Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Keith is not having a good day. 

That much is clear from the moment Lotor threatened to shatter all alternate realities, leaving not so much of a remnant of the universe of anything they’ve ever known. It only gets worse when Lotor uses his own ship, made of the same trans-reality comet as Voltron, to weave in and out of existence, creating a rift of space every time he jumps. It created more of a problem than Keith knows how to solve. 

Biting back the uncertainty in his chest, he centers his eyes at one of the gaping holes Lotor had made just a moment before. It reminds him as if someone had taken a knife to a curtain and tore downward. Except in this case, the insides glow and burn the backs of his skull. 

“Keith!” He faintly hears someone call, snapping him back to motion. This gives him enough time to process the hit before it comes. Voltron lurches sideways, most likely deflecting from Lotor’s attack. Within another millisecond, Lotor snaps away again in a flash, disappearing from Keith’s frame of view. 

“We need a plan.” Lance huffs out. “We can hardly register where he is before he attacks. We’re not gonna be able to keep up like this.” 

“And where is he even going? As far as my scanners are picking up, there’s nothing out here!” Pidge supplies and Keith can pick up the hint of distress. 

Keith takes another look at the rifts in his vision, an idea springing its way into his mind. Whatever the cracks were, if Lotor was using those to travel and catch Voltron off guard… then maybe they could use that too. Sure, going through the strange and mysterious interdimensional rifts may not be the best plan, but then again neither was waiting for Lotor to strike again at any second.  

“We gotta go through one of the rifts. We’re gonna level the playing field.” Keith says at last. He’s made his decision. Even if it’s the dumbest plan Keith can come up with, it’s something, and he can’t deny there’s some logic in it. 

“Are you sure?” Lance asks hesitantly and Keith allows himself to think. Is he sure? Not at all. They have no idea where the rifts lead, what’s on the other side, nor what effects it could have on Voltron. As far as they knew, the pressure could be far too much for the robot to withstand. It could tear the lions apart, and possibly even their lives. Then again, they may not be able to survive much longer anyway. Not with Lotor hitting with as much speed and force as he has. And as long as he has the rifts— gates? portals?— He was free to hit them from just about any angle and within any second. Defending was near impossible, and there was no way they would be able to advance themselves. 

So maybe entering the rifts posed risks of its own, but it also may as well be their only option at this point. At the very least it could provide them information on just what Lotor was doing.  

“I’m sure. Fire the thrusters, let’s make this quick while we can catch him off guard.” Keith says decisively, cutting out his own uncertainty. And even though he should be used to it at this point, he’s still a little surprised at how confident the command came. 

There was a series of agreement as Voltron rebounds across space and enters the abyss.

The light blinds Keith’s eyes within an instant, and he has to blink back the headache. But the weirdest feeling was when they entered, and Keith felt his body jolt, as if it knew it was leaving his layer of existence. He grunts and lets his sight adjust before he blearily lifts one open. 

“What…” Lance is the first to notice, “what is this place? What are we looking at?”

And then Keith sees what he means. Right in front of him was a wave of glowing blue lines that all seem to connect and wave and dance in circles in front of them. It reminds him of human veins, except on a much larger scale. Keith could hardly keep track of the patterns. 

“It’s the quintessence field.” Allura murmurs quietly. “He’s been manipulating the quintessence to bend to his will. That’s how he’s been traveling around so fast.”

“This is the quintessence field?” Hunk asks, dubious, and Keith understands the shock. For all their time in space and saving the universe, Keith still had the vaguest idea of Allura’s magic, and how quintessence seemed to be the center of all of it. He knows, on paper, that it stems from sources of life, and yet it doesn’t seem to prepare him to actually feel it. How he practically hears it thrum against his skin—how it soaks it up, creating his body into a burst of energy he didn’t even know he had. “This is—this is weird. Do you guys feel weird? I feel weird.” 

“And it’s not just us.” Pidge responds, “Voltron just got a massive surge of energy. I’ve never seen it this powerful before. Is this what Lotor has been doing? Is this why he’s been so unreachable from us? He’s drawing all his power here.”

“More power than I thought.” Allura grimaces, her voice low. Keith strains his ears to pick up the comms, the hum of energy still buzzing through his skull. “This is… this is all my doing. I taught him the secrets of Altean Alchemy and he’s using it against us. I put everything—everyone in jeopardy because I trusted him.” 

Keith can make out nothing in his ears after that. He opens his mouth to even attempt to respond, before promptly closing it when he doesn’t know where to even start. He was never good at comforting people and it was times like these where he couldn’t help feeling a pang of regret at why Black ever chose him. He could lead, sure, but it was nowhere near how Shiro could. He couldn’t bring people together, or know what to say to make situations feel hopeful. 

“Allura,” he’s surprised when he hears Lance’s voice ring out, “It’s no one’s fault. We’re a team, and we made that decision together, remember?”

“But it was I who taught him how to do all this.”

“Because we all trusted him. We all had no idea what his true motives were. Any of us would’ve done the same, believe me.” His voice is calm and steady and so unlike the tone he’s used to on Lance. “Besides, there’s nothing we can do now but fix it, and we’ll need you here. If this has something to do with Altean Alchemy then Lotor isn’t the only one with that knowledge.”

He can hear Allura take a breath. “You’re right, Lance. At the very least I know what his plan is. He’s gaining all his power directly from the source.” Her lion shifts right, shifting their angle just enough to see what she’s pointing at. Lance follows the gaze.

“You mean the glowing blue… things? What does that do?”

“They’re not just things, they harbor more quintessence than anything ever seen. All these lines connect to the heart of everything, and they’re strung together by infinite universes. Him siphoning from the source is like ripping out a different universe one by one.”

“Wait, you mean the parallel universe theory? Like that thing in quantum mechanics? This is it? And it’s real?” Pidge interrupts, not even bothering to hide her shock.

“I’m afraid so. It appears all these realities are at stake as well as ours. We have to stop him.”

Keith let the information sink. He supposed they had been to one alternate reality before, but that was just one, and it wasn’t the greatest. But this… he has to be looking at thousands, no, millions. All right in front of his eyes. The sight makes his stomach roll. 

Lotor has all the power. He has an infinite amount of universes to gain even more. Allura said he was siphoning power from the realities, how many people were he killing in them? What did ripping the universes even entail? Did they just blink out of existence? Or was it something more painful? Slow? He quickly decides he doesn’t want to think about it any longer than he has to. 

“Keith, what do we do? We can’t let him take more power, but how do we stop him?” He hears someone ask, Keith can’t bring himself to speak just yet. What exactly can they do? He suddenly feels like he made a massive mistake bringing them here. He brought the fight right to Lotor’s personalized gas station and now he could take any amount of power to beat them at any time he wants.

He shakes his head, though he knows no one can see it. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s not Shiro, he’s barely even anyone. 

“Keith?” Someone breathes out again, and it’s quiet. 

This universe alone depending on them felt like enough pressure, he doesn’t know how to handle all universes. He doesn’t know how to handle this. This is something far beyond him. 

“I…” He pauses. Whatever words he’s going to say falls off his tongue before he could get a chance to speak them. What’s worse is through their shared connection, he can feel his team waiting for his response. 

He isn’t sure if he’s grateful that Lotor’s ships come careening into them when they do, or if that just makes him feel worse. Either way, he doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence even if he wants to because Lotor cuts him off. 

“Paladins of Voltron,” he says, and his voice echoes out every word as if the quintessence pass the message through their skulls. It’s from that closeness that Keith can hear just how unhinged it’s become. “You’ve made a mistake coming here,” his laughter rings out and it’s horrifying, “I can do everything I’ve ever wanted with all this quintessence, and all I’ve wanted was to make a reality where nothing like this would ever happen. Where the sins of our past never play out. My father, my mother, none of it. Isn’t that all I’ve ever wanted? To rid the wars of our ancestors. And if this world is unachievable in that quest, I will make a new reality. A reality that is not plagued as this one. A reality that will never know my parents, or anyone’s greed.”

Keith reels. He isn’t sure what he’s expecting to hear but it’s certainly not that. Making a new reality? Pulling the string of god? To create something that is void of all the pain millions have suffered from Zarkon’s rule?

“Of course that takes a few sacrifices,” he continues, unperturbed by the paladin’s horror. “I’d have to take the energy from the undeserving realities, gather the bits and pieces from what I can, even if it’s little by little.”

“That’s insane.” He says suddenly, and isn’t even sure if it reaches out. If Lotor can even hear them. He doesn’t care. 

“Perhaps it is.” Lotor answers him, “but perhaps sacrificing a few violent and horrible realities to create one better one is a moral exchange.” He muses, his voice tipping into something low and unfamiliar that it makes Keith’s nerves spike. “I was hoping if anyone would understand, it would be you paladins. But now that I see not, I can’t let you step into my way.” 

Without another beat, Lotor launches and even when Keith stabs his bayard to form the sword, it isn’t enough time. Voltron lurches from the hit, and even then Lotor is far from done. Keith feels the strain of the robot attempting to stay together, but with Lotor pulling away, ripping every limb away inches at a time, the cause is hopeless. 

The damage is done.

Voltron tears apart, and Keith’s own lion is sent hurtling alone. Hurtling miles and miles, further and further away from the screams of his teammates. 

It happens far too fast for him to process. 

He’s vaguely aware of someone yelling his name, before a mute thump, which he registers his head hitting the dashboard, and then his vision swarming white. The last thing he makes out is the waves of blue, glowing bright behind his eyes.

And then nothing.

“Keith?” He faintly hears someone call to him, “you gotta wake up, buddy.”

Keith scrunches his nose, but shifts toward the noise. He knows this voice, somewhere. Somewhere in the back of this mind. And they sound worried. 

“Keith?” He hears again. “C’mon, man, don’t be like this.”

He slowly curls his fingers. He’s laying down on something. It’s soft. Is it his lion? The infirmary? Where was he? What happened? He frowns as he uncurls and curls his hands again, the tufts are too long to be a blanket. 

“Sorry about this,” the voice says once more before freezing water is poured right on top of his face. The change in temperature gets him to shoot up fast, and causes him to nearly collide with the person in front of him who let out a yelp of alarm. 

Keith grabs his head, which stabs a series of pain from the movement. He blinks as the water droplets fall into his lashes.

“Lance!” A different voice scolds next to him.  “You scared him!”

“He was scaring me!” The boy argues in defense, who, now that Keith’s vision was slowly coming into view, it was Lance. Of course, he knows this from the voice, but for some reason there was something about it that still surprises him. Maybe it was because the last thing Keith knew, they were all in their lions. Did Lance get out of his to save him? 

“He wasn’t waking up.” Lance mutters, and Keith notes the way it was tinged in softness. Weird. He knows Lance cares about him, that much is a given. But right here, there is something different about his tone that Keith can’t exactly pinpoint. He can’t mark it down or place it where it will stand tangible in his mind, but he catches it regardless. He lets them sink into his skin and pretends they were aimed in the direction he wants. 

“Well, he’s up now.” He hears Pidge say.

Keith narrows his eyes and blinks at the recognition pounding through the back of his head, and slowly, the faces come into view.

“Keith,” Lance speaks again, “are you okay? You hit your head pretty hard.”

“I’m…” Keith starts but swallows down the ‘fine’ when he actually takes a moment to study his surroundings. He hangs his mouth in bewilderment. Whatever bleary calm he’d felt just seconds ago snaps before he notices the cord stretch. 

“Whoa, Keith! Where do you think you’re going? You can’t just stand up just yet!” 

“You—where…? How? I—“ Keith sputters, shaking his head. “How…” he huffs breathlessly, “ How… are we  here ?”

“Okay, now you’re really scaring me. Did you get a concussion?”

“We’re on Earth…?” Is all Keith can manage to rasp out. He has no idea how, or when, but one look was unmistakable. The green grass was something soft and so familiar beneath his fingers. Above his head, the sky stretched in a cacophony of blue and white puffs. He squints his eyes as a plane streaks across it, littering the array of clouds. They were on Earth. How had they come to Earth? When had they come to Earth? He digs a palm into his eye to make sure they weren’t playing tricks on him.

“Oh no.” Pidge mutters under her breath, “he is concussed. Lance, you concussed him.” 

“I didn’t mean to!” Lance says sharply. He places his hands on Keith’s shoulders and attempts to hold him down as he studies his head. Keith blinks at the sudden closeness between them. Lance is near inches away from his face and Keith can see the way his own is scrunched in concern. And then Lance lifts a gentle finger to wipe a strand of black unkempt hair away from his face and now Keith really blinks back his surprise. The gesture was simple, and yet felt so intimate that he has to steady himself from doing anything else stupid. He doesn’t move a single muscle. He isn’t even sure he’s breathing. 

“Should we get Shiro?” Hunk asks, thankfully snapping Keith away and giving him something else to focus on. 

…Shiro? The statement surprises him. Why? He closes his eyes and lets himself think, prodding his mind for his last moments of consciousness. He was fighting Lotor. They followed him into a quintessence field and then after that… things got a little blurry. If he focuses hard enough, he could vaguely remember something splitting them apart and then nothing. So why was he on Earth? He trails his eyes down to Lance’s shirt, which at first glance, he thought was his usual armor, but now that he’s looking at it, really looking at it, Lance is wearing a simple shirt. Or, a jersey? In bright blue lettering was the number 10 stitched right on the fabric.

Keith shifts his glance down to his own clothes and is surprised to find he had the exact same jersey, this time with a different number. And now that he’s looking, everyone has it. 

“I got hit in the head?” Keith questions slowly, furrowing his brows. Lance nods.

“With a soccer ball.” He confirms. 

“With a soccer ball.” He repeats because of course that makes sense. Which it doesn’t. He’s seen the Galra do many, terrible, unspeakable things such as attempt to steal their lions, terminate entire planets, and enslave thousands of innocent people. There was a point where he stopped being surprised at whatever horrid monstrosity they would commit next. Playing a round of intergalactic soccer on their home planet, Keith reasons, was not on that list. 

“Yeah,” Pidge scoffs next to him, “your amazing boyfriend here tried to murder you.”

Lance whips his head so fast that it was a blur in Keith’s eyes. “It was an accident! I was just trying to kick the ball when Keith, here, stepped into the way!” He hears Lance argue more but tunes it out as his mind snagged onto a certain word. Boyfriend? There was no way. His gaze lingers to Lance who defends himself weakly. That would mean… 

Oh god. No way. 

“I’m dead.” He says. “I’ve died.” 

He died while fighting Lotor. It’s the only thing that made sense.

This causes a laugh to escape Lance. “You’re not dead, Keith. Though clearly you tried your best. Your head shouldn’t have gotten in the way of my shot.”

Keith deadpans, his words automatic. “You mean the shot that you fired at my head.” 

Lance smiles and it’s bright, and mixed with something else Keith has trouble distinguishing. Relief? Softness? With a roll of his stomach he realizes it’s all directed at him and not Allura. The word boyfriend echoes in his head like a pinball. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Lance says quietly, “you really scared me there for a second.”

Keith is most certainly not feeling better. Quite the opposite. Internally his mind is screaming and he has no idea where he is, or what’s real or not. But he keeps all this quiet because Lance is speaking to him like that, and he sounds so genuinely relieved that Keith doesn’t have it in him to disagree. So instead he nods slowly and attempts to ignore the way his traitorous heart lurches and stalls in his throat.

Pidge slaps his back and causes him to recoil. “I’m glad you’re okay too, Keith. Besides we need our star player if we want to have a chance at wiping Lotor’s stupid grin off his stupid face tomorrow.” 

Keith nearly coughs out a lung. “Lotor?” He manages to breathe out because what the fuck. Is Lotor haunting his dying, possibly already dead dreams? There’s no logical explanation to any of it. He tilts his head to where the sun peeks between the tree caps and squints and even though he recognizes that it probably isn’t real, it looks real. And as he lifts a hand to the small bump on his head, it feels real too. 

“Okay, so maybe we spoke too soon about him feeling better.” 

“Our rival soccer team?” Lance looks at him expectantly and now Keith blanches. He can’t bring himself to react even when he knows Lance is expecting one. “…The Galra? They’re total dickwads. Led by the dickiest wad prince of them all. Any of that ring some bells?”

Rival soccer team? The Galra are their rival soccer team? He tries, and fails to imagine Lotor running around in a regular old soccer jersey. “Uh,” he bites out eloquently.

“You nearly punched Lotor in the face that one time. Keith, don’t tell me you have a concussion, and amnesia.” Lance gives him another one of those looks where he’s nothing but careful and concerned and it makes Keith’s heart twist painfully in his chest. It burns through his skull that he feels the need to shift his gaze to anywhere else. 

He shakes his head, though he’s not really sure who he’s convincing. “I’m okay. I guess… I forgot that our game is coming up so soon.” He says slowly, unsure of why he’s attempting to play along if he’s 90% sure this is some kind of death hallucination. 

But the relieved smile Lance gives convinces him it was worth it regardless. “Good. Cause we really are gonna need you if we want to finally beat those assholes.”

“Right.” He says. “Because we’re team—” he glances down to his jersey, “...Voltron.”

“Best team in the league.” Lance smiles up at him. “Well, almost. We still have a little bit to go for the tournament, but I really think we have a decent shot this year. Now that we got a brand new team captain,” he points a finger smugly into Keith’s chest where a tiny red ‘C’ is proudly displayed, “and Shiro stayed on to be our new coach, there’s no way we’re losing our championship to the Galra this time.” 

Lance stands, dusts the extra dirt and grass off his shorts, and then holds his hands in front of Keith. He frowns at the gesture, feeling like he went backward into some strange Alice in Wonderland hole. Was his afterlife imagining Voltron as a high school soccer team? He hopes not as he doesn’t know the first thing about the sport. So why is he here? Why is this the thing that comes to mind?

He lightly shakes his head and snaps his gaze to Lance who looked all the same as the Lance he remembers. From the way his hair swoops across his face, to the way his eyes, and even the way his eyebrows scrunches when he thinks about something too hard. Everything seems so vivid that Keith has no idea what to do with it. It’s almost taunting. It’s like Keith knows he should be back out there fighting Lotor with the team, he shouldn’t be alone and dying in some random corner of the quintessence field. But yet, there’s a Lance right in front of him and it makes him frown at the one he’s left behind. 

“Keith?” Lance prompts, looking down at him strangely. He still held his hands out for him to grab. 

“Sorry, just thinking.” He says, snapping himself away from his thoughts and meeting Lance’s hold. Lance pulls him to his feet as gently as he could.

“Is that a first for you?”

Keith scoffs but there’s no real heat to it. “Wow, you’re still annoying.” 

“And you’re still dating me.” 

Keith sputters because really, what is he supposed to respond to that? He isn’t really dating Lance. He couldn’t be. Lance doesn’t like him like that. He doesn’t. So he knows that this isn’t real.

What is this then?

Keith shakes his head in astonishment at everything around him. It feels like his entire universe blipped and got turned upside down. Is he dead? Is this what he really wants deep down? To play soccer for the rest of his life with Lotor as a soccer rival instead of something far more sinister? Instead of the Lotor that desperately wants to escape his father’s sins so much that he would risk everything to make that possible in one reality. 

Lance is staring at him again. He doesn’t look up but he can feel the eyes burn into his side like a brandishment. And it feels as hot as one too. The question cycles back inside him, swirling until something in his stomach squeezes. Is this what he really wants? 

His mouth goes dry and he has to swallow the way his heart spikes in his throat. He isn’t sure. He isn’t sure about anything. He remembers the way Lance normally looks and speaks to him, and it’s not like this. It’s not in a tentative concern, or soft speaking, or love-lorn glances. Maybe the teasing is familiar, but even then it’s slightly more subdued—like all the tension drained like water through a sifter. 

So what is this? Why is he here?

He screws his eyes shut and attempts to think back on the series of events that led him here. There was the quintessence field, Lotor, the different realities, and then Keith got split apart. His lion got flung on the other side of the quintessence field, right towards the glowing blue veins. Right towards the alternate realities. 

Oh.

He opens his eyes as the realization sets in, seeping deep into the corners of his brain. He got flung into the alternate realities. He’s on Earth, but a parallel version of Earth. It explains nearly every plaguing detail and he suddenly feels so dumb for not piecing it together sooner. It had been so obvious in hindsight. Allura mentioned they were infinite universes and that there were an infinite number of possibilities in each one. And in this one…

He focuses on the array of soccer balls strewn across the field, and tracks toward Pidge and Hunk passing one to each other mindlessly. This, he supposes, is in the infinite possibilities list. 

He’s in an alternate universe. 

He’s trapped in an alternate universe. 

He’s stuck in the one where they play soccer, and he’s dating Lance, and they're playing against the Galra for the championship. 

What the quiznak is he supposed to do now?

He blinks at the absurdity of it all.

He really can’t tell if he dodged a bullet by the peacefulness of this reality, or taunted by how simple it is. He sneaks a glance at Allura, who from the looks of it, just arrived to practice and her hair is tied in a high ponytail. Aside from the lack of alien features, the copy, or alternate version is still so much like her that he gets whiplash.

Lance, or the alternate reality version of Lance stops suddenly, and Keith, who hasn’t been paying attention to where they were walking, slams directly into his back.

“Sorry,” Keith winces, hating how much of a fool he’s made out of himself here. But at the very least Lance says nothing of it. 

“I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. I really didn’t mean to shoot you in the head, or… splash water on you.” He pauses, and as if he’s paranoid he gently prodes a finger to Keith’s forehead. When Keith stills under the touch, Lance drops his hand and sighs. “Honestly, I think you really freaked me out back there. You were, like, passed out or something and you didn’t wake up for like a minute. You really scared me, man. I don’t know what I would do if you hadn’t woken up.”

Lance’s tone is something so delicate and careful, and usually reserved for Allura that it makes Keith’s heart ache. He wants to physically reach out, to assure him he’s fine because it’s so much like Lance that it hurts. But he stops short because no matter how familiar he is, this, this , technically, isn’t his Lance. Everything he’s experienced in space, all the rivalry, all the late night conversations, and all the training sessions, they aren’t with this Lance. He has nothing with the Lance that’s in front of him, and yet everything about him sounds and looks so much like him that he could barely convince his mind of it. 

And Keith hates the way he can read him. How his expressions are so easily picked up after all the months that he had spent learning them. And right now, Lance’s eyes are filled with guilt and sadness and everything that he never wants to see on him. So maybe it’s a little ridiculous how Keith sends him a soft and understanding smile. And maybe it’s more ridiculous that Keith feels immediately better when alternate Lance’s expression clears. 

“You don’t have to worry. I’m okay, Lance.” Ridiculous. He is ridiculous. This isn’t his reality, these aren’t the people he grew to learn, they just resembled them. They’re another version of them. A different version. Keith knows this, of course he does. And he knows that the overwhelming urge to keep this Lance happy and smiling is probably absurd and well… ridiculous, but he really can’t help himself. 

Besides, knowing he’s in a different reality rather than dead made him feel substantially lighter. Chances are he could probably get out of this… eventually. 

And it technically wasn’t his first time in an alternate reality, and this one, so far, seemed significantly better than evil Alteans taking over the will of other alien species. So in terms of everything else it could’ve been, he considers this as a win. Though a short lived one if he can’t figure out how to get back. 

The last time he entered an alternate reality was with Voltron, and even that was confusing. Now it’s just him, and the Black Lion is nowhere in sight. The thought makes him frown because, theoretically, he still should be in his lion. He should’ve breached the universe while he was still in Black and although he vaguely knows how realities work, he figures Black should still be technically with him. But he isn’t and that leaves him with no clue how to get back home or group with the others. He idly wonders if the time is still passing in a different dimension. Was his team still fighting Lotor? Were they alive? Would he have a reality to get back to by the time he figured it out?

“Okay,” Lance breathes out in clear relief and it’s all the distraction Keith needs to rip him away from his spiraling thoughts. It’s in that moment, Keith feels incredibly lucky to end up where they still know each other. 

Well, a little more than know each other. 

He thinks the thought before he can stop himself and it causes a new wave of red to spread on his face. Why is this the reality he finds himself trapped in? The one with the subtle detail that Lance and him were… dating. That they were together. As in more than friends. Boyfriends, if you will. Real and actual boyfriends. As in actually going on dates, and being romantic, and cuddling, and probably calling each other cheesy pet names and oh god. It’s too much. It’s definitely too much. 

