡lo siento! ¡Lo siento muchísimo! I'm so, so sorry, I-!"

He looks down into the dripping eyes of the child in his arms, and an abrupt image of those eyes on a more mature face from his dream clouds his vision.

Lance recoils, his breath catching momentarily.

Keith notices the change in presence right away, wailing harder when Lance stiffens with the child in his arms. One tiny hand clutches at Lance's shirt and the other Lance's hair, snot soaking into the fabric of the tee. When Lance hesitates and just pats his back instead of his usual coddling, Keith chokes and manages out a single, broken word.

"Ans."

And then it snaps.

And Lance starts crying. Full-blown, runny nose, ugly crying.

Because of course Mini Keith would choose to speak his first word now, and Lance's name of all things.

Shoving his filthy pride to the side, the Cuban brings the hysterical child fully into his embrace.

"Ans," Keith bawls, fisting his shirt and hair tighter. "Ans!"

Lance runs through the whole shebang, cooing and soothing and rocking and crooning until Keith's mantra of 'Ans' quiets and the sobs turn to hiccups. "I'm terrible," Lance chokes. "I'm a horrible, terrible person. How could I even for a second let my stupid feelings overcome a child's needs? How can I even call myself a paladin of Voltron? I can't even take care of the least demanding baby on Earth, let alone protect an entire universe from inevitable destruction."

Keith has stopped crying now, clinging onto Lance like a lifeline. When Lance lays down and turns to adjust Mini Keith into a more comfortable position, he begins getting fussy again while tightening his hold stubbornly on Lance's hair and tee, and Lance immediately relaxes him back into his preferred position before the waterworks start again.

It takes a good half hour before Lance can fall asleep again, and he thinks he remembers hearing a quiet, possessive coo of 'Ans' while drifting off.

It's in the morning that Lance realizes one thing as Keith babbles his ear off – sentences newly littered with 'Ans' amongst the unintelligible mumbo-jumbo – and it's that he'd asked for a single drop and quite literally opened the floodgates; now that his first word is out of the way, Mini Keith won't shut up.

Lance finds the map on the second day of cleaning out the last drawer of the Shit Shelves.

Normally, he would just add it to a 'to be sorted once I find a place for this shit' pile and keep going - just as he did with the constellation chart he found moments earlier - but something about it in particular captures his attention.

It's the same map that Keith had used to find Blue.

Lance's eyes flicker over to the ginormous, dusty-but-unused pinboard on the back wall across from the sofa that Mini Keith is currently crawling on.

Maybe, I could...

He uses the chair near him to heave himself up off his ass and limps over to the board, unfurling the map and spreading it across the cork surface. It makes him feel weird things, and he ignores all of them in favor of plucking out some pushpins and mounting the corners.

It stares back at him blankly, like it's jeering, "And what are you gonna do now, huh?"

Lance vaguely wonders if this is why personification as a poetic device exists.

"Ans aga ha ga Ans-ga!" Keith's shriek pulls Lance's attention immediately over to the toddler on the sofa behind him. "Ans ah-a-ga!"

He chuckles when he sees Mini Keith crawling at an almost inhuman speed around the couch cushions for his usual workout regimen, shrieking in delight and glancing over at Lance every few seconds to make sure he's watching. Lance rolls his eyes but scoops the kid up into his arms and plops down with him, making an exaggerated 'oomph' sound to make Keith squeal happily.

He stares at the map on the board, nodding along to Keith's babbling absentmindedly.

I wonder if Blue is close by?

Lance closes his eyes and reaches out for her, searching for the familiar feeling of foreign emotion entwining with his own.

Nothing.

Just like the last fifty times he's tried it since crash landing here.

He opens his eyes and sighs, tilting his head and looking at the map, like maybe looking at it at a different angle will magically sprout a plan in his mind.

Keith tugs at Lance's hair harshly and Lance yelps, frowning down at the child giggling in his arms. "Hey, now, that's not funny. You are legitimately 'tomando el jodido pelo'." He laughs at his own joke, setting Mini Keith into another fit of giggles. Lance smiles, petting back the raven bangs falling into the child's face. "You're in a giggly mood today, huh buddy? I don't think I've ever seen you this consistently in a good mood in my universe."

Probably having no clue what he's saying, Keith gurgles back at him, pulling at Lance's cheeks and stretching them with a painfully cute titter.

"Thash nawt fair, Mini Keesh." Even though it hurts, Lance still lets him do it for a little longer.

Thank quiznak he's used enough moisturizers that his skin can stretch like that and still be bronze beauty.

... And, of course that's when it comes to him.

The crash, the shack, abandoned Keith, the suspicion of the Garrison... I didn't get transported to a parallel universe.

Lance's eyes widen as it dawns on him, his cheeks pulled to max elasticity.

... I got transported back in time.

Keith hiccups and barfs all over Lance's shirt.

"If I remember correctly, Keith started looking for Blue right around... Here." He recognizes the formation of the cliffs and lifts the black permanent marker, drawing a large circle around the area. It doesn't quite come together in the bottom right where the two lines are supposed to meet to complete the circle, but Lance doesn't bother paying much mind to it.

Pidge would probably kill him for not closing the shape fully.

He leaves it just to spite them.

"The problem is, I can't get there." Lance glances over at Keith, who's been blessedly quiet while the teen's been hypothesizing. It also might have something to do with the shoe Lance stuffed into his hands. "You have any ideas, Mini Keith?"

The kid looks up. "Aga ha ha gahaha Ans gah."

"Yeah, but like that won't work because most people don't know Morse Code anymore, ya know? I dunno how to break it to you, but it's kind of a dead language, dude. A lost art, if you will."

By the unimpressed look on Keith's face, it doesn't look like he will.

"Alright, alright. But this time I'm not wiping for you." Lance sighs and picks the child up to hobble together to the bathroom.

The door shuts loudly behind them as Lance tries to ignore the stiffness of his knee, the joint finally overcoming a small portion of the pain and converting it to lack of mobility.

"Don't make that face at me! It's not like you pay me anything, and I literally have to wipe your ass for you! Show some gratitude, jerk."

Chapter Text

The days have been going by really fast.

He's probably been gone a month, and Lance is starting to get incredibly anxious at being away from perceptive beings (not that Mini Keith is not perceptive...). He's been getting fidgetier than his ADHD already makes him and maybe a little bit grumpier too, and the midget mullet-brat has totally been calling him out for it.

"I'm telling you, Mini Keith. It's not like I have my medication with me! You biting one of my fingers every ten seconds because they're tapping at the desk is not going to make them stop."

Keith huffs, nipping at his index finger this time from where he lays sprawled on top of the Shit Shelves; Lance is finishing cleaning the last one.

"Ow - fuck! Stop it!" The Blue Paladin flashes a withering glare at the child from his own position on the floor. Keith doesn't back down, meeting the glare head-on with one of his own. "I thought you already went through your teething phase, you little brat! Unless this is the start of your emo phas- ¡Puta madre! That's enough Beaver Boy!"

He steals his gnawed-raw appendage back from Keith's predatory biting range and uses both of his hands to toss various newspapers into the trash pile, trying to force the energy into other releases.

Lance is dealing with a weird geometric grid map when he catches a glimpse of Keith wrapping his grubby little fingers around one of the eight staplers out of the corner of his eye, and that's when Keith is officially banished to the floor.

He has to swat the child away from his sorted piles like four times every minute.

"-Can't even get a fucking break around here. That diablito is going to destroy the shack that I've worked so hard to clean, and the skin I've worked so hard to perfect." Lance grunts and starts wrapping up the paper in his trash pile to take out to the trashcan outside, muttering angrily to himself. "I've got a stress pimple on my forehead, because of you, you little-"

He's almost made it to the door when there's a weird shaking sound and the feeling of something bumpy-smooth and slick sliding across his forearm.

