Archive of Our Own ^beta

Present Day

They’re standing in the kitchen and Pidge just said something completely outrageous and everyone — Shiro, Adam, Hunk, Allura — is laughing. And Keith. Keith is laughing. Open mouthed and everything. Lance’s attention is completely directed to him. Habitually — no, instinctively.

Keith’s got his arms crossed as he laughs at Pidge or Shiro or whoever; Lance can’t turn away to find out. All he knows right now, in this moment, is the shape of Keith’s mouth. The width and stretch of it, the varying shades of pink under all these kitchen lights, the jut of his jaw, and the slow return to his half-smile that reveals his sharp canine. It’s so — charming. Keith is so charming. 

And then — and then, Keith turns to look at him because maybe he also wants to see the joy that might flicker over his own face. Wants to make sure of it, perhaps. Maybe that’s why his brows dip, when he finds Lance looking at him and not paying attention to the antics around them, asking a question without really having to ask it. 

He looks down to the wedding band that’s tied around Keith’s neck and his heart does this thing ; this thing where it scorches against his breastbone and makes him swear he’s close to completely evaporating. How it melts and dissolves into his whole entire chest and emits warmth into his arms and legs and stomach, to the point where calling it heat is an injustice. It is more than temperature; it is a need and a desire and a longing. 

His whole body longing for Keith, even as he stands right here. 

And god, he can’t believe how they spent so much time doubting the love in one another when the proof of it lurks in every glance and touch and feeling. 

“What?” Keith mouths to him, as Lance continues to look at him. The intimacy of such a simple act is potent. His limbs are aching. 

Lance sends him a small smile and reaches up to hold the ring between his thumb and forefinger and he leans in to whisper to him, “I just have the most handsome husband, is all.”

Keith leans back and laughs into the space between them, something reserved just for them. He reaches up to hold onto Lance’s chin and Lance is so wrapped up in him that he doesn’t even register that the kitchen has emptied until the sounds of the stew boiling brings his attention back to the outside world. 

Though that only lasts a mere second, because now he’s thinking about how close those lips are to him and how broad Keith’s shoulders are and how the cold breeze coming in through the window makes him want to be even closer. 

“It’s funny that you say that,” Keith says, and Lance can’t really keep his smile off of his face. Keith is smiling, too, how can he not? When it’s just them, being together, saying all these ordinary things to each other? “My husband is pretty handsome himself.”

“Is that right?” Lance murmurs, needing to swallow through the bit of excitement that buzzes in his throat. 

Keith hums as he begins to lean in, answering the call in his own bones right in front of his very eyes, and Lance finally moves closer, his heart beating and beating and beating. 

Their lips meet and Lance fists the ring tightly in his hand.

He never wants to let go. Keith pulls him in even closer with a hand to his back and tilts his head into it and kisses him as if he knows this and is telling him, you’ll never have to.

*          *

Lance visits his mom on Thursday. She looks good. Healthy. He finds her tending to the garden with sweat clinging to her forehead and an intense look of focus on her face. She turns with a flinch when he appears.

“Mierda!” she exclaims, and Lance bursts out laughing before his smile turns the slightest bit guilty.

He holds his hands out and says, very exaggeratedly, “surprise!” 

She scolds him for almost giving her a heart attack and Lance hugs her tight in his arms. 

“Hola mamá,” he says with his nose in her hair. 

She sighs and gives him a few pats on his back. “Hola mi hijo.” He embraces her for a minute more before she stuffs her tools into his hands and tells him, “take these and help me now that you’re here.”

“Má…” he murmurs, staring down at the tiny shovel and fork in his hands. But she’s already walked away and is pointing at the raised-beds and telling him what to do. 

His shoulders raise and relax, not surprised at this development, and bends down to get to work. 

Afterwards, when he finishes scrubbing the dirt out of his nails and wiping his sweat with a rag, they sit on the patio and his mom brings out a pot of ice cold guarapo. He melts into the chair and lets out a breath. She raises a brow at him. 

“Was that too much for a retired Voltron pilot?”

Lance laughs, shaking his head at her in disbelief. “That is so rude, má. I did some good work today!”

“I know, I know, I was only teasing,” she says, and pours him a cup. He drinks most of it in one go, earning him a small tick of disapproval from his mother, urging him to slow down. 

“So,” his mother says, when he finishes the rest of his drink and is pouring him another cup. “How are you, mi hijo? Is Keith treating you well?”

The question makes his neck burn, but his smile is natural and genuine as it stretches along his face.

Before he can even respond, his mom beats him to it. “Oh, look at you. Instantly smiling like that, of course he’s treating you well.”

That makes him burn even harder. “Dios mío, mamá!” 

“What!” she taunts. “I’m happy for you!”

“I know,” he murmurs, licking his lips and trying not to smile but ultimately failing. Quite terribly. 

His mom grins and her eyes begin to well up with tears. His face softens. “Mamá…” 

“You deserve it, mi dulce hijo,” she sniffles, still smiling. “You deserve all the happiness.”

Tears form in his own eyes and he chuckles to keep the energy lively, but his lips wobble and he moves over to wrap his long arms around her. 

There was a time when he thought he wouldn’t get to have any of this. To be able to find love and spend his life with the person who makes him feel so darn happy; to be able to salvage himself and regain a sense of who he is; to even be able to see his family again. Just this moment means so much. Even if it’s just them sobbing over the life he gets to live now. 

And although he has a good time with his family and wouldn’t trade his time with them for anything else, his heart begins to lurk. It travels back to his and Keith’s loft back in Michigan. It’s just — his heart. He feels the absence of him profoundly.

His flight is due late in the evening the next day. It’s not much, but he likes visiting his family from time to time even if it’s just one day and a morning. For now, he sets for his other home.

Home. 

Oh, home.

The flight is six hours long, and after doing his grounding and mindfulness work, Lance manages to sleep through it. He brings with him his favorite playlist, one he composed himself of his favorite plucky guitarist, his one and only. He focuses closely on the notes, as though it’s a part of his breathwork, and holds it close to his chest as he sleeps.

He steps out into the cool Michigan air, always a stark contrast to the heat he had just come out from. It’s only spring so the air is only breezy, but nowhere near the heat of Cuba. 

He looks through the blur of cars cramming in front of the airport and catches a sign that reads in huge letters: KOGANE-McCLAIN. He shortles exuberantly, loud and turning a few heads at that, but he doesn’t pay them any mind. He heads in the direction of it, met with Keith’s painfully dazzling smile, which only gets wider as Lance comes closer. 

The first thing he does is wrap his arms around his shoulders and laugh into his neck. Unable to help it. “I’m back,” he tells him. 

Keith embraces him with one arm, his other still holding onto the sign. He squeezes him with it, still. 

“Welcome back,” he says, right up against the lobe of his ear before he kisses it.

Lance pulls back and kisses him smack dab on the lips, reaching up to brush a thumb over his cheekbone. He takes in the sight of him while Keith circles his arms around him. His chest goes warm.

“How was it?” Keith asks, grinning like he wants to hear nothing but the words that will come out of his mouth. His long hair blows into his face and Lance chuckles quietly, taking the opportunity to tuck the flyaways behind his ear. 

“I helped my mom with her garden. She gave us a heaping of strawberries and plantains. I also grabbed you some pastelitos,” he says, delighting in the sparkle that dots Keith’s eyes at his words. “How was the seminar?”

“It was fine, same old thing just a different year,” Keith says, brushing over it lightly. “What kind of pastelitos?”

Lance smirks. “Guava.” His favorite.

Keith looks down at the bag of goodies on the ground and hauls it up. “I’ll hold onto this for you. You look pretty tired.”

Lance rolls his eyes and shoves him. “Uh-huh,” he says, and they laugh and laugh and laugh. 

He takes Keith’s free hand and squeezes it. 

“I missed you,” he tells him, as they walk to the car.

Keith kisses the top of his head and brushes a thumb over his knuckles and doesn’t let go of his hand until he has to unlock the front door to their loft. And Lance is overcome with the smell of thyme and wood and something that distinctly feels like his home.

*          *

Past

The end of the war comes hard. Earth has been largely untouched, but one second Lance is firing at a horde of battleships right above Earth’s atmosphere and the next, he’s opening his eyes to his mother’s tear stained face. 

They’ve done it. Sendak is defeated. The war… has been declared over. They won. 

And Lance knows this should be a happy moment but he cries into the embrace of his mother and sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles. It all comes out here, in the end of it all. He’s swathed in warmth like a promise finally delivered. 

“The others,” he chokes out, eyes sore and throat burning. “Are they— are they okay?”

“They’re okay,” his mother says, while combing her hand through his hair and getting tears all over his shirt. “They’re all okay. Everything is okay.”

He believes her, he has to, because his bones weigh him down like never before and pull him into a deep sleep.

He wakes to a knock on the door and Keith appearing right after it. The first thing he notices is the bandaging around his head and the cord of alarm he feels at the sight of it, as if he hadn’t just faced an entire mecha giant hours ago. Or days ago? He isn’t so sure.

“Keith,” he croaks, sleep still laying in his lungs. 

“Hey,” Keith’s lips drag into that half-smile he usually wears, only with exhaustion pulling at his eyes. His hands lay by his sides like he doesn’t know exactly what to do with them. “I wanted to check in on you. I came by earlier, but I didn’t want to disturb you and your family.”

That irks him for some reason. “You wouldn’t have,” he says. Sternly. Defensively. It’s enough for Keith to blink. 

“Oh.”

“Come here,” Lance gestures him over, and realizes that his hands are shaking. Keith walks up to the bed and sits at the foot of it, and Lance sits up as he does. He reaches out and lays the gentlest of touches to his bandaged temples. “Are you okay?”

Keith breathes out a laugh, almost startled, and reaches up to hold onto one of his hands, which in turn, startles him. “I’m okay. Doctor’s say it isn’t anything serious.”

All the emotions tugging urgently inside him leave him with no choice but to give a wordless, covert nod. What can he say, now that they’re here? And he’s feeling so many things?

Keith sets his hand down, but doesn’t let him go. He keeps it enclosed within both of his palms, so tentatively, so cautiously, while staring down at their hands. He looks like he’s thinking about something.

“Keith…” Lance murmurs, wondering and relishing in the prolonged contact.

“Are you okay?” Keith asks, is what he had probably been contemplating how to ask. Lance doesn’t realize that he’s crying until he has to sniffle in order to answer him.

“Yeah, I’m… I’m okay,” he takes a breath in and wavers through it as he looks up at him. “Keith,” he says his name, again, sounding helpless. Keith’s eyes are also teary, the glint of them harboring a world of feelings. He nods at him as if he understands, as if telling him there’s no need to labor through anymore words. 

“Good,” Keith tells him, and squeezes his hand so tightly with shoulders far too tense for someone who just saved the universe. Like there’s more he wants to do but just doesn’t know how to do it. 

Lance feels much the same way. Words, emotions, thoughts, all jumbled up and coiled in the back of his throat and in between his joints and at the tips of his fingers. He takes a chance then, and leans forward to lay his forehead against Keith’s. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispers to him, and closes his eyes.

“Me — me, too. I’m glad you’re okay, too,” Keith says in return, instantaneous. Keith wraps one of his arms around him. A half hug, while still holding his hand with his other. It’s awkward and uneven but it wouldn’t be anything else if it’s them. 

It soon turns into a real hug, with fingers clutching at one another’s shoulders and heartbeats merging into one and tears lining hospital gowns.

And so, they hold one another long enough for Lance to really and truly realize that the war is over.

*          *

Present Day

Lance is standing in the middle of a broken, desolate planet. The trees are burned to a crisp and the ground is trembling beneath him. He instantly reaches for his bayard, but realizes he’s not even suited in his paladin armor. He gasps, and chokes up before he can release the breath, unable to let it out. He grabs at his throat and tries to breathe but it doesn’t come out, the air is trapped in his lungs and he can’t get to it. 

Meanwhile, a wave of sentries are dashing toward him at a horrifying pace and he tries to turn around to run but it’s so hard. It takes so much effort to shift his feet, to turn his head, to get the rest of his body to follow. He can’t move, he can’t breathe, the sentries are getting closer and closer and all he wants to do is scream—

He wakes up with a rough, jarring breath. But it’s instantly a relief because he can breathe.  

He finds Keith through this sea of terror, the outline of him glowing with the light of their lamp. His mouth is moving, his eyes are filled with pain and worry, and his fingers are a safety net in his hair. 