It shouldn’t even be surprising, the rational part of him muses. He should think nothing of it because infinite realities means infinite… anything. Like if the universe was a deck of cards and every time it got shuffled, the order changes, and the events become altered just a little more. Or in this case, he thinks, the cards got shuffled a little too much and in this reality, Lance never goes to Allura. He goes to him. He goes to Keith. So what if in some universes that logic is bound to happen at least one time or another. It really shouldn’t surprise him. It shouldn’t feel too backward and strange because by logic, the cards can be swapped and switched and turned into an order so unfamiliar. At least in one reality, this one was inevitable. 

It shouldn’t surprise him, and yet, as his eyes flick down to their interlocking hands, it really does. 

It really, really does.

“Keith, I saw what happened. Are you alright?” Shiro stands up and gives a concerned look. And even though he knows that like Lance, this isn’t his Shiro either. None of them are. And yet Keith can’t help his stare. He fought Shiro. Just hours before. Shiro was at his throat with his metallic arm and controlled by something else. It was haunting and now this version of Shiro is right in front of him with purely black hair and two human arms. It was exactly how he looked before the Kerberos mission and Keith suddenly feels like he’s seeing double. 

Logic told him he entered an alternate reality, but looking at Shiro right here, he thinks he actually believes it. 

“Keith?” Shiro asks again, his eyes crinkling as he squints down. He places down his clipboard on the bench and shifts closer as if inspecting. 

“I’m fine.” He croaks and not even he is convinced at the tone that comes out. 

Shiro gives him a disbelieving look and raises an eyebrow. It’s the same Shiro look he’s been given on numerous occasions. It’s strange coming from this one though and he can’t help but to feel he got transported back to the Garrison and like he’s about to give Keith a stern lecture after a failed test.

“I’m fine.” He repeats again and it comes much more believing than the first. 

Shiro turns to the boy next to him. “Lance, are you trying to kill my little brother again?” 

Now it’s Lance who sputters, verging on the edge of panic. “No! I would never. This time was an accident, I swear! I mean, I know I used to mess with him purposefully, but that was ages ago and things change, you know,” he slings an arm around Keith’s shoulder and uses his other hand to wave it around wildly. 

Shiro watches them in amusement and cracks a smile. “I’m messing with you, Lance. I’m actually proud of how far you two have come. I think if that rivalry continued any longer I probably would’ve quit on the spot.”

Keith’s brain nearly short-circuits. Rivalry. Lance and Keith were rivals in this reality. He can’t tell if the fact is oddly comforting, or if it only freaks him out more. Surely, surely the deck of cards was shuffled an outrageous and unrecognizable amount. But then again, listening to Lance and Shiro right here, he isn’t as certain.

“Hope we didn’t cause you too many gray hairs, Shiro.” Lance teases and even though there’s no harm in the joke, Keith has to hold back his laughter from the irony. Shiro sterns a glare, looking discernibly less amused.

“Oh don’t worry, number three, I actually did spot a gray hair right on the center of Shiro’s head the other day.” Coran interrupts, twirling his mustache like it’s a matter of fact. Keith isn’t even sure where he comes from but he can make out the similarities immediately. The only real difference is the distinct lack of Altean markings and pointed ears. 

“Wha—Coran! You’re supposed to be on my side here.” Shiro says, appalled.

Coran twists his mustache once more, tilting his head. “I am? Why’s that?”

“We’re both coaches.”

“Right, but I’m the team manager. Which means I’m on no one’s side.” Coran counters, holding up a finger at the correction.

“Also I’m number ten,” Lance butts in, gesturing to the lettering on his shirt, “not three.”

“Ah, I see.” Coran nods. “But not in terms of height you’re not.”

Keith stifles a laugh. Okay, so maybe there were a little more similarities than he originally thought. The cards were half-shuffled at best. The most distinguishing difference being a lack of space war. The people, (apart from some minor details), were less so. They’re all still on a team, they’re still technically fighting the Galra, and they’re all still similar in personalities. 

Keith starts to zone out as the three continue to banter around. And although it’s an unreasonable thought, he wants to think they all somehow found each other in every reality too. Somehow. And maybe they would always be on a team in one way or another. He steals a glance to the matching jerseys, a small smile crossing his lips. He looks across the field to see Hunk, Pidge, and Allura passing a soccer ball to each other. 

Unlike his own, he couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy at how uncomplicated this reality seemed. They weren’t placed in a war, there were no aliens, or alien ships, here it’s just… soccer. 

Bittersweet crosses over his tongue. 

As soon as he figures out a way back to his home, he would have to devise a way to save his, and all realities from an intergalactic sociopath. He frowns and even though he looks to be right in front of him, he wishes he could talk to his Shiro. Not coach of the soccer team Shiro, who apparently is his big brother, but his own Shiro that he grew up with nonetheless. Just like how he wishes he could talk to his own Lance. He would probably have an idea to get them out, or at the very least be able to cheer him up because Lance seemed to have an uncanny ability to do just that. 

“Now get the others over here. I have a new drill I want to test out.” Keith tunes back in to hear Shiro say and then immediately wants to take back his jealousy of this reality. He doesn’t know how to play soccer. He doesn’t even know how to play any sports. He never learned. 

But Lance is a bundle of excitement and holds Keith’s hand to get the others before Keith could protest that maybe his head is hurting after all, so he should sit this practice out. But now it’s too late and the others group up, hearing whatever drill Shiro wants to try.

Well, quiznak, Keith thinks to himself dryly. He is going to look like a total and complete idiot. 

He sends a silent plea that Black hears his calls of distress and comes to pick him up so they can fly out. His call is clearly unanswered as no alien space ship comes into view and startles everyone on this Earth. 

He really doesn’t understand it. There was no portal he came through, or no lion he came here with, so how in quiznak’s name was he meant to escape? Without a concrete way to get back, he feels lost. Why had he just awoken in the middle of the field? Is he supposed to be doing something? Is his team dying at this moment because Keith was trapped at some random soccer reality?

He feels an arm jab in his side and his eyes meet with Lance who simply raises an eyebrow to him. He knows he wasn’t paying attention to a word Shiro was saying. Of course Lance could read him so easily in this reality too. In response, he centers his gaze back toward Shiro who was holding his clipboard, drawing some hasty diagram which Keith could only translate as a series of randomly curved lines. 

Shiro explains, mapping out the circles more with the pen in his hands but the words are lost on Keith. He doesn’t know the first thing about soccer besides kicking a ball around and scoring, he especially doesn’t understand any of the terms he’s listening to. Striker? Middie? Formations? Even when he attempts to listen, the words are lost on him. 

“Alright, everyone got it?” Shiro finishes and almost everyone nods their head. Oh. Perfect. A wonderful reminder that he is the only one here that will be horrifically confused. He suddenly feels the ache so strong to go home that it physically hurts. Shiro clears his throat, “okay, let’s try it out.”

Keith has no idea what he’s doing.

He learns pretty quickly that he is utterly horrible at soccer. Even something as simple as kicking the ball becomes trouble for him. It doesn’t help that the first time he tried, attempting for a short pass to Allura, he trips over his own feet and collapses on the grass. Of course Allura was nothing but understanding, he still was completely horrified at his idiocy. The second time he tried, it had only gone a bit better, though marginally because the ball still fumbled too short. 

He knows it’s probably ludicrous to prefer fighting in a war where they were constantly scraping by with their lives than kicking a soccer ball around a field, and yet, as he kept making a fool out of himself, he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

To make it worse, his team was actually good. Like really, really good, and that only made him feel all that much more out of place. He supposes it makes sense. He went to a reality where playing soccer was who they were, and yet he still found himself surprised when they made some kind of cool move. On constant occasions, he has to remind himself that these are not really the friends he knows. He isn’t even sure if his Allura knows what soccer is. But this Allura certainly does and she had no problem showing it off. She played a defense position, along with Hunk and judging how Lance and Pidge had trouble forming attacks with them, he assumed they were talented. They kicked and ran like they were in their element, and in a way, Keith figures they are. 

And then there’s Lance. 

Lance, because of course it’s Lance, is in Keith’s opinion, the most fun to watch. He’s probably the most dynamic of all the players. He’s lean and fast and uses it entirely to his advantage. Keith learns the hard way that going against him was not ideal and he will make you stumble around like an idiot. And Keith considers himself somewhat graceful on his feet, considering all his training in sword fighting, but Lance makes him stumble around as if he only recently sprouted legs. In the several instances where he tries to kick the ball away from him, Lance, at the last second, swerves and uses all the built up momentum against him. Another time Lance has the audacity to kick the ball in the gaps of his feet.

And, okay, maybe it doesn’t help that Keith is terrible at soccer.

Like absurdly and hopelessly bad. 

That much becomes very clear if his awkward stumbling over the ball is anything to go by. Though exerting himself through physical exercise is something he’s familiar with. It made for a good distraction, if only temporarily. Because as time ticks further, and Keith makes out the sun dipping silently under the tips of the trees, he was beginning to border on the edges of impatience. 

If he has to guess, a little more than an hour has passed and he’s still hopelessly stranded on a reality that isn’t his own with people that aren’t his friends. Well, technically they are his friends—some versions of them, but not the ones he’s grown to work with and that only makes the frustration simmer down his throat. 

He doesn’t know if he’s grateful that he ended up in a reality where they were still a team, or if it only made it more painful. Everywhere he looks, he’s surrounded by their faces, and their voices, and their laughter, and it hurts. He isn’t even sure why it hurts so much. Shouldn’t he be happy, at least in one universe, that they were innocent and joyous and not kids in a thousand year war. Shouldn’t he be happy that while he was away from them, they were all still, in a way, right next to him. 

But he isn’t because it hurts and he has no idea how to get back to the ones he really knows. He’s stuck here because he can’t call Black, he can’t communicate without his helmet, and he’s just stuck. He’s stuck with no means of getting back. He’s stuck completely and hopelessly alone.

He wishes more than anything he had actually paid attention when the Garrison went over the alternate universe theory. But he didn’t and he barely knows how anything works. Is time passing differently? Is time passing at all? Is it anything like the quantum abyss? Is his team still fighting Lotor without Voltron? Are they still alive? The questions posed no answers as he helplessly kicked a soccer ball around and that makes the anger only seeth deeper into his skin. 

For everything he’s worth, he can’t get the Black Lion to come. He can’t even feel the presence in his mind. 

Instead all he can do is wind up the shot, using all his frustration and force to kick the ball hard enough to feel his toes cramp under his cleet. To his own surprise, the ball gets enough decent height and speed, before clanging right on the crossbar of the net and flinging right back at Keith. He lets out an exasperated groan, and barely notices that the next time he tries to kick it, he misses entirely and instead hits Lance’s shin. Hard.

Lance crumples to the ground before Keith could even register what he had done. 

“Lance!” He breathes, anger dissolving into guilt. “Are you okay?”

He smiles wryly. “I was coming over to ask you the same thing.” He admits, rubbing his leg where a giant red mark was forming. “You seem a little distracted.”

Keith narrows his eyes, cursing once again how of course Lance could read him here. Of course he seems to know when Keith is distracted and frustrated and all things he really shouldn’t pick up on because he isn't Lance's Keith. He isn’t. 

“I’m fine.” He says and internally winces at how low it comes out. He winces again when he can see the visible hurt on Lance’s face. The way his brows pinch and tug in a look that looks all too familiar that it makes Keith feel even worse.

“Are you?”

“I’m fine, Lance.”

It’s a lie. They both know it. The way Lance looks at him confirms it. As much as he wants to deny it, Keith knows the expression, he’s seen it enough times on his Lance. But this isn’t his Lance and he couldn’t help but scowl at that. 

“Keith,”

“Don’t.” He warns. He really doesn’t think he can stand to hear it. He can’t even stand to look at him. His lips are curved and his eyes are heavy and they remind him all too much of the one faced in an intergalactic war and he hates it. He hates that he’s here and he doesn’t understand how or why, or if there even is a way out, and above all, he hates that Lance is here too. It feels like a constant reminder for who he’s losing and he doesn’t know if he can take it. 

He shakes his head, anger still muddling through his mind until it’s hard to breathe, but when he glances back, there’s guilt there too. Lance looks like Keith just kicked him in the face as well and Keith’s voice drops. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t—I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t be here.”

“Keith,” Lance tries again but it’s muted in his mind. His ears are ringing too much to pick up on anything else. With what, he’s not even sure. Guilt? Anger? Because really, he’s not sure what he’s so angry at. This alternate universe? Lotor? Himself? He has no idea.

What he does know is that Lance is speaking again, he can vaguely pick it up, but he can’t bring himself to look. So instead he turns away and it’s probably stupid. Definitely childish. Without a doubt immature, but Keith runs anyway. He obviously can’t run away from his problems, no matter how hard he may try, but right now, he can’t really face them anyway. So he runs until he stops under a tree, far enough away from the soccer field, and sits down. 

He’s not even sure what he should be expecting. Everything seems so stupid. It really feels like a dumb problem when he thinks about it. And yet when he screws his eyes shut and wills for Black to come in and fly him out of here, he hates how there’s no answer. He hates that for all he can do, in this case he was useless. He feels the tears prick behind his eyes but he could barely even let them fall. So instead he shuts his eyes once more and tries to feel the bond, presence, anything to indicate the Black Lion was ever there in the first place.

Nothing.

Nothing comes.

Nothing answers. 

Nothing even snags in his mind. 

He’s alone. There’s no one that could ever save, or find him here, and he wonders if he’ll ever return again. If he’s truly and completely stuck here and this is his new reality. It makes him want to tear his throat out that of all the people here, no one is there. It’s cruel and ugly and he wants to rip everything else out of place so it could feel a fraction of familiarity. To shred all of it apart right between his fingers so that it’s something recognizable and discernable in his eyes.

“What the hell, man?” A voice snaps at him and he doesn’t even have to glance up to know who it is. It’s the only person dumb enough to ever follow him when he lashes out. And it always is every single time. Even the alternate universe version, apparently.

“Go away, Lance.” He says, low. It’s harsh but he can’t stand to hear anything. He thinks it would hurt too much. 

Though Lance, as always, doesn’t listen to him. He doesn’t move away, or even falter. “No.” He responds just as cold. “Not until you tell me what’s up with you. Why’d you snap back there? You seemed so distracted and now you won’t even tell me?”

Keith is quiet. There’s a sudden lump in his throat that no matter how many times he tries to swallow it down, it remains lodged. And maybe for that reason, he feels the air in his lungs isn’t enough anymore. He feels like he’s suffocating on oxygen he hardly recognizes. 

“So now what? You’re just shutting me out?” Lance speaks again and it’s harsh—probably harsher than even he was expecting. Keith once again has nothing to say. What could he say? There’s nothing he can bring himself to do or say that would make it any better for either of them. “You can’t even look at me.” His voice cracks at the end of it. 

And he’s right. Keith can’t. He’s sure that if he does he’ll break down right then and there and tell Lance everything. His resolve will crumble right before him and there would be nothing he could do to stop it. The pieces would be too scattered to pick up. So instead he fixes his gaze to the grass he’s idly plucking through his fingers.  “Why do you even care?” He rasps out.

“Why do I even—what? Keith, are you kidding?”

“I’m not. What are you doing here, Lance? Why are you here? I didn’t ask you to be.” The question is unfair. It’s unfair and bitter and he knows that it isn’t even Lance’s fault, but he has to ask it regardless. He has to rip into the universe, or universes, just to remind it of how unsympathetic it really truly is. Why put him here of all places? Why put him here when it reeks of peace and contempt and longing. When it’s nothing like Keith has ever known and still entirely too reminding that it hurts.

Because all of it feels wrong. It’s backward and distorted and it’s even more strange that underneath all his anger and helplessness, there’s envy stuck in there too. He wants to exhume it all and tape right over the cracks so none of it stings as much as it does. 

“I think the real question is why are you here, Keith?” Lance replies and the words cut right through him, right where it bleeds. “There’s clearly something bothering you but you won’t tell me! You can’t just keep snapping and shutting everyone out and running away!”

The words are a low blow, but it does get Keith to snap his head up, and maybe that was the goal. 

“I’m not running away!” He spits out. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re not running away?” Lance practically scoffs. “Then what’s this, Keith? What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know!” 

“You don’t know!?”

“I don’t know.” He repeats and it’s weak and torn that he hardly recognizes it as himself speaking. But at the very least, this gets Lance to snap his mouth shut. He’s quiet and Keith allows himself to suck in a breath. It feels hollow and strained in his lungs. 

Lance stares again, and this time, Keith can’t pull apart the expression. “You don’t know?” He asks again and it’s far more softer than the first. 

“I have no idea,” he says against his better judgment. “I don’t think I should be here, but I am. And you are too and it’s…” He trails off, unsure of why he’s even admitting any of this. 

“It’s what?” Lance asks gently, the anger dissipating and being left with nothing but curiosity, if a little bit of caution. Either way it’s simple and genuine, like he just really wants to know.

“Painful.” He finishes.

“...Me being here is… painful?

“Yes. No? Maybe? I don’t know.” Keith admits, tugging at the ends of the grass between his fingers. 

“Is this about me? Did I do something?” It’s asked so quietly that he can barely pick it up. As if he was entirely uncertain and he doesn’t want to know the answer.  

“No.” He says. “You didn’t do anything.”

Lance studies him for a long moment before he lets out a heavy sigh and sits down right next to Keith. “Are you going to tell me?” He asks quietly. 

“I don’t think I can.” Keith says sadly. 

“Keith,”

“I know it’s stupid. You’re right here, but I also feel like you’re…in a whole different universe, and you’re not here to help me.”

“I can’t help you? What are you talking about?”

Keith shakes his head. What is he talking about? He doesn’t even know, and he sure as hell can’t explain it. If he’s smart he would stop talking before he says too much. 

But when he glances it’s so easy to forget that this Lance is anyone different. That he wasn’t the same boy that we went into space with, or the same boy that challenged him with whatever he did, or the same boy who’d been heart-rippingly honest about himself or his place on the team. This isn’t the one that supports him unconditionally, or is his right-hand as a leader. It’s easy to forget this isn’t his Lance.

And maybe it’s because the two, just for a moment, merged so seamlessly in his mind that it deliriously possessed him to explain further. Because he needs something, something , that reminds him of him. And the boy sitting next to him is a near perfect copy. 

“I don’t know why I’m here,” he blurts at last, surprising even himself. “I don’t think I know anything. I’m just so confused and I feel like I don’t belong here and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Keith, what—“

“And it’s hard because I’m not me, and you’re not you. And… I’m not… I can’t,” Against his will, he sniffles his nose, “I don’t know what to do.”

Lance furrows his brows in thought, clearly trying and failing to piece together Keith’s words. He can only imagine how they must sound to Lance. How it’s nonsensical and a little ominous, but now that the words are tumbling out, he doesn’t think he can stop them, and that’s the real danger. And maybe Keith is a little too tired to care of what they may do because this part, he thinks, this part he recognizes the tune. The lyrics are changed, but the melody is so distinctly there. 

“You don’t know what to do,” Lance prompts gently, finally gaining the courage to respond, “about what?”

“Everything,” he replies. “There’s so much, and so many people are counting on me, but I don’t… I don't know what to do, or where I am, or how to fix any of it.”

“You feel like you’re lost?”

“I feel like I’m in the wrong place.” Keith corrects hoarsely. “Like I’m not supposed to be here.”

Lance takes a moment to let this sink in, and even then he looks unsure. “Keith, I’ll be honest, you’re scaring me a little.” 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” Keith stumbles out, realizing that without the context he has, his words to Lance might sound slightly concerning. He takes a moment to form his thoughts carefully. “I just—I just feel a little trapped. Like I’m supposed to do something but I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. And that’s the problem. I don’t know what to do, Lance.”

It probably doesn’t even make sense. This Lance’s Keith—Soccer Keith—shouldn’t feel trapped. His existence is so simple and he has everything. Everything that Keith could ever want and it hurts that he can’t have. He isn’t burdened by a war, he doesn’t have everyone rely on his decisions. To Lance, this kind of pain really shouldn’t even make sense and he almost expects him to scoff at him. To say he’s being absurd and there’s nothing he has to do other than be here. There’s no wacky sense of duty he has to appeal to and there’s no greater world to save. But Lance doesn’t say any of those things.

Instead he asks a little hesitant, a little cautious, “Why do you think there’s something you have to do?” 

“Because I feel like I’m failing people if I’m not. Because I’m—“ he looks down at his jersey which was now littered with dirt. “I’m the team’s captain and I know people are relying on me.”

“But…but that doesn’t mean you have to figure it all out alone.” Lance says and he shifts his body so that they’re sitting so close to each other. Keith can practically feel his shoulder scrape. “Look, I don’t think I entirely know what you’re going through, and I don’t think I fully understand, but that doesn’t mean I’m not here. It’s okay for us to figure it out together. We’re a team, Keith. That’s what makes a team. We rely on each other, and you’ll have every one of us to help you along the way.”

Keith blinks. It was eerily similar to what Lance had said earlier. The one still in his reality, and the one aimed at Allura. He really doesn’t know how Lance can pick apart any situation and be able to say something so simple and so obvious that it redirects people in the right direction, but at the moment he’s really not complaining. It’s something he’d always admired, and it was no wonder Lance was the one that was able to reel him in when he got a little too impulsive, his head a little too clouded. 

“Even you?”

“No, Keith,” he deadpans. “I delivered all that just to leave you alone when it matters.” Against everything, Keith cracks a small smile because it probably was a stupid thing to ask. Then again he wonders which Lance he really asked it to. 

“I’ll be here.” Lance answers anyway after a moment. “Whatever you need, whenever, lay it on me and I’ll be there. I’m your guy.”

“You’re my guy?”

“I’m your guy.” He nods, smiling and Keith can’t help but match it. He wonders if Lance is the same in all realities. He wonders if he and Lance somehow found each other in all realities because he likes to hope so. There’s something that feels right about them together, no matter what it is. Rivals, friends, lovers, it doesn’t matter as long as they’re next to each other. 

“If that’s the case then I really don’t know how to play soccer.” Keith says and even though it’s entirely the truth, it causes Lance to chuckle. 

“You were pretty terrible.” He admits. “But then again, so am I when there’s something on my mind. You’ll be okay, Keith.”

“And what if…what if it isn’t? What if I’m stuck and still absolutely horrible at soccer?”

“You won’t be, trust me on this, Kogane, and believe me when I say I’ve been praying for your soccer downfall since the moment we met,” he says and even now, Keith finds it in him to snort and roll his eyes at the comment. “But this isn’t it. Things will have a way of working itself out, you just gotta be patient enough to let it. Whatever you’re stressed about, it’ll find a way to be okay. Everything will fall into place and you’ll have us to help you figure it out along the way.”

“Everything will fall into place.” Keith repeats and it’s everything he needed to hear. And like a piece settles its way back into his chest, he feels significantly better. “I just gotta be patient.”

Lance nods, seeming pleased. “Yeah, what’s that thing Shiro always says? You know, the one about patience.”

“Patience yields focus.” He recites automatically, despite himself.

“Yeah, or you know, something like that.”

“Or something like that.” Keith agrees, realizing it could very well be slightly different under this reality. Though out of all things, the small change doesn’t feel so drastic anymore. “You know, you’re not so bad, Lance.”

“Well, duh. That’s what I’ve been trying to convince you of all this time.”

“I’m not sure you’ve been doing a very good job then.”

Lance flashes him a smile and bumps their shoulders. “Still got you to like me though, didn’t I?” 

“I suppose you did.” He says because not even he can deny the truth. He does like Lance. He likes his version. He misses his version, which he thinks is kind of ridiculous since there’s one right in front of him, and this one actually likes him back. But he himself is pretty ridiculous as well so maybe it’s not surprising. And maybe if the two did find each other in all realities, it wouldn’t be surprising if Keith liked him in every single one. Though, clearly, the same couldn’t be true about Lance and it makes him frown. 

“C’mon,” Lance interrupts his thoughts and lifts a hand to his. “The others were pretty worried when you stormed off. They’ll want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Or you could kick another soccer ball at my head so I won’t have to make a fool out of myself again.”

This causes Lance to laugh, really laugh and it makes Keith’s heart twist painfully in his chest. “I think that can be arranged. They do call me a sharpshooter for a reason, you know.”

“Oh, believe me,” he says, “I know.”

He takes his hands and lets himself be pulled up for the second time that day. Out of all universes to be temporarily stuck in, he supposes this one isn’t all bad. 

Keith doesn’t know the set of rules that the universe has splayed out in front of him. He hardly believes that there even is a series of particular rules for this—for breaching an entirely different reality, so far from all he’s ever been accustomed to. But for the sake of his mind, he likes to imagine there is, in some sense, a foundation for it. And to what? He isn’t even quite clear on it. But what he does know is part of it has to do with Lance. That no matter which version he can place a foothold that grounds Keith and keeps him walking. 