Lance drops the pile of paper immediately, backing as far away as he can. He ends up next to the drawer again. The corners of the thing dig uncomfortably into his scapula, but it doesn't even register to him the second he sees the long, thick body of a reptile he could've gone his whole life not seeing slither out from within the pile.

It's massive.

"Santa Maria," Lance trembles in terror, pressing further into the drawer. "Holy quiznaking fuck."

The head of the reptilian beast whips around to face him, tongue flicking out, and Lance swears he can feel a hot trail of pee run down his leg.

He holds as still as he possibly can, remembering somewhere from some documentary about how snakes rely on vibrations of the ground or something to determine your location. Stay calm.

How the shit do I stay calm? There's a fucking ten-foot rattlesnake-dragon ten feet away from me!

The snake's tongue flicks out again, and it slithers closer, it's body sliding gracefully along the floor.

This time, he definitely peed himself.

His eyes flash around the room, body quivering with terror.

Where's Keith?!

The snake's tail rises in the air and the rattling sound is back, fast and threatening. It obviously doesn't want to be around him, either.

"Keith!" Lance musters up enough courage to whisper-shout into the open. "Keith, where are you?"

"Aga hah aga Ans-ga ha a!"

With blood-curdling horror, Lance watches – frozen – as Keith crawls over to the snake in sheer fascination.

"Keith! Fuck, Keith no! Get away from there! Bad baby!" He flails his arms, uncaring of the snake watching him now, and searches for the nearest thing to chuck at the poor terrified creature. "Por amor a Dios, the snake is not a fucking toy!" He reaches down and grabs the shoe from the ground near him, holding it up and waving it around seductively. "Keeiiithhh ~ look, a shoe! Do you want the pretty shoe, Keithy Boy? Then come the fuck over here and get it!"

For a moment, it looks like it might have actually worked. Keith's eyes are latched onto the item of footwear in Lance's hand, mesmerised, and Lance starts to actually freak out less when he sees the rattlesnake coil up to pounce, still facing him instead of the child.

But then, the tail starts rattling again and it's game over.

I'm gonna die.

All at once and in the blur of a moment, Keith's arm goes flying out at lightning speed right as the snake launches and Lance squeezes his eyes shut, screaming bloody murder at a pitch that puts horror movies to shame.

Then silence.

"Ahha ga ha!"

Lance peeks an eye open.

Keith has the back of the snake's head in a firm grip, his other hand clenched around the tail with an expression of pure glee. "Ans!" He squeals, shaking the snake's tail to make it rattle and shrieking with laughter.

"Oh my God! Keith no put the fucking snake down right now!" Keith bounces with giggles, rattling the tail and not paying any mind to the terrified jerking of the snake's head in his other hand's grasp. "Keith quiznaking Kogane you will put that snake down and listen to me or que Dios me ayude, I will never let you touch another shoe ever again!"

"Ahgahaha ha gaha!" Keith calls his bluff, ignoring him completely and shaking the rattle again.

"Fuck!" Lance launches himself up onto unstable legs, grabs the broom two feet away, throws open the door, swoops up Keith, smacks the rattlesnake out of his hand, and sweeps it the fuck outside before slamming the door shut and locking all three locks.

He stands there in silence, chest heaving, mind whirling trying to absorb the events.

I just swept a rattlesnake out of a shack in the middle of a desert.

Honestly, it's more surprising that that's the first inhuman creature he's seen here so far (aside from the occasional lizard in the bathroom).

"Ans a-gah." Keith blurts.

"Don't even friggin' look at me right now. I am not happy with you."

He drops the child on the chair next to the desk and reaches in to sort the next item, pissed the hell off and pumping with adrenaline.

When he pulls out his hand to see a small digital camera, he actually laughs.

"Are you kidding me? After the freaking rattlesnake is gone?"

Once he's finished the Shit Shelves completely, Lance manages to find some good batteries and finds out that the camera actually works.

It's one of the only electronics that does here.

He eagerly flips through the memory of the card and finds absolutely nothing.

No pictures. No videos. Zilch.

Who has an adorable baby like Mini Keith and doesn't take tons and tons of pictures of them?! Mamá has like three photo albums of each of us back home, and Veronica was an ugly baby.

He decides that Keith's parents must be heartless psychopaths.

To celebrate the shack being fully cleaned and restored, Lance decides that he and Keith deserve a day of plain old fun.

He's in a really good mood today – but that might also be because he survived a giant rattlesnake – so he pauses in sweeping off the porch; the Cuban grabs the video camera, flips it around to face him, and holds down the shutter button until a red light goes off. He makes sure the scenery is visible behind him, keeping an eye out for Mini Keith who is currently sitting on the chair near him.

"It is a really dry, shitty day in a really dry, shitty place, with really dry, shitty company." Lance beams. "Nah, that last part was partially a lie. Because Mini Keith, here, es mi compañero para toda la vida."

He turns the camera around to face the child now, chuckling when he sees Keith slopping around with the bowl of beans on his lap; he has sauce all over his face again.

Lance reaches forward and wipes it off, forgetting the camera is still on.

They head inside and Lance hoists Keith up to rest on his hip, explaining how he's cleaned up the shack while showing off his work. "Honestly, this place was a freakin' mess when I first got here. I have no clue how someone could consider this place to be liveable, because yesterday a frickin' rattlesnake came waltzing out of a pile of trash in my arms and Mini Keith grabbed it and played with its rattle like some kind of toy. I had to sweep it out of the shack. I'm shocked neither of us were harmed."

His mind flashes to the paladins, and how that story would probably have them howling with laughter due to the fact that a two-year-old was more badass than him.

He finds himself talking to the camera like it's for them subconsciously, "I've been taking care of Mini Keith for about a month now after I found him abandoned under a pile of books. Not too long ago, Iverson and some other Garrison members came to 'visit' - don't worry, Shiro; Keith and I hid in the closet - talking about some Galra attack or something, but I think that was why this place was a mess when I first got here, and why Keith was abandoned. I think the Galra might have something to do with why his parents aren't here."

Keith makes a noise from the sofa and Lance smiles, his eyes glinting as they look in the camera again.

"On the other hand, I've had to wash and change Mini Keith's diaper. Every. Single. Day. It looks like there were no extra ones, so I had to improvise a bit and use one of the curtains." His eyes narrow at the camera, imagining the mortified look of one particular teammate's face at hearing those words. "Damn right, Not-Mini Keith, you can thank me later. You owe me big time, dude, because that shit is seriously gross... Pun completely intentional."

Mini Keith makes another noise.

Lance perks, remembering another fact he wants to share with the camera. "Oh, and Mini Keith said his first word! Well... Sort of. It's not a real word, but it's the only one based on a real word, so..." He trails off, then shakes his head to clear it. He puffs out his chest instead. "Because I know y'all won't believe me, I'll catch some footage live." He turns to look at the midget bouncing around on the sofa. "Keith~!"

Keith perks up and Lance maneuvers his way over to him, poking him on the nose as the child giggles.

"Say my name, Mini Keith. Say 'Lance'. Can you say 'Lance' for the camera?"

Mini Keith looks entirely befuddled by the request and makes grabby hands at the camera when he realizes there's a new toy he hasn't played with yet.

Lance sputters, extending his arm to its full length so the one working electronic is out of reach of the demon child. "Woah-ho-hoooo! Not gonna happen, buddy. You'll try to swallow it whole."

Keith pouts.

"Nuh-uh. Those puppy dog eyes aren't gonna work; I'm immune."

He plops himself down on the sofa and Keith giggles, making his way into his lap and crawling all over him like a jungle gym, latching a hand in Lance's hair.

"Ans," he coos.

Lance jolts. "S-See! See! Say it again!" He whips around to send a demanding look to the toddler standing in his lap.

Keith looks confused, but when Lance makes a face at him, he shrieks with laughter and chants, "Ans, Ans, Ans!"

"Told ya so." Lance beams.

Then his face falls as he realizes he should describe his own current situation and why he isn't back yet.