He registers the sound of his own hard breathing and tries to slow it down—

“—okay— it’s okay,” Keith’s voice breaks through, and he holds onto it like a cherished gem hanging around the neck of a lover. “Lance, sweetheart, my love, you’re okay. You’re okay.”

“Keith,” he says, and it sounds like a whisper. Like he’s finally come back to himself. 

Keith’s thumbs are gently brushing beneath his eyes, swiping away at wetness. He must have been crying. 

“I’m right here,” Keith says, and leans in to press his lips onto his forehead until the only thing he can feel are the inches of his lips on his skin. Until it’s the only thing that feels real. 

“I’m okay,” he says, eventually, when his breathing slows down. He presses his hand to Keith’s chest, where his ring usually hangs. “I’m sorry for worrying you. It — it hasn’t happened in a while.”

Keith shakes his head and takes his hand to press his lips onto his knuckles. “Don’t do that. I’m here, I love you, that’s it.”

Lance chuckles abruptly, as dry as his throat is. He knows this, of course. Keith has been there for every nightmare, and Lance has been there for every one of Keith’s. “I know. I just... don’t like waking you up like this.”

“I’d rather you wake me up than have you deal with it alone,” Keith murmurs, sliding an arm around his waist. “Come here.”

Keith pulls him along as he scoots closer and folds him into his chest. Lance wraps his arm around Keith’s back, and they settle into the embrace. 

“I love you, too,” Lance says into Keith’s clavicle, and Keith slowly starts sliding his nails up and down his back in a relaxing rhythm. Lance sighs as he closes his eyes.

“I know,” Keith says, with his lips pressed onto his forehead.

Lance goes to sleep with tired laughter bubbling its way out of his throat.

Lance powers through his lecture the following morning. Teaching aeronautical navigation at 8:00 AM isn’t the best wake up material, but it’s all regurgitation at this point and his coffee helps. He finishes by 8:55 and has to hurry along to another building to teach his 9:20 class. 

It’s his two hour block, and he gets there a couple minutes before the set time. He drops his hefty bag down on the ground with a grunt, reaches out to turn on the monitor, and strips himself of his coat. 

“Alright everyone, first thing’s first, your third assignment is due tonight,” he announces while sorting through the desk to find his clicker. 

It’s a long period, but there’s a hands-on portion which is always exciting for him to teach. 

By 11:30, he’s cramming a bunch of papers into his bag and lugging it on his back and out to the neighboring building. Keith should be done teaching his aerodynamics class. He heads to room 312 and finds him alone and typing something into the monitor. 

Lance grins when he spots him and leans against the side of the door. “Well if it isn’t my lucky day,” he says, and Keith’s head shoots up to pin him with sharp eyes. “I was hoping I’d catch you at the end of your block, Mr. Kogane-McClain.”

Keith’s demeanor instantly sinks into a broad, warm smile. “Oh, why is that?”

Lance pushes himself off the ledge and heads down the stairs. “I was wondering if you could do me the honor of dining with me during this fine lunch hour.”

“Ah. I see,” Keith nods, as though truly considering the offer. Lance beams at the display. “Sounds tempting, I admit, but there’s something you need to know before I accept.” 

Lance stops right in front of him and reaches out to straighten out the kinks on the shoulders of his jacket, then tilts his head in an act of cluelessness. “What is it?”

“I’m married,” he reveals, and Lance puts on the best downtrodden pout in his arsenal. “Happily,” he adds on, and as soon as he does, Lance breaks out into the biggest smile ever. He can’t help it.

“Just my luck,” he murmurs wistfully, still, and leans in to steal a kiss. Keith kisses him back and he can feel how he urges to laugh by the slight pucker of his mouth, stopping it from fully forming.

“You’re hilarious,” Keith whispers in between them, and comes back in to steal a kiss of his own. 

Lance raises his chest proudly. “That’s music to my ears, sugarcakes.” 

Keith sighs and thumbs absently at his jaw. “How’re you doing?” he asks, his eyes dimming with his sincerity.

“Great, now that I’ve seen you,” he admits, sliding his hands from Keith’s waist to his back. “And starving. Definitely starving.”

Keith grins and returns the embrace. “Rough class?”

“Eh. The usual. I had my two hour period today, so.” 

“Mm. Come on then, I was just finishing up.”

They head to the nearest sandwich joint and seat themselves at a booth. Lance takes out his laptop and scrolls through the submissions on the homework assignment from last week, a tad behind on grading. He munches on a ham and cheese sandwich as he compares the answers to his graded key. 

Keith also has his laptop out, mostly forgetting to actually eat his lunch. Which then has Lance nudging him with his leg underneath the table to remind him to eat. He murmurs an acknowledgement as he reaches out blindly for his sandwich, eyes plastered to his screen. 

When he does look up, it’s to give the rest of his chips to Lance, who takes a handful and dumps it onto his own plate. 

As time draws near, they pack up their things to head back to their respective buildings. He walks Keith to Sydney Hall and gives his hand a huge squeeze, checking to see if there’s anybody around before tugging him down with his hand and planting a quick kiss on his mouth.

“Pick me up at three forty, hot shot,” he says with a wink. It has Keith smiling wide enough to send Lance to the moon and back.

“See you then,” he tells him. “Have a good last couple of sessions.”

“You too.” 

They both only have two more classes to teach, and time truly does fly when he’s in the middle of giving a lengthy lecture. He zooms through methods, and then spends the rest of the time putting each class through the simulators. Minutes pass with every swipe against his tablet as he rates each student on their execution, and then it’s 3:40 before he knows it. 

He waits outside of the building with his giant backpack strapped to his back, trying not to let it weigh him completely down. After a couple minutes, Keith comes around the block in his car and stops in front of where he waits. Lance opens the back door to throw his bag inside, feeling instant relief, and then sits next to him on the passengers side. 

“So,” he says with a giant mitigating breath, “where ya taken me out for tonight?”

Keith pulls out and into the road. “The grocery store.”

Lance slumps back and sighs. He knows this, of course. They’d been thinking of a day where they’re free enough to actually grab groceries for the past week. “Yeah, yeah, doesn’t mean we can’t pretend we’re going to some ultra fancy restaurant or something.”

“We can go to an ultra fancy restaurant whenever you want, Lance,” Keith says, sounding upset. Like he thinks Lance is actually sad that they’re not having a date night of some sort. 

“I’m kiddingggg ,” he says, emphasizing the word and reaching out to squeeze Keith’s upper arm. “You’re gonna make me say something super cheesy but, literally anywhere I go with you makes me happy. Anywhere, including,” he says, and pauses for dramatic effect as his tone takes a dip, “the grocery store.”

Keith makes a face. “You said it, not me.”

“Hey!” Lance slaps him on the same place he had just lovingly squeezed. 

They stop at a light and Keith turns to him, a terribly beautiful and mischievous brow raised. “I’m kidding,” he says, a clear mockery of him earlier, which makes Lance tremendously delighted to give his arm another slap. 

Keith grabs a cart for them when they arrive and Lance gets distracted looking at different products and thinking, hmm, do we need this? 

“Haven’t we been meaning to make those stuffed pasta things?” he asks Keith, who looks up from where he was perusing between two cans of beans. 

He tilts his head. “You mean ravioli?”

“No, the other thing. You know, they roll the pasta with all the goodies stuffed inside it and bake it?”

Keith isn’t budging. “It… sounds like ravioli to me.”

“I showed you an instagram video of it!”

“You show me a lot of instagram videos!”

“ Ugh, fine!” Lance tosses the boxed up pasta into their cart anyways and goes hunting for the sauce and mushrooms. Keith follows with a clear laugh in his throat, and with two cans of black beans and one of kidney beans inside their cart. 

They walk side by side through each aisle, both pushing the cart forward as their pinkies play a game of tag on the handle. Lance doesn’t really notice that they’re doing it, and neither does Keith by the looks of it. His eyes roam over shelves of packaged foods he’s known ever since he was a kid, but there are also other additions as well. A variety of foods imported from planets across the universe, some he’s seen during his time in space, and others he has yet to try. 

They pass by the shelf, but Keith stops before they can exit the aisle. 

“Wait, your blue sweet chips.”

“My blue sweet what?” 

Keith walks back down the aisle and grabs a bag of Sky Chip , imported from one of their neighboring planets. He gives it a whirl, and Lance says, “oh.”

“You liked them last time, remember?” he says as he rests it on top of their haul. 

Lance honestly had forgotten, though they did taste good. 

The sun is already beginning to set by the time they exit the store, and Lance feels a sense of calm as they drive into the gentle paleness of it. 

After they unload all the groceries and put them away, Lance lets himself lay back on their couch and release the tiresome day with a sigh. He’s tired, but ultimately, he feels good. 

He sits up and glances at Keith, wondering why he isn’t laying down with him right now. He spots him in the kitchen, staring down at the box of lasagna they bought with a contemplative look on his face. 

“Lasagna rolls!” he exclaims a moment later, head shooting up to look at Lance, and then falling to surprise when he finds him already looking. 

Lance can only focus on his revelation then, a finger rising to point at him while his body jerks with elation. “Yeah! That’s it! Lasagna rolls!” 

“Those sound so good right now, actually…” Keith murmurs, and Lance bounces off the couch and gives his fingers a good crack, the day's weight easily pushed to the side.

“Then let's get cookin, baby.”

*          *

Past

Their first date is wordless, for how greatly it makes Lance feel. Every emotion slides and explodes and swirls in his chest. It’s this space of anticipation and fear and uncertainty that becomes him as he waits for Keith to come over. Here, on the other side of his front door, he and Keith are teammates and friends. Good friends, the best of friends. He knows what it feels like to turn into a flame at the slightest brush of their shoulders and the urgency to treasure it because it was believed to be the only intimate thing they’ll ever get to have. They had been a secret to one another, and after he leaves with him tonight, it will unravel and be fully explored. No longer will his feelings only exist under the sweltering heat of the desert sun and underneath bed sheets with his cold knees and Keith munching on chips next to him. 

No longer will his feelings exist as the sole precious thing to him and him alone. 

Things will shift. Moon passing in front of the sun; behind Earth’s shadow. And he can feel the prominence of this eclipse in the tingling of his palms and the pit of his stomach and the spaces between his fingers. 

He wants it to go well. Oh, how he hopes it will go well. 

When Keith arrives, everything takes a pause. Everything he feels. 

Keith dons a well-pressed suit, the first he’s ever seen him wear. His black vest hugs him finely, bewitchingly, over his button down. His jacket remains open and he seems to have disregarded a tie entirely, which he truly isn’t surprised by. That spot itself is a tad crinkly, as if he had gone through the trouble of tying a tie before inevitably giving up. 

Oh, and he’s also holding a succulent in his hands.

“Hey,” Keith greets, and then clears his throat and holds the plant out to him. “For you.”

Lance is grinning as he takes it from him, though he can’t help but throw it a questioning glance. “A succulent, huh?” There’s more he wants to say, more he wants to tease, but it doesn’t come out of him. Not at such a pivotal moment. 

Keith scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, they retain water really well. They’re — they grow better indoors than regular flowers, so I thought… maybe you’d like them more.” 

The tidbit makes Lance’s heart grow impossibly fond. He smiles down at the plant, admiring the thick green leaves and pink hues that make up the gigantic succulent. “It’s really beautiful, thank you.” 

He sets it down on the table next to the door and realizes that he really wants to hug him, but is it too late for that? Too awkward? Should they just go on with the night?

“I’m glad you like them,” Keith says, his shoulders straightening out, like he was nervous Lance wouldn’t like them. 

Lance steps outside and stands in front of him and they share a moment where they simply stare at each other. It’s — it’s that. Change. Lance licks his lips and shoves his hands in his back pockets, looking on the edge of saying something but immediately forgetting what it even was.

“You look really nice,” Keith says, looking at him with a gentleness in his eyes that makes Lance chuckle to distract himself from how nervous it makes him feel. He nods like he knows just how good he looks, more of an instinct than anything else, and snaps a finger gun at him.

“I was going to say the same to you,” he says, through the butterflies rampaging in his stomach. “You really know how to rock a vest.” And then he just — holds a hand out. He wishes he were more suave about it, that’s his whole thing after all . But god, this is Keith.

But Keith’s mouth does that little half-smile he wears when he’s amused and he takes Lance’s hand and everything slowly begins to flow. 