And in a weird way, he knows he always has. That when Lance says something just so—in the same voice that’s directed right toward him, it trudges through the thick of his mind and somehow lands. Like a shot that’s fired so purposefully, it hits the mark and every single time, and the response is instantaneous. Keith feels calmer, he feels lighter. He can hear himself think. 

It might be unfair that the effect is something so natural to his core. And he hates to admit that he does, unequivocally and irrationally feels ten times better than he had before. It might be a little ridiculous, he didn’t even tell Lance everything and Lance probably hardly knew what Keith needed to hear, and yet, he hit all the targets perfectly. 

Everything will fall back into place and the universe has a way of making it happen , Lance had said and Keith turns over the words in his mind like they keep it functioning. He keeps cycling back to them because it was something he needed to latch onto. They meant he wouldn’t be stuck here forever. He would be okay. If he got himself into this mess he could get himself out at least one way or another. He just needs to let himself figure out how. That shouldn’t be too hard…right? Maybe if he lets a certain number of events play out, or if he figures out a way to communicate with the Black Lion, or if he asks Hunk and Pidge about the logistics of alternate realities. 

Besides, it was as Lance said, he could figure it out and he would have them with every step of the way. In one sense or another, it holds enough truth. He trusts his team, and maybe that’s enough to trust the slightly different versions. 

The idea only cements in his mind when the team waves them over, their smiles warm and relieved that Keith had come back. Judging by their apparent worry he isn’t sure how common other soccer-playing Keith storms off in the middle of practice, but if he has to guess—it’s not often. Hunk crushes him in a hug and apologizes for something Keith doesn’t even know what. 

Luckily, by this time, practice was winding down and they settled into groups of circles to mindlessly pass the ball around. And this, this Keith can actually handle. There’s no complicated footwork, no fancy dribbling, no scrambling across the field—it’s just passing. It was at least one thing he didn’t feel hopelessly terrible at, not when it was so simple. Even if it was still slightly awkward and foreign, he did get better at controlling where the ball went when he kicked it. In part that was due to Lance suggesting to kick the ball on the side of his foot. If anyone found it weird that soccer prodigy Keith needed a novice reminder on how to kick the ball, no one said anything. 

Instead, they chatted mindlessly, and Keith slipped into the familiarity of the conversation. Maybe it wasn’t exactly his version of his friends, but they certainly had enough similarities for it. Hunk still liked to cook, Pidge was still considered a genius, and Allura, minus the white hair and pointy ears, still carried to group with her rationale. 

It’s strange, though not unfamiliar.

“Keith, are you even listening?” He hears Pidge ask, snapping him back into the present.

“Uh, what?” He replies dumbly. 

“We’re going to Sal’s for milkshakes after this, are you in?”

Keith blinks at the offer. Sure, milkshakes sound tempting, especially after he miserably failing at trying to do this random sport took a lot of his energy up. But if he is trying to get home, shouldn’t he do what he can to try and figure it out? A weird sense of guilt pangs its way into his chest at the thought of it. 

And yet, figuring out how to get back draws a massive blank in his mind. Even if he could attempt to do something, what would he do?

“I’m not sure if I should.” Keith settles for eventually. His reality’s team could be dying for all he knew and he was offered milkshakes. It seems strangely unfair even if he’s aware of the helplessness he’s in.

Hunk stares at him in disbelief, “you’re telling me that you don’t want a milkshake right now?”

“No. Or, I mean, yes? But I don’t know if I should.”

“Why not?”

“I got… uh, homework. And stuff.” It’s a pathetic excuse and he knows everyone can see through it the moment it’s spoken aloud. Judging by the disbelieved stares, if he has to make an assumption, alternate Keith did not use that phrase very often

“Homework?!” Pidge gawks at him, confirming his theory. “There’s no way you just said you got homework as an excuse. You are not the real Keith, there is no way.”

“I do homework!” No, he didn’t. 

“Not that I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m a great student.” Keith defends feebly. He wasn’t. Probably not in any realities. Sure, he was a prodigy in the simulators, and he got decent enough scores on tests and courses, but he never really cared all that much. Sitting still for hours in a classroom was not something he excelled at.

Pidge must know this too because she scoffs like the idea is preposterous. “Pretty sure you are, like, two seconds away from dropping out at any given moment.”

“Given how much he talks about it, I'm surprised he hasn’t already.” Allura says, joining in.

“Pidge and I made bets on how far you would last.” Hunk admits, absently kicking the soccer ball in his direction.

Keith looks at his team, dubious. “Are you all praying for my downfall?”

“Betting on your downfall.” Pidge corrects with a smug grin. “Besides, we make bets about lots of things in your life, like how long until you and your idiot figure out your feelings and get together. That sexual tension was really putting a damper on our team building.”

“You made a bet about Lance and I?!”

“Oh yeah.” She confirms, nodding. “And I won so I think it was worth it.”

“You won by a week, Pidge.” Hunk argues, giving her a glare.

“And it was the best week of my life. ”

“You’re all nosey,” Lance says, “and need different hobbies. Hobbies that don’t include betting on my love life.”

“It was just so obvious to everyone but yourselves.” Pidge shrugs. “It’s my fault you two are oblivous dumb dumbs. Betting was just so easy and the only way for us to keep our sanity.”

“We were not that bad!”

“Oh I can assure you, you were.” She clears her throat and drops her voice down as many octaves as she can, “oh, Lance,” she starts in a broody manner that sounds suspiciously like Keith, “despite my emo exterior, I secretly yearn for our bonding moment and I will bottle all the oceans on Earth if it means to see your glorious sun-filled smile.”

Keith sputters, and even though the sun is slowly sinking, he swears he feels it beat down on his ears. “That—” he shakes his head— “does not sound like me at all!”

Hunk cracks a playful smile. “No, that was perfect. And then Lance would be all—“ He flips his hair and intertwines his hands with Pidge. “Keith!” He says with a flair of exaggerated dramatics, “Keith, your stupid mullet drives me crazy but in a good way, and I think about you all the time, and I will now create a rivalry to hide all my underlying respect and admiration that I actually have for you!” 

“What?!” Lance squawks, “that’s not—”

“Oh, Lance,” Pidge continues, voicing no mind to Lance’s protests, “you are the most endearing idiot I’ve ever met. Let’s hold hands and have our wedding underneath the stars and go on roadtrips together because I can’t stand being apart from you!”

“Oh, Keith, if only you liked me back and understood the true extent of my feelings!”

“Terrible!” The real Lance interjects, throwing a ball at the two and disrupting their performance, “you are all terrible!”

Allura giggles in amusement. “I thought it was rather cute.”

“Maybe they were cute at first, but their constant running their feelings around in circles for months was not.”

Hunk nods. “Yeah, do you know how many times Lance would bring up Keith’s name when he wasn’t around. ‘Oh, I bet Keith could easily make that trickshot. Oh, if anyone could make that play work, it’ll be Keith. Oh, Keith would make the best captain for sure, don’t you think? Oh, have you noticed how Keith’s hair got less than a centimeter shorter, do you think he’s planning on cutting the mullet? Oh, I know I make fun of it all the time, but is it weird that I don’t want him to cut it? His hair is probably really soft, you know? Oh, do you ever notice in the sunlight Keith’s eyes almost look like a really cool shade of purple and—hey, Hunk, why are you looking at me like that? These are all perfectly reasonable things to notice.’ ” Hunk shakes his head with a bemused smile. 

“And then Keith would say something like ‘ hey, Pidge, do you ever notice that Lance keeps staring at me? Do you think he still hates me? I really don’t want him to hate me.’ ’’

Keith reaches a hand for the tips of his hair. It’s grown longer over the months in space and against his better judgment, he can't help but wonder how much similarities track in his reality. Lance does constantly bring up the length and Keith can only assume that if given the chance and a pair of scissors, Lance would chop it short. 

Or would he?

Your stupid mullet drives me crazy but in a good way.

His hair is probably really soft.

Keith mentally shoves the thoughts deep underground in his brain. He definitely should not think along these lines. They were a dangerous line to tread. If his mind continued with a train of wondering and attempting to pick apart all the differences and similarities, he’d probably go insane. 

“Okay, okay, okay, okay. We get the point.” Lance holds his hands up in defeat. “We were oblivious and dense. Happy?”

“Not until you convince your boyfriend to ditch his homework and join us for milkshakes.”

“Why can’t you convince him?”

“Did you not hear all the words we just said?” Pidge deadpans. Lance simply shrugs in response. “Oh my god you dense idiot, you make his heart go all gooey and ickey and he would do anything for you to be happy. He literally can’t say no to you.”

“That’s not true!” Keith argues, crossing his arms. He really wishes the sun would go away for good because he feels like he’s burning now. “I’m perfectly capable of saying no.”

Pidge raises an eyebrow. “Are you?”

“Yes. Do your worst, Lance.”

Vrepit Sal’s, as Keith learns, is not an ice cream parlor, but a diner. 

It’s a somewhat small diner too, located just outside of the town square and a less than ten minute walk from the field, and maybe for that reason Keith can assume that the group comes here often after their practices. Or maybe it’s because the diner has a homey feel, the theme being retro… enough. The tables are just a little crooked, and the walls are slightly chipped in the old wear of paint, but everything else is new. It created something of an interesting contrast, though not terrible.

In fact, if Keith had gone under different, better circumstances, he might’ve actually appreciated the comfort a little more. After spending years in space, eating all sorts of strange meals that look like amalgamations of foreign plants and meats, the simplicity of a diner is a welcome sight. He forgot just how much he missed the scent of familiar grilled foods until the scent wafts in his nose. He forgot how much he misses home. How much he misses Earth. 

He remembers one night, way back into their first months in space, Lance rambled about Earth’s constellations, and the rain, and oceans, and his family, and all the things he desperately wished he could see again, if only temporarily. Keith listened because it was late and everyone else was asleep, though he didn’t think he could fully understand it. There was really nothing left for him on Earth. Everyone he’s ever made friends with was up in space. But Lance talked anyway and Keith latched onto every word because he didn’t think Lance could be so genuine for as long as he talked. To be so open and honest and vulnerable. It had been so different to the one that challenged him whenever he could. 

Though now, he thinks he understands a little more. There was nothing in space that could replicate Earth. Not really. And as much as he would never admit it, not even Hunk’s cooking whenever he tried to make their favorite Earth foods. Though in his defense, they were impressive with the limited ingredients he had, but still, the smell was no where close to this. 

He nearly feels nauseous from the familiarity of it all. And it only makes him feel more nauseous when he thinks of Lance that night and how much he was aching to go back home. It feels almost unfair that Keith is here and not him. 

“Back from practice already?” A worker asks, staring at them expectantly. It’s a woman with blonde hair and Keith barely has to read the nametag to recognize that it’s Romelle. He blinks at her. She looks like a normal preppy high schooler that it almost causes him whiplash. “I do hope you’re preparing well for tomorrow.” She says. “I think everyone here wants that arrogant team dragged in the mud.” 

“Oh we can assure you the Galra is going down this year, for sure.” Lance responds, nodding proudly. 

“After you gave our star player a concussion, I’m not so sure.” Pidge teases.

“What—Pidge! He doesn’t have a concussion, I didn’t hit him that hard!”

Romelle chokes on a laugh, clearly used to their antics and it makes Keith wonder just how much they go to the diner after practice. She turns to Allura, “you know, I thought dating would lessen their chances of them almost killing each other.”

“You’d be surprised.” Allura shakes her head, smiling. 

“You know we can still hear you. We’re right here.” Lance says, “and besides, this time was an accident, I swear.”

“He keeps saying that but none of us believe him.” Allura whispers and Romelle giggles. 

“Allura!” He grumbles, causing the two to only laugh harder. “Keith, back me up on this. Tell everyone that you’re fine and I’m a great boyfriend and I never try to kill you.” 

Keith doesn’t think he could ever get used to the word. More specifically, he doesn’t think he could get used to Lance saying the word. All of it directed at him. 

“Lance gave me brain damage.” He says instead because it’s the only thing that comes into his flustered mind.

“Wha—“ Everyone is laughing now Allura’s and Romelle’s giggling is too infectious to not join along. And Keith can’t help himself, he smiles. It’s too easy to mess with Lance, it feels familiar. It feels right. “You’re not funny, Keith.”

“I don’t know, I think Concussed Keith has some good jokes.” Hunk says, slapping him on his back. 

Romelle sighs, leading them to a booth for them to sit. “As long as Concussed Keith can still play tomorrow.”

Allura nods. “Are you coming to watch?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She replies brightly. “The day my girlfriend’s team finally humbles Lotor and beats him in the dirt. It would be revenge for what happened last year.” Her face falls slightly and she winces at the memory. 

“What happened last year?” The question slips out of his tongue before he can control it and five heads turn to him. 

“Do you not remember?”

“I told you he’s concussed.”

“How hard did you actually hit him, Lance?”

The barrage of questions stampedes out from the group and Keith mentally slaps himself for not thinking it through. He really hadn’t meant to ask it aloud. Of course Soccer Keith would know exactly what happened last year, having been there to experience it firsthand. This Keith, however, has not a single clue.

“I’m not concussed!” He argues. “It’s just… hard to remember.”

“It’s not something you really forget, Keith.”

“Oh, what if he has amnesia?” Hunk wonders, tapping a finger on his chin in contemplation. “Do you have amnesia?”

“What?! No.”

Hunk narrows his eyes disbelievingly. “What’s today’s date?”

“Um,” he says, thinking it carefully. He isn’t even sure what the date is in his own reality if he’s being honest. The time in space seemed to blend together without a sun to track or an Earth to spin. He’s pretty sure it was sometime in October by the time he left for the Blades, but that was only because Hunk attempted to count the days by making a space calendar, as he called it. It was designed so the team could celebrate their birthdays when they had them, though the last he checked it was months ago and Keith had no idea now. 

If he thought time passed weirdly in space, it passed even weirder when he was with the Blades. There was no space calendar, or friends to remind him of it. “May…?”

Hunk doesn’t immediately correct him and it spurs him to continue. “May 10th?” He finishes slowly, picking the first number that comes to mind.

“It’s May 2nd.”

“Oh.”

“What town are we in?”

“Uh…”

Pidge raises an eyebrow. “What’s my last name?” She asks.

“Gunderson. Wait, no, it’s Holt.”

“How did you mess up that badly at first?”

“I—“

“Do you even know my first name, Keith?”

Allura looks at him, “do you know any of our names?”

“What? Yes, I’m not—”

“What about my favorite color?” Pidge turns to him.

“Green, I think?”

“You think or you know?”

“You always wear green,” Keith points out despite the fact that right now, Pidge is not wearing any green. 

She squints her eyes. “And does that mean it’s my favorite?”

“I don’t know.” He admits. 

“Do you remember my favorite color?” This time it’s Lance who asks. 

“Orange,” Keith answers quickly, “but only a certain shade, and definitely not like neon. It’s more like a tangerine kind, or like a gradient orange. Like when it’s blended in with yellows and reds because then it looks like a sunset and you always talk about the sunsets on the beach in Cuba. That’s why your second favorite color is blue.”

The table goes silent and he looks up to find five heads gaping at him. 

“You remember all that but not the date?” Pidge asks wondrously. “What is wrong with you?”

“I think it’s sweet.” Allura chimes, looking at him with a sympathetic smile. 

“It’s gross. He has, like, selective amnesia or something. I’m gonna need this milkshake before I throw up all over this table.”

“Well, okay then. You all want your usual?” Romelle asks and everyone murmurs in agreement. Keith nods, feeling the tips of his ears go pink. 

He has no idea what his usual is and Lance is still looking at him with an indecipherable expression. 

When Romelle returns, she holds the milkshakes in a platter and they take no time to take their own and Keith is left with a chocolatey one. It’s only when he drinks it that he realizes it’s s’more flavored, a small victory he decides as he relishes the sweet taste. Back in the desert, his father used to make campfires every night before it got too cold. Keith didn’t like the s’mores back then. They were too sweet and the marshmallow always stuck to his lips. He does now. He blames the flavorless space goo for changing his taste buds. 

“You never told me what happened last year.” Keith says in between his sips. It’s a dangerous question to rebring. He knows this after their entire conversation of amnesia, which admittedly, is fair, but he can’t help himself. He’s curious. 

Lance’s face sours as if he just drank something weird in his milkshake. “Are we really gonna talk about it? It wasn’t exactly a great day for us.”

“Maybe we should. What if they try to pull something like it again?” Pidge counters. Whatever the context is, it makes the rest of the table falter and Keith imagines that against their wishes, Pidge raises a good point. 

“You don’t think they would. Would they?” Hunk asks, his face shifting into fear. 

“Lotor would.” Romelle says and the lowness of the tone catches Keith by surprise. “He did something for my brother's game. Paid off the refs or something too. He’s ruthless. All he wants is to win over his daddy’s little approval. He’ll do anything to get what he wants.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Not allow him the chance to do anything.” Allura says, her voice stern. “Shiro said our plays are sound, we’ve been practicing them every day. The Galra won’t be expecting our new strategies.”

“Yeah, and now we know what to expect of them. We know he’s going to cheat again.” 

“None of that matters if they go after Keith again.” Lance interjects sharply. The tone is far more vindictive than Keith has ever heard from him and it catches him off guard. He’s seen Lance annoyed before, he’s seen him protective, but in all his time he’s hardly ever seen him downright angry. And right here, he looks royally pissed. “Lotor has it out for him. We learned that last year. I swear if he thinks he can—“

“Shiro wouldn’t let him.” Allura cuts him off. “He’s a coach now, he’ll actually have the power to step in without getting thrown out of the game.”

Lance taps his fingers on the table insistently. Keith can tell he’s not convinced and doesn’t even bother hiding it. 

So Lotor did something to him—Soccer Keith. Clearly something distressing enough that it had Shiro thrown out of the game and to have Lance still upset. Keith’s mind runs rampant through the possibilities. Lotor using Keith’s hot-headedness against him, Lotor specifically blocking Keith, Lotor purposefully injuring him. 

He doesn’t really know what soccer games normally look like, but he assumes they’re not violent. Keith learned the hard way there were no helmets, and in fact, there is hardly any padding anywhere except for the shins. Lotor could’ve done any number of malicious things if he’s any bit as cold and methodical as the one he knows. 

The ghost of Lotor’s voice rings out in his ears.

Isn’t that all I’ve ever wanted? To rid the wars of our ancestors?

Romelle was right, Lotor would do anything to win. Even if that meant pulling the strings of god to make an entirely new reality. Even if that meant sacrificing the realities where that war was inevitable. It didn’t matter to him whatever damage he would cause to get there. In his eyes, the end justifies the means. 

How do you reason with something like that? What is Keith supposed to do once he finds his way out of here? Lotor isn’t like his father, not at all, but he’s just as dangerous. If not even more so. Zarkon may have been frantic at worst, but Lotor, Lotor is desperate and those are the most threatening. They are the ones that would lose everything to get what they want.

“If he is planning something, we can’t just wait for it to happen.” He hears Lance argue further, snapping him away from his thoughts. “If they realize we’re winning tomorrow, they’ll do anything to gain the lead. They’ll target Keith again. We can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.”

“So what are we meant to do?”

“I’ll keep Lotor’s attention on me.”

“No.” Keith says automatically, surprising even himself. Theoretically, Soccer Lotor is not as much of a threat as Space Lotor, and yet the idea of Lance facing him alone is inconceivable in his mind regardless. 

Lance looks at him. “Why not?”

“It’s dumb. You can’t deal with him by yourself.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Keith drops his mouth open. He has no idea how to respond to that. The rest of the team looks unsure too, and after a tense moment, Lance drops his glare. 

“Look, I’m sorry it’s just—I think we have a better chance if I’m the one to distract him. Hunk and Allura are our best defense, you’ll need Pidge open so she can read their attacks, and Keith is better anyway. You’ll need him alive and uninjured if we want to win. Best I can do is keep prince fussy-pants busy.”

If the room wasn’t silent before, it definitely is now. From the way he talked, Keith knows that Lance had been thinking this over for awhile. Had been thinking that if Lotor was going to hurt anyone on the field, it would be him—should be him. 

“No.” Keith repeats again. “That’s not happening.”

“Look, I’m just thinking of our best options here.”

“Well stop thinking.”

“Why?” Lance argues, narrowing his eyes. “Allura said it herself, our plays are sound. And if I can keep Lotor off your backs then we’ll get a chance to actually use them.”

“Lance,” Allura says, “I meant our plays are sound with you in them. You’re necessary to this. We can’t have you getting hurt.”

“And I won’t be. I’ll be fine.” 

“Lance, you saw what happened last year.”

“This isn’t last year.” He snaps. “We know what he’s gonna do. We can be prepared for it this time.”

“And you being the punching bag is your definition of prepared?” Pidge interrupts.

“Yes. And if it comes down to it, I can always aim the soccer ball at his head and say it was an accident.”

Pidge deadpans. “Good to know your concussion-making skills are gonna be our secret weapon.” 

“I still don’t like it.” Keith says.

Hunk nods, “yeah, sorry man, I agree with Keith on this one. There’s gotta be a better way than this.”

“It’ll be fine. I can handle Lotor for an hour.”

“Can you handle him right now?” Pidge asks suddenly, fixing her gaze somewhere behind Keith's head. 

“I mean, yeah I—wait now? Why now?”

“Because I see him now.”

“What?” At this, Lance jerks his head up, following Pidge’s frame of view, and sure enough, right outside the window stands Lotor in all his soccer glory. 

Keith squints at the sight. Even from the bad angle of his seat, the signature hairstyle is something he can prominently register. Though the lack of purple tint in his skin makes him feel more normal than anything else. It feels wrong, somehow. As if he was stripped down of all the wars he grew up in and now he’s nothing but a simple teenager. Maybe because he looked so human here, that for one delirious, strange second, Keith feels a pang of sympathy for him.

Lotor in his reality may be a crazed and desperate man, but no one deserved the burden of his father’s war as a child.

His voice echoes in his ears, picking apart the entrails of choked desolation. 

And if this world is unachievable in that quest, then I will make a new reality. A reality that is not plagued as this one.

Maybe this reality didn’t have the war Lotor so badly wanted to rid every inch of, but it still held the same types of people. And since everything else is near copies of what he’s known, he can only assume Zarkon is too. There’s no universal war, there’s no suffering to anywhere near the same extent, but if the team’s account of last year is anything to go by, it’s not perfect either. Does Lotor want a perfect reality? One that is so peaceful that it doesn’t even exist on any plane of realities already? How far is Lotor willing to dislodge that kind of greed? How many realities would he sacrifice to get there? 

“Um, why is he here? Why now?” Hunk twirls the straw of his milkshake in nerves, clearly unsure what to do. “Does he ever come here? This is like our spot.” 

Romelle shakes her head. “I’ve never seen him here.”

It confirms their suspicions. Lotor is here for them, and just like that, Keith’s sympathy is replaced. 

The door dings open and it feels like the room has gone hollow. It feels like the air is stretched thin and the team tenses like a cord being pulled taut, and now that Keith can really see him, he can see that he isn’t alone. Lotor brings what Keith assumes is a few other members of the Galra team. It isn’t until they walk closer that he realizes he recognizes one of them. Vaguely, faintly recognizes. She has short black hair, and her eyes are a little less yellow than he’s used to, but the scowl is distinct. It’s Acxa beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

Out of logic, he assumes the rest of the girls are also Lotor’s band of goons. What were their names? Keith can barely remember. In fact, when he thinks about it, he’s not even sure what happened to them after Lotor briefly allied himself with the coalition. 

“Ah, well, I must say this is quite the surprise.” Lotor’s voice rings in the same proper amount of pronunciation that he’s used to. It doesn’t ring into his skull like it did when he was in the quintessence field, but it still holds an element of unease nonetheless. He focuses his gaze toward them in a wry smile. “If it isn’t team Voltron.”

Lance glares. “Is it a surprise though?”

At that, Lotor manages to look offended. “Why, of course,” he says, his tone unwavering. “My friends and I came to have dinner is all. Why else would we be here?”

“Oh I don’t know, to antagonize us.”

He hums as if the thought had just occurred to him. “Would you like me to?”

“What are you doing here, Lotor?” Allura asks sharply. 

“As I’ve said, all I want is to have dinner. Though now that I am here, I can wish you all luck for tomorrow. I know that last year may not have harbored the result you would have wanted.”