"When I woke up, I couldn't find Blue anywhere. It looked like I might've crash landed, and my left leg was at a super weird angle." He sighs. "It might be a break, not sure, but I've splinted it and have been refreshing the bandages every day just to be safe. -"

Lance doesn't know how much time he spends sitting in front of that camera, but it feels like hours. He tapes himself talking to his friends about whatever comes to mind: the map, his 'parallel universe' theory switching to 'time travel', how he'd tried to contact everyone he knows, how ridiculous it is that Keith doesn't have a shower.

Just everything and nothing that he wants more than anything to talk to them about in person.

Once he wishes them a 'see you soon, I promise, and I'll update you if I find anything else!', Lance turns to Mini Keith and beams down at him.

"Take a guess at what I've planned for us today, bud."

Keith blinks. "Agha Ans agh oogha."

"Good guess, but wrong." His beam turns into a smirk. "We're gonna make sandmen."

... As it turns out, sandmen – as Lance has deemed their creations made from sand and mud – produce a lot more mess than he'd originally thought.

He and Keith have to rinse down multiple times to finally get all of said sand and mud out from all of their different orifices.

Lance got some good pictures though.

It's when Lance is helping Keith make a sandcastle about fifty feet out from the shack on this large sand hill that the biggest discovery of his entire trip is made.

And it's not by him.

"Alright, Mini Keith, now you start digging a little hole around the castle so that it will have a moat, okay?" Lance guides the child's hands so that they are digging at the right spot. "There you go. I'm gonna help you on this side so when our sides connect, I can fill it with water from the sink and it will be a real moat!"

Keith ignores him – as per usual – and Lance doesn't really think anything of it.

Instead, he stays on his own side and digs his own moat, diligently making sure it's even and has solid walls. He'll probably have to help Keith with his side at one point, but he'll worry about that when he gets to it.

Then – very suddenly – Keith starts wailing.

Lance is moving before he even realizes he is.

"Keith? Hey, shhhhh, what's wrong?" He scoops up the child, cradling him close and doing a thorough onceover of his small body for injuries.

He notices the cut on Keith's finger and pulls it close to him, kissing his hand to make it better. Keith is sniffling already (because the cut really isn't all that bad), but Lance still pulls the child further into him and begins surveying the hole Keith was digging.

It was supposed to be a moat, and Keith spent five minutes just digging a fucking hole.

Whatever, Lance reminds himself, that's not important right now.

His eyes scan the hole, looking for a rusty nail or anything that might suggest the possibility of tetanus.

When Lance's eyes finally land on the culprit of Keith's injury, they widen.

It's a piece of metal.

Careful, he reaches forward slowly and gives a short, firm knock against it.

A shudder racks Lances spine. So abruptly that he nearly falls over, there's a rush of emotions twisting into his own and a loud roar echoes in his mind.

Blue.

Lance gapes down at the hill of sand that they'd made the castle on; this whole time, Blue has only been fifty feet away.

I need to dig her out.

He picks Keith up – castle only half finished – and hobbles all the way back to the shack, fumbling around to find the camera. He forms the plan in his head, laying out the details as he searches.

I'll use Keith's father's shovel and spend the next few days digging her out. I need to limit the uncovering process to as little time as possible, though, to avoid attention from the Garrison since they're already suspicious of this area.

He documents the find and plan on the camera as soon as he finds it.

And the minute dawn breaks and Keith is clean and fed, Lance begins digging.    

Forty-two hours, thirty-seven minutes, and twelve seconds.

That's the total amount of working time it takes for Lance to unearth her, according to the digital clock and Lance's basic math skills.

About four days of work.

By the time she's completely free from sand, Lance knows he can't stay for much longer.

Mini Keith has kind of been figuring it out, and Lance will give him credit for that, but it is immensely painful every time the child refuses to let go of him. He's been getting extremely clingy – sensing Lance's urgency to go – and spends most nights entirely cocooned in Lance. He has gotten a lot quieter, too.

Lance tries not to let himself get too deep into his emotions right now; he can already recognize this feeling.

He feels like he has to leave his family again. Mini Keith is his family.

He's Mini Keith's family. And he's letting this child be abandoned again.

It hurts more than a busted leg ever could.

"I love you."

Lance holds Keith closer than humanly possible on their last night together; he knows that he has to go tomorrow. That he can't leave Blue sitting out like that for more than the few hours that he already has. Keith clings back just as tightly.

So he repeats the words again, long into the night, in all of the languages he knows, until the sun is peeking in through the windows. He repeats it until he's sure Keith knows, until his mouth is so dry he can't speak anymore.

Neither of them sleeps.

Both of them cry.

"I love you. Te amo más de lo que jamás podrías imaginar. Tu sonrisa vale más para mí que millones de estrellas."

When he feels Blue call him in the morning, Lance still spends an extra minute just holding Keith. Keith is obviously tired after crying for so long, but he doesn't even squirm as Lance peppers his face with kisses, unintentionally pressing tears to the skin along with each one.

"Join the Galaxy Garrison, Mini Keith. Okay?" He pets the raven mullet, trying to memorize the feeling of the small child in his arms. "One day you will be an amazing pilot, and I promise you that even if you feel lonely now, there's gonna be a day when you are surrounded by people who love you and respect you and appreciate you." He swallows the lump in his throat, pulling Keith back and looking deeply into his eyes. "This is not goodbye. This is 'I'll see you sooner than you think'."

Finally responding to Blue's steadily more pressing calls, Lance stands and presses a last kiss to Keith's cheek. He places the child on the sofa and wraps the blanket around him, leaving out a bowl of soup and some water.

Mini Keith starts crying once Lance walks out of the door, and one of the hardest things Lance has ever had to do in his life is walk away from that child while he is screaming and crying "Ans!" in crescendoing desperation.

He ignores how blurry his vision is and instead climbs into Blue's awaiting mouth, sitting himself in the oddly unscathed pilot seat within the cockpit, and feels numb when he sees a large hole in the sky start to open.

He can still hear Keith's screaming in his mind as Blue flies through the hole.

In a reflection, Lance sees Garrison vehicles approach the shack while the portal closes behind him.

He wonders when Keith will meet Shiro for the first time.

He wonders if Keith will ever find the sloppy letter Lance had thrown together last minute for him when he grows up.

He wonders why he never signed it.

Lance can't look back.

Chapter Text

Lance discovers the hard way that being conscious while travelling through Blue's portal / black hole, and – simultaneously – time itself, is the most psychedelic and terrifying experience he's ever witnessed.

The first time, he was not awake to see it.

This time, however, he is.

And he fucking wishes he wasn't.

There's a few different forms of pressure that Lance is used to feeling: self-doubt, expectations, Blue pushing at his mind, his teammates through the mind-meld, even the most recent addition of Keith's Dad's digital camera against his thigh within this hidden pocket he'd found in the paladin bodysuit (while uncovering Blue he'd taken to wearing the suit when he'd been digging in order to block out sand, and often forgot that he kept the camera in his secret pocket just in case there was something he'd wanted to document). 

But this kind of pressure? No amount of training can allow someone to withstand this much of this kind.

Lance is currently experiencing about 6G of gravitational acceleration – which, if sustained, is enough G-force to be lethal – but when it increases to 9G, Lance knows he should be dead after a few seconds.

There are lights flashing past Blue's windshields everywhere, leaving white, blue, and yellow streaks behind his eyelids. His skin is practically flapping and he feels like his eyes are being forced back into his skull.

... And then come the visions.

A crisp image of Marco and Veronica peering down at him flits into focus.

And then it's gone.

Suddenly, it's followed by a sequence of other images:

His mamá swishing her hips while cooking and singing to whatever is on the radio.

His papá helping him wrap Christmas presents.

Meeting Hunk for the first time.

Holding baby Luis for the first time.

Watching the news with all of his siblings as the Galaxy Garrison announces the Kerberos mission, and Takashi Shirogane – his hero – waves at the camera with a kind smile.

Applying for the Garrison alongside Hunk.