They walk to Keith’s car and he drives without saying a thing to Lance, which really amps up his curiosity. Though Keith doesn’t tell him a word, saying it’s a surprise. 

When they get there and Lance sets his eyes on their city’s aquarium, it’s like his chest flutters open. 

“An aquarium?” he mumbles, mostly in awe. 

“You like the ocean,” Keith says, though he looks uncertain, gauging Lance’s reaction carefully. “I… thought you would enjoy your time here.”

Something thick and stocky settles behind his eyes at his words. He loves the aquarium, the ocean, all of it. He just didn’t think Keith ever bothered to remember that, or anyone, for that matter.

“It’s perfect,” he says, sending him a grin too wide for him to be able to control, and leaps out of the car.

Everything after that, is blue. The blue of the ocean that stains the ground and the walls and their clothes and Keith’s eyes and his fingernails. The shimmer of the ocean is otherworldly, he realizes, when making a home of Keith’s eyes. He notes this when Keith stares up at a stingray that glides above them at one point, with his lips widening in wonderment. Oh, that itself is its own ocean, he thinks.

Lance has been lost at sea for a long, long time, he thinks. He doesn’t very much mind it.

They take a lot of pictures, though perhaps it’s better to phrase it as: Lance makes Keith take as many pictures as possible. 

They talk a lot about the animals, and Lance tells Keith all he knows about each one as they come up. And the newness of all this just continues popping up in every word and touch and makes him feel out of his depth. It appears as he trips over his words, or when he tries to take Keith’s hand and backs out at the last second, or when they sit near each other and Keith leans closer to listen to him and his heart feels like it’s going to give out.

“I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” Lance tells him, as he nibbles on his churro. “I’m… I’m sorry if I’m being weird.”

“You’re not,” Keith assures him, so quick to do so. Lance looks up at him, finds the world of the sea staring back at him. “I’m nervous too. This is… it’s new for us.”

“Right?” Lance hurries to agree. “I was thinking the same thing. I guess I just…” he looks away and tries for an easy-going chuckle “...don’t want to mess this up.”

“There’s no way you can mess this up,” Keith says, and Lance notices how his fingers twitch, recognizing it as the same urge he finds in himself when he wants to reach out for his hand. So close. Almost there.

“How’s that?” Lance asks, aiming for nice and easy. Like they’re talking about something as benign as the weather, like he isn’t running circles around his head. 

“Because I…” Keith pauses, his eyes zeroing in on his hand like they do — did — during missions. That look of steely concentration that Lance had given his trust to. It has his breath waiting in his lungs, only coming back when Keith finally reaches out to intertwine their fingers together. An anchor long sought out. “I like you. A lot. So much, Lance.”

Lance laughs, his smile stretching wide. “Yeah?”

“ Yeah. ”

“I like you too. I mean, obviously, we wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. But… I have, for a long time,” he admits, and it’s crazy how deathly afraid he’s been to say these words to him but now he just feels warmth as they come out of him.

“Good,” Keith says, so sudden that it prompts Lance to burst out with laughter. “Then we’re both on the same page here!” he quickly continues, as if to mend his outburst, but it’s already been said and Lance can’t stop laughing and Keith doesn’t look exactly keen on stopping him.

They don’t let go of each other’s hands for the remainder of the night. 

They linger in the middle of the aquarium, where the ceiling and the walls are encased with the ocean and the creatures dwelling inside it; where it wraps around Lance like a hug. He almost can’t believe it, how he’s being embraced by the ocean with Keith holding tight to his hand.

Here, as Keith points at a dolphin and tugs his hand closer so he can see, the trepidations of this shift becomes feather-light. 

*          *

Present Day

At 9:00 PM, give or take a few minutes, Keith wakes Lance up from where he’s napping on Keith’s shoulder. He cups his cheek and strokes his skin until Lance blinks his eyes awake, landing on Keith with a pout on his lips. “What gives?” he grumbles, and nudges closer into his shoulder. “I was comfortable.”

“I have something for you.”

Lance makes an inquisitive sound in the back of his throat, leaning back to look up at him. His eyelids are only half-awake, and they’re getting heavier by the minute. “What is it?”

“You’ve gotta get in the car if you want to find out.”

Lance whines, pointing accusingly at the clock perched on their wall. “It’s nine o’clock, Keith!” and then he groans and slides a hand down his face. “Don’t tell Pidge I said that she would never let me hear the end of it.”

Keith only chuckles and shoves gently at his waist. “Come on, get up.”

“But why? ”

“So we can go!”

“But go where? ”

Keith sighs and hauls him up by sheer willpower, until Lance is standing but still slumping all over his chest and the side of his neck. “On a date,” he answers, and Lance picks his head up with parted lips. 

“Oh no, what are you plotting?” Lance asks, feeling more awake now. 

“Nope,” Keith says, and Lance only moves by the aid of Keith’s hands pushing him forward. 

“What! You can’t nope me about a date!”

Keith turns him around and presses a kiss in between his eyebrows. “Trust me, okay? Now go get into something comfortable if you need it. We’re gonna be on the road for a bit. And bring an extra pair of clothes while you’re at it.”

Lance purses his lips, eyes still suspicious, as he walks up the stairs. He changes into sweatpants and a loose t-shirt then heads back downstairs, where he finds Keith standing next to a curious brown paper bag. He quirks a brow and takes a peak, finding trail mix and cranberries and crackers and peanut butter inside. 

Lance chuckles and pulls Keith into a kiss, long enough for Keith to wrap him up a little closer and tilt his head deeper into it. 

“What was that for?” he asks after, and Lance shrugs. 

“Nothin. I have a feeling I’m gonna be doing that for the rest of the day.”

Keith shakes his head at him and sweeps him toward the door, his keys and bag in hand. Lance relieves him of the bag and gets inside. Something cozy immediately overcomes him at getting in the car after the sun has come down, especially with Keith right next to him. They drive into the night, entering the highway and not taking any exit for miles, so Lance has a feeling they’re not going to get off any time soon.

He shoots Keith another wondering stare, his socked feet now curled into the seat. “Keeeeeeeeeeith.”

“Nope,” Keith doesn’t waste a second. 

“This is just so sudden,” Lance says, laying his head against the shoulder of the seat. “You could’ve told me so I could prepare to drive to a whole other state.”

“We’re not going to another state,” Keith says. “And why not be spontaneous? I can be spontaneous.”

Lance hums, raising his head. “Spontaneity? Since when do our dates need to be spontaneous?”

“Since the last one we went to was at the grocery store.”

“Ah-ha!” Lance points at him. “I knew this had something to do with that!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Keith! I told you, I love our little day to day activities! And our coffee shop mid-teaching lunch break dates. And everything else we do.”

“Me too,” Keith says, and Lance can see his little smile from the side. “But I really do want to do this for you. It’s about time we went somewhere different, did something else.”

“Oh, Keith,” Lance sighs, fondly. “I think you’re gonna have to pull over. Wanna kiss you again.”

Keith laughs, and at some point Lance drifts off to the cool night air skimming over his nose and Ella Fitzgerald singing about pale moons and soft lights and being near. Keith wakes him up later, when they’re parked in front of an inn, their car only among three others. 

“Lance, love, we’re here.”

Lance squints at him not for the first time that night. Keith stands outside his door, one arm holding their bags while he shakes him awake with his other. Lance grabs his hand as he stretches and fights a yawn, then tells him, “you should’ve woke me up earlier so we could take turns driving. How long has it been? Where are we?”

“South Haven. We’re at an Inn.” Keith helps him out, his legs going weak as soon as he sets them on the ground. He shakes them out, the night breeze sneaking through the hairs on his nape. 

“Still not budging, huh?” Lance murmurs, shutting the door. Keith beeps the car.

“You’ll find out in the morning,” Keith says, leading Lance inside with a hand at his back. Lance sighs, that cozy feeling still lingering in his bones as he digs his hands into his pockets and bumps his shoulder with Keith’s, grinning secretly. 

Lance wraps an arm around Keith’s and lays his head against his shoulder as he checks them in, daring to almost fall asleep again. He takes in the frames on the walls and various vases and arrangements with bleary eyes until they get to their room, where he zeros in on the bed and falls down onto it without a thought to it. He lets out a loud, content breath, then pats around as if looking for something. 

“Hey, babe, where did you go?” he sleep-whispers.

Keith laughs as he sets their things down and approaches him. He takes Lance’s shoes and socks off, then sets them down next to the door. He returns to twist Lance around as though he’s a piece of pretzel dough, and Lance mumbles something as he moves willingly onto his back. “You’ve gotta get up on the bed, sweetheart. I’ll join you in a sec.”

Lance slides up like a slug, then sits up and removes his hoodie to fully let himself plop back down. Keith comes back with his PJ’s on and he hears him move around the room for a bit before he slides into the bed. Lance turns where the bed dips, eyes closed, and scoots closer until his nose bumps into Keith’s hair. He tucks himself into his neck and throws an arm around his waist, Keith can feel him smiling into his skin.

“Goodnight,” Lance says. Keith wraps his arms around him and presses a kiss onto his head.

The following morning finds them with hot tea and the softest cinnamon buns Lance thinks he has ever tasted. He wiggles against the sheets, excitement as clear as the sky outside. “Wow,” he admires around a bite. “This is. Amazing. Do you think we can get a recipe or something?”

Keith licks off a bit of cream from the corner of his lips. “Doesn’t dough intimidate you?”

“Yes,” Lance affirms, and takes another hulking bite. “But I think I’m gonna have to get over my fear of yeast for these bad boys.”

“I don’t blame you. How are we supposed to know if we killed it or not?”

“Hunk says to use an actual thermometer but that’s even more intimidating, for some reason.”

“We’ll have to ask about that recipe,” Keith says. He finishes off the last of his bun and lays back against the headboard, looking saited. 

“So!” Lance starts, after a sip of tea. “Where are we going today, Mr. Spontaneous?” 

Keith rolls his eyes, but grins. He leads him into the car still unaware, and drives through town. The city itself is beautiful and it makes for an interesting drive. Much of the architecture is old-fashioned, but there’s a welcoming charm to them that makes Lance look closer. And with South Haven being a port city, the crisp fresh air is abundant and wistful enough for Lance to lose himself in. 

They find themselves in front of the Black River, and Lance already has an idea of what this little date entails, especially when they’re led to the kayak Keith has already rented. It’s a tandem kayak, nice and wide with two spots for them to fill.

“Keith!” Lance practically squeals in delight. He walks around the gravel where it’s perched to admire it from all sides. He bends down and grips the kayak firmly. “This is so cool.”

“Happy you think so,” Keith grins, watching him with his hands in his pockets like this is what he actually came for. An ember reminiscent of their first couple of dates awakens in his chest and he blushes. It’s almost ridiculous because even as husbands, Keith has always been able to make him feel as though they only just started dating. He stands and walks over to grab Keith’s hand, tugging him closer.

“Come on, let’s put it to use!”

Keith lets himself be pulled over. They push the kayak into the river on opposite sides and get in once they’re mostly submerged into the water. They float for a moment; Lance laughs as he looks up at the sky and lets the kayak go where it wants to go. He drops his head back to look at Keith upside down, where he pouts. “I wish we were sitting facing each other.”

“I have a feeling that’s not going to be too much of a hindrance for you.”

Lance makes a sound of protest, then puckers his lips. Keith’s smile is amused, but he still leans down and gives him a spider-man kiss, then leans back to brush something off of Lance’s cheek. “Eyelash.”

Lance stretches out until his head lands in Keith’s lap. “You know what, maybe I’ll stay like this for a while.”

“Unbelievable,” he says, around a moon-fond smile.

Keith paddles them around, mindless and light about it. They’re both happy to just sway around, laying idle together and talking about this and that; the way the clouds are shaped and eye colors in sunlight and the voluminous embrace of the trees surrounding the river and what do you think Kosmo and Sail are up to right now?

The scenery really is beautiful, though. How the earthy river ripples around their kayak, the sound of the water splashing lightly beneath their paddles, and all the trees that rise out of the corners keeping the river aligned. Lance thinks he could lay here forever without feeling bereft. The black river stretches out for four miles, but it feels endless when floating along its route at a leisurely pace. 

They only have two hours permitted, so they use it all up to its fullest. He feels all light and floaty after they get off, and they hold onto each other as they regain their sea-legs. They head to a cafe afterwards; Lance gets himself a muffin and a latte. Keith only gets himself a black coffee, insisting that he doesn’t feel too snacky.

They end up sharing Lance’s muffin. 