“Harbor the result we wanted?” Lance echoes dubiously. “What made you come to that conclusion? The fact that we lost, or the fact that you played dirty and nearly killed Keith!”

At this, Lotor scoffs with a bemused smile crossing his lips. And although Keith feels like the human appearance should, in theory, make him significantly less intimidating, all the mannerisms are the same that it doesn’t do much. If he closes his eyes, he feels like he never left the quintessence field. He still hears Lotor’s unhinged laughter ring out in his ears that it feels like his head is about to explode. 

“I didn’t nearly kill him, you always find a way to get the story so twisted and beneath the truth.” Lotor replies lowly. 

“It’s not twisted. That move you pulled should’ve got you thrown out and we both know it.”

“Perhaps,” Lotor muses, pressing a finger to his chin in thought. “Then again, I wasn’t the one who snapped at the refs.” He smiles as if he’s proud that he seems to be getting under their skin. “Besides, it’s not like I didn’t warn Keith what would happen. He did that to himself when he quit being on our team. He was the one that stood in our way.”

Once again, Keith finds a way to spite this alternate reality for being such a cruel parallel of his own. Of course it made sense that he started on the Galra team because of course the universe would do that to him.

“Oh please, you were just desperate enough to win. You knew we would beat you if you didn’t do something.” Pidge snaps. 

“I wouldn’t be so confident in that assumption. All these years and you have yet to find a way to beat us. It’s almost pitiful, really.”

“Just wait until tomorrow.” Allura glowers and it rivals all the stern looks she’s ever given to the paladins whenever they start to goof off more than they should. In fact, for a second, Keith firmly believes that if she wasn’t on the other end of the booth, she would start throwing some punches. 

“I doubt that if Alfor couldn’t manage to coach this pathetic ragtag team into the championship, then your new no one coach won’t even come close.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” He hums. “I think I know more than you think. You may try to act better but I’m sure your attacks will surmount to nothing. Not when my father himself coached the Galra this year. And I feel I must warn you,” Lotor shifts his gaze directly at Keith in an expression he can’t discern, “he doesn’t exactly have the cleanest reputation either, now does he?”

‘Perhaps sacrificing a few violent and horrible realities to create one better one is a moral exchange.’

Keith can practically hear the sharp edged familiarity in the tone. It’s all too reminding. The same wave of nausea hits and he feels his world tilt in on itself. He has no idea how to deal with any of it, not the Lotor in space threatening to rip out all they’ve known and more, and not even this Lotor. 

If he was under less stress, he would’ve found it in him to be angry. To feel the unruly defiance prick against his skin and lash out, uncaring that it technically isn’t the same person that sent him here. But right now, all he can think about is if he has a reality to get back to when this is over. 

“You’re not pulling the same tricks you pulled last time.” Lance says with a sense of finality. “You’re not going anywhere near him.”

Lotor sneers, “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see tomorrow, won’t we?”

Keith swears for a second, that Lance is about to do something stupidly wreckless and dumb. He swears he’s about to do something like Keith would do before a deep voice cuts them both off. 

“Is something wrong here?” It comes from behind Lotor, and it startles even him. He pauses the spite he held just moments ago. Sal, Keith assumes the restaurant owner, is standing right there. 

Out of options, Lotor drops the glare. “Nothing is wrong. We were just leaving actually.”

“We were?” One of the girls by Lotor’s side finally speaks up. This is the one with a high ponytail and dyed hair. What was her name? Ezor?

“Yes.” Lotor responds calmly. “The last thing we would like to do is eat at this dump of a place anyway.”

“That’s it then? You’d said there’d be punches.” The other complains, looking more inconvenienced than anything else. 

“Patience, Zethrid. We’ll just have to wait until tomorrow.” He holds his stare for a second longer, giving one last cold smile. “Until then, team Voltron. I wish you luck for our match.” 

No one bothers answering him. Not even Sal says anything more as he watches them turn away. And with that, he leaves just as quickly as he had come. 

“That pompous arrogant brat.” Allura mutters once she’s sure they’re out of sight. “He wanted to get us riled up. That was his plan. He wanted us to lash out before the game even starts.”

“Oh man, what a jerk. I thought for sure Lance was gonna punch him.” Hunk tilts his head down in relief now that they could all breathe properly again. 

“He would’ve deserved it.”

“No argument on that one. I mean how come they can get away with all of this? I’m pretty sure he literally threatened us, how is that fair?”

“It’s not. He has his daddy to get him out of all the trouble he gets in.”

“Just cause what? He was a famous pro soccer player and everyone loves him? That’s still not fair. He shouldn’t get to pay off the refs the way that he does. He can do whatever he wants but the second we breathe near him, we get a penalty. There’s no way we can go against that.”

“We might not have to,” Allura says, “Coran said he could get an unbiased ref for our game. If it works then they won’t be able to do the plans they want.” 

“That doesn’t mean they won’t still pull something.” Lance counters.

“Lance, you can’t still be thinking about this, not after what just happened.”

“How can I not? You heard him, they’re after Keith again. They’re still petty that he quit on them or whatever.”

“So let them come after me.” Keith says simply, taking another sip of his milkshake. 

“Absolutely not.” Lance dismisses faster than he could even blink. “There’s no way you’re getting nearly killed again.”

“I wasn’t nearly killed last time.” Or at least, Lotor said he wasn’t. Keith still doesn’t know the actual real story behind it, not other than the bits and pieces he’s gathered, but he assumes Lotor did some sort of nasty illegal play on him. How badly he got injured, that part he could only guess, though it couldn’t have been that terrible if he is still able to play for this season. 

Lance still doesn’t look convinced at this. Keith frowns because he can’t outright say the real reason it should be him that deals with Lotor. For one, he doesn’t plan on making it to the game tomorrow. If all goes well, Keith will wake up back in his reality and back in the Black Lion and back to everyone he knows. He would deal with the space and psychotic Lotor, but this Lotor would be Soccer Keith’s problem. And he’d probably be more equipped to handle it too. 

However, alternatively, if he’s still stuck here by tomorrow, well then he’d probably be the most useless on the team. He barely knows how to kick a ball, let alone actually participate in a soccer game. He doesn’t know the rules, or the plays, or any of the formations, he doesn’t even know the positions. 

Though none of these things he can say aloud. No one would really understand it because as far as they’re concerned, this is their Keith. So instead, what he says, “please, Lance. He’s gonna go after me anyway, this way no one else has to get hurt.”

Thankfully, Lance does seem to at least ponder the prospect. For what he’s worth, he must recognize that there’s an importance in the plea somewhere in the words because after a considerable amount of time, he shrugs. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.” He says. 

Keith nods, “tomorrow.” He repeats, satisfied. That’s another problem for Soccer Keith to solve. Though it makes him wonder where exactly is Soccer Keith. He didn’t really think about it before—didn’t really have the time to think about it before. Is he momentarily blipped out of existence while Keith spends his time here? Will he return dazed and confused at how much time has passed once Keith leaves? 

And then a different thought springs to mind, almost against his will:

Soccer Keith in his universe interacting with his friends. 

Oh god. 

He hopes that isn’t the case. He imagines Soccer Keith would get a bit of a culture shock waking up in a giant flying lion at a random point in space, facing down a desperate deranged man that would remind him of his soccer rival. And even worse, Soccer Keith could expose what Lance and him are in a different reality. Of course, this worry pales in comparison as some of his other ones, though the thought of Lance knowing this tiny piece of information causes another wave of heat to rise to his cheeks. 

He vowed he would never relinquish this part of the story. It felt too personal; too private of a secret, like somehow, even if it was entirely out of his control, he crossed a boundary somewhere. That Lance would for some reason be mad at him for accepting it as easily as he had. That Lance would be uncomfortable and hate him for it. That it would ruin their already tenuous friendship they have.

In truth, he has no idea how Lance would respond. He doesn’t want to know how he would respond. Would he take a sort of amusement in it? Would he laugh right in his face and wonder how he would ever date Keith, even in a different reality? Would he be disgusted at the mere prospect? Keith really doesn’t have a single clue. He has no idea and maybe it’s best to have it stay that way. It’s not like he needs to know anyway. 

Unless Soccer Keith is with him right now and something slips out. Would they recover from it? Lance knows that it wouldn’t be Keith’s fault…right? He hopes so. He knows Lance isn’t unfair, or cruel, he doesn’t think he would hold this against him. Then again, Keith can’t help feeling the pinpricks of guilt anyway because even if this part was out of his control, he’s somehow envious. Envious of how close they are here and wishes that Lance felt the way he does in his reality too. 

His thoughts are interrupted as Lance takes a swipe of Keith’s milkshake. It happens so fast that when Keith snaps his head up, Lance is already sipping from his straw and half-drinken milkshake. 

“Wha—hey! That’s mine!” Keith attempts to reach out but Lance blocks his arms in a somewhat childish manner. “Lance!”

“No. I need a sip.”

“You’re taking more than a sip!” He protests, shoving his hands near Lance’s face. “Also you have your own!”

“But I already finished mine.”

Keith knits his eyebrows together. At first he believed it to be a lame excuse to get him to steal Keith’s milkshake but when his eyes glanced down, sure enough Lance already drank his. “How?” He asks, appalled. They had barely gotten them before Lotor arrived and Keith knew for a fact that Lance wasn’t sipping his in the middle of it.

As a response, Lance taps his head and smiles, “anti brain freeze proof.” 

Keith blinks at him. “Probably because you don’t have a brain to freeze.”

“Oh good one, Keith!” Hunk says, earning a mix of shock and betrayal from Lance which only makes Keith grin harder. The twinge of envy comes into his mind. He wonders if this is exactly what it would be like in his own reality if Keith let it. If Lance liked him back and there was no amount of heat to any of their teases.

He narrows his eyes at him, still holding up the cup that held Keith’s s’more flavored shake. Keith holds the gaze. “I’m finishing the rest of yours for that one.” Lance responds at last. 

“What! No! Give it back!”

“No!”

“You’re getting all your gross spit on it!” Keith once again, attempts to rip it out of Lance’s hands to no avail.

“We made out yesterday!”

“I—you—gah, Lance!”

“Somehow, I think listening to them might just be worse than being literally threatened.” Pidge scrunches her nose in disgust. “Maybe they should have stayed oblivious.”

“I still think it’s cute.”

“You have to stop encouraging them, Allura.”

When Keith realizes getting his milkshake back is a lost cause, he gives up and lets Lance take the rest. Despite it, he really can’t bring himself to be mad, or even inconvenienced. Not when right now, Lance is back to his happy and go lucky self. Right now, he’s back to his light-hearted teases and care-free glances. At the moment, it’s good enough for Keith. 

It would be better with his own Lance, but for now, he’s taking what he can get. 

Ridiculous. He is absurdly and unequivocally ridiculous. 

Tonight, he decides right then and there, tonight he will do everything he can to get back to his own universe. To get back and stop Lotor from destroying everything. 

After all, if he woke up in a different reality, then he’ll do the same again. 

At least, he hopes so. 

When Lance catches Keith staring, he doesn’t back away from it. He doesn’t deny it, or pretend to forget it. Instead he smiles at him, warm and golden and soft. 

He mostly hopes so.

Chapter Text

Keith doesn’t know where he is.

He stands at a small suburban house at the corner of a neighborhood that practically reeked of normal backyard parties and barbecue. It had practically nothing in common with his old desert shack; the only indication that it was, in fact, his house was because Lance stops short, causing Keith to nearly stumble into his back once again. Then, as if a confirmation, Lance vaguely gestures to it.

Keith studies the place like at any moment it would transform into something he could easily pick apart. As if he stared long enough that the porch would shrink, and the paint would lose color, and the surrounding houses would dissipate and turn into sand. Of course none of that happens and it leaves Keith to wonder how in this reality he could live in something so seemingly normal. 

Beside him, Lance’s eyes feel like they’re carving holes into the back of his skull and Keith can’t bring himself to meet his gaze. 

He knew he didn’t imagine the way the air between them stilled the farther they walked, and although he felt it happening, he had no idea what to do with it. He was lucky that Lance offered to walk him home after Vrepit Sal’s. A delirious, illogical part of him felt his heart lurch into his throat that Lance had volunteered, that he wanted to make sure Keith got home safe. 

The other part, the more rational side, was relieved. He had no idea where his house in this reality would be, no idea what it even looks like. 

He didn’t think about the implications of the walk. He didn’t think about the fact that they would be alone, the fact that this Lance thinks they’re in a relationship (which they technically are, but Keith refuses to think too hard about the technicalities), and the fact that Lance might expect romance into the relationship. 

Oh god. 

What has he done?

He’s trapped himself.

The real, rational decision would have been to decline the offer while he had the chance because he really should have expected this. Walking the other person home is a dating thing, isn’t it? Of course it is because in hindsight, this is a predicament he should’ve entirely seen coming. Though in all honesty, he didn’t. In fact, he forgot about the boyfriend part of this ordeal. Sure, they were undeniably closer in this reality, that much was a given, but underneath it held so much semblance for their interactions on his own reality that it was difficult to believe it changed apart from when it was brought up. 

The same sense of teasing was still there, only slightly subdued, a little less heat and a little more endearment, but it was still so undoubtedly Keith and Lance that it was so easy to forget they had an extra label here. Will Keith ponder the connotations of how similar they act to this reality’s form of boyfriends? Will he introspect how the line between their teasing and flirting teeters and threatens to intersect somewhere along the way? No. 

In fact, he will purposefully shut off his brain to avoid thinking of that.

He already feels this is crossing a boundary somewhere in their friendship. He can’t begin intertwining their realities and forget which one really stems from which. It isn’t fair. 

Lance doesn’t like him. He couldn’t. Keith knows this, he should know this. Lance had outwardly flirted with every other girl, and all but verbally admitted his feelings for Allura. It didn’t matter that any time Lance needed comfort, or someone there to be honest with, he would choose Keith. And no matter how much he would do for him, Lance would never reciprocate those feelings.

…Or would he?

If this reality is a strange mirrored version of his own, are the pieces that are different, really so different? If the reflection is so distinctly there, wouldn’t the tinier details imitate as well?

No, Keith tells himself. It’s a dangerous line of thought. He really shouldn’t be overthinking any of this. It means nothing. This is a whole different reality, it doesn’t owe him any similarities, much less this tiny unimportant one. Lance recipicrates here and that’s all it is, just the byproduct of a mostly shuffled deck of cards that this universe holds.

“You’re a really loud thinker, you know.” Lance says suddenly, cutting through his inner turmoil and reminding him of his other problem.

“What?” He says dumbly. He hopes it’s dark enough in the street to hide the growing panic and guilt prodding its way into his stomach. He silently debates if running away now is the best option.

“You get this really contemplative look, and your whole face scrunches like you have something stuck in your mouth.” Keith shoots him a quizzical stare. Lance smiles, poking him in the cheek. “Yeah, exactly that face.”

“Why are you studying the way my face looks?” 

“Because it’s cute and you’re clearly thinking about something. So what is it?”

He should definitely run away before Keith says something stupid and then he would really cross a boundary. Then again, Lance sounds more curious than anything. 

They’d stayed at the diner practically until it closed and now the stretch of nightfall allowed the moon to peer through. He felt guilty that he allowed all that time to pass without attempting to find a way back, but in his defense, everything he tried turned pointless anyway. The only thing that remotely made sense was falling asleep and hoping for the best.

“You.” He says before he can stop himself. He isn’t sure if he or Lance seems more surprised at the confession. 

Stupid. Stupid. It sounds far too romantic, why would he say that? It’s the entire thing he wanted to avoid and now Lance is gonna do something intended for Soccer Keith and the real Lance is gonna hate him forever because he couldn’t keep his stupid mouth shut. 

“That’s also my favorite thing to think about.” Lance jokes and Keith has never been more grateful for his ridiculous sense of humor. It seems to break whatever weird tension around him and Keith finds himself breathing normally again. “Are you gonna elaborate on it though?” 

“No.”

“Keith, don’t do this to me,” he pouts, aggressively shaking Keith’s shoulders, “you can’t just tell me something like that and leave it there!”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s too vague. It could mean anything. Are you thinking of my dashingly handsome features? Or my rugged and heroic personality?”

“You have none of those qualities.” It’s a lie, he wasn’t by any means rugged, but the heroic part? Technically, being a paladin meant heroism came with the job, (not that he could tell Lance that, it wouldn’t make sense and even if it did, Keith would never give him the satisfaction), but even without that, he would probably find some way to help people. The handsome part he also can’t comment on without the conversation steering back toward intimacy because Keith hates that he can’t deny it.

He groans and puts his weight on Keith in dramatic defeat. “I can’t believe everyone thinks I’m the unromantic one just because I shoot soccer balls at you from time to time. The universe is so cruel.”

“So you admit you shoot at me purposefully?”

“No, no, no no, don’t twist my words.”

“I didn’t twist them, you admitted it!”

“But I didn’t say I do it purposefully, it sometimes just happens.”

“Oh so the ball is coincidentally aimed in my direction?”

“Yeah, exactly! I’m glad you’re starting to understand.”

Keith is about to make some kind of petulant retort before he stops himself. This , this is the part that feels all too similar and blurs the line and he can’t help but wonder once again where the mirrored reflections stop, and where they cross over. He knows it’s unfair, that it’s probably crossing the boundaries of their friendship, but can’t help wondering because this is something familiar to him and Lance’s teases back home. Did they sound as flirtatious as this? Had he been flirting with Lance this whole time? Had Lance been flirting back?

No, why is he still thinking about this? Maybe it only feels more intimate because he knows they’re dating here so it feels like it should be. Unless there truly was no real distinction. 

He doesn’t know any more. He doesn’t think he really knew in the first place. 

“How’d you realize that you liked me?” He blurts before he can get the chance to process if it was a good idea to ask the question in the first place. Does he really want to know the answer? He isn’t sure other than the fact that he needs to hear where this reality stops seeping into his own. He needs to know exactly where they stop intersecting. He needs Lance to say something ridiculous and outrageously cheesy and so far off from anything remotely realistic on what his Lance would say.

“Oh.” He looks surprised, which is fair, the question probably comes out of nowhere, and he takes a moment to collect his thoughts. “I don’t know, I don’t think there was one singular moment.” He taps his chin contemplatively, “to be honest I thought you were kinda infuriating at first, and terribly annoying, and just overall really insufferable—”

“Are you going somewhere with this?” 

“—you were just so talented and annoyingly good at everything, and ok, maybe I got kinda obsessed with you. I could pick you apart from any other player because I was watching you for so long that I could recognize your reckless plays and blinding passion and your stupid mullet, which to be clear, I don’t like at all by the way.”

“Of course.” So much for outrageously cheesy. Why couldn’t the answer have been so simple like the way his eyes shimmer in the sunlight or something other over the top romantic that didn’t sound like Lance at all. Keith feels his stomach roll all over again and has to remind himself that this isn’t his Lance talking, no matter how much it’s starting to sound like him. 

“Ok, fine, I do like your mullet and it only made me angrier because no one should be able to pull it off but you do and I didn’t know how it made me feel.” Lance confesses and Keith snaps his gaze up in surprise. This at least is something different.

“You started the rivalry because of… my hair?” He questions slowly as the words begin to register.

“Because you seemed so perfect and I wanted to find some kind of flaw.” He corrects. “But I think I really wanted to get you to notice me.”

“I did.” 

Lance snorts, “I guess I made it pretty hard not to.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I thought you hated me.”

“I didn’t.” Lance says firmly. “I thought you were really annoying and irritating and pretty fun to mess with, but I don’t think I could ever hate you. I actually thought you were always pretty cool, even if I would never admit it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It shocked me too, but yeah.” Lance smiles to himself. “It was easier to see that when I realized you’re actually thoughtful and considerate, and not at all the asshole I thought you were. Still insufferable, of course.”

Keith rolls his eyes, “of course.”

“And after that, I don’t know, we started to get along better and I focused on you more than ever. I realized that I trusted your ideas and weirdly valued your opinions, and even if you don’t know exactly what to say, you’re always there anyway and you listen. You listen to whatever I have to dumb things I say because I don’t even remember when I told you my favorite color but I guess you definitely do.” Lance gives him a strange look and he feels his cheeks flush. “It was somewhere along that way that I started to realize.”

It’s not the answer Keith was expecting. He can’t tell if it gives him more questions than he had before. For the most part, as far as Keith knew, most of the main details could have been similar. Lance’s initial irritation of him hadn’t exactly been a secret, though he did suppose it did ebb away into… something. Tentative friendship, maybe. 

Certainly not what this Lance is referring to… right? Even if the elements held some semblance of truth, it didn’t mean the experience was the same in his reality. It couldn’t have been. Keith shouldn’t even be entertaining the idea. It isn’t fair.

He shouldn’t be holding onto false hope just because an alternate universe Lance likes him in a way that was tangible, if not mirroring the actions of his Lance. He shouldn’t be clinging to an alternate universe’s story just because it vaguely matches his own and it’s the one he so desperately wants to hear. 

It provided an explanation of the rivalry, but it couldn’t be the only one, no matter how much Keith wished it was. 

Lance likes Allura. 

He practically made it crystal clear that it hurt. 

But hearing this Lance was a different story, and he hated how vague it was. The words drifted in his mind even after they had said their goodbyes. Keith could do nothing but stand in front of his house he doesn’t recognize, and precariously analyze Lance’s story like a surgeon cutting through skin. 

He shouldn’t let himself overthink the meanings when they could amount to no correlation, and yet, he really can’t help it. He does anyway.

“Ah, Keith, you’re home.” Shiro says and Keith internally winces. It’s not that he wanted to avoid Shiro for as long as possible, but that’s exactly what he wanted to do. If Lance figured he was acting strange and distracted, Shiro definitely does too and a lecture feels imminent. 

“I guess.” He says slowly, willing his face not to give anything away. It feels like he’s walked into a trap as Shiro’s knowing gaze practically rips him apart.

The look is all he needs to confirm his suspicion. Shiro knows. He knows and he’s strategizing how to handle it and oh god why couldn’t Keith just had kept his frustration in check. Of course Shiro knows something’s off when he stormed off the field in a delirious fit of rage and panic; the textbook definition of something being wrong. 

“I wanted to apologize for the harsh practice today. I shouldn’t have gone overboard when we have our game tomorrow.” He finally says. “I know you took it particularly hard.”

“It’s fine.”

“Look, I know last year was—”

“This isn’t about last year.” Keith dismisses, cutting him off. It’s not meant to sound harsh, or snappy, he just wants this conversation over and done with. 

Of course the conversation doesn’t end right then and there like he wants it to. No, if anything Keith probably just made it worse because now Shiro has his eyes narrowed as if he’s trying to untie a knot with his mind and figuring out the best way to pull out the pieces.

“Is it—hold on, are you still mad that I elected you team captain? I know you didn’t want the extra responsibility but Keith, you’re good at it, better than you believe. The team relies on you far more than you know and you can rely on them just as much.”

For a long moment, Keith considers dismissing this concern as well, though for some reason, he can’t seem to get the words off of his tongue. 

Perhaps he’s accepted his new role on the team, but that doesn’t mean he thinks he deserves it. Shiro should be the one fighting Lotor with the team. He would know what to do in that circumstance, and he would handle it far better than Keith ever could. In fact, he’s certain none of this mess would’ve happened with Shiro leading.

But currently, Shiro isn’t in the best condition and it leaves Keith on his own, completely unguided.

“I know the team relies on me. I’m letting them down.” Keith concedes against his own will. This Shiro may not be the one he wishes for, but he’s healthy and himself and maybe it’s enough. And besides, it’s easier to be honest here when this reality holds a certain amount of confidentiality. 

“Keith, you’re not—why would you even think that?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.” It’s the truth he would never audibly admit to his teammates because for a level Keith doesn’t understand, they do trust him, and that makes it far much worse. He didn’t know how to lead, how to lead in the way that Shiro had. 

He could recite some of the phrases, he could guess the best course of action, he could impulsively make the decisions, but he doesn’t have Shiro’s level head or perfectly planned pep-talks. He doesn’t know how to make situations seem more hopeful, or what to say to give someone that extra encouragement. That had always been Lance’s thing, and he wasn’t Lance either.

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” Shiro says calmly to him, “I didn’t know what I was doing half the time either.”

“What?”

“No one does. We make decisions based on what we think is best and at the end of the day, it’s all we can do.”

“Even if it’s the wrong one?”

Shiro nods, “then we go out and fix it.” He says it like it’s the most simple thing in the world, which to be fair, maybe it was when the decision in this world included soccer and not any universe saving life or death, maybe Keith could understand.