Opening the fancily-stamped envelopes together with bated breath.

Screaming in excitement and hugging each other.

Moving into his and Hunk's shared Garrison dorm.

Watching with wide eyes while passing by as the guy with the swishy black hair steps out of the fighter flight simulator, receiving pats on the back and sparkly eyes from others; Hunk sending him a weird look and ushering him to move on or they'll be late for Classical Literature.

Finding out Mr. Emo Teen Angst Glitz & Glam Swishy Mullet-y Hair Guy has a name; Keith.

An empty pit forming in the bottom of his stomach when he gets assigned as a cargo pilot.

His chest tightening when he gets a glimpse of Keith exiting another perfectly-executed fighter flight simulation, looking away from the rare breathless smile and fiery grey-blue eyes donning the boy's face in favor of heading back to the cargo flight simulator.

Staying up well past curfew, training and practicing and studying when he's sure Hunk is asleep.

Seeing Keith's name at the top of the result board again.

Watching the back of a head full of mullet until Miller calls him out for not paying attention.

Announcing, "Sorry Miller. Your unibrow is just really distracting."

Hearing the laughter of his classmates around him.

Feeling the vaguely curious glance of grey-blue eyes hot on his back as he saunters off to detention again for the third time that week.

Having to explain the calls home to his pissed mamá.

Getting a ninety-eight percent on his Bio-Chem test.

Overhearing someone whisper, "Did you hear? Keith Kogane aced the Bio-Chem test! It's, like, almost impossible to get over eighty percent, let alone ace."

Laughing with Hunk as they watch some stupid horror movie Lance (not-so-legally) downloaded onto his USB.

Calling Marco at the early hours of the morning crying.

Masking the redness in his eyes perfectly while sitting through breakfast.

Accidentally catching Keith's eye while stepping out of the cargo flight simulator.

Seeing those eyes burned into his brain when he falls asleep each night.

Trying to ignore the weird fluttery feeling in his stomach.

And then things start speeding up.

Hearing the Kerberos mission failed.

Hearing the words 'no survivors'.

Getting a ninety-one on his Bio-Chem test.

Finding out he got the highest mark in the class.

Seeing Keith's name disappear from the result board.

Catching Keith's eye far past curfew; a brief moment of mutual truce as they coincidentally pass each other while sneaking back to the dorms.

Seeing the image of milky pale skin marred with purple blotches and a split lip long after it's swallowed in darkness.

Watching the back of a head full of mullet that looks messy and unkempt.

Watching the back of an empty chair.

Hearing the whispers of, "Did you hear? Keith Kogane got kicked out!"

Hearing the responding whispers of, "Yeah! I heard it was because of discipline issues..."

Getting promoted to fighter pilot because a spot 'suddenly' opened up.

Being put into a group with Pidge and Hunk. 

Forcing Pidge to hang out with them.

Not having to force Pidge to hang out with them.

Getting a sixty-four on his Bio-Chem test.

Getting calls from Veronica saying he should come home.

Hearing Luis yelling that he misses him in the background of those calls.

Hunk's warm hand on his shoulder.

Pidge's solemn presence next to him as they face Iverson's rage after another failed simulation.

Sneaking out.

Seeing the crashed ship.

Running into Keith.

His breath getting caught in his throat still after so long.

Making some stupid joke to cover it up.

Hearing that Keith doesn't remember him.

Pain.

Anger.

Seeing the shack.

Finding Blue.

Meeting Allura and Coran.

Flirting with Allura.

Missions.

Fighting with Keith.

Yelling at Keith.

Getting yelled at by Keith.

Pain.

Anger.

Seeing images of blue-grey eyes catching his for the first time in the Garrison.

Seeing images of blue-grey eyes flared with anger and hatred after another argument.

Seeing images of blue-grey eyes soft and gentle and warm while supporting him in his arms.

Pushing down the need to vomit.

Vomiting anyways.

Crying late into the night.

Holding onto the memories of his family.

Wishing he'd said he'd loved them on their last phone call rather than, "Yeah, yeah. Los llamo más tarde, you big losers."

Nobody noticing the bags under his eyes thanks to his vigorous skincare routine, and continuing that routine to make sure it stays that way.

Sitting on the sofa in the control room with Hunk and talking about home like it doesn't hurt.

Taking off Pidge's glasses and setting them aside, wrapping Pidge in a blanket after he catches them out cold on top of the rover they're making adjustments to.

Pretending he doesn't see the small smile Pidge sends him in the morning when he puts a little more of the caffeine-like substance in their food goo than everyone else.

Reaching out a hand and touching Shiro's shoulder gently to bring him out of whatever he is seeing instead of the training room in front of them.

Leaving that hand there for a little longer than necessary until those shoulders relax.

Teaching Allura how to braid her hair, like how he used to braid Veronica's.

Sneaking the mice some of his food goo.

Sneaking into the monitor room on the training deck to make sure Keith is not overworking himself again.

Typing in a line of code that has the droid sparking and falling over when he sees that Keith is.

Watching Keith turn off the simulation in confusion while wiping his brow.

Pretending to be confused and intrigued when Keith asks Pidge about it at dinner.

Snarking back with a, "That is so devastating... Rover play Despacito."

Ignoring the glare Keith sends his way, thankful that he's at least not made himself look suspicious.

Pidge frowning but promising to take a look.

Pidge returning saying it is a single line of really advanced coding, and that it looked to be entered manually; that if they didn't know any better, they would've thought they'd entered it themself.

Keith frowning and Pidge looking between the others with a thoughtful look.

"The only other person that could write something that simple and effective would be Hunk, but he's been working on Yellow the whole time."

Keith shrugging. "Whatever. Maybe it was just a glitch."

Helping Coran clean the cryo-pods each time he asks because Lance can see how tired the others are.

Encouraging Coran to talk about Altea when he sees the smile on the man's face as he does.

Teaching Allura and Coran phrases and words from Earth but giving them the wrong definitions while snickering to himself.

Everyone gaping in shock when Shiro suggests that they should spend more time bonding with each other and connecting, and Allura replies, "That sounds like some WPS."

Lance bursting into hysterical laughter while Pidge asks slowly, "Princess, what do you think that means?"

Allura blinking in confusion. "I was under the impression that it stood for Wise and Proper Suggestions."

Everyone turning to glare at Lance while he cackles harder, and Hunk gently explaining to the Princess that it stands for White People Shit.

Allura laughing, too, saying she totally fell for it and she's just glad they corrected her before their next meeting while she's speaking as a diplomat.

Tapping his fingers at all times in the least distracting way possible.

Nobody noticing how bad his ADHD has been getting thanks to these precautions, but Hunk still sending him sympathetic looks.

Pretending like it's a coincidence when he walks into the control room while everyone else is asleep and sits down next to Keith silently, watching the stars as they pass.

Taking one look over at the distant look in Keith's eyes and then starting to speak quietly about everything he remembers to do with stellar nurseries like the one not too far from them now, shaped like the Elephant's Trunk Nebula.

Starting to talk about Elephant's Trunk Nebula and how his younger brother used to think that the name was cool.

Talking about how he used to tell Luis everything he knew about it; how it is part of the constellation Cepheus and is a long and dark blob within the emission nebula IC 1396.

Starting to point out some of the star formations near them and making up his own constellations.

Saying that the protostar's jets and accretion disk in that particular formation to their left makes it look like it's a caveman holding a donut with a spear through it.

Hearing Keith's quiet laugh from next to him and smiling to himself, pointing out that the one to the right of it kind of looks like the caveman's pet iguana, if iguanas had red dwarves for eyes (and hearing that quiet laugh again).

Listening as after about an hour of this, Keith contributes his own very tentative, "The one over there looks like a flying cow."

Contemplating it and announcing, "Nah. It looks more like a sheep doing a handstand."

Keith sending him an incredulous look before Lance throws his head back with laughter and a small smile stretches across the Red Paladin's face.