(Lance reaches over with a part of the muffin and Keith opens his mouth to accept it, giving him a look that dares him to speak. Lance laughs. “Told you so,” he says, even so. “I tell you so every time, actually.”

“Shut up, please.”

“Or is it that you can’t deny me? Hm, lots to think about.”

“We were having such a peaceful time.”

“Yes.”

“I’m just noting how peaceful it was seconds before you decided to—”

“I’m still having a peaceful time. A great time actually.”)

They drive around and come across a record store that Lance quickly flags them toward. “Oh, babe, we’ve gotta see what they have! Any new vinyls you wanna add to your collection?”

“Hm, we’ll have to see.”

Inside, it looks like any ordinary record store. Shelves stacked with vinyals, some at random others by category. Lance flicks through a couple, and picks one out that catches his eye. “Hey, they’ve got Freddie King here,” he says, bringing the vinyl to Keith. “And he’s holding a guitar. This album must be up your alley.”

Keith laughs. “Oh, it must be if he’s holding a guitar.” 

Lance shoves him. “We should get this one, I have a good feeling about it.”

“It’s gotta be if it’s Freddie King,” Keith agrees, and tucks the album into the crook of his arm. “We should look around for more rock blues.”

Lance hums, and bends down to take a look at the shelf beneath them. “Lets see here…”

Keith watches him thoughtfully, and it makes Lance tilt his head at him. “What?”

Keith continues watching him, so unabashed about it. His eyes are precious to him, Lance suddenly thinks, and blushes. 

“Nothing,” Keith says, smiling. “We just haven’t gone shopping for vinyls in a while. I’ll look on the other side, see if I find anything.”

Lance feels the need to tease him about this, but Keith is walking off too quickly. He pulls his lips to the side, sorts through more albums, his heart this buoyant and tingling thing in his chest.

“Keith!” he calls out. “Found another guy holding a guitar.”

He hears Keith laugh, loud and boisterous even though he’s a couple shelves away from him. It’s enough to make Lance’s day perfect.

They head to a restaurant afterwards, and then loop back to the inn. As soon as they get inside, Keith takes out his pocket notebook and scribbles a couple things inside. Lyrics or notes, perhaps? Lance finds it endearing that he waited the whole day to write down what he’d been thinking. Like he didn’t want to make it seem as though his attention was anywhere but with him. Maybe he had an epiphany on the car ride back, or when they were in between bites of tapas.

Lance cleans up in the bathroom, and Keith eventually joins him. He brushes his teeth while Lance rubs some moisturizer into his skin, and then Keith’s phone is ringing in the other room. 

“It’s Shiro,” Keith calls, when he goes to get it.

Lance comes over as he accepts the video call, snuggling up nice and close to Keith on the bed. He wraps the blanket up closer and leans in to see Kosmo’s gigantic chest next to Shiro’s face. “Hey guys. I think your two little guys wanted to say a quick hello.”

“Not sure about little,” Lance says. “Hey there Kosmo, you’re not driving uncle Shiro crazy are you?”

“He’s fine, but not when he’s around Sail. It’s like he can see her eye for chaos and ropes himself into whatever scheme she’s plotting. They’re partners in crime, it seems.”

“Yeah they’re playful together,” Keith says, smiling as Shiro stands up so they can take a look at Kosmo’s face, who makes a curious sound as he stares at the screen. When he recognizes them, he releases a string of barks and stomps in place excitedly. 

“Oh my god, our baby misses us. Look at him,” Lance cooes into the screen. “You’ve been a good boy haven’t you, Kosmo? Uncle Shiro is just too old to handle you.”

“Ha ha ha,” comes Shiro’s very unenthused voice.

“We’ll be home soon, you be good until then, you hear?” Keith says, and Kosmo honest-to-god nods, his tongue flapping out and panting in what looks like anticipation. Keith grins, his hand moving as if itching to give him a scratch. “We miss you too, buddy.”

Shiro moves around before the screen clears up around him and a blue-eyed Birman. “There she is!” Lance says, laughing as Sail turns in Shiro’s hold and pokes her nose into his chin.

“Our trouble maker,” Keith chimes in, his chin in a palm as he watches Sail meow up a storm. 

“Oh but she looks like she misses you. She’s never let me hold her this long.”

“We’ll be home before she knows it. Thanks again for doing this, Shiro,” Lance says. Sail crawls onto Shiro’s shoulder and jumps up on Kosmo’s flank, plopping there to her liking. 

“I’m happy to,” Shiro says, lightly petting Kosmo in the background. “You guys take your time. I know you thought a lot about this, Keith,” Shiro says, offhandedly and making Keith shift and clear his throat. “Goodnight, guys.”

They murmur it back and Keith quickly sets his phone down as soon as the call disconnects. He moves as if to immediately go to sleep, but Lance pokes him in the side. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Not a word, Lance.”

“Babyyyyyyy.” Lance starts pulling at Keith’s shirt. “I’m not going to say anything! I promise. I just wanna cuddle.”

Keith turns around and stares at him, his lips threatening to twitch into a smile. Lance stares back, knowing he looks like he’s holding back his own knowing grin, but true to his word he says nothing. Keith sighs and scoots closer, until they’re nose-to-nose and their arms are wrapped around each other like a second blanket.

Lance chuckles into Keith’s neck and Keith laughs into his forehead.

They prepare to get back on the road the next day and pack everything in the morning to put it in their car, since their reservation ends at 11:00 AM. They visit a street cafe and eat their quiche on the bench outside with their coffees sitting at their feet. Lance also bags a few danishes, suddenly in the mood for one, and he knows Keith is gonna end up eating from his so he gets one for him, too. 

They hit the road afterwards, and Lance makes sure Keith knows that they’re taking turns so he doesn’t have to drive the full two hours. He settles in for the meantime, putting on his favorite songs and squinting against the sunbeams streaming into the car.

Shiro agreed to meet them at their house, so it’s no surprise they hear paws on wooden floorboards as soon as they unlock the door. 

“We’re here,” Keith calls out, and almost immediately, Kosmo is dashing from the living room right to the doorway, barking and jumping on his hindlegs to drop right into Keith’s chest. Keith digs his foot behind him to keep himself up, and gives him a pet in between his ears and down his back, trying to speak and dodge Kosmo’s lolling tongue at the same time. “Alright, alright, it’s good to see you too, Kosmo.”

Lance gets tackled next, and he laughs through his sheer excitement. “How’s our best boy, huh? It wasn’t too bad was it?”

“I’d like to say it wasn’t,” Shiro says, from where he’s leaning against the wall. “How was the trip?”

“Great,” Lance says, grinning brightly. He meets Keith’s eye, knows they did things they could’ve done here at Ann Arbor, but that’s not the point at all. “Wonderful.”

Keith smiles, his lips like fire in the dark.

“Well I’m glad to hear it,” Shiro says, coming over to clap them both on the shoulders. “I should get to the library, Adam’s probably waiting for me.”

“He can manage those books alone, can’t he?” Lance says, attention moving briefly down to Sail, who comes to paw repeatedly at his socked feet. He bends down and picks her up. “You should come over for dinner tomorrow night so we can thank you. With Adam too, obviously.”

“There’s no need to thank me, Lance.”

“You know he won’t stop insisting until you say yes, Shiro,” Keith adds, wisely.

Shiro sighs, but it sounds more like a resigned laugh. “Count me and Adam in for dinner, then.”

“Yay!” Lance cheers, swinging Sail around in his arms then picking her paw up to wave at Shiro. “Say, goodbye uncle Shiro! ”

Shiro walks over to get to the door and gives Sail a scratch under her chin as he passes by.

They decompress for a while, mainly laying on the couch as Kosmo brings his chew toy over and back in a lazy game of catch. 

Eventually, Keith grabs his guitar and brings it back into the living room. He sits next to Lance and says, “I’ve been working on a new song… you wanna hear it?”

“Oh?” Lance says in clear intrigue, although he has had an inkling. “Please, blow me away.”

Keith settles into it, gets his acoustic guitar in his arms and starts to play. The chords are beautiful, and you can’t call Lance biased, alright? He knows if anyone got to hear Keith play, they would think the same. The patrons down at the club think so, if the sounds of their cheering is anything to go buy. Point is, Keith is playing the most wonderful harmony. His fingers strum the guitar in such a way that Lance would call captivating and alluring.

It reminds him of the Black River and the way their kayak swayed when Lance would reach behind to poke Keith in the leg. When he had tried swatting Keith’s avenging hand but failed because if he persisted, the kayak would’ve tipped over. And the screech he let out once Keith got the victory pinch to his thigh. 

His head sways with the music, catching the faint sounds of Kosmo and Sail somewhere in the background, doing who knows what. Even after all the adventuring they did in South Haven, nothing beats this. Nothing can ever beat this. 

Lance finds himself smiling softly when he stops. He scoots the rest of the way to bring Keith’s head over to him, and kisses him. Keith hums into it, but it sounds probing. Curious. 

“You liked it, then?” Keith says when they separate, his eyes calm and mellow and loveworn as he looks at him. Lance makes a quiet sound, laugh-like.

“Yes, of course, it sounds lovely, Keith.” He wraps his hand around Keith’s arm and presses a kiss onto his shoulder. “You know our relationship is never going stale, right?”

Keith puts his guitar down, his eyes knowing. “So… that’s what this is about?” His hand curls around Lance’s.

“What you did for us was amazing and fun and I loved it, especially because I did it with you,” he says, imploringly. “I meant it when I said I love the simple things. Our simple things. It’s all the same for me. I just don’t want it to be any less clear.”

Keith leans in to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. “I don’t have any doubt about us and our relationship, at all,” he stresses, and Lance nods. “I just… I guess I was afraid there would be a lapse because of how ordinary things can be, but I also wanted to give you something special because you deserve it. Always do. I like doing these things. I like surprising you. I like the look you get when you do something you decide you like, I like discovering things with you.”

“There will never, ever, be a lapse, you hear me? I love our ordinary. I love being at home with you and watching the same shows on Netflix and everything else. I never thought it was possible, but you’ve made me the coziest homebody.” They share a little laugh, Lance rubbing a thumb over Keith’s bicep. “But all that being said, I loved the past two days. It was very thoughtful, and I had a wonderful time. I love discovering new things with you, too. Thank you.”

“I love you,” Keith says, entranced, and kisses him long enough for Lance to lean back and let them fall all the way into the couch.

During semester break, they go on a humanitarian mission with the Blades. It’s a recurring effort to help out when they can, and they most commonly do it when they have a long enough opening.

Lance takes out his Blade of Marmora outfit, given to him by Kolivan when he joined. It’s been months since he last wore it. It sticks to his skin like it’s trying to merge with his flesh, and usually he wouldn’t mind it, but today it clamps around his neck like a vice. Must have shrunk with all the trips to the washer.

He meets Keith in the living room, talking on the phone with the leading blade member of the trip. The call ends pretty quickly, always short and to the point with the Blade of Marmora. 

“Looks like we’re getting a ride,” Keith tells him after the call ends. Lance walks over to him and smooths his hands over his shoulders, then wraps them around to hug him from behind.

“Mm. Did I tell you how much I love this outfit on you?”

Keith huffs out through his nose, a diverted sound. “Only every time I wear it.”

“Well, it’s true.”

Keith turns around and raises a brow at him. Lance leans closer to kiss him, but Keith lays a finger against his lips and stops him. 

“Nope,” he says. “Do that, and we’ll be late to the airport and miss the ship.”

Lance purses his lips at him, and makes a show of sighing woefully. “Fine, but your loss, sweetcakes.” 

He slinks away, but Keith catches his hand before he strays too far and tugs him into his chest, meeting face to face. Lance doesn’t expect it so he nearly trips on his feet and has to lean most of his weight against him. He raises both brows, wondering where this is going. 

“Oh?” he says, flirtatiously, and Keith shakes his head at him. 

“You know, I wanted to pull you in before you left to kiss you, but for that, I’m not going to.”

Lance’s shoulders slump and he pouts at him, looking after him as he lets him go and grabs their keys off the pot next to the door. 

“Come onnnn!” he says, flabbergasted. “Is it because I called you sweetcakes? You can’t hold that against me! What else am I supposed to call my darling husband?”

Keith stops when he opens the door, his shoulders shaking with laughter, and Lance beams. 

They make it to the port around the right time.