“You make it sound easy.”

“It’s not most of the time. But what else is there to do besides get up and try again. And you have your whole team to support you. You can depend on them, it doesn’t make you weak or any less of a captain.”

Keith can’t think of anything to say after that, so instead he simply nods, offering to get an early night's sleep. Shiro smiles back, patient and comforting, and more like Shiro than the clone had ever looked. 

Before he turns away completely though, one last thought strikes him. “Hey Shiro?”

“Yeah?” He says, raising an amused eyebrow.

“Do you know Slav?”

Shiro lets something of a strangled cry in the back of his throat, sputtering into something nonsensical, “…what?” 

“Is that a yes?”

He gives a tired sigh. “Unfortunately.”

As it turns out, entering back his own reality is easier said than done, even without any distractions. 

Keith peeks an eye open, biting back the disappointment when he makes out the faint light of the glow in the dark stars plastered on the ceiling. Despite the hours of concentration, there was nothing to show for it. 

 Back at the Garrison, Shiro had taught him some meditation techniques in hopes of keeping him out of trouble, even if it never seemed to work. The breathing portion was fine, he liked the routine of counting his own breaths, but it was the sitting still part he could barely get past. 

Even now apparently, as the years have gone by and he still has the same problem. His body feels far too restless as none of the exercises got him any closer with the Black Lion. He still has no idea how any of it is supposed to work, no matter how hard he tries to warp his mind into it. What is this even supposed to be? Does entering the glowing blue veins blip you into the universe with no means of escape? What happens if he wakes up and he’s still here?

Keith sighs, tugging the blanket off from his sides. It’s not like he could sleep anyway. Every time he closed his eyes and really tried, all he could hear was his friends hopelessly fighting off Lotor, their shouts lingering in his ears, and he could practically feel his skin tingling like it did when he was in the quintessence field. Maybe he never really left it. Maybe he got it right the first time and this is some weird dream coma. 

Focusing his gaze on the glow in the dark stars, he tracks the way they were scattered without rhyme or reason. It’s ironic that even though he’s been to unreachable corners of space, across galaxies farther than he can even process, that these are the stars he feels most lost in. 

He twists, turning his body to reach on the wooden bedside table and picking up the small framed photographs on top. The first picture had to be taken when he was young. Young enough for his dad to be alive because he wedged between tiny Keith, and Krolia. Shiro was also fairly young, maybe a toddler, but he’s there too, smiling at the camera.

The next picture is the soccer team. It doesn’t take long to find Hunk, Pidge, Allura, and then himself frowning next to an overeager Lance who had one arm slung around him, and the other holding up a peace sign. It’s a simple candid, but he can see why it’s kept next to his family portrait. 

The last one he picks up is just him and Lance. Or at least the silhouettes of them because the sun blocked out most of the details and left them as shadows as the sun dipped behind them. Someone else must’ve taken the photo because Lance and him were distracted doing something animated with their limbs. Dancing? Fighting? He isn’t sure but he smiles down at it regardless. It’s oddly personal and feels wistful and much more private than the others. For a second he considers keeping this one before he realizes the idea is probably stupid. He doesn’t know if it would track across a different reality anyway. His armor hadn’t. He puts the pictures back on his desk. 

The rest of Soccer Keith’s room somewhat reminds him of his own room back at the castle ship, the way it lacked a certain amount of warmth. 

He had seen Pidge’s room and unlike Keith, she seemed to want to collect souvenirs on whatever planet they traveled to. Maybe souvenirs wasn’t the right word for her, but rather testing vials. One time he’d seen literal jars of soil on her desk. When he asked about it, she said eventually she would study the contents to gain a better understanding of alien planets along with any other distinctly unusual alien object she could find, and study. It was a nice idea, though it made her room cluttered and Keith figured the jars would be sitting there for a while before she ever got the chance to learn them. Currently, she seemed to have a lot on her plate, even after she found her family. 

Lance also had a habit collecting souvenirs, though his had been more conceiveable than dozens of jars of dirt. There were normal collectors items like interesting looking small alien rocks, pictures he printed from his tablet, and tiny Voltron figurines that species of the coalition designed for them. 

Even Hunk probably had something to immortalize their journey’s up in space. 

Keith barely had anything. 

Everything he owns, in some sense, had to serve a practical purpose to warrant taking up space in his room, which already wasn’t the biggest. Soccer Keith must agree with him because apart from the couple of pictures, small soccer posters, and of course the glow stars scattered on the ceiling, there’s not much.

So maybe it’s a little barren, probably pretty boring, but at least the room gave him little distractions. He tosses back into the bed, closes his eyes and does his best to imagine the Black Lion on the other side. He ignores the way his heart seems to be stuck in his throat when, just like before, there’s no response. 

It really should be easy to wake up in his own reality and pretend this was some weird combination of an alternate universe and a dream. 

It’s not as easy when sleep doesn’t come to him, no matter how many times and he twists and turns. 

His mind is the problem. It won’t shut off. He’s thinking too hard about the switching reality bit that his body doesn’t allow any inch of rest, even the idea of it seems impossible. 

Back at the castle, a sleepless night was all too common, though whenever it happened, he was able to take a walk and wander the corridors until he eventually wore off his thoughts. The worst nights, he gave up and went to the training deck. None of those are really an option now. 

Unless…

An idea springs to mind and Keith shoves his blankets off and fumbles for his shoes in the dark. He quietly reaches for the doorknob, making sure not to wake anybody in the house. Kosmo huffs curiously at him. 

“Sorry, buddy.” Keith whispers, scratching behind his ears. “You’re gonna get your Keith back soon.”

Kosmo tilts his head, but thankfully, doesn’t make any sound and allows Keith to slip into the night air. 

The field is much harder to spot in the dark, but he can make it out through the dim street lights. He doesn’t think too hard as he walks into the spot that he must’ve come here through, the same place where he woke up from Lance hitting him with the soccer ball. There’s no portal, not any trace that there was even a rift in the first place that deposited him here. Though he lays down regardless. 

If Pidge were here she would say some science mumbo--like since he came here through this place, the walls between realities are thinner, and therefore, he could go back the same way. Except he’s not Pidge and he’s not sure at all if it’s true, but at the very least his mind is calmer. 

The night is clear and for the first time in, he doesn’t know how many months—how many years, he recognizes the constellations. He distantly wishes Lance were here to see them too. He wishes more than anything that Lance was here. And maybe it’s because those were his last tangible thoughts before he drifts into unconsciousness, that Lance comes to his dream that night.

He doesn’t even know where it is at first. Only a strange string of darkness that encompasses him and it shouldn’t feel as familiar as it does. There’s a certain flicker of something he knows here. Something that's enveloping and warm, despite the cold warped expanse surrounding him.

Keith blinks, shifting his gaze up where little dulled flecks are sprinkled with the darkness. One of them glows slightly discolored, but brighter than the rest and it’s the only distinguishing feature.

He really doesn’t know where he is, but he feels like he should. 

He feels like this place is of importance, that it’s connected to something more, and it irks him even more that despite that piece of knowledge, he doesn’t recognize it.

Thankfully, it doesn’t stay empty for long. Like a lamp turning itself on, Lance flares into view. The image is somehow distorted in his vision, like a radio channel drifting in and out of static and Keith has trouble focusing on it. 

Lance looks like he’s trying to say something, but whatever it is, Keith can’t understand it. He squints further because it seems important, even if he can’t place in his mind where, or why.

“Keith,” he hears distantly. It’s strained as if the wind chops it up. Strangely, there’s not a single breeze.

He frowns. “Lance?”

“Keith. Keith.” The sound grows louder even after Lance starts fading, crackling into static. 

The last thing he makes out is Lance’s hand reaching out, before it dissipates all together. 

“Keith!”

His eyes fly open and he shoots up, his hands balling the tufts of grass between his fingers and takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. It’s bright. It’s so bright that it’s burning and it’s such a stark contrast from his dream. His breaths feel all too loud in his ears and his heart is pounding erratically, like he missed something important between the lines and he desperately wants to shift back to it. 

“Whoa, man, calm down.”

Keith blinks the sting in his eyes and takes a look around. The first thing he sees is that it is now morning and that the sun is far past over the horizon. “Wha—” It’s not the empty expanse of space he was hoping for. He’s still in the stupid soccer field like nothing had ever changed. 

“Have you been sleeping here all night?” Lance’s voice is the next thing he notices, and sure enough, Soccer Lance is peering into his face, blocking the view from the sky. “What the hell, man?” 

Keith squints, seeing as everything stayed right where he left it. The frustration crawls to his throat like bile as if he just ate something rotted. This isn’t right. None of it is right. He should’ve been back to his reality by now. He should’ve woken up to where everything was back to normal and he’d be up in space where Lance and him weren’t dating and Lotor was a psychopath they would have to stop for the sake of the universes and Keith would somehow have to lead them to do it. 

So why is he still on Earth?

Why is he still on a soccer field?

Why is he still here ?

Keith feels hands on his arm and he jumps at the touch. “Keith. Keith!” Lance chants like he’s been saying the name before and Keith realizes he probably has. He’s probably been trying to get his attention this whole time. 

“Huh?” He says, not knowing how else to respond, not knowing if he could say anything else without breaking any more reserve right then and there.

“I asked what you were doing here.” Lance replies though his face seems entirely unsure. From the sun’s rays of reflection, his eyes are much bluer than he’s used to, and much more worried too.

“Uh I…” He pauses because he isn’t quite sure of the question himself. What is he doing here? Did he do something wrong? Was he supposed to have slept for longer? Is he supposed to learn something from it? “Why are you here?” He settles for instead, unable to ask any of the other questions aloud. 

“The biggest game of our lives is in a couple hours.” Lance gestures to the soccer ball in his hands like the answer is obvious. It probably was. “I came to practice—well, actually I texted you to see if you wanted to warm up with me but you didn’t respond.”

“…sorry?”

“And then I see you here anyway passed out in the middle of the field, which what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I fell asleep.” He admits.

“Well, yeah, I noticed that part.” Lance rolls his eyes sarcastically, something that would have been far more convincing if he didn’t already look so concerned. “My question is why? What happened?”

“Nothing.” He lies. He squints his eyes as they adjust to the contrast, which in itself, seemed strange because if the sun was blinding behind the backs of his eyes, he shouldn’t have had his dream be as dark as it was. He lifts a hand to his head and attempts to stabilize himself. 

“Wha—nothing?” Lance repeats, dubious. “No offense, Keith, but if you’re falling asleep in random fields in the middle of the night, then I don’t think it’s nothing.”

“It wasn’t random.” He corrects, without thinking. 

Lance just looks at him for a long moment, eyes narrowed. 

“Is this about today?” He finally asks. “You were too anxious to fall asleep so you came here? To what? To practice in the middle of the night? Early morning? Actually, how long have you been here for?”

He says nothing and apparently it’s all the answer Lance needs to know.

“Middle of the night then. Got it.” Lance says, nodding. “Look, I’m gonna be honest here, you’re being really really weird. At first I thought that maybe you’re stressed about facing Lotor again because what happened last year wasn’t great and I know you didn’t take it well. But, Keith, falling asleep here? Like this? I mean, I know this can’t be easy on you but even this seems a little idiotic even for you,”

“Is calling me an idiot supposed to make me feel better?”

“You didn’t let me finish.” Lance says, slapping a hand over Keith’s mouth. 

“Wha—?”

“What I’m trying to say is I’m really worried, man. If there’s something else going on you can tell me. Or if it is just Lotor then you can tell me that too because clearly, this isn’t nothing and I know something has been bothering you, I just don’t understand why you have this idea you have to deal with whatever it is on your own. I’m trying to help you over here and technically, I am your assistant so it’s kinda in the job description.” 

He pauses, drops his hand and gives Keith a chance to respond. When he doesn’t, he sighs and continues, “all I’m saying is you can trust me. If it’s Lotor then I can—”

“It’s not Lotor.” Keith interrupts. He’s fully aware that it’s best to keep his mouth shut but by this point, he's done taking the best options. “Well, I guess he’s part of it, but not this Lotor.”

“Not this Lotor?” Lance echoes, lost. “What other Lotor’s are there?”

“A lot, apparently. Have you ever heard of the parallel universe theory?”

Lance stares at him as if Keith’s gone mad, and maybe he has. Maybe his head did hit the lion dashboard/soccer ball a little too hard and made him too injured to do anything else but to wait in a reality he barely knows. Or maybe he never left space at all and he’s left hallucinating as the oxygen slowly depletes from his lungs. Either way, Keith is done. He can’t bring himself to lie because maybe, somewhere in his speech, Lance is right. 

He did need help.

He wasn’t Pidge, he didn’t have her advanced science Altean Technology to be able to pinpoint where exactly he could find the rift again. 

He wasn’t Lance who would handle the situation with calm reason and point out the obvious bigger picture that Keith is clearly missing here. But he did have a way to ask him, somewhat.

He shifts his head up to find that Lance is still looking at him in bewilderment.

Maybe. 

“Parallel—what?” He shakes his head, baffled. “Like that thing that Slav always talks about with all the realities?”

“Yeah,” Keith smiles, for once thankful for Slav’s nonsensical mumbling across all realities. “Do you ever believe in any of that?”

“Slav’s a little psychotic. He says a lot of things. You probably hate him just as much as Shiro so what’s this about? Don’t tell me you’re actually starting to believe his crazy mumbo gobbledygook probabilities.”

“No. Well, maybe—I don’t know. It’s less about the probabilities and more about all the different realities.”

Lance narrows his eyes,“why?”

“Do you believe it?”

Lance pauses, seeming to think over the prospect in careful consideration, which is probably fair. If Keith got trapped in a different reality—one that was nearly identical to his own, this wouldn’t have been a problem. They would’ve known about quintessence, and Voltron, and inter dimensional rifts, and all the Altean technology that he never understood, but was thankful of, regardless. If Keith went to one of those realities and outright told them he was from somewhere, it wouldn’t be surprising.

He’s thought all this over, of course. He’s dissected the pros and cons of being in a place so seemingly normal. If he outright tells him here, there’s a good chance he’ll laugh and take it as a joke, and even if he didn’t, Lance wouldn’t have the means to help him the way that he could if he were up in space and knows everything that Keith does. Because here, Voltron doesn’t exist past a sport’s team logo. Here, Lance most likely wouldn’t be able to help other than at best, giving vague sorts of advice. And Keith has to take it because he has nothing better to go by. 

Because of this, Keith thinks that it’s a taunting choice that the universe has picked. Taunting in all aspects that it hurts but he can’t bring himself to hold a grudge against it. 

Lance’s gaze lingers on Keith for a long time, as if he’s trying to read something in between the lines. “You’re trying to change the subject.” He decides at last.

“I’m not.”

“Keith,” Lance says. 

“I’m—I’m serious. I think he’s onto something about the alternate reality thing.” He must sound crazy and he knows it, but he’d rather sound crazy than be stuck in this universe forever. Even if there’s a good chance Lance will have nothing to say for a concrete solution to his problem, he needs to ask it because does he have anything left to lose?

“What are you saying?” Lance says with a mix of suspicion and genuine confusion that in any other circumstance, Keith would have it found almost amusing. 

“I’m saying there’s an infinite number of alternate realities, right? That’s the thing that Slav always rattles about. What if he’s not wrong about it? What if he has a point about all the realities and probabilities and somewhere out in space, parallel to our own, they’re all there.”

“Uh…”

“Like—like, let’s say for instance…” He trails off. How does he even approach this? Should he just rip it off fast like a band-aid? Is there even an acceptable, non-insane sounding way to present this at all?

“For instance…?” Lance prompts slowly. 

Band-aid it is then, he decides.

“Let’s say you’re you,” Keith starts, ignoring the way Lance’s stare burns into him, “and one day you wake up and everything is different. It’s so unfamiliar from what you’re used to that at first you hardly even recognize it, but then you realize how it’s more similar than you realized and you know, somehow, that you’re in a different reality.” 

“Is this a metaphor…?” Lance questions, hesitant, “Because I’m not picking it up.”

“You don’t know how you got there in the first place, and you especially don’t know how to go back. And no matter how much you try and focus, it doesn’t seem to do anything and you’re just now more alone than you’ve ever been and you don’t know what to do.” 

“Keith, I have no idea what you’re trying to convey right now.”

“How would you get out of it?”

Lance contorts his face together, clearly trying and failing to understand his words. “How would I get out of the…?”

“Alternate reality.” 

“Keith, what—“

“You have to answer my question. Please, Lance.”

To his credit, he doesn’t downright refuse, though he also doesn’t accept either. Instead, he’s quiet for a while and Keith takes the time to wonder if asking for help was a good idea, even if Lance practically begged him for it. Then again, Keith already bled all his ideas dry. He needs this. 

“Ok, if I answer your hypothetical question, will you tell me the thing that’s bothering you.” Lance asks at last, breaking the silence.

Keith takes a moment to consider the deal. There’s an obvious problem to it and he feels the gears shift in his brain, wondering what soccer-related non-important thing he'd have to come up with after Lance holds his end of the bargain. “Alright,” he relents slowly. Lance gives him a small smile.

“Ok, so I woke up in this… alternate reality.” He reiterates, and Keith nods in affirmation. “What’s it like?”

“What?”

“You know, the reality, what it’s like? You said it’s different but how different are we talking about?”

“Pretty different.” Keith answers easily. “Like you wonder how it could even be your life and not some strange comatose hallucination dream. The only reason you recognize it is because the people are all the same. Mostly.”

“Mostly?” He repeats.

“There’s some exceptions.”

“Like?”

“You’re dating Allura.” Keith says and Lance seems to choke on air.

“What?! Allura?!”

“I said there were some differences!”

“But Allura?” Lance gawks at him, “is Romelle not there? Are you not there? How different is this place?”

“I’m there.” Keith says. What he doesn’t say is that they weren’t on the best terms. Lance picked an argument any chance he could, and when their relationship started to shift into something more like friends, Keith had left him. He left him for months for a lead that he only really ever half-cared about. 

“You are?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you still have the mullet?” Lance asks, causing Keith to audibly groan.

“Lance!”

“What? It was a clarification question!” He defends sharply, putting his hands in the air. “It’s an important detail.”

“I don’t think knowing what my hair looks like is an important detail.” Keith scolds, reflexively running a hand through his hair, which admittedly, tousled and unkempt from having slept outside.

“I was just curious if the signature haircut is a choice made across all Keith’s.”

“You’re annoying.” He says.

“I’m probably charming in every reality.”

“Not even in a single one.”

Lance leans his weight against Keith’s. “You can’t mean that.”

“I do,” Keith says, shoving him off, “and your clarification questions aren’t helping.”

“Fine, fine, okay,” Lance takes another moment to think. “First I’d try to find you. Get to know alternate Keith, see what he’s like, see if he has a mullet—”

“Enough about my hair!”

“—and to get back, I don’t know. You didn’t really tell me any of the rules of this reality shifting thing, or whatever this is. Who’s to say I can’t just travel back to my reality. I mean, I’d say I spend a considerable amount of time there, I think I’d know the way back.” Lance responds simply and Keith fights the urge to scoff. 

“That’s not how it works.” 

“Who says?”

“You can’t know the way back.”

“Why can’t I?”

“Because how would you know?”

“How wouldn’t I know?” Lance counters, shrugging. “Like I said, I’d been there all my life, if I want to go back so badly then I would just go back.”

Keith frowns. He wishes it was that easy, that he could just will himself back into his Lion, and this wouldn’t even be a problem in the first place. He wouldn’t be stuck here, about to play a championship game against a psychotic villain in a sport he doesn’t know how to play. He tracks his eyes to the sky where the sun beats harshly behind scattered puffs of clouds. 

“I don’t think you know how this works.”

Lance laughs, “well, obviously. Do you?”

“No.” He says. “But I know it’s probably not that easy.”

“Ok, fine, then if that doesn’t work, I would just find you instead.”

“You said you already talked to me.”

“No, I mean I’d find you. ” He says, pointing a finger into Keith’s chest hard. 

“Me?”

“Yeah, why not? If I’m lost I can just follow the trail of broodiness until I know where I am.”

Keith frowns. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

“I am.” Lance says. “I’m trying to answer but you really didn’t give me any information. What’s stopping me from just finding you and following my way back.”

Keith wants to immediately detest because it really sounds like a ridiculous idea that it hardly makes sense, but when he glances over, he really doesn’t have it in him to argue. He’s not sure what he expected from this conversation. So for once, Keith drops the argument.

“You’ll follow me?” Is what he says after a beat.

“Across all of the universes.” Lance responds without a second's hesitation. “Besides, how difficult can it be?”

“What if it is difficult?”

“And what if it’s not?” He counters. “What if it works like a tether and all you have to do is find the end of the rope?”

Keith falters. “A tether?” He questions, thinking about it carefully. He doesn’t really know the set of what is possible and what isn’t either, so as far he knows, Lance could bring up a point, no matter how dumb it sounds. He technically does know where his friends are, even if he was flung in some random corner of a randomly placed universe. Could he travel back to them that way? Surely not. He would have done so by now if he could… right?

Or maybe he hadn’t really tried that angle. His initial thought had been to connect with the Black Lion because it’s the sentient one connected to his life force or quintessence or whatever vague description Allura explained for the paladin and lion bond. 

But Lance? Has he tried to call out for Red? Could he call out for Red?

Logically, if Black was out of commission and floating dead somewhere in space, it would make sense Keith wouldn’t be able to reach it. If he tried communicating to Red under the thin bond they now have after the lion switch, would it go through? Would it reach Lance? Would Lance be able to pull him out of here?

“You know, a tether. Like that thing astronauts use to not float away from each other.” Lance clarifies after he had been quiet for far too long.

Keith deadpans, “I know what a tether is.”

“Geez, sorry mister grumpy-pants, you just looked a little confused.”

“I’m not confused.”

“Don’t get all defensive on me, I just wanna know if it worked.”

“What?”

“Isn’t this the part where you call my idea stupid and say the right answer that I was supposed to say all along?”

“None of your ideas are stupid.

“Oh,” Lance blinks, surprised. “So then did it work?”

Keith strains his focus, feeling for any amount of the blinding reckless and warm energy he was once so accustomed to. He’s not sure what he’s expecting; he was no longer Red’s paladin and every bit of familiarity he used to feel from her has been washed away, and even when he visited in the Red’s hangar, it was hard to distinguish. Now he’s universes away, the notion feels impossible.

“I don’t know.” Keith answers, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. 

“You don’t know?” He repeats. “Then what was the point of this? Just a silly fun hypothetical question you came up with out of nowhere?” 

“I don’t know what this was.”

Lance studies Keith with a curious expression. He’s cautious and his eyes search Keith’s face for something he can’t pinpoint because after a minute, he gives up. 

“Are you going to tell me the thing that’s bothering you now?” Lance asks slowly and it comes though it seems like he really wants to know, it sounds more careful than Keith is expecting.

“It’s dumb.”

“Keith, don’t back out of this deal now.”

Keith closes his eyes and almost inadvertently, everything cycles back to the dream. The images of Lance flicker back into view, like a radio channel crackling in and out of static. He chalked it up as some weird nonsensical dream, but maybe it was actually supposed to mean something more. Maybe his subconscious was calling out instinctively? 

He couldn’t shake there was some kind of familiarity in there somewhere, though now that he’s thinking about it, the memory of it is slowly fading away from his mind. He debates if it’s worth it to attempt to fall back asleep now, but he knows there’s no way he could be able to. It was a fluke that he even slept on the soccer field at all. If his mind was too high-strung then it definitely is now.  

“I had a dream.” He replies.

Lance’s eyebrows furrow. “A dream? Like a nightmare?”

“Not really. Just something weird, but the kind that you think is important somehow because you can’t shake the feeling of it.”

Lance pauses and Keith waits for the moment to tell him that he’s being over-dramatic because of one dumb dream he had. Because he should. No person in their right mind sleeps outside on a soccer field because of one measly dream. But surprisingly, Lance doesn’t call him out for it. 

“Didn’t take you for a dream interpreter.” He tries to joke but it comes off more hesitant than it should.

“I’m not.” Keith says, and Lance gives him another strange look.

“Just this one then? What was so weird about it?”

“I don’t know.” He replies. “It felt almost real.” It’s an honest truth, at least. It did feel real. Maybe it was real. Perhaps he was more open in his unconscious mind and was about to breach the universes before he woke up and reverted everything. 

“Did it have to do with an alternate reality?”

Keith gives him a sad smile. “Sort of.”

“Do you want to describe it?”