Spending many more hours making up their own constellations until the lights come on and they settle down for breakfast while everyone else crowds in.

Not talking about it afterwards.

Another fight.

No joking or light-heartedness behind it this time.

Pain.

Sadness.

The battle.

The black hole.

Yelling.

Pulling.

Shiro.

Pidge.

Hunk.

Allura.

Coran.

Keith.

Sand.

Desert.

Shack.

Mini Keith.

Pain.

Sadness.

Anger.

Fear.

Keith.

Iverson.

Keith.

Blue.

Black hole.

Lance feels pressure on all sides, his breath being forced in and out of him.

Then new images start to flash before his eyes. Things he doesn't recognize from his past, like he did the other ones.

Keith, screaming.

Shiro, resting a hand on Keith's shoulder with prominent bags under his eyes.

Pidge with red eyes and messy hair.

Hunk in tears.

Coran hugging Allura.

Silence.

Screaming turns to sobbing.

Silence.

No Lance.

Fear.

Grief.

Pain.

Loneliness.

Lance.

Come home.

Keith, hair knotted, skin blotchy, eyes rimmed red and with the same hollow look that Lance remembers seeing that night after curfew in the Garrison.

Lance.

We need you.

Keith's voice, but his lips are chapped and his mouth isn't moving.

... I need you.

As the world around him starts to fade to white, and a dull throbbing hum starts to get louder from where it has been steadily growing in the back of his mind, Lance sees a single, final image.

Blue-grey eyes shining, a bright smile, pink lips moving with no sound, fingers twined, hearts thumping.

Joy.

Warmth.

Fear.

Love.

Lance can't hold onto his consciousness anymore.

The hum engulfs him.

The Castle of Lions pings, catching something on its radar.

Allura looks up from within Coran's arms. She forces herself to mask her emotions and walks over to pull up the ship's diagnostics, scanning the system for what has caught its attention.

Her breath gets caught in her throat.

Shiro looks up from where he's crouched on the floor next to a slumped Keith. "Princess?"

"It's the Blue Lion." Allura feels the tension in the room heighten, all eyes focused on her, hanging off of her every word. "The Blue Lion is returning to the castle."

"Lance," Hunk chokes.

"Coran, you prepare a cryo-pod right away, please." She gets to work, entering data and giving administrator permissions to the different functions she's activating on the ship. "I'm opening the Blue Lion's hangar. The rest of you need to be prepared in case this is some kind of trick."

It's not.

She knows it's not.

For the briefest moment, she catches a glimpse of Keith's unreadable expression. Then he's out the door with his bayard activated in his hand and the other three paladins hot on his trail.

Allura sucks in a rattling breath, feeling something akin to relief within the mixture of all of the emotions she's experiencing right now.

Welcome back, Blue Paladin.

... Welcome home, Lance.

Chapter Text

To be honest, Lance kind of hoped that when he awoke everyone would be waiting for him outside of his pod, and he would fall into open arms and be surrounded by people he loves and cares deeply for.

He'd thought that maybe, just maybe, he might get that cliché reunion scene from those sappy movies Veronica used to make him watch.

However, life is a big sack of dicks and doesn't work out that way.

Instead, when Lance wakes up, nobody catches him.

The fucking lights aren't even on.

And rather than into a cushion of awaiting hugs, Lance collapses in a sloppy heap on the cold-ass floor and groans, rubbing his elbow with a wince. "¡Carajo! That's the third time I've fallen off of this damn sofa."

It takes about another fifteen seconds before his brain kick-starts and he can recall some critical information (like his full name).

Where's Mini Keith? Where am I? What's going on? Where's Blue?

The rest of the critical information comes back to him another fifteen seconds later.

Blue took me back to the Castle of Lions. I must've passed out.

He glances around, and then down at himself. His paladin suit that he'd worn in Blue when entering the portal looks to have been removed from his person, but he still has on his skin-tight bodysuit.

He slowly pushes up off of the ground, bracing himself for a familiar protesting ache in one particular limb.

But his left leg holds his weight firmly and reliably, solid beneath him. Lance prays a blessing to the magic of Altean medicinal technology, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief.

And loss.

Mini Keith.

I hope more than anything that you are okay.

There's a deep, agonizing ache dwelling low in his chest as he pictures the child's face. And it probably won't ever really go away.

But things happened the way they did for a reason; if Lance hadn't left, or had taken Mini Keith with him, or had done anything different, he gets the feeling that his Keith wouldn't be the same person he is today.

He sucks in a deep breath and makes his way out of the cryo-pod chamber, sneaking down the hallway as quietly as he can; the lights are all shut off, so it must be pretty late according to the 24-hour clock that the system has been re-programmed to.

No wonder nobody was there to greet me, he realizes. But I want to see them.

An abrupt image containing the beaming faces of six of his most cherished friends passes through his thoughts, and his heart starts pounding hard. 

Oh my God.

I'm back.

I can see them. And interact with them. And hug them.

... I'm back!

He starts stumbling (not used to running normally after a month of favoring one leg) as he tries to sprint towards the personal chambers of the others, and slides to a halt in front of the first door in the hallway; Shiro's room.

His cheeks hurt from grinning so big, and Lance lifts a fist to rap on the door, his blood pumping with excitement.

As his knuckles nearly come in contact with the cold metal, the quiet sound of a muffled unconscious noise comes from inside.

Lance freezes.

Shiro's smiling face in his mind morphs into one that he's seen too often; sickly pale skin and dull eyes from stress and exhaustion, decorated with heavy eye-bags and purple discoloration from lack of sleep.

Slowly, Lance turns and looks around at the other doors.

Each one he identifies triggers the transformation of that paladin's face into the one of defeat and lack of proper care. Of immeasurable fatigue, and heavy-lidded sunken eyes, and sluggish movements and subtly tremoring hands. 

If anybody deserves sleep in this universe, these guys would be towards the top of that list.

Even though the longing to see them and hug the life out of each one of them is almost overwhelming, Lance turns tail and makes his way as quietly as possible towards the dining area.

Because after however long he's been asleep in that pod, he's frickin' starving, and if he can't see his friends then he can at least eat all of their food to make up for it.

As Lance enters the kitchen his eyes fall on a bowl of goo, untouched and taunting him seductively from its place on the counter. His gaze trails to the side and he counts five empty bowls in the sink, so he figures that one of the others must not have been hungry and helps himself to it, filling up a glass of water as he prepares his meal.

Somewhere outside of the kitchen area, the light goes on. A familiar voice fills his ears, "Hunk? Is that you?"

Lance freezes.

Keith.

While the footsteps get closer, he glances down at his bowl of goo and glass of water. Then back up at the opening in the kitchen.

Keith is standing there, staring at him.

Real Keith.

His Keith.

"Uh," He says dumbly. "No...?"

Keith just stares at him.

Lance's heart gives a painful throb.

Keith.

But Keith should be sleeping. He should be getting rest and Lance will gladly wait for a reunion tomorrow if it means that Keith is finally taking care of himself.

So Lance releases an awkward cough, fidgeting with discomfort under the blatant gawp, and spews his usual. "Look, dude, I get that I probably look like shit right now but, like, it is kinda rude to stare, so..."

He receives a blank look in return.

"Right... Well, I'm gonna go and enjoy some disgusting goop and I'll catch ya later." The Cuban moves to awkwardly sidestep the other, heading towards the table so he can eat without eyes burning through him. Hopefully Keith will get the message and go back to bed, even if that means the throbbing in Lance's chest gets worse.

He doesn't get that far.

Instead, Keith's arm shoots out and locks Lance in a tight grip on the shoulder.

The blunt nails dig into Lance's skin through the suit, and he flinches, hissing at the painful interaction. The Blue Paladin places his food and water down safely on the table and jolts around to face his attacker, angry. "Ow! What the heck was that fo-?!"

A hand comes up to his face.

His cheek stings sharply from the contact.

It's his turn to gape.