They’re greeted by other blade members and shuffled into their spaceship. Walking inside is always a surreal, effortful feat. The vast darkness of space is no comfort after everything. The nostalgia that creeps in his throat is far too potent than anything ordinary, more intrusive than anything else. He tugs at the turtleneck, wondering why on earth they thought designing these suits with turtlenecks would be a good idea. (Although he knows he looks very good in it).

Knowing that aircrafts they used in the actual war affects Lance differently than regular airplanes helps him prepare for it. He averts his eyes away from the windows and keeps them pointed to other things around him. The floorboards and the number of nails dug into them; the number of purple lights that these ships constantly seem to emit no matter the era; the blades actually chatting around him; Keith.

His mind rotates between loose doors, and he knows now that it’s pointless to try and force one shut when it creeks open. He pulls Keith’s hand onto his lap and traces the lines of his palm, focuses on each knob of a finger, the ripple of skin following the downstroke along his thumb, the discoloration of his hand when he presses down. He focuses on the dampness, the warm humanly heat of it.

The good thing about this is that it grounds Keith, too, gets him to focus on the sensation rather than anything else that might pop up for him. They share a look and Keith leans in to press a kiss to the side of his head.

They land on planet Niltae, where the skies are a swath of what Lance likens to blood orange and red. There isn’t a cloud in sight, only the sky sweating before them. The ground is green, just like grass. Lance determines that it probably is grass when he steps in it, with dirt staining the bottom of his shoe. He’s glad to see so much greenery sprouting where it hadn’t before. This is his first visit, but he saw the progress report and Niltae had been nearly devoid of plant life due to the war. It’s nice to see the growth.

“It’s beautiful,” Keith comments, and Lance nods in agreement. 

“We’ve landed in the Mundel district, which is separated by two settlements, so separating into teams of two would be best,” the leading blade member, Cove, suggests. 

They get placed on opposite teams, since both wanted a paladin of voltron in each. Lance tries not to mind it. He grabs crates of supplies from the ship, and bonks the one Keith is holding and wiggles his brows at him. 

“Try not to miss me too much, sweetcakes,” he says, and Keith rolls his eyes. 

*          *

Past

Lance sits on the lifeguard tower and looks around the beach below him. His skin is bare and at the mercy of the sun, which seems to have none to give. Not like he’s asking for it, anyway. Flip flops hang from his feet. The material in between his toes makes him ponder his stillness. Whenever he would wear them, long before the war, it had been during summer excursions. With unending steps over hills and concrete and the sun. Vastly different from his spot here, where he stares down the limitless distance of the ocean and longs. 

What for? Well.

He looks up at the sky. He has to squint, his eyes tearing up from the brutal rays, but keeping them plastered regardless. There are clouds of varying shape; among them the most captivating is the large, expansive oblong of fluff directly overhead. Lance lingers in its pockets, then looks to smaller ones spread out across the entire space. 

Bitterness crawls into his throat, trudging up to his tongue. He has to turn away, his eyes finding the ocean beneath it. It’s tempting to jump in, and eventually, he does. After the beach has cleared and the sun has hidden away and he doesn’t have to watch for anyone to save. He lays in it as if a bed, letting the water push and pull him to its liking.

Panic still aches inside him, even while being rocked in the arms of the ocean. Stars and darkness have replaced the bright and pretty clouds, and Lance thinks, don’t I belong up there? Isn’t that what I’ve always been chasing? Where do I go if not up there?

The yucky, mucky, abhorrent sensation rolls in his stomach again, and Lance takes in a shaking breath. He fans his arms out and lets them slide through the water, falling into the feeling of them as they cool before resubmerging. At least he has the ocean. His heart mimics fullness here, as he sinks beneath and doesn’t very much mind the darkness that greets him.

If there’s one thing he knows it’s this: his story is not over yet.

*          *

Present Day

The people of Niltae are housed in homes that they managed to rebuild since the end of the war. They still have issues with water and food scarcity, but this is where the Blade comes in. 

“Oh my, the Red paladin is here!” someone shouts out when Lance enters the lobby of one of the apartments, nearly startling him into dropping the box he’s holding. 

The call brings forth people from other rooms. They gather in a group around Lance, who greets them and spends a couple minutes chatting with them. They all are smiling and seem enthusiastic and happy, which automatically relieves him. He’s glad to see them doing well. 

The BOM has been more than successful with their mission to aid the planets that had fallen to Zarkon’s reign. Slowly, throughout the years, they’ve managed to help bring more than 1,000 planets and their inhabitants back on their feet. 

He sends off the boxes in his haul until people themselves come down to collect them from him, which gives him more chances to talk and see how they’re doing. Kids surround him as well, bouncing on their little feet as they greet him and stare curiously at the boxes he hands out. 

Lance drops down to a knee, to the height of a boy no older than eight years old. He gasps, probably not having expected Lance to come down to his level. 

“Hi,” Lance says with a grin. “What’s your name?”

The boy stares at him, looking wide-eyed, and then whispers, “Nem.”

 “Well it’s nice to meet you, Nem. I’m Lance.”

“I know who you are!” Nem shouts out, as though it’s preposterous to assume otherwise. 

Lance chuckles. “Do you? We ended the war when you were probably a baby.”

“There are pictures, and videos,” he adds on, very insistent. “We have them hanging in our living room!”

“Oh, in your living room?”

“Yeah!”

“That’s certainly an honor,” he says, feeling touched. He didn’t think families were hanging their pictures up or anything. “Say, do you want to have a peek at my box here? I think there’s something in it you might enjoy.”

“Really?” Nem gawks at him, and then stares down at the box and rips it open with an excited look on his face. 

An array of toys and packs of juice and snack bars stare up at them, and Nem lets out an eager screech, reaching in for the first toy and snack bar he sees. Lance smiles warmly and turns to get the attention of the other kids, some of them already staring down in anticipation and says, “you guys, too! These are for everyone!”

A bunch of hands are instantly barreling for the box. Lance quickly moves out the way for fear of being trampled, and opens up a couple more boxes. The kids become more boisterous with the toys in hand, thanking him profusely. 

Their happiness fills Lance’s heart.

When people disperse, Lance rolls his sleeves up and sets out to work on building more wells to work on the water scarcity. They drill into areas with higher vegetation since that’s where more water collects. While a group works on drilling, he works on the screen of the well. He sits a pipe onto a table and slices slits into it so that debris and sand are filtered out, should they wind up inside. 

Everything is going relatively well. Mostly according to plan. They’re making good progress on the well and he even finishes with the pipe early, and moves to help with the water drilling portion. Which is why when Cove gets a call from the other team and responds with a resounding disturbed, “What?” a physical wave of deep-seated disharmony pulses all around them.

Lance moves closer, his brows set in concern. 

“When did this happen?” Cove continues, and draws the attention of the other Blades. “Is anyone hurt?”

Lance’s blood is already ice cold. He fists his fingers tight, his heart beating horrendously fast in his chest. 

Cove nods, a tightness to their jaw and contempt in their eyes that turns his stomach inside out. When they end the call, Lance is quickly on them. 

“What? What happened?”

“There was an attack,” they reveal, and Lance drops whatever it is that he was even holding. “Whatever’s left of Zarkon’s loyalists, we presume.”

“Are —” he swallows dryly, nearly choking on his own words as Keith, Keith, Keith, invades his mind like quicksand dragging him under. “Are there any casualties?” 

Cove hangs their head down, their face tightening with resolve as they head down the path back to their meeting point. Everyone else follows quickly. Lance moves without even realizing he’s moving. “Two people are dead. Others have sustained injuries. I need to report to—”

“Where are they?” Lance cuts in, urgency freezing his tone cold. His stomach is rolling, his throat constricting to a point. 

“The hospital on the eastern side.”

Lance doesn’t stand to listen to more. He runs down where they came from and is heaving for breath by the time he reaches their landing location. He doesn’t let himself stop and runs up the bridge and into one of the ships they used to get here. He clicks the button to start it and grabs the joysticks with trembling hands, and takes off in the direction of the path Keith’s team would have gone down, through the little settlement, and further down to where the hospital should be. 

His legs bounce listlessly while he tries to keep an eye out for this hospital. The further he goes, the more anxious he feels. But he keeps going. He has to keep going. Keith has to be okay. He has to be. 

But oh god what if he isn’t? What if he died while Lance was none the wiser? And now he — he thinks about Shiro and his hands squeezing both their shoulders tight with tears in his eyes as he tells them on their wedding day, take care of each other.  

He’s going to throw up. He smacks a hand over his mouth and retches into it, gagging without anything coming up. The ship tilts and he quickly reaches back for the handle, gritting down on his teeth. 

The hospital comes into view and he jerks in the direction of it and lands right out front. The ship vibrates up his knees and to his hips and up to his elbows and around the curve of his fingers. He squeezes the yokes tight in his hand and wipes furiously at his eyes, then commands his legs to stand and move him down the bridge even when his legs feel heavier the closer he gets. 

Lance hurries into the hospital, a small wooden building that only deters him for a second too long because damn it why do alien hospitals look so different? He’s going so fast that he doesn’t notice the front desk tucked into a hidden, elusive corner. People call out to him but he’s already running down the hall and looking into each room, too far away.

He runs up the stairs when he comes up empty, and dashes down the hall. He tries not to let that deter him. 

He has to be okay he has to be okay he has to be okay —

Lance stops near the end of the hall, at a room where the sun is shining down on the bed that Keith is sitting on top of, wrestling with a nurse who’s trying to wrap a bandage around his shoulder. 

“Look, I already said I don’t need it, I need to go find my husband—”

“ Keith, ” he says, spoken like the first breath taken after breaking through the ocean’s horizon. 

Keith’s head snaps to him, and he stands up at the same time that Lance makes a break for it. He crashes into his chest and arms and hair and cries. Keith’s ring digs into his chest from where it hangs beneath his uniform like a branding mark. He pulls away too quickly but it’s to cup Keith’s face in his hands and press a wet kiss to his lips. 

“Mi cariño, mi todo,” he says into his mouth, frantic but also filled to the brim with relief, urgent. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? I swear to god I’m — I’m going to kill them.” His voice breaks on a sob.

Keith goes through all kinds of emotions, first of clear concern as he tracks the drop of Lance’s tears with his eyes, and then the stoop of his brows and the relief in his shoulders when he chuckles, soft and small and only for him to hear. But he looks tired, his eyes red and stooping even when he tries to smile for him. 

“I’m okay,” he says, and holds Lance’s palm as he turns to press a kiss onto it. “I swear, I’m okay. Just got a bit roughed up.”

His eyes flick over to his shoulder and brushes the skin beneath the blood that’s pooling around a wound. “You're bleeding,” he says, voice scratched up. He remembers at what moment he walked into. “What are you saying? Of course you need bandages!” 

“I wanted — I needed to find you,” Keith murmurs, looking regretful about letting go of him as Lance ushers him to sit back down. 

Lance sniffles and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. He turns to the sanitation packets scattered on the side table and only now notices that the nurse had left the room. He quickly washes his hands and rips one open, then takes a seat next to Keith and lightly dabs it over the wound. Keith’s face flashes with pain, but he looks like he’s trying not to make a show of it. Probably for Lance’s benefit. 

Lance focuses on the wound, makes sure to clean him up really well.

Keith reaches out and slides Lance’s hair away from his eyes with a finger. Lance sighs and closes his eyes, a second of respite, then reaches for the bandages. 

“Hey, Lance,” he says, whispers. Lance hums while he wraps the cloth around his shoulder. “I hope you know CPR.”

That catches Lance’s attention and he looks down at Keith in worry. But Keith is grinning as he says, “because you take my breath away.”

Lance stops short and thinks about that for a second. It does the job of making his jaw and forehead relax, of making him huff a small laugh. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he says, continuing where he left off with the bandages. “Not now.” 

Keith takes his hand and tugs it to bring his attention onto him. “I’m okay,” he says, again, his eyes steeping with his earnesty. Of course, he’d be worried over Lance when he’s the one who got injured. “Really.”

“I should’ve been there,” Lance says, still. His heart still hurts, but his fingers are warm. “I should’ve had your back. You needed me and I wasn’t there.”

“That’s not fair and you know it.”

“I was — I felt so scared,” he confesses, and presses Keith’s hand onto his heart. “I thought I lost you to this stupid war, even after we ended it. I haven’t felt that way in… in a long time.”

This whole thing has been terrible. But the primal fear he had felt as he blasted his way here, the terrifying thought that he would lose Keith and never see him again, brings back a swarm of old fears from long long ago. Fears that he’d worked so, so hard on accepting and letting go of. 