He shrugs. “It wouldn’t make sense,” he says. “You were trying to tell me something important and I—” he shakes his head, “I don’t know.”

Lance is quiet for a long minute and it’s unnerving. Keith is the one that doesn’t know what to say in these scenarios. He absently tugs at the grass beneath his fingers, tearing away at the ends and waits. 

“The tether.” Lance says at last.

“What?”

“Clearly I was trying to reach out with the tether.”

“I still don’t think that’s a thing.”

“It is. I’m telling you, all you gotta do is call for me. I’m your guy, remember?”

Keith rolls his eyes, “how could I forget.”

Lance is quiet again and it allows him to look universes away for his former lion. Red remains unreachable in his mind. He’s certain, that far enough, she’s there, strung across whatever walls of this reality, but she’s there and so is her current pilot. 

He wonders what her pilot is doing, what he’s thinking about, if he’s okay. He wonders if Lance called out in his dream, or if it was him who unconsciously needed him, or both. He closes his eyes and imagines Lance there with his armor that doesn’t match his lion, his stupid grin he has when he knows he said something particularly annoying, and his ridiculous and endearing self that Keith took for granted. 

He misses the training sessions when it was just them on the deck because it would eventually derail and turn into some stupid competitive game that Lance would make up when he got bored. He misses when it was just them in the observation room. He misses visiting different planets and having Lance make a dumb comment about the terrain would cause Keith to roll his eyes. 

He misses all of them. He misses Hunk and his experimental cooking concoctions, Allura's relentless determination that keeps them going, and Pidge and even her constant keyboard clacking. At this point, he also misses the castle, as strange and foreign as it is. Keith took that for granted too. They had been on it for so long that he doesn’t know when he considered it a home, but he does and he would do anything to find a way back to it and his friends. 

Maybe he could reach better when he was asleep. Maybe he could catch glimpses of them and ask for help somehow. Maybe he had been thinking about this all backward. If he’s stuck, Lance could still find him and take him out of here. 

He has to rely on the team just as much as they rely on him. The truth of it suddenly strikes him  and he thinks he now finally understands the message of Shiro’s speech earlier. It’s a lesson that he would never be able to learn until there's nothing else left for him to do. 

“Do you have a mullet?” Lance asks quietly and Keith flinches. It had gone so quiet that he forgot he was even there. 

“What?”

“Alternate Keith. You never answered my question if he had a mullet. Does he?”

“He does.” Keith sighs and just as predicted, Lance lights up in intrigue. 

“Tell me more, you made me interested now. What’s it like? Am I still ruggedly good-looking and heroically cool?”

Keith fights the scoff and eye roll. “No. You’re still none of those things.” He says, and then as a second thought, he adds, “Maybe heroic. You fly a giant mechanical cat to save the universe.”

Lance nods. “Sounds like me.”

Chapter Text

Keith thinks a lot about the time the Red lion chose him. 

Allura told him that he was Red’s paladin, she said their energies matched just the right amount, and maybe that alone should’ve been enough to get him to believe it, but he didn’t. 

It wasn’t until the lion was right in front of him, catching him from the void of open space, that he fully believed he was meant to fly her. That they were meant to meet and cross paths. That every miniscule insignificant detail before led to him standing in the cockpit of the Blue Lion, flying into a fate that’s been pre-chosen for him. 

He knew circumstances were too coincidental for it to mean nothing. Reuniting with Shiro, meeting the team, finding the lions—these weren’t accidents. It was fit in a meticulous order with each piece methodically measured. Though despite it, he couldn’t find it in him to believe what it meant until he felt Red’s consciousness bleeding into his own because knowing and actually seeing are two very separate things. 

Theoretically, he knows there’s real Galran soldiers on each ship they tear into shreds, but it wasn’t until he stabbed the chest of someone breathing and watched any thought drain out of his face, that understands the impact of it. 

He knows there’s no palpable doorway that could lead him home. He’s been far too aware of this fact. But it isn’t until now that he can fully comprehend how useless he is here. That no matter what he does could lead him back to his own reality. 

Keith isn’t meant for standing still. He isn’t meant to sit and meditate for longer than a couple minutes because doing nothing is unbearable. Doing nothing means letting the universe choose his fate more than it already has, and leaving it up to the hands that are not his own. Doing nothing simply is something that his brain isn’t wired for. 

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what he has to do. There’s no missions he can occupy himself with, no training to drown the time out, no productive measure he can take to help himself in this scenario. All he can do is wait and hope his Lance reaches out again like he had in his dream. So he waits and it’s painstaking, and torturous, and intolerably long. 

The only thing that keeps him sane is describing his universe and everything it holds. 

Surprisingly, Soccer Lance is a good listener. 

He eagerly soaks up Keith’s stories, believing them a part of his dreams or some elaborate stories that he’s made in his head so vividly that he may think he’s insane, but at this point, Keith doesn’t care about that. 

Talking about his family and the lions and his universe feels like he’s keeping his mind open and that doesn’t sound like nothing. So he talks and internally realizes why Lance had rambled so much about Earth when he was homesick those late castle nights. He gets it. 

Though it isn’t until Pidge and Hunk join the field that Keith’s biding time is over. The soccer game has to begin soon and there’s nothing he can do to change it. Soccer Keith will not be making an appearance like he hoped he would. Keith couldn’t fix his mess on time. That’s just another thing he didn’t think through until it’s right in front of him. A soccer ball skitters out of Hunk’s half-zipped pocket of his bag and Keith frowns.

How the fuck is he going to play this game?

“You’re here early.” Pidge comments lightly,  oblivious to Keith’s internal panic and drops her bag on the grass with a thump. “What are you two making last minute strategies so we can finally beat Lotor?”

“Keith’s telling me about an alternate reality where we all fly giant mechanical cats in space.” Lance replies as if it’s an everyday occurrence. 

Pidge falters in her step, taken aback. But she seems to right herself in the next moment because she lets out a sigh. “I don’t know what else I was expecting from you two. You guys are weirdos.”

Lance grins at her, “you’re telling me you’re not the least bit curious of this alternate timeline?”

Pidge hums in thought as she ties her shoes. “I’ll admit that I’m a little surprised that you have enough collective brain cells to even know what the alternate universe theory is. Alright, entertain me; do I fly a lion?”

“The green one.” Keith answers. 

“Oh because it’s my favorite color? How creative.”

Hunk raises a curious eyebrow. Unlike Pidge, he’s not trying to hide his amusement. “Do I fly a lion?” He asks.

“Yellow.” Keith says. “You’re a leg.”

The soccer game is inevitable. 

The idea fully sinks in as the rest of the team trickles onto the field, tense and brimming with nerves of the championship game. Apparently there’s a lot of stakes here. Stakes that Soccer Keith would probably take more seriously if he were here. 

Keith doesn’t find the importance in it. In fact, he contemplates if it’s for the best for him to run away so he can avoid looking like a soccer fool and ultimately failing his entire team. He shoves this debate away when he thinks about how disappointed this Lance would be if he did. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t the boy Keith had spent so long gravitating towards because in the end, he looked and acted so much like him that it didn’t really matter. 

He tugs at the edges of his jersey. In his impatient efforts to get back to his universe, he never changed out of it. The splattered smudge on dirt from the day before probably makes him look like an idiot. 

An elbow gently nudges into his side, tearing away his thoughts. “You doing okay?” Lance asks. It’s posed so gently and he all of a sudden feels guilty for even considering running away before the game starts. He’s already left the boy too many times by now. He can’t bring himself to do it again. 

“I guess.” He responds. His gaze lands on the opposing team settling on the other side of the soccer field. They sport vibrant purple jerseys, (go figure), and there’s one particularly prominent player with long hair and a grim sneer. 

“You don’t have anything to worry about. We make a good team, remember?” Lance smiles at him and he knows that it’s probably supposed to feel better, but all it does is make him feel worse. At least at the practice, only the team was there when he made a fool of himself, now as the crowd trickles in to watch the game with the supposed reigning champions, everyone is watching.

Lance must follow his gaze. “Don’t worry about them,” he says, “whatever happens, we’ll do it as a team.” 

Slowly, Keith nods. “Thanks, Lance. I’m glad you’re here.” He says and means every word. He’s sure without him, he would’ve been so far worse off that he can’t even imagine it. Lance grins at him.

“Me too. Now let’s kick some Galra butt, team captain.”

Keith’s heart is pounding erratically in his chest. 

He doesn’t even get this worked up before battle, why is this so much worse? Perhaps it’s because this isn’t something he was trained for. This isn’t something he can pick up in the matter of minutes like flying a sentient lion. This stupid normal Earth soccer game is something beyond his abilities and he recognizes the irony there. For all the unfamiliar wars and planets, this is the one that feels most foreign.

He regrets not looking up a Wikihow article in the spare time he had before this. How the hell does soccer even work? 

He looks up and finds the red glowing outlines on the scoreboard. 

Shiro’s meditation be damned. He’s completely and utterly fucked and there’s nothing that can help him now. 

“Do you think Coran got that unbiased ref he was talking about?” Pidge walks next to Keith, her eyes tracking a tall burly man sporting a bright yellow shirt. 

Keith squints at the figure. There’s something obscurely familiar about the way he presents himself, and then Keith notes the thin braid strung to the side.

He hesitates. There’s no way.

“Kolivan?” The scowl deepened on the man’s lips practically confirmed it. Keith had spent enough time at the Blades dealing with that the level of solemnity is ingrained in him. 

“Koli—who?” 

He shakes his head. “It’s—” he almost finishes but thinks better of it, “yeah, I’m pretty sure Coran got that unbiased ref.”

Pidge beams at him. “That means they can’t play dirty without getting tossed out.”

“Do you really think it’s enough to stop him?”

She shrugs, and then examines the Galra across the field. “I think it’s enough to deter Lotor. He wouldn’t risk getting thrown out of the game like that. It’s his goons we have to worry about.”

Keith opens his mouth to respond but before he gets the chance, Shiro calls them over for a team huddle and his stomach drops. The routine feels similar enough—Shiro’s pep-talk speeches and debriefing before important missions. Though it makes this feel more real than he wants it to. 

Soccer Keith should be one listening to this, not him.

Internally, he makes one final plea to Black, Red, and then all of the lions after that, just in case. None of them respond. Neither do any of their paladins. 

He catches up with the rest of the soccer team as Shiro goes over last minute plans. Unlike the practice, Keith fully attempts to listen this time. 

“Allura, Hunk, Shay, I need you guys to be careful of the Galra’s attackers. They’re gonna try to sneak some shots in so don’t let them get the chance.” 

“Pidge, you’re great at finding openings in their defense. Use that advantage.”

“Lance, you have a great shot. Find a way to stay open and make it count.”

“Keith, you’ll stay as a midfielder. Remember that the ball goes faster than you. Pass it.”

He releases a breath of air. A midfielder isn’t too complicated. They’re not confined by any side of the field of Keith’s limited knowledge from yesterday’s practice drills. Maybe he wouldn’t make too much of a fool of himself. Granted, he isn’t sure how many players are on the field at a time, but it seems like a lot, and he hopes it’s a lot. The more people there are, the less Keith has to actually interact with the ball. And when he does end up getting the ball, he’ll follow Shiro’s instructions; he’ll pass it. 

He clicks the dirt from his cleats, swallowing the waves of nerves and attempts to steady himself. 

If he ever does make it out of this reality any time soon, he decides he’ll never play soccer again. 

Shiro clears his throat. “I know this might be stressful, but you guys worked hard to get here. I’m proud of how far we’ve come and how much you all improved. This is our chance to show it off. Let’s end this decade-long Galra reign.” 

To no one’s surprise, the captain of the Galra is Lotor. 

Keith knows this because the two captains have to meet before the starting whistle and he finds himself staring right in front of his obnoxious sneer. Maybe it’s the way it’s hard-wired into him, but he swears his features look inhuman in the expression. 

“You seem far tenser than usual, Paladin,” Lotor sneers. The nickname doesn’t even make sense here. “Your worries are in vain. I think we picked a more effective target this year.” His eyes are fixed in a spot just behind Keith. He looks back and his heart sinks.

Lance.

Lotor’s undoubtedly looking at Lance. 

“You’re not going anywhere near him.”

“A bit hot-headed now, are we?” Lotor muses, his lips curling into an ugly toothy smile. “Careful we wouldn’t want to get thrown out of the game before it even starts. Now what fun would that be?”

Keith opens his mouth to respond but before he gets the chance, Not-Kolivan walks next to them, stoic as ever. “Heads or tails.” It’s more of a command than a request.

“What?” Keith blurts at the same time Lotor answers, “heads.”

Before Keith can even process any of the meaning, the coin is flipped and Not-Kolivan catches it. “Heads.” He affirms.

Lotor smiles. “We’ll take the face-off.” He says.

Keith is reminded how little he knows about this dumb sport before all too soon, the starting whistle blows. 

He’s left bewildered as Lotor wastes no time passing the ball to his teammates and everything becomes a soccer blur of movement. 

He takes a short glance at the scoreboard where 90 minutes has started counting down in bright choppy lines. 

He wonders how he’ll survive for that long. 

The soccer game begins just as Keith predicts it would go; not spectacular. If Keith thought his own team was talented yesterday, he can see that the Galra are just as so. He hates to admit it but it’s no wonder they kept the championship title for as long as they did. 

Keith stares as the Galra pass seamlessly toward one another. It’s practiced. Careful. They know how to get the ball moving to avoid any interceptions. 

He studies as the ball rolls from Zethrid, to Axca, to someone he doesn’t recognize, back to Zethrid. Keith feels like he’s trying to keep track of a ping pong tournament. His eyes drift to Lotor who stands feet away from Keith and although he doesn’t meet his gaze, he knows the exact type of expression he’s wearing. 

For a brief, delirious moment, he thinks this isn’t all that different from their space battles. 

He may not know these rules, or how to play soccer in the slightest, but he knows an opening when he sees one. So when the ball slides across the turf, predictively lined up right to Lotor, Keith is already there. 

He lodges a foot before Lotor has a chance to recover and wastes no time kicking it over to Lance. Or at least in the direction of Lance because the pass goes much wider than he wanted, but thankfully Lance makes up for his inexperience. He dribbles the ball with the side of his foot, passing it over so it’s more controlled that way and it’s so smooth. It looks like he’s as if he’s done that trick a million times, and to be fair, he probably has.

Lance weaves in and out of the defenders, and even when one blocks him, he finds a way to shoot the ball through their legs, leaving them stumbling just as much as Keith had during their practice. He feels a little less pathetic at that, Lance is just annoyingly good at making players disoriented and confused. 

Maybe it’s ridiculous, he can’t help the pride that bubbles in his chest. Lance is just as fun and mesmerizing to watch in this game and he knows the crowd feels it too because they’re held onto his every move. If Lance seems to know this fact, he doesn’t care. He keeps a steady kind of determined calm that it’s a little frightening and he can’t help but wonder what kind of prodigy freak Soccer Keith must be to even be on the same level as that. 

It isn’t until the ball rolls to Pidge that he realizes that he should probably help them. Or at least, try to look like he’s helping them instead of standing like a confused oaf in the center.

Oops. 

He jogs to the offensive side and wonders if there’s a certain spot he should be covering. Or maybe he should be trying to get open? He really has no idea. All the soccer rules and positions are lost on him. 

Theoretically, he could tackle one of the defenders so Pidge could get a chance to shoot, but that would be illegal… right? 

Before he can really contemplate it, the ball gets kicked his way and he hasn’t realized how close he drifted to the goal. 

The ball skids in a perfectly lined up path. 

His heart lurches in his throat. He doesn’t need any knowledge to know the opportunity here. He steps forward and attempts to meet it. 

He can do this. 

He can kick a damn ball. Hand-eye coordination is his thing, so this shouldn’t be too far from it right? Out of all the feats he did in space, this should be easy.

So he screws his eyes shut and feels the ball line against his shoe and kicks.

The ball goes wide.

Like really, really wide.

Like a pathetic amount of wide. 

The nets are obnoxiously big, he had to be an absolute fool to miss it. But he did, and he missed it by a long shot. 

He fights the embarrassment as he watches the ball roll out of bounds, far away from where he aimed. 

He’s never playing soccer again. 

Beside him, he hears Lotor’s derisive snort. “You’re supposed to aim for the goal, in case you were confused.” He sneers and his stupid Galra team has the audacity to snort at the comment. 

Keith whips around at them, but before he could do anything to rash, Lance beats him to it. “Oh piss off, Lotor. In case you forgot, soccer doesn’t need this much squabbling. ‘Voltron this—paladin that, ’ god, if you could run faster than your mouth then you'd actually have a chance at impressing your own father.”

Keith’s mouth hangs open in disbelief.

Whatever he was expecting Lance to say, it wasn’t that. Though Lotor looks alarmingly less surprised at the exchange and the fact that Lance was giving him a death glare. Something that Keith would’ve never had thought his face could even twist to something like that. 

He’s seen Lance annoyed, irritated plenty of times, most of them directed at him, but this kind of glare is something foriegn.

Lotor looks like he’s about to make some sort of retort but before he gets the chance, Not-Kolivan blows his whistle and gestures for Lotor to pick up the loose ball. It doesn’t stop him from giving Lance the most inhuman and demonic look that makes Keith want to run a DNA test because he looks the most like Galra Space Lotor than he’s ever seen here. 

His threat bounces back in his ears. New Target. 

Keith’s stomach curls in on itself but before he can get the chance to warn Lance, the whistle blows once more and just as quickly, the ball is thrown back into play.

The game is back to being a blur in his eyes.

He sneaks another glance at the clock and it reads the same as it had a second earlier. 

As it turns out, Keith is not all terrible at soccer. 

He has some half decent moments.

Most of which include predicting the Galra’s sloppy openings and using his speed to steal the ball away. To be fair, most of that comes from the years he spent honing his agility as a paladin, and okay, maybe the alien genes are also a factor. But he’s not going to debate the moralities of using that unfair advantage because right now, it’s the only thing he can contribute. 

Whenever someone on his team passes the ball his way, he never keeps it for longer than he has to. He can’t. Space training and funky genes can only carry him so far. Even his passes are still pretty bad. If Shiro had any other substitute on the bench, he’s sure they’d be replacing him about now. 

By the time the game is more than halfway done, both teams have yet to sink in a goal. 

Keith wipes the sweat with the back of his hand, panting slightly. He can tell everyone is getting impatient and irrationally tense. It’s picked apart by their movements which are no longer as loose and languid as they once were, but now stiff and filled with caution. Neither one wants to let up the first goal and it’s perceptible to everyone in radius. 

He knows Shiro feels it, he can see it in the firm expression that he can recognize while in a harsh battle. Hunk’s expression is fearful, Pidge remains cautious, and Allura seems anxious. They all want this.

The crowd keeps looking for something that isn’t there and hell, even Keith feels the urgency. As strange as it is, and despite everything this stupid sport has put him through, he doesn’t like to lose. 

He doesn’t like to lose anything. Not even here where he has no emotional attachment to this title. Though the statement seems to crack whenever he comes face to face with Lotor and all of a sudden, Keith forgets where he is. 

He needs this win. 

Just as much as he needs to see that familiar smug face lose. 

So he’ll do whatever he can to make sure it happens. 

His competitiveness starts to seep in as he realizes soccer is easy enough to keep track of. There’s a ball, you kick it around until it enters in a goal, and maybe Keith is missing a few skills here and there, but he needs this win.

When some dumb-looking Galra player runs down the field, Keith practically teleports and almost bowls him over. The soldier—the player clearly wasn’t expecting it and Keith can see the way he panics, he knows because he’s seen enough times while sword-fighting. He’s trained to find an opening and use it to the full advantage. He scrambles the ball away and passes it to Allura, only for it to find its way to Hunk instead. 

Close enough. 

The time ticks away on the scoreboard. 

Keith assumes that now would probably be the time for the Galra to use their scummy tactics. He can tell because they start to get more physical, bordering on the edge of desperation. 

It’s no surprise when the burly man centered right smack in the center of the Galra team calls for a timeout. Keith squints and it probably should’ve registered before now, but that has to be Zarkon. 

Lotor said that they were coached by none other than the Soccer King himself. 

So by logic, he’s looking right at Soccer Zarkon. 

It would be almost comical if he wasn’t already so sick of their soccer counterparts.

“Hey,” Lance jogs up to him and lightly grazes the side of his arm to get his attention. 

Keith turns and okay, he takes it back. Maybe he’s not sick of all the counterparts yet. Some still look criminally attractive even in a sweaty soccer jersey and hair that was slightly tousled from the wind and cute freckles that hugged the bridge of his nose. His heart rate increases for a reason that is not due from running for nearly an hour straight. 

“You doing okay?” Lance asks, caring as ever.

Keith frowns. He has to force himself to look away because if he doesn’t now, he wouldn’t ever be able to. The game may have been winding up, but it was hardly apparent in Lance’s face. In fact, he looks strangely in his element, calm and determined. 

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Keith interrupts, lifting his gaze back to the least intimidating version of Zarkon looking pissed beyond belief. The team is hunched around him, grim. Whatever he’s saying, he can’t imagine it’s encouraging. 

“Oh, you know, plotting, probably. When do they not?”

“Lotor said he was gonna target you before the game started.” Keith says. He risks a glance only to find Lance not phased in the slightest.

“Yeah, he tends to do that. He probably was just trying to get you irrationally angry and who could blame him? You get all pouty and cute.”

“I—what?”

“Yeah! Exactly like that.” He pinches the side of his cheek which only seems to worsen it. Keith slaps his hand away, feeling a rush of heat crawl onto his ears as an act of betrayal. Soccer Lance should just put him out of his misery by now. He doesn’t know how much longer he can deal with this. 

“I still don’t like it.” Keith says. He takes another long look at Zarkon and tries to recall the face, only for it to come back blank in his mind. It was too deformed to even find one human feature in there. But Soccer Zarkon, all he looked was mean. 

“Of course you don’t.” Lance replies. 

“Promise me you won’t try to rile them up?”

“Keith, this is—“

“You gotta promise me, Lance.”

Lance takes a long moment to study him. Eventually, he must hear the plea in there because he relents. “Fine, I promise.”

“Good.” Keith nods. If he couldn’t keep anyone safe from the war in the quintessence field, then he’ll at least do it here. 

When the whistle blows and the timeout is officially used up, Keith is prepared for it. The game starts back into motion and this time, he launches into action along with it.

He springs to the ball before he can overthink how to run with it. Not that it helps. He almost trips over it regardless. 

Lance is good though. He’s much better and seems to anticipate Keith’s moves and when he scrambled it in his direction, Lance catches it in a fluid turn. 

He imagines that Soccer Keith and Soccer Lance were a match made in Soccer Heaven. That they knew each other’s attacks with no words said. That they were an unstoppable duo, compensating for the other’s weaknesses. 

That dynamic was something he missed in the Blades more than he could ever say aloud. He knew they would only allow soldiers with Galra lineage, and yet every night he stared at the plain, undecorated ceilings and couldn’t stop thinking that they’d be far more productive with Lance at his side. 

Pidge takes the ball and she’s just as agile. Her strategy seems to revolve around faking her opponents out and to his amusement, it works. One of the Galra stumbles and it gives her an opening. With pinpoint accuracy and lightning instincts, she passes it to Lance who veers left, his leg already outstretched for the kick.

The feel is electric. No one in the crowd dares to move, not even Keith. 

The net waits at an awkward angle, but Lance has aligned himself just so. It’s all right there. 

And then, right at the last second, Keith sees it. Zethrid coming unnecessarily close. She didn’t look like she was aiming at the ball.

She was aiming at Lance.

Lance makes contact at the perfect time, and the ball is sent flying, shot perfectly at the corners of the net.

Keith isn’t even sure if it makes it in. 

He’s certain it does. He’d be more sure if the audience wasn’t a blur in his ear drums. 

Lance has yet to see Zethrid, and judging at how he’s angled, he won’t. 

Keith is there before he can even process his body’s movements. 

He thinks about when he could feel the Red Lion’s presence as easily as breathing. He thinks about that time she chose him. It was instinctive, a little reckless, and far too brash. It was probably why Allura said they were compatible in that way. Because right now, Keith is moving and it’s just as instinctual, just as reckless.

He doesn’t think about any of the consequences because none of it matters. 

He slides in front of Lance and in that same second, Zethrid rams through him, her fist connecting into the side of Keith’s skull. 

Keith blinks as the pain, sharp and encompassing shoots through his head and makes his eyesight go fuzzy. He thinks he takes a step forward at that time, or at least tries to, but he never makes it. 