Keith is glaring at him so intensely that Lance can feel some of his brain cells shrivel up and die.

"Wha-?" He begins, but Keith – as usual – beats him to it.

"You fucking asshole!"

Lance blinks.

"How could you just leave like that? What the fuck is wrong with you?!" There is so much emotion flashing through Keith's eyes right now that Lance can't seem to pinpoint a single one.

Keith pushes his chest. Hard.

Lance stumbles backwards, bumping into the table and throwing his hands out behind him so he can catch himself on it. Anger flares up inside of him.

He spent so much time missing this Keith and wanting to see him, and this is what he gets?

"You go and get yourself sucked into a fucking black hole in the middle of a fucking battle and then go missing for a month when everyone thought you died, and then you show up again out of nowhere majorly malnourished and with a broken leg and two fractured ribs. You sit in a healing pod for eight days, then you don't even wake any of us up to tell us when you regain consciousness?" Keith steps closer now, invading his space with ferocity and aggression and boiling rage. He jabs a finger into Lance's chest, getting up in his face with black eyes and blotchy skin from anger. "Who do you think you are, making us deal with that?!"

And then Lance sees two emotions flicker through those eyes for just a moment longer than the others, and his rising fury dissipates.

Heartbreak.

Fear.

... Oh.

Oh.

Lance reaches forward and pulls Keith into him, holding him close and squeezing him tight.

Keith goes completely stiff in his arms.

Silence.

Lance just holds him tighter, feeling the soft hair tickling his cheek and the familiar softness of skin that Mini Keith had also possessed.

He remembers that Mini Keith liked to be held, wanted constant reminding that he was loved and cherished, wanted attention all of the time, was clingy and adoring of affection. How Mini Keith loved deeply and thoroughly and just wanted that love in return. He remembers wondering where those qualities went in his Keith.

Lance realizes it now; it's not that they went anywhere, it's that Keith doesn't know how to express them anymore.

So Lance starts rubbing Keith's back in the slow circles that always had Mini Keith cooling down in seconds, and even though this Keith is physically much different, he uses the other hand to guide the older boy's head into his neck and just holds him.

And Keith practically collapses into him.

His shoulders sag and his fingers shake and he grips onto Lance like Mini Keith did the night before he left. Like he might never come back.

"I'm sorry," Lance breathes. He hears a muffled noise from somewhere buried in his neck, but he continues, easing Keith's weight into him so that he can support the both of them. "I'm so sorry, Keith. I was scared, and I didn't know what was going on, but I'm here. And there's no way – not in the entire expanse of the universe and all and any parallel ones – that I would ever truly leave you behind."

Lance feels Keith start to shake in his arms, fingers trembling from where they clutch desperately at his back. He ignores the pooling of wetness on his shirt – far used to it by now – and instead continues to rub his back, soothing the tears out of him while his chest aches with pain for the broken, repeatedly-abandoned boy in his arms.

This world has taught you to fear attachment. That you will be left alone time after time, so loving somebody with no barriers means that it will hurt that much more when you lose them.

But you won't lose me, Keith. I had to leave you when you were a child, but in the end I will always find a way to come back to you. I'll do whatever it takes.

"I thought you were dead." Lance's breath catches at the rawness in the raven's voice, but Keith holds onto him tighter. "I thought that I- that we weren't going to see you again." Keith is warm and still shaking when he manages to get enough oxygen in him to continue. "I didn't want our last interaction to be me yelling at you."

Lance recalls a memory from his past, brought up again by the weird time warp visions and now by Keith's own words, of when he'd found out that his last phone call with his family would truly be his last one; I wish I said I'd loved them on our last phone call rather than, "Yeah, yeah. Los llamo más tarde, you big losers."

He knows how Keith feels.

And while he spent his whole time away with a smaller version of his teammate, their team had spent that time thinking he was gone.

Keith didn't get a Mini Lance.

Keith got No Lance.

Lance isn't stupid; he knows that his teammates value him. He knows that his absence – that any of their absences – would be a sore loss to the rest. Even if he and Keith argue all of the time, they still need each other.

"I'm sorry," Lance says again. "I'm sorry for making you worry, and I'm sorry for hurting you."

Keith is broken. And Lance can't fix him.

But I can show you that being broken is okay.

I can show you that you can love wholly again like you did as a child, and not fear the grief and loss of abandonment.

Eventually eyes run dry, but they continue to stand there and just hold each other. Lance draws little patterns across Keith's back and Keith keeps his head stuffed in Lance's neck - dark hair tickling the other's jaw - just breathing deeply and never loosening his hold around Lance's waist. The Cuban leans his head against Keith's and smiles, the ache in his chest beginning to dull at the feeling of the smile that unintentionally brushes his neck every time he draws out a new picture between the now-relaxed shoulder blades.

It takes a couple more minutes for Lance's legs to give out – he did just get out of a cryo-pod, after all – and they flop to the floor with a harmony of yelps.

The Blue Paladin bursts into a fit of giggles – giddy off of relief – and only a second later, the Red Paladin is joining him.

They titter like school girls until it fades out into watery grins.

Keith is awkwardly sprawled half on one knee and half on his ass in front of Lance, and is smiling that same smile from his memories.

And Lance doesn't run this time.

Instead, he reaches out and brushes his palm along Keith's cheek, gloved fingers gliding to absently tuck loose hair behind his ear as he caresses Keith's face in his hand.

And Keith leans into it, his own hand coming up to cover it. To keep it there. To tell him that he's not going to run, either.

Lance's breath catches again, and he finally gets another good look at the soft, gentle, open Keith. The Keith that shows that the giggly affectionate toddler didn't just disappear.

Lance is in love with this Keith.

Realistically, Lance loves every version of Keith he's ever seen.

After all, it was Keith who taught him the many different forms of love.

And Lance probably loves him in every universe, and in every way.

And then – as if trying to prove it to him – Keith opens his big dumb mouth and announces, "We... No. I would be so fucking lost without you, Lance. I wouldn't- I didn't know what to do with myself."

And he says it like Lance wouldn't be the same way.

Like Lance hasn't spent half of his life watching Keith.

Like Lance hasn't spent half of his life entirely captivated by him.

He sucks in a deep breath and slowly pulls his hand away, keeping his fingers locked with Keith's when a look of fear crosses over the boy's eyes. "Well, it's currently Too Late for Lance o' clock, and I think that means it's time we try and get some rest, hmm?"

Keith frowns and the Cuban squeezes his fingers reassuringly.

He pulls them up and – without disentangling their hands – begins to lead them towards the hallway. "I'll walk you to your room like the gentleman I am, and then I'll talk to everyone and answer all the questions your inferior brains can come up with in the morning."

The raven lets out a snort but relaxes, letting Lance guide them to his door. Once outside of it, he turns to face him and struggles, "Lance, I-"

He waits patiently, not letting go of his hand, and he can feel Keith start to sweat. Start to panic.

Lance shakes his head and flicks the Red Paladin in the forehead.

"Don't get all sappy on me now." He beams, feeling a familiar warmth returning to his bones, and Keith looks like he's going to cry. "I'm going to pretend that I am capable of getting sleep for the next seven hours – just like you are – and then we're going to meet up in the dining room with the others and I'm going to get pestered from all sides by a million and one questions." He can feel his own eyes sparkle as he leans a little bit closer, watching Keith's eyes flick down briefly as he does. "And once that is all over, we'll find somewhere quiet and I'm going to kiss the daylights out of you and you can tell me what you wanted to say now once you've figured it out."

He gets the pleasure of seeing Keith's entire face turn pink, and Lance laughs, his chest light and stomach bubbly.

So these are the feelings I was hiding from?

... They aren't so bad.

"Goodnight, Keith." He leans forward, pressing a soft kiss to the other's pink cheek for good measure, and practically skips away down to his own room.

He hears a stunned "o-okay" behind him, and smiles wider to himself.

I should have done this long before I passed through two black holes, traveled back in time, and swept a rattlesnake out of a shack in a desert.