Keith squeezes his hand, leans in to kiss the middle of his forehead. Lance treasures the touch like warm water on cold fingers. “I’m sorry. I never want to make you feel that way,” he apologizes into his skin, voice raw with emotion. “I was scared too. I thought they attacked the other settlement — I knew I had to make it out of there so I could get back to you. I’m just... glad you’re okay.”

Lance reaches up to caress his cheek and scoots closer to him, their sides pressing together. His hand glides up his cheekbone and to his temple and into his hair, softly tangling it into his fingers. “Please don’t apologize for this shit show,” Lance sighs, shaking his head subtly. He presses a kiss to his cheek and nudges him toward the head of the bed. “Come on, you should get some rest.”

“You too.” Keith pulls him down with him. 

They don’t sleep, but Lance lets his thumb rest on Keith’s wrist so he can feel the waves of his pulse as the clock ticks in the background, and it’s more than enough. 

*          *

Past

There’s an adjustment period. A sure, adjustment period. Things are definitely different after their first date, but not in the Huge Terrifying way he had thought it would be. Things are… gentle and tentative. It’s still fairly boisterous between them because Lance simply cannot help himself, but it’s remarkably different. 

Take now, for instance. 

They’re out with the team for one of their usual get-togethers. Lance takes the bowl of grapes Shiro had offered them and tells Keith, “I bet I can catch more of these in my mouth than you,” so instinctively that he feels the burn of slight embarrassment at what could be considered childish behavior. Even though this wouldn’t be strange in the slightest when, you know, they weren’t dating.

But he’s already three grapes in by the time the knowledge sneaks up his neck and into his scalp. He stops at six and promptly chokes when he tries to get a seventh one in, which causes him to cough out the rest all over the ground. 

When he looks up, Keith is laughing so hard his eyes are crinkled shut and his fingers are clutching at his knees. Lance’s cheeks are burning with a fury. 

“Keith!” he cries out. “You weren’t supposed to just watch— hey, hey! Quit laughing!”

“You’re so…” Keith says through his fit of laughter.

Lance glares at him, petulant. “I’m so what? ”

Keith sighs and simply stares at him. “Cute.”

It stalls Lance for a good thirty seconds, the heat traveling through his shoulders and deep inside his chest, before he blinks at him. “You think me shoving an absurd amount of grapes into my mouth and coughing them out is… cute.”

Keith clears his throat, his cheeks now also sporting a healthy color of red. He scratches behind his neck. “...yeah.”

Lance is burning inside and out, but he tries to get a grip and goes for one of his signature smirks. He takes Keith’s hand and holds it up so he can tuck himself into his side and wrap Keith’s arm around his shoulders. He looks up at him and knows for a fact that he’s betraying himself because he can feel how wide his own smile is. “Boy… you really do like me, huh?” 

Keith is frozen for a moment, his eyes glued to Lance’s lips and then leaving a hot trail back up to his eyes. Lance has noticed it a handful of times, the way Keith would freeze up when they’d make contact or when Keith himself tried to initiate it. 

“I’ve never dated anyone before,” he admits, and it isn’t what Lance expects him to say so his expression turns thoughtful. “But I’ve felt this way about you for… a long time. So yeah, I do.”

“Oh my god,” Lance says aloud, and then digs his forehead into Keith’s clavicle to grant himself a smidge of mercy. “You have no shame. I’m only teasing.”

Keith shrugs. “I’ve been thinking about telling you anyway.”

Lance peeks up at him. “That you think I’m cute?”

Keith grins. “That this is my first time dating.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I honestly don’t know what I’m doing. I just really like you.”

Lance reaches up to take the hand Keith has wrapped around him in his. He leans in close and speaks quietly, as if shielding such intimate words and making sure they’re given only to who they truly belong to. “I’ve dated a couple people, but I’ve… never felt as strongly about someone as I do about you.” 

“Yeah?” Keith whispers in return, his fingers squeezing. 

Lance hums. “And you’re doing great, by the way,” he says, dangerously close to Keith’s lips and only moving closer. Keith is leaning down to meet him, their noses bumping and reminding them that they should tilt their heads before coming in all the way. 

Lance chuckles softly when it happens, and then closes his eyes as their lips touch. It’s simple, not at all rushed. Not short enough to be a peck, just the light press of their lips together. A savoring length. 

“Really great,” he says against his mouth, and Keith laughs while letting his forehead lay against his. 

“Glad you think so.”

“Oh my god,” Pidge’s voice shatters the moment like icicles crashing into cement. “Uh…”

Their heads whip toward her, but neither of them pull away. Keith’s arm tightens around him, if anything. 

“Oh, hey Pidge,” Lance greets, and truly, only Lance could sound so natural after being caught kissing another person. “So…” he looks at Keith and sends him a smile that reads busted. “...Keith and I are dating. Surprise.”

“Are you — are you serious? This better not be a prank.”

Lance throws his arms around Keith’s neck while Keith observes him with an arched brow. “Cross my heart and hope to die!”

Hunk enters the scene right then, no doubt hearing the hysterics in Pidge’s voice. Allura and Shiro soon follow, and that’s how the team finds out they’re dating. With Lance leaning against Keith’s shoulder and talking about it so enthusiastically like Keith isn’t even there; all while Keith shoves his burning forehead into a hand and endures the attention.

*          *

Present Day

Home is rough for the first few days back from the mission. Lance resents it, but had expected it. The mission, needless to say, was hard on them both. Even though the magnitude of his emotions aren’t surprising, the impact of them are still working like a riot inside him. Everything he’s worked so hard to sit with is rattled and unkempt, and it’s slowly beginning to exhaust him.

He tries to put his focus into his upcoming lectures and Keith, who is always insisting that he’s okay . But sometimes Lance has to change his bandages to take a look at the wound himself and make sure it’s healing before any peace of mind can fit itself into his brain.

Things aren’t very different, but the weight of the accident is as present in between them as a dark dense cloud in the sky. 

He wears his guilt in the tips of his fingers when he’s chopping vegetables and in the dip of his lips when he loses himself to thought. Keith knows and sees it all, Lance doesn’t think his goal had been to fool him. He wouldn’t have had a chance from the start. But Keith doesn’t say anything, only takes the knife out of Lance’s hand and kisses the lemon off of his fingers. 

At night, Lance wraps his arms around Keith and holds him close to his chest. He plays with his hair and wipes away the beads of sweat that lines Keith’s hairline. And when Keith wakes up from a nightmare, Lance puts a hand to his chest, where he can feel his heart running fast, and helps him count the rises and falls as he slowly calms down. When he’s got him back, he holds his face close and whispers to him about anything and nothing for hours and hours.

They make it to morning, and Lance stares at the empty birdhouse dangling from the tree in their backyard, his eyes cold from lack of sleep. He knows he shouldn’t dwindle, he’s been through this, he knows himself well enough to watch out for how long the heaviness decides to take residence in his body. And maybe that’s part of what makes this so frustrating: he knows what’s wrong, he knows what he should do about it, but currently, he very well doesn’t give a fuck.

His forehead leans into the window, and he watches the empty birdhouse rattle in the wind.

*          *

Past

Their first apartment is cluttered and small. It’s in a little district made specifically for Garrison instructors, resting miles out from the actual Galaxy Garrison. It’s a one bedroom with a small little kitchen that Lance doesn’t really think to call homey until he and Keith are standing at the counter, attempting to make one of the recipes Hunk had sent them. 

“I thought sloppy joes were supposed to be easy,” Lance grumbles as he scrapes the meat in the pan furiously with his spatula, trying to get it to stop sticking to the bottom and burning. “It’s just crumpled meat!”

“I think we were supposed to put the onion in first,” Keith mutters, his eyes red and sulking when he looks up from the cutting board. 

“Oh shit, I forgot that onions make people cry,” Lance says, biting his tongue as Keith blinks rapidly to stop the tears from coming. 

“I can’t fucking see,” he glowers, stepping back from the offending onions and using his wrist to try and dry his eyes. “Shut up.”

“What? I didn’t say anything!”

“I know you’re trying not to laugh.”

And to that, Lance barks out with said laughter. Keith groans. He turns down the heat and grabs a wad of paper towels. 

“Come here,” he says, walking over to lightly dab at his eyes. “I’m actually laughing with you, not at you.”

“Oh, right, because I’m basically crying with joy.”

Lance blows a small stream of air against his eyes, then says, “stop being funny or else I’m going to have to make out with you and burn the meat completely.”

Keith huffs through his nose and turns his head away. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Yep, and you love it,” he sends him a wink as the blinking finally begins to slow, and leans in for a peck after only a few seconds of agonizing hesitance. It’s easy to flirt with Keith, but all of this contact is still so new to them. Feels that nudge in his head telling him, you’re overstepping. 

Later, after a plate of semi-burnt sloppy joes, Lance goes into the bathroom to perform his nightly routine. As he lathers his skin with the newest face cream on the block, nerves pack tightly inside his stomach. He’s been planning on having The Talk with Keith for the past few weeks, honestly, but has been pushing it back given many reasons. One happens to be his nerves. 

Keith is standing in front of Kosmo when he walks out, his hands pointed out to his sides and staring sternly at the canine. 

“No,” he says, evenly. “You can’t get on the bed. I’ve told you this thousands of times.”

“Kosmo, here buddy,” Lance calls out, reaching for him. Kosmo shoves his fat nose into his palm and makes the most heart-shattering whining noise. “Oh, no, come on. You know you’d break the bed if you got on it!”

Kosmo whines even more, clearly not appeased. Lance’s heart tugs and he gives his cheeks a good ruffle. “Keep doing that and your dad and me will end up sleeping on the floor while you take the bed.”

“You get your own room and everything,” Keith murmurs, giving him a scratch behind his ear. “You have no right to whine like that.”

Kosmo, of course, continues to whine. 

They take him to his room and stay with him for a while, until he settles down and his eyes get all sleepy and he starts nodding off. Lance will never get over watching him doze off; it’s literally the most adorable thing in the world. He will fight anyone on that. 

They get back into bed and Lance takes a breath. Okay. It’s now or never. Well, not now or never because they can have this conversation literally whenever they need to, but it’s the motivation that counts. 

“So, Keith,” he starts. Keith hums from the side of the bed, where he’s shoving a pair of socks into the drawer. “I wanted to… talk to you about something.”

“What is it?”

Lance purses his lips. “Could you, like, get on the bed?”

“I’m almost done, this drawer is just packed,” he says as he rummages around. “What do you want to talk about?”

“You can take some stuff out and put it into the one below it,” Lance murmurs. 

Keith tries the other drawer. “That one’s full, too.”

Lance groans. His palms are sweating and his heart is racing. “Just. Ugh ! Do you — ever think about sex?”

Keith shuts the drawer abruptly and stumbles right into the nightstand. He nearly pushes the lamp off and grabs it haphazardly, stuffing it into his chest to keep it from falling. His ears are bright red when he looks back at Lance. He then looks back down at the lamp in his hold and quickly puts it back, now standing there looking awkward and completely dumbfounded. 

“Oh my god,” Lance shoves his head into his hands and nearly cries. “I can’t believe I just yelled it out like that.”

And then, much to his horror, Keith moves. His weight dips the bed as he slides in next to him and then fingers are wrapping around his wrist to pull them away.

“Lance… come on,” Keith says, pulling his arms away and making Lance look at him. He’s smiling now, soft and gentle and sheepish. He isn’t sure if it intensifies the butterflies in his stomach even more or if it’s just his nerves. “It’s okay to talk about these things. More than.”

Lance nods and puffs out his cheeks with a breath. “Okay, yeah, I just. Wow. Didn’t think it’d be this embarrassing to talk about until literally this very moment.”

Keith stares down at their hands, fingers separated by only a measly length. He chews on his lips as he thinks. “It’s not embarrassing. It’s healthy to talk about it,” he says. “So do you… you’ve been thinking about sex?”

Heat swells against Lance’s back. “Well… yes. Is it something you’d be into?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, now glancing back at him. “I’ve thought about it too.”

“Okay, cool. That’s cool. I’m having a great time by the way.”

Keith laughs, now reaching out to brush a finger down Lance’s finger and resting his hand on top of his. “We don’t have to do anything if it makes you nervous. Ever.”

Lance smiles genuinely. “I know. The same goes to you, too. But I do want it, with um, you. So. Yeah. That’s what I wanted you to know.”