He falls to the grass and distantly places a pair of hands reaching out at him, only for it to be swallowed by the abyss. There’s nothing there anymore. No soccer, no field, no crowd. 

Keith’s last thoughts are of the boy he left in space. The boy he left alone. The boy he would do anything to see, if just for one last fleeting moment. 

And then everything goes black.

When Keith opens one cautious eye, he thinks he has yet to truly wake up at all. Everywhere he looks is drenched in darkness like a voidless expanse.

He tilts his head and finds all the specks of starlight and for a delirious second, he thinks he’s back in his room watching his ceiling’s glow in the dark stars. The theory stalls in his throat and he shoots up from the ground. He knows where he is.

He’s visited this place once before. 

A shining blue star, discolored and bright is just of a distinct marking as any. 

“Lance?” He calls out automatically. He’s far too aware of how empty the place is. 

There is no one to respond.

“Lance? Lance?!” He turns in a desperate plea and keeps repeating it until this place— someone hears him. 

And finally, it does. 

Lance flickers into view and for what felt like an eternity, for once he isn’t wearing a beat up soccer jersey. He’s outlined by a pale glow but the beautiful blue paladin armor was so distinct that Keith has trouble breathing. It’s the Voltron armor. The color shines a stark blue, as bright as any star this deranged piece of space could show him.

This was the Lance that challenged his every move. The one that shoots petty retorts and takes a little too much enjoyment in derailing training sessions and throws popcorn into the back of Keith’s hair during movie nights. 

This is the one he knows and it’s such a relief to see him right in front of him that he doesn’t even think. He moves and practically throws his arms around Lance before the other could process the move. 

“Keith?” Lance asks, confused. “What’s happening? What are—“ He stops and a face of haunting realization dawns on him. “Is this—are you… are you…” Lance swallows thickly, “you—you didn’t respond to us after…”

“I’m okay,” Keith interrupts mostly because Lance looks like he’s having trouble getting the words across. 

“You are?” He says, looking around the astral plane with uncertainty. 

Keith nods. “This is the only chance I could get to talk to you.”

“What are you talking about?” He stammers. “Only chance? Are your comms dead? What happened? Why are we here?”

“No, I—“

“And what the hell are you wearing?”

Keith looks down and sure enough, the tattered dirty soccer jersey is a stark contrast against the black abyss. He wonders how it possibly could have transferred into here. It doesn’t even make sense. 

“How long was I out?” Keith rasps out.

Lance blinks at him. “What?”

“You said I wasn’t responding. For how long?”

Lance gives him a stupefied look. “I dont know?” He twists his face in thought, “minutes, maybe? Long enough that we all thought—“

“I went to a different reality.”

“What?”

“When I got separated from you guys, I think I might’ve hit one of those blue vine things because I woke up and we all played soccer. Voltron wasn’t even a thing.”

“Soccer?” Lance repeats dumbly.

“You were there, all of you were there, and I guess I must’ve replaced that Keith because was no one else and I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to make it out of there in time before…” he shakes his head. 

“Keith, hold on—”

“I need your help, Lance. You gotta, I don’t know, get me out of there somehow.”

The silence that stretches feels unbearable. Lance is examining him with caution and he suddenly feels out of place with his jersey. He plucks the sleeve, willing to have it transform into the matching coat of armor. It doesn’t.

“This isn’t real.” Lance decides then.

Keith’s mouth gapes open, “what?”

“We all thought you died, Keith. You were torn away and you wouldn’t respond to any of our calls and we couldn’t… we couldn’t even feel you, if that makes sense. You were just gone and I…” He swallows and waves an arm around vaguely to gesture to the boy in front of him. “But now you reach out to me in this—whatever this is—while wearing a soccer jersey, and saying that you need my help. You must know how crazy this sounds.”

“I’m not dead. This isn’t some ghost, or hallucination, or whatever you’re thinking.” Keith lifts a hand to his heart. Through the thin fabric, he can place his rhythmic beating which is surprising because even if it’s against his words, they do look like ghosts here. It’s more than a little off-putting. He gently grabs Lance’s hand and places it where he could feel it too.

Lance gives him a strange sort of look. “You were stuck in this other reality?” He says at last and Keith nods. 

“Yeah.”

“For how long?”

“A day, maybe.”

“A day?! ” 

“I’ll explain everything later. Think you could get me out of it?” 

Lance nods. “Obviously, who do you think you’re talking to?” He says, a small smile crossing his lips, “and I think I have a way to do it.”

“You do?”

“I do.” He repeats, letting go of Keith’s hand. He hadn’t even realized he was still holding it. “I’m gonna tow your lion out. All you gotta do is sit here and look pretty.”

The simple comment shouldn’t surprise him the way it does. Technically, he had been with a whole different Lance where they were literally dating, and even then, he still never got used to his openly flirtatious remarks and unfiltered gestures. But none of it compares to this. 

Because they aren’t dating here.

There was no reason to add it in

Against his will, Keith feels his heart careen to a halt. 

Did Lance know? Did he somehow see past the curtain Keith vowed he would never open? Is he angry? Did he cross a boundary by accepting the label of their relationship so easily?

No, he couldn’t have known.

That was just how Lance talked. 

It didn’t mean anything, no matter how much he wished it had. No matter how much, for once, he wanted the realities to intersect along the lines—it couldn't because that was just the deck of cards he was given. 

When he looks back up, Lance is still standing there and he looks like he’s internally debating on saying something more. 

“Are you going?” Keith asks when the silence feels far too uncharacteristic. 

“Right, yeah, right. I was just—I’m glad you’re okay.” Lance says in that same way that it reminds him of the boy back on the field and now Keith is the one questioning what’s real and what’s not.

“Careful,” Keith warns, “it almost sounds like you care.”

He smiles, warm and soft. “Wouldn’t want that now, would I?”

“Right, then where would we be?” Dating and playing soccer, probably.

“I’ll see you on the other side, Keith.” Is all Lance says as he salutes into the air and dims out of view completely. 

he wakes up, for real this time, he wakes to the distinct muted glow of purple backed by the Altean warning symbols that blink across his screen. 

He lifts his head, slowly, doing his best to ignore a glaring sharp pain that shoots when he does. On the corner of his visor, there’s a tiny spider web of cracked glass.

Huh, he really did bang his head. 

It explained how painful Lance’s soccer ball shot was at first. It also explained how much it hurt when Zethrid rammed through him.

The next thing he hears is the crackling of comms, sparking into life. 

He blinks. 

“Keith,” a voice tinted with static came and now that he can register it, it had probably been trying to call his name for awhile. 

“Keith,” it comes again, much clearer this time, “can you hear me? Hello? Buddy, this isn’t funny you gotta answer me.”

He’s back in his lion. 

He’s not kicking a ball in his hometown that he doesn’t even know the name of.

He’s back in his universe.

Lance brought him back.

Keith smiles to himself. That goddamn tether. 

“I’m here.” He responds back, his voice much raspier than he was expecting it to be, but he’s smiling through it regardless. 

He doesn’t have it in him at the moment to be upset about the real and actual concussion he probably has here. He doesn’t care because he’s in his own universe and the Black Lion responds to him with a steady rumble. 

“Keith!” Lance replies thick with relief, “you’re okay!”

From the hazy mist of the quintessence field burning behind his eyes, he can make out a sliver of red before large yellow metal eyes take up his entire screen. 

“Thanks, Lance. I owe you one.”

“You can thank me by helping us take down this shampoo sociopath.”

Keith laughs and it’s lighter than he’s felt in days. “You got it.” 

“Is that Keith?” Hunk yells the moment the two get back into range of the others. They’re just barely scraping by the heavy artillery of Lotor’s ship. Keith feels a bumble of pride that they were able to dodge the attacks as well as they had been doing. Of course, some of the lions had a couple scrapes and cuts that weren't there last Keith checked, but surviving Lotor’s flurry of attacks while down a lion is undeniably an impressive feat, he’ll give it to them.

“Glad to see someone decided to join back.” Pidge says, though even he can hear that it’s far from accusing. In fact, it’s dipped in the kind of fond tone she normally saves for when she’s talking about technology, or memories of her family.

“Oh thank goodness, you’re alright.” Allura sighs a breath, swerving her lion at the last moment from the tip of a sword swing.

“I couldn’t let him sleep on his duties that easily.” Lance jokes. 

“I’m glad to see you’re all okay.” Keith says, honest. 

“Glad to see you are too buddy, now reunion over, Voltron please! You don’t wanna know the amount of times we almost got lion shish kebabed.” Hunk pleads, and even as he says it, has to lean right to avoid some sort of cannon fire.

“Good point. Converge on me, let’s finish this.”

Voltron goes as forming a giant robot does. 

There’s the same feeling of a string being pulled taut, and then tied into itself like one of those rope survival knots his dad used to teach him about. 

In the quintessence, everything is amplified. The power, the emotions, the bonds, everything. It’s a little disorienting. More so when Keith lifts his head, there’s no pain backed behind it. If the crack in his visor wasn’t poking out in the corner of his vision, he would’ve questioned if he ever got injured at all.

By the time Lotor’s robot attempts to strike again, Voltron is somehow faster. The knot fastens as tight as he’s ever felt it.

“What’s our plan here? We didn’t do too well the first time.”

And there it is. The million dollar question. The one that was inevitable the moment Keith found his way back home. But with the extra time in the other reality, it did give him time to think. 

He takes a deep breath. 

He wouldn’t have admitted it before. He would’ve kept trying until their eventual demise. So maybe, in a twisted and cruel way, it was a lesson he needed to learn when there was nothing else left for him to do. One that he would only begin to consider when every single sense of duty was stripped right by the roots and there was no other choice than to be honest. That’s what he did in the other reality and in that regard, Soccer Lance did technically give him not so terrible advice. It led him back eventually.

So maybe that was all he had to do here too. 

Realities mirrored and all that. 

“Keith?” Someone prompts.

He gives in.

“I’m gonna need help.” He hears himself say. “If we’re gonna beat him, we’ll need to do it as a team. I know I brought us here, but I don’t know how anything works, so Lance was right. Allura, you know more about this than anyone, and we’re gonna need you if we want to get out of this.”

“Am I hearing Keith right? It sounds like he’s admitting he can’t do it all alone.” Pidge says with more genuine curiosity than anything else. “What happened to you over there? The quintessence scramble your brain?”

“And he just said the words ‘Lance was right.’” Hunk pipes up. “This is definitely not normal.”

“I think he’s being more rational than ever. It’s about time someone said that I was right.” Lance responds and the smug smile is so prominent in his tone that it causes Keith to groan. 

“Allura, is there anything we can do?”

“I’m not certain…” Allura pauses, shifting their angle. “It may not work.”

“Whatever it is, it has to be worth a try. It’s better than nothing.”

“It’s risky, but theoretically, if we overpower his ships, then they could overload and render him useless. However, if I'm wrong, we’d only be making him considerably more powerful.”

“At this point, we have nothing left to lose. If we keep fighting then he’ll just split us apart again and I don’t think we’ll get that lucky a second time.” Even though Pidge was the one that said it she didn’t know just how true it was. 

If he got thrown into another universe, a different universe, one that held far more violence than just a high school sport, there was no telling if he’d be able to come back from it. 

Or if they were all thrown into different universes, he doubted there’d be no way to come back at all. If he was going by Soccer Lance’s logic, if they were all lost in space, the tether would be pointless. There’d be nothing at the end of the rope, even if they manage to find it. There’d be no lion to pull any of them back out this time. They’d be gone for good. Lost forever. 

“Big fat ditto for me.” Lance agrees, nodding. “I don’t think I could take that again.”

“If we are doing a vote, then I’m also in favor.” Hunk says. 

“Then it’s settled.” Keith decides. “Allura, how do we overload him?”

“Right in the center of all the strings. The focal point of realities. Just one inch of that single area alone holds far more raw power than any man to possibly bear.” She replies, leaning their angle so they could all make out the neon blue shapes. “There’s a reason he can’t just pull apart all the universes at once, it’ll put too much strain on him and he knows it.” 

“So it’s like a fuse?” Pidge supplies. “Anything too much can cause a power surge and fry his ships.”

“Precisely. If he wants that much power, then we’ll give it to him.”

“And how are we supposed to do that? Shove him in the eye of the storm, or whatever? Drown him under it? Hold him down until his ships fry?”

Allura twists her mouth in a firm line. “I’m afraid it’s not that easy. If we get close enough, we’ll also be affected.”

“We could push him?”

“I doubt that will carry enough force for the amount of distance we need.”

His team’s voices become muffled in Keith’s ears. He squints at all the glowing strings and no matter which one he starts at, it all circles at the same place. He got it wrong at first, it wasn’t a giant set of veins, no, but a cornea in an eye. And he was sure that if they managed to get far away enough, it would look exactly like one. 

And right in the middle, right centered in all of it, looked to be some sort of pupil. The epicenter. 

Only it wasn’t an exact circle. It was slightly oblong, stretching at the sides that made it look slightly out of place. He tilts his head at it. There was something else it was reminding him of. 

As if in slow motion, Lotor’s ships come skidding into open view. 

It gives Keith a sense of deja vu and for a brief moment, he was transported back to the soccer field when the ball was perfectly aligned for the kick. 

His brain stutters to a halt. As crazy as it sounded, it didn’t seem like much of a difference from then and now. 

“We kick him.” Keith says suddenly, interrupting their ideas. 

“What?” 

“Lotor,” he responds, louder this time. “We kick him into the center. That way we don’t get too close and we send him with enough force.”

“Keith, how much did that soccer reality muddle your brain?”

“I’m serious. One well-timed and well-aimed kick.” Keith responds, “just like that time you tried to kick the flying orb from the first robeast.”

“I missed that thing. You said it threw off Voltron’s whole balance!” Lance argues, and okay, it’s true. Keith hated that kick. But back then, no one was prepared for it and they were much less in sync than they are now. 

“So we don’t miss this time.” Keith says simply, far more calm than he feels. If he’s being honest, he thinks that the soccer reality had scrambled with his brain since there was no way he would have even remotely had considered this. Because he knew, on paper, how it sounded. To kick a giant mecha robot and fling it to the center of all realities somehow shaped like a soccer net. But he couldn’t deny that in some way, it made sense. Throwing Lotor would’ve had too little momentum to carry him as far as they needed. Pushing him would’ve gotten them too close. But this? This could work.

“Soccer…reality?” Hunk repeats slowly, the words deliberate on his tongue like he had a hard time forming the consonants. “What did that mean? What did we miss?”

“You were flung in a different reality!” Pidge exclaims. “For how long? You have to tell us about it!”

“What is… soccer?” Allura questions, narrowing her eyes. 

“It’s an Earth sport.” Keith answers, “I’ll tell you all about it when we finish this. Allura, think you could make the kick?”

“Oh believe me, I have been waiting for the chance to kick him.”

“Good,” Keith smiles, “land it better than Lance.”

“What? You—“ Lance hardly gets the chance to protest the remark because in the next moment, Lotor nearly nicks Voltron in its side. Luckily, someone was at least watching out for it because the thrusters launched them away. And maybe it was due in part to Keith’s own lion being trapped in one of the universe vines that prompted the quick increase of speed. Or maybe it was the quintessence field in general.

Not that any of it really mattered, or could really by chalked up in the moment. 

All he knows is that Voltron is moving fast. Faster than he’d ever seen it and it almost made him dizzy watching it all happen. 

He knows the others feel it too. That the linked bond between them is practically boiling over the seams and all their movements were clean. Precise. Perfectly in sync. 

And so he didn’t even have to announce the opening when he saw it. They already knew. 

Lotor had his back against the realities, and his stomach became unguarded when he faltered on the missed sword swing. It was the kind of opening that Keith could pick apart with his eyes closed. Akin to where his opponent got too cocky, too arrogant, too swept in the moment to notice their mistake until the opponent had the swipe of silver against skin. 

Using all their momentum they’d gained from avoiding the slice, Voltron shreds through the air, it’s leg spinning until it hits. The contact of metal lurches through every muscle, sending waves of nerve endings tangling with their lions, but with one full blast of their thrusters, Lotor is sent hurtling backward uncontrollably. 

He clearly hadn’t expected it. The petulant unconventional kind of strategy that involved some strange round-house barrel kick, and even as Voltron was thrown off-center from the force, Keith can make out, clear as day Lotor struggling to re-align himself. Struggling, and failing.

As fast as he was, he couldn’t manage to counteract the blow in time. 

For not knowing anything about soccer, Keith had to give credit that Allura had spectacular aim because he flies right into the pupil of the eye and blue light drenches over him. 

A perfect goal, if Keith is any judge from his limited experience.

Like the swish of a net, quintessence pours and rebounds all over the groaning heaps of metal, and Lotor fumbles out. 

For a heart-stopping second, Keith thinks that it isn’t enough. And then, Lotor’s ships flicker out as the robot limbs lay limp in the air, the sizzle of electricity crackling in its wake.

“Did it… did it work?”

“I think so. Let’s grab Lotor and get out of here.”

Lotor was unconscious when Voltron ripped open the Sincline ships. Keith doesn’t know what it means, or what he’s logically supposed to do with someone like Lotor. The same person who had betrayed the coalition from his own emotionally charged desperation to escape his past. And apparently, that kind of pain probably transcended across realities. 

He hadn’t missed the way Soccer Zarkon spoke as a coach, the way he looked at his own son. The way he would do anything to get what he wanted and as much as Lotor tried deny it, it was the one thing the two had in common. 

But Lotor didn’t want to conquer all the universes for his own personal gain, no. All he wanted was a reality with the peace and happiness that he never got. 

If he was Zarkon, Keith would’ve left him there, rotting in the quintessence field alone and stranded. He wouldn’t have given it a second thought. 

But he wasn’t Zarkon. 

Here, he let the Red Lion scoop him up. What they would do with him, that was a problem for future them.

For now, they turned their back on the abandoned overloaded metal of Lotor’s ships. Leaving the transreality comet in the quintessence field where no one could find is a good enough solution as any other. 

The electric fizzle of the air floods his brain one final time before they cross the rifts, and the feeling drops the second they rip contact. Without the extra quintessence, Voltron is back to the normal amount of energy it exudes, no longer boiling over like a pot of hot water. 

And the castle of lions stands right where they had left it, hovering across a black expanse of unfamiliar constellations, but it’s more of his home than anything else. It drifts salient in a flood of darkness like a spotlight in the night, and Keith has never been so relieved to see it. 

Though as quickly as the wave of relief came, it ends when the last quintessence fully filters out of their system like water in a sifter and leaves them drained. The only consolation was that the adrenaline still lingers until they split the lions and at the very least it allows him to make it back in his hanger until the mind-splitting headache returns to full swing.

His head feels like it’s one thread snap away from disconnecting. He can definitely believe he’s concussed now.

He tosses his helmet aside. The spindleweb of crack bore into the side and it wouldn’t do it much anyway. He would have to ask Coran for a new one. If they even had a new one. How hard did he get shoved for it to crack Altean glass? 

He stumbles out of the lion’s hanger but only a few steps is all he can manage before he trips and expects to fall face first in the cold hard floor of metal. 

He, surprisingly, does not. 

Instead he slumps into a soft pair of hands that do his best to hold him up. His arm is slung across someone’s shoulders and the motion feels panicked and sloppy, but comforting all the same. The scent of cleaning product and the castle’s minty soaps nestles in his nose. Perhaps he’s fine then, he decides. He’s safe and at home. 

The feeling lasts all but a couple seconds before the voice at his side decides to speak. “Geez,” it says, “you look terrible.” 

“You’re the one who concussed me.” He murmurs and notes the Lance stiffens next to him. 

“I—what?”

Keith pauses, and he’s not delirious. The pain is not that affecting that he forgets where he is. He’s acutely aware that this Lance wasn’t the one who concussed him at all. In fact, he had nothing to do with it. But that significant piece of context fails to spill out of him and it leaves him feeling oddly choked. 

“With a soccer ball,” he clarifies and hopes that Lance takes it as enough. That he doesn’t dare prod for more because right now, Keith doesn’t dare trust what might come out of it.

“With a soccer ball,” Lance repeats, searching intently for something on Keith’s face as if it may supply him with the answers he needs. When it unsurprisingly doesn’t work, he clears his throat. “What, did we hate each other in that other reality, or something?” Lance is smiling, but the tone conveyed it was anything other than a joke. Like it’s a question he doesn’t entirely want to know the answer to.

“Not exactly.” Not even close .

“I actually…” Lance tapers off, and it looks suddenly unsure if he should be saying anything at all, “saw a glimpse of it.”

Despite his pounding head, Keith snaps his gaze up so fast that he feels himself get whiplash. “What?” He says, the panic rising in this throat. “What did you see?”

“Nothing!” He says quickly. “It was only for a second when I went to pull your lion out. I could barely make out anything else.”

Keith watches Lance’s expression closely. There’s something he’s not saying and it makes his heart falter. Does he know? Did he figure it out? Even if he was only there for a second, Lance is far more receptive to these kinds of things. He knows. 

Keith’s about to… apologize? Explain? He isn’t even sure because before he gets the chance, the hanger’s doors slide open and the team pours in. 

“Keith!” Hunk yells and in the next moment he’s encased in a bundle of warmth. “I’m so glad you’re okay! Do you know how badly you scared us for that second? And the soccer kick idea! Pure genius, did you see the way we kicked him!?”

“Careful, Hunk. You’re gonna break him, he’s already fragile.” Lance’s words have an immediate effect because Hunk practically drops him in concern.

“I’m not fragile.” Keith protests, albeit a bit weakly. It’s lacking the normal venom he would normally have. 

“Apparently I concussed him.” Lance says. He’s not sure what kind of expression he’s holding because Keith doesn’t dare look at him. He can’t. He knows what Keith has done. He can see right through him. He knows . He knows everything. He knows what Keith has done, his feelings, everything he’d been so cautious to tuck away, hidden in a corner where he would never look. 

He knows. He knows. He knows.

The mantra rings in his head and Lance’s gaze in the back of his skull feels like it’s a brandishment against him. He feels burned.

Allura looks at the two with curiosity. “I’m afraid I’m not following.”

“It’s nothing.” Keith shakes his head. Even if Lance miraculously didn’t yet know before, he must figure something out by now if Keith’s reactions are anything to go by. There is no getting around it now. He did this to himself, really. There is no one else to blame. “It’s—nevermind. You had a nice kick, Allura.”

Her face lights up at the compliment. “Thank you! It was a good idea. I could have never done it without you. All of you.” 

“I’ve never seen us so in sync at the end there! I think I get what Coran means about those Yalmors.” Hunk nods. “Maybe we should challenge the Galra to a soccer match.”

“No!” The word comes out of his mouth faster than he could register that he said it. “It’s not fun, trust me.”

“Speaking of which,” Pidge starts, her eyes shining with interest, “you have to tell us about the soccer reality. You said we were all there. What were we like? Did you get a chance to talk to us? Did you show up with your lion? What happened?”

“Shouldn’t we get him to a healing pod first?” Hunk interjects, bless his soul. “He looks a little pale.” 

“He does look quite ill. I can get Coran to run a diagnostic. Crossing realities as direct as he did may have effects we do not know of.” Allura taps her chin, contemplative.

If he’s being honest, he feels like he’s one second away from passing out at any given moment, though he isn’t sure how much of it is attributed to crossing realities. Lance is still looking at him and Keith is sure he now hates him. Whatever friendship they made is in shambles because Keith probably crossed a boundary somewhere. He didn’t fight off Soccer Lance’s romantic gestures, even if he knew they weren’t supposed to be aimed at him. 

Even worse, he enjoyed the stupid gestures, the walking home, the flirting, the handholding. He didn’t want to fight them because he liked pretending what they weren’t. 

Lance has to hate him for that. And if he doesn’t then he will the moment Keith slips up and says something too revealing. 

His stupid feelings, Soccer Lance’s stupid words giving him a stupid sense of hope. He wishes he never went there at all. It feels so much worse when he knows how it could have been, only for it to be ripped away. Lance would never like him back here, he probably won’t ever talk to him again now. And if he does, he has to reject him.

He hates this.

Keith says nothing as he gets ushering to the infirmary wing. At least it’s giving him an excuse to be silent. He doesn’t trust the words that may come out of his muddled filled brain. 

“Is he okay?” 

Coran carefully prods his head in evaluation. True to Allura’s words he’s been running tests for the past hour and if there is anything for him to find, he doesn’t say it. 

“Fortunately, there seems to be nothing more than a slight human concussion.” Coran responds, chipper as ever. 