When Lance is staring blankly back at five angry faces, he realizes that this whole situation is not going to be as easy to explain as he wished it would be.

... At least he finally got to eat some food and get a drink.

"Tell us what happened," Pidge demands from their spot on the sofa next to Hunk and Coran.

Lance coughs awkwardly. "I really don't think you're going to believe me."

"Try me," they snap back. Hunk has to put a hand on their shoulder.

"I don't really know where to begin..."

"How about from the beginning, Lance?" Shiro's voice is soft, and his eyes are too as Lance looks at him. "What happened after the black hole?"

From the beginning, I guess.

"I woke up in the desert." Lance sighs, closing his eyes and recalling the memories. "I couldn't find Blue, and all I could see was a shack."

He can remember the heat beating down on him.

"My left leg was badly injured and my head was bleeding. I didn't realize that my ribs were damaged, but that might've been because I couldn't feel them over my leg."

Lance goes on to explain the whole story.

Nobody says a word the entire time – alarmingly enough – and Lance doesn't open his eyes so that he doesn't have to see their faces and chicken out on the details.

He doesn't talk about his dreams (those are personal) and he doesn't talk about his visions from the portal, but he can feel the held breath when he talks about Mini Keith and the shack and his theories on what exactly happened.

When he opens his eyes, everyone looks dumbstruck.

"So..." Hunk is the first to speak up, sounding unsure. "You're saying you... Travelled back in time and met child Keith?"

Lance cringes. "Essentially, yes."

"I don't... I mean, I can't-" Pidge hesitates, scowling down at their hands. "I-I'm having trouble believing that it's possible, but even you wouldn't joke about something like this."

He looks at Shiro and Keith and Allura and Coran, who have yet to speak up, and sees a look of complete shock on their faces.

Keith's cheeks are red, basically having his entire family situation outed to everyone (Lance feels bad about that, but there's no way he could have avoided it without giving them almost no information about his whereabouts).

"Keith, do you... Do you remember any of this?" Allura sounds tentative.

Keith blinks and looks over at her. "Uh... I remember that the map was up and the desk was sorted just like he said, but I don't really remember anything else. From the sounds of it, I was pretty young."

"I guessed around two years old, but I mean Princess Allura looks like she's in her twenties and she's, like, a bazillion times older than Jesus." Lance chooses to ignore the confused-but-still-offended glare from said woman.

Shiro speaks up next, his brows furrowed in concentration. "Actually, Lance, now that you mention it... You said that people from the Garrison showed up while you were in the portal, right?"

He nods.

"I think... I think I remember hearing that they found a child there from my mother." Shiro's brow furrows more. "I think my mother was an officer accompanying them at that time, though I was just a kid. She'd said they put him into a foster home... But I didn't know it might've been Keith."

Keith flushes.

"If I'd brought that damn camera with me, I could just prove it to you." Lance huffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

Coran suddenly perks and goes flying out of the room.

Lance blinks, surprised.

A moment later he reappears, holding a familiar object in his hands.

The Cuban chokes.

"After I removed your paladin suit for the cryo-pod, I was cleaning out the Blue Lion and found this odd little device. I figured I'd put it away for safe-keeping while you were in there. Is this what you were looking for?"

Did I bring the camera with me?

His mind sparks.

The secret bodysuit pocket.

... I must've forgotten it was in there when I put my stuff on to leave!

He reaches out and accepts it from the Altean, flipping it in his hands.

It's the same crappy digital camera that he'd dug up from the Shit Shelves.

How did it survive 9Gs?!

"I don't know if it will still work after going through a black hole, but let's find out." Lance presses the power button – just like he's done a thousand times - and holds onto that tiny whisper of maybe hidden amongst the sea of it's obviously not going to work, idiot, it just went through 9Gs.

... Nothing.

His heart sinks. "It doesn't work."

Pidge makes a frustrated noise and reaches forward, swiping it from Lance's hands and marching out of the room. Lance is left shocked again.

What is with these people and their tendencies to just walk off in the middle of a conversation?!

"I... I believe you, Lance." Keith speaks up, his eyes firm and confident when they meet Lance's. "I'm just confused."

Lance smiles.

Keith's trying. They all are. This situation is a textbook 'You Either Hit Your Head Really Hard or Are On Fifteen Different Types of Crack' one, and yet they're sitting here trying to make sense of it like it's actually comprehensible.

"I know." The Cuban's chest fills with warmth, the fuzzy sensation tingling pleasantly down to his toes. "I don't blame you. It'd be weird hearing that you were temporarily raised by a teammate from many years in the future."

Pidge comes back in, grumbling, and shoves the camera into Lance's hand.

He frowns at them but tries the power button again.

It turns on this time.

"H-How-?"

"The old batteries would have exploded under the pressure if that portal was anything like how you described it," Pidge explains. "But you're lucky that they probably fell out before they could damage the camera. I had to take some from my private collection."

"Oh." Lance brightens when he sees that all of the pictures and videos are still very much intact. "Thank you, Pidgeon!"

They roll their eyes, but Lance can see the smile twitching at the corner of their lips.

He beams. "Coran and Allura, is there any way I can display these pictures on a bigger screen?"

After about twenty minutes of set-up and figuring things out, Lance manages to get the first picture – a picture of the ground he must've taken accidentally when he'd discovered the camera – up onto a big projector.

Keith's eyes widen. "This is going to sound stupid, but that's definitely my floor."

Lance laughs.

And then he goes through the pictures, and the reactions of everyone go from disbelieving, to amazed, to curious, to relieved as Lance explains each picture.

(Keith gets progressively more embarrassed the more pictures of a tiny, slightly-less-emo him show up.)

The Blue Paladin chuckles as he comes across one of Mini Keith's curious face blurry and an inch away from the camera - he obviously found the camera without Lance knowing, the mischievous little devil. The next picture is of Keith crying – startled by the flash – and Lance running towards him with a broom in his hand in alarm.

There's one of he and Mini Keith making their sandmen. And Mini Keith playing with a shoe (Lance mentions that Keith had this weird obsession with shoes and Keith goes very red at that). One of Lance holding him, and Keith beaming up at him with sheer happiness.

Lance feels an ache in his chest at that one, and Shiro's hand falls on his shoulder. "I'm proud of you, Lance. And I'm sorry if we had trouble believing you at first." Shiro is smiling down at him, and Lance's chest throbs. "It looks like you did a great job with Keith, and you managed to take care of yourself really well without proper equipment."

He smiles up at the Black Paladin, feeling a part of him that really needed to hear those things settle at last. "Thank you, Shiro."

"Oh, is that the end?" Allura pouts, looking disappointed. "I rather like seeing baby humans. Keith was very cute as a small child."

Keith flushes and puts his face in his hands. "Kill me."

Lance beams at him, his heart swelling at the familiarity of the interactions that he'd missed so much.

"Actually, Princess, there's one more thing." He clicks a few times through the pictures of Blue and of the map until the video comes up, and then he settles. "I don't know why the camera moved it to the back of the memory, but I filmed this while there, and I want you guys to watch it."

I filmed with each one of you in mind, after all.

He turns and says, "I am going to leave the room so you can watch this because I think I might cry if I watch it again, and you can call me back in when it's over."

He clicks play, and a familiar image of his face fills the camera.

Lance realizes that, yeah, he does look a little bit rough around the edges in that video.

Nobody objects when he turns and walks out of the room.

"It is a really dry, shitty day in a really dry, shitty place, with really dry, shitty company-"

About fifteen minutes later, the door opens from beside him, and Lance looks up to see six pairs of watery eyes peering back at him.

It takes him ten minutes to get through the belated (and, frankly, inevitable) group hug.

Once he does, though, Shiro gives him a stern look. "Now what's this about a rattlesnake?"

Lance keeps his promise, and when they're alone within the safe confines of the observation deck, Keith indeed gets the daylights kissed out of him.

Multiple times.