Lance almost can’t believe that he’s sitting here and having this conversation with Keith. The Keith he saved the universe with. The Keith who bumped into his ship once in middle school when they were testing out simulators (and made it so that Lance could never look away). The Keith who’d storm through the Garrison with what looked to be vengeance on his mind and nothing else. The Keith he secretly always thought about in the cafeteria, when he’d never see him around. The Keith who made him think, I basically grew up next to this guy and I don’t know a single thing about him.

Their history makes this moment all the more precious. Back then, his view of Keith was tainted by his own insecurities. He never really gave him a chance up until they became teammates and realized how much he actually admires him. And how much growth they were both capable of when working together. 

It’s just such a wild ride, to end up here in this apartment. In their apartment, talking about this. 

“I want that too,” Keith says, his voice sounding hoarse. 

Lance hums, lilting it so he sounds conspiratorial. Keith draws his brows apart conspicuously. “Do you want to… right now?”

He well and truly sees the ball in Keith’s throat move when he swallows. “Right now?”

“Only if you want to. You can say no, obviously.”

Keith watches him for a moment, then raises a hand and slowly moves it toward him. His fingers land carefully on his cheek, where he traces his skin with the tips of his fingers in slow, wondrous movements. His touch is so slight and so gentle, the most careful of touches those war-torn hands have ever given. 

“I’ve never touched anyone like this before,” he tells him, his eyes soft with vulnerability. Lance focuses raptly on him. 

“Do you… like touching me like this?”

Keith’s eyes fall down to his, not a moment’s hesitation. “Yes.”

“Come here,” Lance says, sitting up on his knees. He holds a hand out for Keith to take. Keith inches closer and when he lays his hand in his, Lance holds it tight and wraps his other arm around his shoulders. “Can I kiss you?”

Keith nods, meets him there. Lance’s heart clams immediately, the nerves in his stomach that were playing jump rope coming to a slow and steady stop. He runs his hand across Keith’s shoulders and down his well-trained back and then back up. He presses in as close as can be. 

Closer. He just wants to be closer. 

“We can stop whenever you want,” he tells him, holds his jaw in his hand and treasures the glide of their noses. 

“Same goes for you. Just say the word,” Keith says, looking from his eyes to his mouth and to his collarbones and back.

Lance bites his lips, takes Keith’s wrist and brings it up to let it rest against the side of his neck. “You can touch me.”

“God, Lance,” Keith whispers, his thumb making a slow trek down his neck and across his collarbone. He leans down and presses a kiss against the jut of it, and Lance’s stomach fills with heat. He sighs and closes his eyes.

It’s a privilege, Lance thinks, to be loved by Keith. 

Keith may think he’s never done this before, but his intimacy has always been fierce and scalding hot. Ripe with words he only 100% believes in and glances of nothing but his true admirations and actions he’s too impulsive to think through because he knows they’re in the best interest of the people he cares about. Keith wears his love as plain as day, and you would be a fool not to see it. He is so firm in how he loves that it nearly drives Lance mad. It often does, actually, a lot . 

Another example is now: Keith laying his mouth against his wrists in a way that can only spell out cherishing with each press. How he moves up his arms until he reaches his neck all while his eyes never leave him. He kisses him like he’s devout to, like it doesn’t matter that he hasn’t done this before, like it couldn’t matter. It threatens to liquify Lance from the inside and out, to make him melt and never come back. But he has to remain somewhat aloft, so he can kiss across Keith’s chest and down his stomach while trying not to completely combust, to make sure he feels the same outburst of love he so often inspires in him.

*          *

Present Day

Lance’s anger follows him to bed. His stomach twirls like a tornado deep into the night. He sits up not long before getting into bed and slaps a hand over his mouth as he retches into it. He breathes shakily and looks over at Keith, who’s still asleep. As quietly as he can, he runs into the bathroom and dry-heaves into the toilet, but nothing comes out. His stomach is vehement, rolling and rolling without anything to give. 

He slides down and slumps against the cabinets beneath the sink. With an arm wrapped around his stomach, his lips wobble and tears are quickly streaming down his cheeks. He wants to get on Red and fly back to Cuba and see his mom, but he isn’t in the right state of mind to just up and hop in Red. 

The door opens and Keith stands there, looking wide awake. His eyes are clouded with concern when they drop on him, and then he’s falling onto his knees to get his hands on him. “Lance? My — my love.” He cups his cheek with a hand and wraps the other around his hip, nearly draping himself over him. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Lance shakes his head and lets his head fall onto his shoulder. “I can’t. I need to get out there. I can’t just stay put knowing rebels are out there threatening — threatening to take everything away again.”

He moves away and leaps up to head back into their room, where he throws the closet open with trembling fingers.

“Lance.” 

Lance tugs a suitcase out from the far corner of the shelf and dumps it onto the ground. 

“Lance.”

He fumbles with the zipper before tugging it open and jerking the cover away. The scattered pieces of his paladin armor face him. Laying in remains of what they used to be. His stomach quivers as he reaches out and grabs the old and battered gauntlet. 

Keith takes his hand and turns him around. The skin beneath his eyes hang a little looser, exhaustion making him look so much older than a mere 27 year old. “What are you planning to do? Take your armor and fly back into space?”

Lance closes his own tired, watery eyes. His lips wobble, fingers bruising around their tight grip on the beaten gauntlet. His brows draw closer even through the pain, anger stirring the anxiety in his stomach. “They tried to take you away from me.”

He can hear Keith take a breath, can feel his thumb on the ends of his fingers. He would like him to move it further, to press it into his wrist and take his hand whole. 

Slowly, Keith unfurls his fingers and takes the piece of armor away. He lays it back in the suitcase and tugs Lance into his lap so he can tuck his face into his neck and hold him. Lance grabs the back of his shirt and weakly fists it. 

“I can’t let them. I won’t let them.”

Keith reaches up and takes his hand to kiss it, keeping it against his mouth as he speaks. “I’m right here. I’m always going to be right here with you, everything I do will be to make sure I come back to you.” He tugs Lance’s chin up and rests his forehead against his, his voice going weak. “But right now, we’re in our house. I’m holding onto you and never, ever, planning to let go. That’s what’s important to me.”

Lance sniffs and takes Keith’s face in his hands, holding a little too firmly. He looks at his husband while his nose runs and his eyes sting. Keith’s tears splash down against his fingers, and a part of himself is recoiling and beating himself up for making his beloved husband cry. 

“If you want to go up there and make a mission out of it, then I’m right there with you. But we can talk about it in the morning, after sleep, after food, after I’ve kissed you enough times to make you bored of it,” Keith tells him, imploringly.

When Lance chuckles, it surprises himself. He feels so listless, so tired, but his lips twitch and his stomach quells. He strokes Keith’s jaw with a slow thumb, lets it rest against the mole next to his ear. It’s one of his favorite places to kiss him.

“I’d never get bored of it,” he mumbles, the words grating against each other like salt on asphalt. He leans in and noses at Keith’s cheek before pressing a kiss onto it. “I’d never make you come with me.” 

“Like hell I’d let you go alone,” Keith says, steadfast.

“This… isn’t fair.” They’re supposed to be done with the warlord bullshit. He wants to be done with it. He so badly wants to never look back. They’ve been doing so good over the past couple of years, moving forward. He’s always known how badly he wanted to move on, but it’s been hitting him like a freight train sitting with these horrible, sickening feelings. 

“I know.” Keith rubs circles into his back, and helps him stand up.

They get into bed and hold each other in a tight embrace. “A war couldn’t keep us apart. I’d like to see a couple of pesky rebels try,” Keith says into his hair, his fingers warm and comforting and familiar on his back. 

Lance softens into him and sighs against his neck, peppering it in kisses for as long as he can reach. He laughs slightly, though the turmoil of this whole topic disorients him. After everything, he didn’t think he’d be able to joke about something that has felt so dark and hostile and threatening in his mind. In his body. He’s thankful Keith’s able to do that for him, even when he so clearly has also been tense because of it. 

He closes his eyes. After spending all these years working through it and starting to feel safer in his body again, the resurgence of his worry is metaphorless. It is obsessive and all consuming and everything he fears. His usual tether gone completely out of mind, but he can count his breaths, here. He remembers to count them here.

“They’re the ones who’d need luck when dealing with Keith and Lance, huh?” he murmurs back, reaching up and getting a hand into Keith’s hair, stroking his neck in tender motions. 

“That’s right.” 

Lance squeezes him in his arms, and (eventually) sleeps with his lips pressed to Keith’s pulse.

Lance still doesn’t feel at ease the next morning. But he still sits on their couch. He still sips on his coffee and lets it soothe his throat. His mind still ventures out but he allows himself to get pulled into miscellaneous activities with Keith. Watering their plants. Feeding Kosmo and Sail. Being tugged up from the couch and into Keith’s arms to press their temples together, and he lets his weight fall a little heavier.

*          *

Past

Here, in the intermission, Lance lays on the pool table in Adam’s basement. His arm dangles over the side, so close to the ground but still not touching it. He twirls a billiard ball in his other hand, lets the slick surface rub into the edge of his finger, and shoves it toward a group on the other side. They knock around, hitting the wood and bouncing off of his thigh. 

He turns his head and looks down, where Keith is laying on the ground beneath him. His hair is in disarray, pilling around him like Lance thinks it would underwater. He wants to go to the ocean with Keith, he thinks. He wants to see how he looks with water dripping through his hair and how his eyes change color under stark sunlight. How he would react to the sand that would stick to his back and in between his toes.

“What would happen if I just fell. Right here,” he asks.

Keith isn’t looking at him, is busy staring off and dwindling in places Lance thinks he probably shouldn’t. 

“You’d fall,” he mutters. 

“That all?” he wonders. 

Keith looks at him. “I’d catch you.”

“Or I’d break your ribs.”

Keith turns again, though his lips shift. So slight. It would be untraceable to anyone, but not Lance. He catches it. 

“You wouldn’t.”

Lance hums. 

They’ve been like this ever since Keith came back from a humanitarian mission. With dull, yet perplexed eyes that looked like he’d been crying for a long, long time. His back slumped and looking so exhausted Lance had thought he was going to fall asleep at their feet. It’s similar, he had thought, to his own condition after sitting in Red. 

He isn’t sure what’s supposed to happen, here. Are they meant to go their separate ways now that they’re not bound by the war? Are they meant to only have each other in memory? He can’t imagine it. It hurts to imagine it. 

But if that is meant to happen, he wouldn’t be lying here with him. His chest wouldn’t be heavy with all this pain. 

“Keith,” he says, and moves his limp hand closer to get his attention. Keith turns his head back to him, and Lance imagines that he would take his hand and hold it. “Everything is going to be okay.”

He isn’t sure if he really believes it. But for Keith? He has to say it for Keith. 

Keith blinks slowly, his eyes a canvas that Lance wants to paint the river on. They’re so beautiful. His eyes. The relief he felt when Keith came to him in the hospital returns. He feels it often these days, when he’s with him. As the fear of the past returns, so too does the relief that Keith is still here with him. That he made it out.

He isn’t completely used to it. He doesn’t think either of them are. 

Keith reaches out and takes his hand. Lance’s heart stutters. 

He sits up and leans his forehead against Lance’s bicep, his arm only anchored by the hold Keith has on his hand. It’s an awkward and weird position but also not at all. Lance swallows and curls his arm so that he can wrap it gently around his head. He digs his fingers into his hair as tears sting his eyes. 

“We’re gonna be okay,” he says again, whisper-soft. Like he doesn’t want reality to tarnish such a sincere promise as soon as it gets wind of it. 

Why can’t the world be made of promises? Does pain have to be a part of it? Why can’t they make colorful promises and believe them with complete certainty? Does the heart have to beat in fear? Isn’t his love enough for the world? 

Though as they hold each other here, even if bad things do exist, he thinks it’s pretty damn special that they have each other. And that has to mean something. Has to count for something. Because the pain in his chest is lighter with the heat of Keith against his arm and that — that has gotta be something extraordinary all on its own.

Keith calls him a couple days later and says to him, as soon as he picks up, “you like carnivals right?” 

Morning crust scratches his inner eye as they crinkle. “Yeah, I mean I think so. Who doesn’t like carnivals?”

“The city is holding one tonight,” he says, clearly implying something with it.

Lance kind of stalls when he hears that. It sounds like an invitation, and usually… usually he would be all over that. He’d be the one calling Keith and implying something about a carnival coming to town. But right now, he hesitates. Like he doesn’t trust himself to go or doesn’t feel the energy to go. 