“Slight or severe?“ Lance asks. Keith still hasn’t given him a single glance since they docked and maybe it’s an immature way to deal with his feelings but he can’t bring himself to care. He deserves this. The least the universes can do is give him the right to avoid it forever.

“Slight.” Coran repeats, louder and certain. 

“Then why’d he almost pass out?”

“If I had to guess, the universe crossing did take a toll, but luckily it’s nothing serious. The nausea and exhaustion will go away after a proper night's sleep. Sounds like he had quite the adventure over there, hm?”

“He said he spent an entire day over there.”

Coran hums. “I see, and that would be more than enough to wear someone down. The quintessence field appeared to restore some of it, hence why he’s still up and moving, but only that can only last for so long.”

“Wait,” Pidge holds up a hand, turning to Lance, “how did you know he was there for a day?”

“Oh,” Lance stills as if he was caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. “I mean, I didn’t—Keith called out to me. In the astral plane or whatever it’s called. You know, like how we did in Voltron on the Olkari.”

“That can work realities apart?”

He shrugs, “I guess so. I just felt his presence in the back of my mind somewhere and followed it and—“ he falters, his eyebrows knitting together, “why are you looking at me like that?”

Allura's intrigue shifts into a wide grin that even makes Keith suspicious. “I’ve heard rumors of a paladin’s bond between each other stretching across long distances, but this, between universes—this is fantastic! I would’ve never believed it to be done, this is extraordinary news!”

“I mean, is it that extraordinary? It’s gotta be the normal amount of ordinary. So just plain old ordinary. He probably just reconnected with Red or something.” 

“I don’t believe that’s possible while piloting another lion. He must’ve connected with you specifically, Lance.”

Lance drops his mouth open and lets a series of unintelligible babble noises that sound a mix of disbelief and protest. 

“So that’s how you knew how to get him!” Hunk says as if the pieces snapped together in his mind. “You knew where he went too. That’s so cool. It’s like a psychic walkie talkie or something!”

“It’s not that easy. I could only do it when I was unconscious, or sleeping.” Keith says. 

“It’s impressive you were able to do it at all.” Allura is giving him a look that he doesn’t like at all. It’s a knowing look that Shiro used to give him far too often when he thinks he figures some secret out. “It requires a very strong bond.”

“I, um—the soccer reality,” Keith coughs and it's a pitiful excuse of a subject change but he can’t help it; he panics. How else is he supposed to respond to that? That Soccer Lance practically told him to reach out and find him, no matter where he was? That they had some sort of strong bond for the message to get across? Absolutely not. 

“Oh, yes, the soccer reality! You never told us what happened.” 

“Right.” Keith nods, happy with the steer in conversation. He’s a coward, but what can he possibly say to remedy the situation? There is nothing left for them. Keith has ruined the friendship he so highly valued. He’s ruined it for good if Lance’s glare is anything to go by.

He clears his throat, hoping to dislodge some of the panic clogging his lungs. “It was weird.” He starts. “I know I was fighting Lotor and I got shoved apart. I must have hit my head though because when I woke up, I was on Earth wearing a soccer jersey.”

“You went to Earth?” Hunks asks, dubious.

“Another version, I guess, yeah.” Against his greater will, he spares a glance at Lance then. The other boy had his gaze set on the floor. He feels the sudden need to backtrack. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean for it to happen, I was just really confused. I didn’t know what reality I would get sent to so I guess it was a piece of luck that there was no war and no fighting.”

“So what did you do then? After you woke up, I mean.”

Keith scrunches his face. “I was lost.” He says. “I didn’t even realize I was in a different reality at first until…” 

“Until what?”

Until he found out Lance was his boyfriend. He chews the inside of his cheek. “Um, I don’t know. When you were all there but talking… strangely.” He settles on. It’s safe enough without being a lie. “Like Voltron didn’t exist apart from being a logo for our high school soccer team.”

“Wait, wait,” Hunk interjects, waving his hands in the air. “How does that make sense? Wouldn’t you have showed up with your lion? And met alternate reality Keith? That’s what happened when we went to that Evil Altean Universe.”

“That’s what I was confused about, but no, apparently I just replaced this other Keith!” He says, and okay, maybe it comes out more aggressive than he meant it. Like he had a sort of personal vendetta against the idea. But in his defense, it made his life infinitely more difficult because he couldn’t outright say he was from a different reality, not without the proof of the two Keiths. 

Clearly this notion seems to be lost on the rest of the team because it causes them to smile in amusement. 

To add insult to injury, Pidge bursts into full body laughter. “Oh my god, this is so much better than I was expecting,” she manages in between her high pitched manic cackles.

“It’s not funny!” Keith argues. He had never seen Pidge laugh so hard, and of course, it’s at his expense.

She slaps her hand on the table, still in a fit of hysterics. “No, it totally is! Please tell me you had to act like you played soccer!” Her eyes glint as if she knows what a fool he was.

Keith turns his face away. “Maybe.”

Pidge erupts in more laughter and it’s clearly infectious because they all transform into a heap of giggles. Even Lance, who has been quiet this entire time, can’t seem to fight the amusement crossing his features. 

Hunk grins. “Oh man! I can imagine it so well. You sulking while kicking a soccer ball around a field. Please tell me you were sulking that entire time!”

“I was not .” He says. “Okay, maybe.” He concedes a second later. “I couldn’t figure out how to get back. What was I meant to do?”

“Oh my god.” Hunk smiles and unlike Pidge, he at least looks a little sympathetic at that. 

“I still don’t know what soccer is.” Allura smiles.

“It’s horrible.” Keith answers. “I looked like an idiot all because I couldn’t even pass a stupid ball.” 

“This keeps getting better!” Pidge grins.

“Keith, buddy. Did you not play any soccer? At all? Not even when you were, like, in elementary when everyone signed up?” Hunk covers his hand to keep from laughing, not that it’s helping very much anyway.

“No! I knew nothing!” He slams his hand down and it only makes them laugh harder. 

“How?” Pidge manages between breaths. “It’s gotta be like, the easiest sport in existence. What did you do to fuck up that badly?”

“It is not that easy.” Keith counters, but judging from his team’s faces, he’s fighting a losing battle. “I didn’t know where I was! You try facing off some soccer prodigies like that!"

“Soccer prodigies?” She echoes, loving every second and causing him to groan. “Are you saying we were soccer prodigies in this other reality?”

“It was horrifying.” Keith admits, nodding. 

“What else were we like?” Allura asks, her eyes shining in wonder.

“Weirdly normal. Except for Allura and Coran. You guys were human.”

This causes Coran to lift an eyebrow. “I was there?”

Keith nods, “you were the team manager. You still spoke kinda crazy.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“What else happened?”

Keith didn’t realize at first, but they all seemed to be crowding closer to him, hanging on to his every word. It’s not all bad, he decides then. He doesn’t mind recounting the story because now that he was out, none of it was really so terrible after all. Sure, it had its moments, but not even he could deny the intrigue of a whole mirrored soccer reality of them. 

“Lotor was there,” he informs, watching their faces drop in utter shock, “as a soccer rival for the opposing team.”

“Opposing soccer team?”

“the Galra,” he nods, smiling at their stupefied expressions, “reigning champions of the division. They were the worst. Led by Soccer Prince Lotor and loved to play aggressive.”

“This is starting to sound familiar.”

“No kidding. Voltron—the soccer team, I mean. That’s what we were called—had to fight them for the championship game.”

“Please tell me you were there for that.” Pidge grins at him. “Please tell me you played soccer in front of everyone.”

“Oh my god.” Hunk says, once again. “You were! Oh I would do anything to see that.”

“How bad were you?” Pidge asks.

“Bad.” He says, causing them to snicker all over again. Even Coran and Allura, who barely knew what it meant, were clearly enjoying it.

“Did we win at least?” 

Keith frowns, “I don’t know.” He says. “I never finished it.” He knew Lance made a kick right before he got knocked out. He assumes it went in, but if he could recall there was still more time on the scoreboard. Anything could’ve happened in that time. He looks over to Lotor in the cryopod and narrows his eyes. “If it’s just as identical as it is to our reality, then yes. I’m sure we—they did win.”

Allura tilts her head. “Identical? What makes you say that?”

Keith freezes, realizing his mistake. He knows all the similarities between their two universes, despite how different they seemed at first. But explaining that meant elaborating on the little details and that was dangerous. To his side, Lance’s questionable stare burns at the back of his skull. His silence is starting to get more frightening than disconcerting. 

“I—Well, it wasn’t exactly identical. I just mean…” Keith swallows down the chunks of cotton in his throat. “It seemed like a metaphor. Our space war was their soccer, you know? I don’t mean—” Horrible. He’s horrible at this. What is he even saying at this point? “There were some very obvious, very big differences, so not identical at all, actually.” 

“...You mean the fact that we played soccer?” Pidge says slowly, not understanding the context behind his words, which is fair. How would they? But if Lance knows what they were, if he somehow figured it out then the simple word implies far too much. 

“No. Bigger differences than that. You know, in terms of like… relationships.” He says, “they  weren’t all… uh,” he makes vague motions with his hands, “accurate.”

Both Pidge and Hunk share a look at each other and Keith feels his face turn red. Did they know his feelings too? Were they also betting? He can’t bring himself to meet Lance’s eyes. 

“Forget it.” Keith stands suddenly. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m going to get some rest.”

“I can walk you back to your room, if you want.” Lance, because of course it’s Lance who had been terrifyingly quiet this entire time, offers. 

“No!” He clears his throat. “Don’t.” There’s an air of finality to it that not even Lance would be able to refute it. He feels guilty but the last thing he needs is for him to reject his feelings. He doesn’t think he can bear to hear those words aloud. Unspoken, he has the option to pretend they don’t exist—that they don’t matter. But for Lance to confirm his fear, to have it audibly said, he couldn’t. “I can walk by myself.”

He doesn’t bother waiting for a response. He makes a bee-line for the exit and luckily, somehow, in what must be a stroke of pure luck, no one follows. 

Surprisingly, probably in another miracle, he manages to stay awake long enough to rinse himself off of every Earth remnant that infused itself into his skin, because right now, he can’t take the reminder. It feels far too incriminating. But by the time he collapsed onto his bed, scrubbed clean and a new coating of soap later, not even the sharpened pokes of contrite could keep his eyes prodded open for any longer. Almost against his own will, they slip shut and he dreams of nothing at all. 

The next time he wakes, it feels like no time has passed at all. He made the mistake of wrapping himself up with his blankets and any moment that he’s not tugging back under the constraints of slumber is agony. 

But something stirred him awake, he heard it, even as his body was half-lucid and too tangled for coherent sense. 

He lifts an eye open. On paper, nothing looks different. His room is too dark to make out any shapes, but he’s sure nothing in it has changed. Before he can really waste wondering, a knock taps at his door and it’s gentle, unsure.

He spares a glance at the Atlean clock then. Not that it gives him many answers. He had never been able to read it. Curious more than anything, he gives in.

“Come in.” He calls into the darkness, his voice too rough and low to be his own.

He’s not sure who he’s expecting to find. Pidge is the only one that stays up at ungodly hours in the castle, and there’s little reason she would be coming to visit him. For a brief moment, he considers if it’s Coran and he found something concerning in his diagnostic tests, but before he can think too hard on that, Lance enters.

It suddenly doesn’t matter how dimmed the lights are, Keith can make out the figure with his eyes closed. The way his hair swoops over his eyes, and the tug of his oversized hood that clings over his shoulders. The warm glow automatic of the castle spills into the room, pouring across his features. 

Keith is no longer half-asleep. His mind whirs as he registers why Lance would be visiting him. Why now? What was so important that it couldn’t wait until later? His mouth runs dry. 

Before he can ask any of those questions aloud, Lance answers.

“You missed lunch,” he says, matter-of-fact. It’s then that Keith notices that he’s holding a bowl in his hands, careful not to spill a drop. He stares at it in disbelief.

“...Lunch?” Keith repeats intelligently but he can’t help himself. It didn’t make sense. How long had he been sleeping? Why had no one bothered waking him up?

“It’s soup,” he offers, handing the bowl to Keith. It’s surprisingly warm under his fingers. “Hunk made it. I think he was going for a chicken noodle soup kind of thing, and I know you mentioned before it was your favorite as a kid so we saved you some.”

He stirs the broth with the spoon and to give Hunk credit, it looks the part. The only visible difference is the entourage of vegetables that have soft foriegn spindles that pokes out of it.  He frowns.

“Coran suggested you needed the rest after yesterday but you also missed dinner and breakfast.” Lance explains. “We couldn't let you starve so….” 

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” That makes sense. 

“Hunk was gonna bring it to you,” Lance says hurriedly, like he needs the explanation, like it’s an important piece to understand. “Then he got sucked into helping Pidge’s new project. Something about reading Lotor’s brainwaves? I don't know, I didn't pay attention. Allura’s busy, I think she’s still feeling guilty about this whole thing. Shiro’s recovering, but Coran says he should be fine in enough time.” 

“Thanks.” Keith says and tries a small spoonful of the soup to avoid thinking too carefully about what that ramble means. It sounds like Lance is the one delivering the lunch as the last possible candidate. The heat burns his tongue. 

He strings his eyebrows together, back to being indecipherable and quiet that it’s more than unsettling. Keith’s stomach rolls. Lance continues to linger near his bed and there’s nothing he can do to avoid this conversation. The pressure weighs heavy against his throat that it makes it harder to breathe properly. He swallows a lump of a strange piece of vegetable. 

“How’s your head?” Lance asks carefully, waiting.

Keith shrugs. He had forgotten about the concussion altogether. “Stopped hurting.”

“That’s… good.” Lance says.

“Yeah,” Keith responds. Awkward. It’s so awkward. If they would always be this tense around each other then he isn’t sure if Voltron would survive. He closes his eyes and takes a short breath. He should just get this over with. Have it get ripped off like a bandaid. “Is there—is there anything else you need?”

“Yeah, actually,” Lance plops himself onto the bed as Keith does his best to steady his racing heart. He considers if it would hurt less if he spaces out, ignorant to the spoken rejection, but that probably wouldn’t be fair. If there’s any way to fix any sort of friendship between them, to share a fraction of semblance they had before, then he should take it. “I wanted,” Lance starts nervously. Keith stares at the ripples in the soup. “I just wanted to say that the soccer reality… that wasn’t—it wasn’t me in there.” 

It doesn’t stop the sting of the words. How Lance had to make that clarification as if he wasn’t already far too conscious of that fact. “I know.” He bites out.

“Do you?”

Keith snaps his gaze up and scowls. “What are you saying?”

“I saw a glimpse of that other reality, Keith.” He says, and his tone is loaded. He’s trying to gauge his reaction from it, and it only irritates Keith more. “I know you’re mad. I know I probably hurt you in that other reality, but none of that was me.”

Keith reels back. 

Hold on. “What?”

“What I saw,” he reiterates, wringing his hands together, “you were unconscious on the field and I was right there. And then you said I concussed you, and Keith, I don’t know what I did to you over there, but I don’t hate you here. You have to know that.”

Keith remains quiet for a long moment, completely stunned. It’s such a 180 from how he thought this conversation would go. “That’s…that’s what you think?”

“Obviously, what else am I supposed to think when you can barely even look at me anymore?” Lance says and it doesn’t sound accusatory, just hurt, like the idea is some torturous, horrible thing. “Then you said the relationships were different, and you could barely get the words out.” he breathes, his own voice cracking, “whatever I did to you there, I’m sorry.”

Keith might as well have gotten slapped in the face. The worst part is that it makes sense. From the moment he got back in the hanger he had been searching his face, looking for something that wasn’t there, trying to pick apart the pieces with the little context he had. The guilt that he fed into washes over him. He should’ve acted like nothing was wrong in the first place because really, nothing was. They didn’t hate each other, they weren’t at war, they weren’t strung with responsibilities. It was just them, and it was content. Peaceful. Keith being jealous of a life that is not his own is not Lance’s fault. He shouldn’t have assumed, either. 

 “Lance,” he tries, but his voice catches.

“And I know we didn’t always get along with best at first, but you have to know I never hated you. So if I did over there, you have to know that it’s not identical. Not even close.”

“Lance, you didn’t hate me there.”

He pauses, watching with uncertainty. It makes Keith’s heart twist in his chest. “What did I do?” He asks quietly, scared even. “It has to be something.”

“You didn’t—oh god, okay.” He sets the bowl down on his bedside table and puffs out a breath. There goes all his reserve about never telling Lance because that had backfired in his face horrendously. 

“What you saw,” Keith starts, ignoring the primitive part of his brain to keep everything tucked behind that veil, to leave it there and never once look back at it. But leaving it as that wouldn’t be an explanation, and that at the very least, he deserved one. He had to know that he wasn’t the one at fault here, not even a little bit. “It wasn’t—you didn’t knock me down or anything.”

“I didn’t?”

“No. It’s… we were playing the game against the Galra—the soccer team Galra, I mean, and they were targeting you, I think.”

“Targeting me?”

“Playing dirty,” Keith clarifies, “one of the players started charging at you and you wouldn’t have seen it in time. So I took the hit.”

Now Lance is the one who reels. “What?!” He stares aback, dubious. “Why would you do that?”

Keith shrugs. “I don’t know.” He twists his face. “I didn’t think about it too much. It just looked like you and I just… reacted.” He wonders if he’s so easily transparent. If Lance can see right through it because at this point, it must be so obvious. He’s giving him a look and Keith thinks it’s over for him, but then just as quickly, it morphs into a smile.

“Keith,” he says and Keith’s heart may be lost somewhere in his chest, “you are so stupid.”

“Wow, not even a thank you for saving you?”

“That wasn’t me, you lug-head.” Lance rolls his eyes, nudging his shoulder. 

“I know.” He says sadly. “But he reminded me of you.”

“How so?”

“Annoying, irritating, unhelpful, liked to kick me in the head with soccer balls,” Keith lists, counting with his fingers, though the soft pull of his expression conveyed everything he didn’t include.

“I don’t know, he sounds like a charming, charismatic dude.”

“He was not.” He laughs, shaking his head. “He liked to make fun of me there too. But I guess he gave me good advice in the end. Ridiculous advice, but good.”

Lance nods, seeming pleased. “Sounds like me.” He says and there’s something unreadable in his tone. It looks like he’s caught himself on a puzzle and desperately trying to fit the pieces together. 

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, suddenly feeling a little out of place. The air between them stills and Keith wishes he had commemorated his room with any kind of souvenirs. Right now, despite Lance still sitting next to him, it feels far too empty. The space between them feels far too empty.

“I thought you were mad at me.” Lance admits, quiet. 

Keith grimaces, shaking his head. “No, no, I’m sorry that wasn’t—I didn’t mean to make you think that, I just… thought you knew something and I got—I mean, I didn’t know how’d you react to it.”

“Knew what?” He asks full of innocent curiosity. Keith tries to not let the wince show on his face, instead carefully observing the blanket beneath his fingers. He swipes a hand through his hair. 

“It’s stupid.” He grumbles.

“...Okay?”

“I didn’t know it would happen.”

“Keith,”

“You’re gonna think it’s weird.”

“Oh my god, just tell me, you doofus. We’re already having a heart to heart here, how much weirder can it get?”

Keith draws a long, slow breath. It technically wasn’t Keith’s fault that they were a couple in some other insignificant reality. There were thousands of other options it could’ve been. Lance witnessed the infinite web of possibilities, he saw it in the quintessence field. The issue stemmed from the presentation of the fact. The dozens of implications it could hold. So he swallows down all the longing, and every bit of sour bitter jealousy. He has to be neutral about this. Just reciting a small piece of information. 

Lance sits at his side and waits. 

“You and I were closer in that reality.” He says at last, slow. Careful. It’s a matter of the fact.

“Closer?” Lance repeats, and unfortunately for Keith, he’s completely lost.

“Boyfriends.” He says again and hoped Lance couldn’t hear the hesitance in his tone. 

“ Boyfriends? ”

“We didn’t do anything, if that's—if that’s what you’re thinking!” Keith responds, the neutrality lasting all but a few seconds before the panic takes over. “I just didn’t know how you would react to it because it’s not really us, but it’s similar enough to be us—not that it would, you know, be us. We just look the same, and almost act the same and I thought you figured it out when you said you saw a glimpse. I freaked out and—are you… are you trying not to laugh?”

“Keith, my man,” Lance smothers his poorly contained laughter in his hand, “oh my god.”

“Why are you laughing?”

“Here I was thinking I must’ve killed all your loved ones in this alternate reality,” he says between fits of breaths, “and this whole time I’ve just been dating you?” 

Keith turns stark red. “Soccer Lance is dating.” He sputters out. “Not us!” 

“I cannot believe I came here and prepared a whole apology for something my other reality self did,” Lance chuckles and he’s not even trying to hide it anymore. “And you just thought I’d be mad that we were together in a whole different reality? Keith, buddy, why would I be mad at you for that?”

“I don’t know, I…I didn’t know if you’d, uncomfortable, or disgusted, or something. Plus I know you like Allura and—“

“I do not like Allura.” The confession rips through the air like a knife. Whatever laughing spree Lance once had was now gone entirely. Keith blinks in surprise. 

“Oh. I thought… you always flirted with her.” 

Lance shakes his head, “maybe, but not anymore.” 

“Oh.” He says, not knowing what else he could respond with. His voice sounds traitorously weak and unfamiliar across his tongue. He scans Lance’s face for what, he’s not even sure. A trick? A bluff? Deep and hidden away feelings untucked in a lie? He finds none of that. 

“Were you,” Lance prompts after a moment, and he’s quiet, unsure.  “Uncomfortable, or disgusted, or… something?”

“No.” He replies firmly. “I think I was more surprised. I didn’t think you would like me under any reality.” Keith says and then in horror, realizes his choice of words. “I mean, us liking each other,” he backtracks quickly, “because we pick arguments every chance we get and we don’t get along most of the time.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He muses like he’s now imagining the prospect. He shrugs. “But I don’t think it would be that implausible. It makes sense in a way.”

“It does?”

“Yeah, you know, alternate realities, infinite variations. You and me, I get it. Now if it were, like, you and Slav on the other hand. Now that would be something.”

Despite himself, now Keith is the one who snorts. “Me and Slav?” He repeats, dumbstruck. “That’s horrifying.”

“I know right! Ugh, infinite possibilities my ass, please never do that.”

“Noted.” He says. “I guess dating alternate you in comparison wasn’t the worst thing in the world.”

Lance shrugs. “We work well together. I’m sure if the roles were reversed Soccer Keith wouldn’t have made a terrible boyfriend.”

“He definitely would’ve made a better boyfriend than Soccer Lance. He kicked balls at my head.” He replies and wonders how the hell this is the conversation he’s having with Lance.

He flaps his hand in the air as if that means nothing. “Yet you said he helped you find your way back. Face the facts, Keith. I was a catch.”

“You were annoying.” He corrects, pointing a finger. “I’m sure if the roles were reversed, I’d be better.”

“You care to find out?”

“I—what?”

“There’s an easy way to see who’s the real better boyfriend here. That is, if you’re up for it, I mean. Because correct me if I’m wrong but it sounds like you didn’t hate your time when we were together? Unless you did, then ignore everything.”

“Are you…are you asking me out?”

“You said it yourself; if it’s just as identical as it is to our reality, then why is this part any different?” 

It strikes him that Lance had been snagging certain words in how Keith described it. That it’s identical with the exception of the label of the relationship. And by that logic, Lance had to have liked him the whole time too. The thought leaves him a little dizzy. 

“Alright.” He nods.

“Alright?” 

“You’re on, McClain, but don’t be so surprised when I romance your socks off.”

“That sounded… oddly threatening.” Lance laughs, it’s bright and warm. All of a sudden Keith is hyper-aware of how close he’s sitting. “I think I understand why I shot soccer balls at you.”

“And now you’re threatening me? Your own boyfriend?” He feigns the picture of innocence and it causes Lance to scoff, though the sound holds no real heat to it. 

“Shut up and let me kiss you,” he breathes, and who is Keith to reject that? Because although it’s mere inches, there’s too much emptiness between them, he decides, and closes the gap.

It’s short, more of a sweet peck if anything, but when Lance parts, Keith is breathless anyway because he has such a fond look that it didn’t even matter. And right then, it didn’t matter that they were in the middle of space, or that they risked their lives on missions, or that there were far too many responsibilities on their shoulders. 

It didn’t matter how many universes he would visit, or get thrown across because each time, without fail, he’d follow Lance back home. He’d choose his own in every single one.