Enough that Lance has to snap him out of a flushed daze in order to communicate with him.

Lance eyes him with concern.

The poor guy still looks to be running a little hot, but honestly, Lance is kinda smug about that after having wanted to be the cause of it for so damn long. And it's not like Keith's complaining, either.

"Didn't you want to tell me something?" He's gentle in pressing, not wanting the other to back out of being open with his feelings.

He knows that it's not easy for Keith.

The Red Paladin nods, cheeks still pink and lips a wet cherry red, before he takes a deep breath.

"Lance," he begins, "I thought about what I wanna say for a really long time last night while I was – uh – 'sleeping', and I figured it might be easier to just say it outright before I fuck it up."

He nods and smiles, patient.

Keith breathes deeply again.

"I totally, thoroughly, irrevocably, ridiculously like you; like, an almost unhealthy amount. And even though it started happening a long time ago, I still don't really know what that means or what to do with that information, but I kinda want to keep being allowed to kiss you and hug you and hold your hand...?" He blurts it out, but he's maintaining eye-contact confidently – even with blushing ears – and he doesn't shy away when Lance's breath gets caught in his throat at the forwardness. "And I promise that I won't let it get in the way of Voltron, but I just want you to know more than anything."

Lance feels something well up in his throat.

'-even though it started happening a long time ago-'

How long has Keith liked me?

How much time have I wasted pretending that I couldn't have this and that I didn't want it?

And then he looks at Keith's flushed cheeks and hears Keith's relieved sigh and he realizes that he doesn't care.

Because he has it now.

So he lurches forward on hands and knees, pulls a surprised yelp out of Keith as he knocks him over, puts a hand on either side of Keith's head as he hovers over him, and kisses him hard.

Keith makes a noise from the back of his throat that gets lost in the depths of Lance's mouth and wraps his arms around the back of the Cuban's neck, pulling him in closer and kissing back even harder.

And it becomes the fifth time in the last hour that Lance kisses all of the coherency out of him.

"And – for the record – I like you totally, thoroughly, irrevocably, ridiculously, and definitely an unhealthy amount, too, you loser."

Keith covers his face and groans in embarrassment, his cheeks scarlet.

"... But your mullet is still ugly."

"Fuck you, Lance."

"Was that an offer~?"

"Wh-What?! No! Ugh, you're disgusting."

"I am, but you love me."

"Well I take it back."

"Nuh-uh! Too late! No takesies-backsies!"

"Too bad! I can call takesies-backsies if I want to, so you can shut your face."

"... Make me."

"Stop it! It's weird when you flirt with me."

"That's because you're not used to considering it flirting, Pretty Boy."

"Lance, stop-!"

"No. It's cute when you blush like that."

"Ew don't get so close to my fac- stop! Don't tickle me, I- ow! Can you- fuck don't you dare touch my armpits- grab my knife? It's in the sheath at the back of my belt and it's - ow! - digging into my pelvis."

"Hmmm, what? Fine, but why do you even wear this stupid thing-?"

"Lance."

"What?"

"Stab me with it."

"What?!"

"I'm not equipped to deal with this... This sappy stuff."

"Pffft, you sound like Pidge."

"God, why do I even like you?"

"Don't worry, the confusion is mutual."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Hey, Keith?"

"Hmm?"

"I super, duper, mega like you."

"Then give me my knife."

"No."

"Ugh."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... I super duper mega like you too, weirdo."

Some things that Lance has thoroughly enjoyed since starting to date Keith:

- Mocking Keith by saying "Ans" in Mini Keith's voice and watching him turn redder than his lion (Pidge mocks him with it, too, and Lance has even heard Shiro do it when Keith is being particularly stubborn).

- Pouting and telling Keith that he was a lot cuter as a baby whenever the Blue Paladin does something romantic that has Keith becoming all 'tsundere' or whatever that anime Naruto bullshit is.

- Teaching Keith the songs his mamá taught him (turns out Keith could recognize the tune and hum along, but didn't know the lyrics).

- Finding out that Keith did find the letter Lance wrote talking about how adored he is and how he'd become the best pilot ever, and to join the Galaxy Garrison, but Keith had always thought it was from his father since it was never signed (when he finds out it was from Lance, he scoffs and says he should've known since the penmanship is so sloppy – Lance makes a face at him and tickles his armpits until he's crying apologies).

- Learning that there were more things Lance did during that time that Keith thought his father had been responsible for – and additionally – finding out that Keith does not like when Lance jokes that he's Keith's daddy.

- Discovering Keith's romantic side once the raven gets a little more comfortable with the vulnerability, and finding out that Keith actually notices a lot of the little things he does (when Lance gets particularly fidgety, Keith and him play a game where Lance will tap out a beat on the back of Keith's hand, and Keith tries to guess the song - Lance is so far gone for this boy, wow), and Keith is so spontaneous with compliments and affection that Lance blushes; Keith looks after him, and actually does listen to everything he says, always wanting to hear more stories and make him feel loved.

- Finally getting an answer to whether or not Keith is as clingy and cuddly as he was as a child (he is more so, somehow, and Lance promises that he will never refuse his man of cuddles or affection, even though Keith finds it very embarrassing).

And when the day comes that Lance experiences the uncannily familiar moment of those blue-grey eyes shining, of a bright smile, of pink lips moving with no sound, of fingers twined, of hearts thumping... He does feel joy. And warmth. And fear. And so much love.

And Lance realizes that the universe has shown him that this whole time, it has never been just one or the other. They are a crucial part of each other's past, present, and future.

"I hate you," Keith huffs with pink-tipped ears, his voice muffled in Lance's chest.

Lance smiles, tangling them together more within the twisted sheets of his bed.

"I hate you, too."

It's painfully quiet as Allura slowly begins untangling the blue mouse from Coran's moustache.

Shiro is holding his breath, and Hunk's eyes don't leave the scissors sitting on the table - an impending threat of a backup plan if they can't get the rodent out.

Beads of sweat trickle down both Alteans' faces as the princess meticulously unwraps another ginger strand from the mouse's claws.

The silence is deafening.

Pidge is practically on the edge of their seat.

Focus is imperative.

Then, as the last knot is being carefully unwound...

"Fergalicious!"

"How the fuck did you get that so quickly?!"

Coran shrieks as the mouse flails and slices off half of the waxed facial canopy on his upper lip, scrambling away to the other mice in terror.

"Coran!" Both Shiro and Allura stand, and Hunk recoils in an attempt to dodge as the moustache hair goes flying at him, the Yellow Paladin accidentally headbutting Pidge so hard in the nose that it starts bleeding. "Pidge!"

All eyes turn to Lance and Keith, who are gaping at them with red cheeks and wide eyes.

Allura blinks slowly. "You know, I think the castle's biological waste system could use a good cleaning again."

Lance almost cries. "Noooooo! Last time you didn't even give us gloves."

"And this time I won't even give you rags if you don't stop with this WPS and start cleaning in the next ten ticks."

"Allura, Lance and I were only-"

"Ten."

They're out the door before she even gets to eight.

Shiro hands Pidge a towel to lessen the bleeding, and Hunk is tending to a distraught Coran while Allura soothes the mice.

"What were they doing?" Shiro raises the question out loud, coming to sit next to Pidge.

They shrug and Hunk speaks up as he helps wipe some Altean fast-growing-hair-gel onto what's left of Coran's dignity. "Actually, they do this thing where Lance will divert his ADHD by drumming a rhythm on Keith's arm or something and Keith has to guess it."

The ventilation seal in the ceiling above them makes a suspicious banging sound. Then, two tinny voices begin to echo into the room.

"Caramelldansen."

"Okay, but which version?"

"... The Swedish one."

"Fuck!"

Pidge snorts through their towel. "Oh my God, they are so gay."

Shiro just sighs heavily, in the true fashion of a martyr, and prays that the next planet they land on won't be offended if he shows up in his 'Dad is Tired' t-shirt with a water bottle of Altean tequila.