“I thought we could go,” he says, and then quickly— “with the rest of the team. If they wanted to.”

“Right,” Lance murmurs. He thinks, but also realizes Keith is actually making an effort to see him. At a carnival of all places. He looks at the couch, where he probably would have spent the rest of the day. So, he says, “yeah, I can call them and ask. It’s a yes from me.”

“Great,” Keith says, and Lance imagines him smiling. “I’ll see you then.”

“You too.”

His heart is heavy, usually is after he wakes up, but vigor sprouts in the dirt of his mind like a four leaf clover urging him to pluck. He stands and heads to his closet, allowing this sensation in. Time to do one of his favorite things: picking out an outfit. 

As time nears, he makes do with his choice of a jean jacket, lavender t-shirt, and white jeans. He looks at himself from side to side, and decides it’s just poppy enough for a carnival even if it does feel a tad off. He can’t place why that is.

When he gets there, the dark night becomes the background to the carnival rides and array of lights that encircle the area. A shred of light in the dark. It surprises him quite a lot, he doesn’t know what he was expecting but what he gets is the realization of how long it's been since he’s been to a fair like this. On hard concrete with the smells of funnel cake and french fries and barbecue in the air. 

Vigor sprouts in his throat, makes itself apparent in his smile as he walks through and greets people who acknowledge him. This is a good day compared to how it used to be, with groves of people hounding him with questions and stopping him to talk. 

He finds Keith laying on the side of the balloon and darts stand; Hunk and Pidge are going against each other it seems. Lance heads over and spots a group of girls eyeing Keith off to the side, not looking very discreet about it at all. Keith’s shoulders are all hunched and tense while he stares at Pidge and Hunk, so Lance guesses he’s not entirely unaware of this either. 

When Keith’s eyes land on him, his brows unpinch like shoelaces falling apart. Lance clears his throat, heat sizzling up the back of his neck as he raises a hand and waves. 

“Hey,” he greets, coming to stand by his side and giving his arm a little nudge with his elbow. 

“Hey. Glad you could make it.”

Lance hums and looks around at their surroundings. “Yeah, me too. This place looks…”

“Like a unicorn and a monster truck had a baby?”

Lance whirls his head at him and blinks twice, before he bursts out in laughter. He has to bend down because of it and grab a hold of his knees as tears collect in his eyes. “Oh my god, Keith, that’s — I can’t stand you.”

Keith tugs his mouth to the side as he watches him. “It’s basically what the place looks like.”

“Sure, sure,” Lance says, as he wipes his tears away. He blows out a sigh and redirects his attention to him. “Come on, let’s go check it out,” he says, his hands finding cool leather as he reaches out and pulls Keith to walk with him.

“What’d you have in mind?”

Lance shrugs. “I dunno. It’s the carnival, let's look at all of it.”

They try to. Lance can say they really try to. 

They try out the games first, much to Keith’s skeptical acceptance. They do the ring toss, and Lance watches as Keith goes through minor disgruntledness to full on incredulity at the impossibility of the game. Lance wins and shines a triumphant grin at him. 

“Better luck next time,” he says, and winks. He picks his prize — a small blue bear that he stuffs in his shirt pocket with a ginger pat — and they move on to the next game.

They do the basketball free throw, which Keith wins. Lance pretends to look offended, squeezing a hand to his heart as he looks down at the blue bear in his pocket and says, “looks like we’ve been dethroned, Lula. Pack it up.”

Keith raises a brow. “Lula?”

“It’s the bear’s name. She looks like a Lula.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he says, and turns to pick his prize. He chooses the stuffed sea otter and holds it out to him. “Here.”

Lance tilts his head. “What… are you doing?”

“You should have it,” Keith answers, and Lance’s head spins a little. “I haven’t seen a sea otter stuffy in the other booths. I know you like marine animals, so… you do, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah, I do,” Lance murmurs, and takes the otter. He stares at it for a moment, and has this… this nostalgic sensation of high school and fairs and fantasizing about something corny, like his crush winning him a prize or him doing it for them. He swallows and circles his thumb into the soft polyester. 

He looks up and tries to put on his signature cocky grin. “Look at you, being all sweet on little ol’ me. Thanks Keith.”

Red stretches up Keith’s neck. “You’re welcome,” he says, though his face is remarkably soft. It’s a world of a difference, his usual stern brows and contemplative lips now slackened as he looks at him. He doesn’t see it very often. He isn’t used to seeing Keith like this at all, asking him out and playing carnival games and looking like anything else but the sturdy soldier he’s known him to be. Lance couldn’t really see himself as anything but that, either, after a while. Maybe that’s why he feels so out of place standing here, as though he’s trying to shed skin still not ready to come off.

They continue moving through the games, and eventually wind up getting a whole tray of fries and burgers and corn dogs to eat. They sit at a table with their prizes taking over the whole other side of it. Lance breathes in the scent of fresh junk food and brings his hands together. 

“Yes. Today, we will indulge and not think about the potential consequences of eating fair meat,” he says, and reaches for his burger. 

Keith snorts and grabs a fry. 

“Oh! We have to go on the ferris wheel. Have you ever ridden one?”

“A couple times,” Keith says. “With Adam and Shiro when I was younger. Shiro always insisted.”

Lance nods and takes another bite. He officially met Adam in the months after the war. He never knew Shiro was in a relationship, but seeing them reunite was one of the most heartwarming things he has ever seen. He didn’t even know about Shiro practically raising Keith until they had been well into Voltron. 

Keith takes a giant bite of his burger and gets mustard all over his cheek, then wipes it off with the back of his hand. I want to keep knowing you, Lance thinks, and something heavy gets muddled up inside his stomach. 

“So I…” he begins, feels that tell-tale sludge sloshing around in his throat when he gets serious. It’s always so much easier to goof around and say everything with high spirits, it distracts him from his own doubts and worries, but all he can think about is how he wants to keep Keith in his life. He wants to keep all of them in his life, but Keith… Keith. “I had my second session today.”

Keith stops eating, his eyes focusing on him with lazer sharp movement. “Therapy?”

“Yeah.”

He sets his burger down. “How is it going?”

“It’s… honestly I don’t know what I was expecting,” he says. “Maybe that the therapist would be more straight-to-the-point and tell me everything I’m doing wrong so I can make it right. Like a doctor’s visit. But it’s… patient. My therapist just listens to me talk through my issues and gives me advice only when I ask for it. I’ll probably end up getting some kind of diagnosis, though.” 

“I’ve been thinking of making an appointment. Been talking to Shiro about it.”

“That’s great, man,” he picks up his cup of coke and holds it up, “here’s to hoping therapy works.”

Keith lets out a breath, tired amusement sounding, and knocks their cups together. “Here here.” 

Lance stuffs himself with all the greasy foods that he can eat. Food tastes better out here, with Keith sitting across from him and the sounds of laughter and chatter coming from all sides. And Keith dons that same face he had when he gave him that stuffed sea otter, eyes soft when he points them up at him here and there while Lance tries to chew through all the food he stuffs his face with. It makes him wonder how much of a mess he’s exactly making of himself, but he also doesn’t very much care.

This is the most fun he’s had in a while. 

“So… this isn’t weird right?” Keith ponders when they get on the ferris wheel. Lance turns away from the vast darkness of the sky. “We can… be friends?”

Lance tilts his head at him. “I thought… we kinda already were.”

Keith looks panicked. “We — we are. It’s just. Different. We’re not… Voltron anymore.”

“Yeah… I get what you mean,” he agrees, and shifts in his seat. He didn’t think Keith would comment on what Lance has been feeling so monumentally, like this. “It… we’ve never really hung out like this. I feel the strangeness too, but I don’t think it’s a bad different. I, uh, I’m having a good time.”

They’re sitting across from each other, their shoes nearly touching in the cramped space. Keith has an arm laying across the top of his seat, his head tilting to the side and smirking as he considers him. 

“You’re having a good time with me? You? Lance McClain?”

Lance turns stunned eyes at him. “Wha — are you teasing me right now, Kogane?”

Keith shrugs, though he’s grinning. “It’s a first.”

“Who’s to say I haven’t had a good time with you before?” he counters, because he’s not going to let Keith have the last word. 

Keith raises a brow.

“Yeah,” Lance goes on. “There was that one time I totally smoked your ass in the fight simulator.”

Keith leans in now, his elbows digging into his knees to give him a look. “Now when did you ‘totally smoke my ass’ in the fight simulator?”

“Don’t try me, hotshot,” Lance also leans in and pokes him square in the chest. “I will take you right now.”

“This is what I’m talking about,” Keith says, waving a hand at him. “You’ve always been so competitive with me. I didn’t… I never thought you’d want to be friends, or whatever, after everything was over.”

Lance frowns, doesn’t like the turn this suddenly took. “Just because I’m competitive with you doesn’t mean I hate you. Oh my god, Keith, did you think I hated you this whole time?”

“No!” Keith exclaims, then threads a hand through his long hair. “Never, Lance.” 

The way he says it sounds grave, significant. Like he’s trying to pack all their time as teammates into those two words; how he’s trying to detail all their time spent wandering almost soullessly after the war only to come walking right into each other's arms. Lance feels it, all the way in his heart. 

Keith takes in a breath. “We’ve just always been teammates and nothing more.”

You’re more , he thinks so quickly and so urgently that he almost doesn’t believe it’s his own thought. You’ve always been more.

Lance swallows roughly and fixes him with a sheepish look. “I’m sorry I came across that way. I admit I was being a jerk in the past, like a huge jerk, and you didn’t deserve a lot of the shit I gave you. But when it came down to it, I… I always admired you, man. And I don’t think I would’ve co-led voltron with anyone other than you. And I’m honestly having a really good time with you, the best time I’ve had since we ended the damned war.”

Keith sits there for a few moments, his eyes widening just a little as he takes that in. Lance clears his throat and sits back, but doesn’t take any of it back. 

Keith suddenly presses his foot down on his. “I always pushed back so I’m sorry too. But thanks for saying that.”

“I mean it,” Lance murmurs, then lightly presses down on Keith’s other foot. “I want to know more about Keith. Just Keith. The guy from Arizona.” 

Keith huffs in amusement. “I guess I want to know more about Lance, too. You know, the guy from Cuba.”

“You guess? Alright, someone stop this ferris wheel, I’m getting off,” Lance protests and makes a show of standing up. 

Keith rolls his eyes and tugs him back down. “Shut up. I’m just kidding.” 

“I know,” he smiles, as wide as his cheeks will let him. “I’m also from Michigan, by the way.” 

“What?”

“I grew up in Cuba, but we moved to Michigan when I was eight. ”

“Oh,” Keith says. “I’m half Japanese.”

“Oh?” Lance says. Their shoes are still pressed together. “Tell me more.”

Keith chuckles and tilts his head back, his eyes pointed up at the star-speckled sky. Lance wonders if he’ll ever get over this feeling of peace every time he sees Keith looking as relaxed as he does now.

Weeks pass. Lance watches Earth take winter’s mask from his window. Winter isn’t anywhere near drastic when it comes to the Sonoran Desert, though. No icicles hanging from his roof, no freezing cold gusts that turn his nose numb. But, there are cold rains. Small and tiny, coming from the northwest. He watches the rain thump against the window in the lightest pitter patter he’s ever heard. He remembers how much he used to love winter, especially the snow. How it lit him up just as much as the rain would. Maybe even more. It can snow at night during the winter here, though very rarely and nothing but a couple flecks of white.

It’s strange, to be laying here and watching it all from behind a window with no urge to go out and feel it. But it’s nothing like Michigan, where piles and piles of snow would already be forming over the grass. He still watches it with his head pillowed over the couch cushion. There are more pressing things he has to think about, like wondering if he can actually do this whole recovery thing. 

It’s just a little heavy today. Exposure therapy is tough, but his therapist has been really great. Dr. Williams asks him how willing he is to undergo a certain exposure, and if Lance isn’t feeling all too willing, they’d try something easier. He’s going at the safest pace possible, he’s just getting in his own head. But that doesn’t negate how overwhelming it all is. 

It’s hard to stop feeling like the entire world is turning into a sharp point. Closing in needle-thin with him in the center of it.

Veronica sets a mug of hot tea in front of him and he smiles gratefully at her. He’s been living with her for a while. After the nightmares, the frankly debilitating recurring shameful thoughts, and all the loud sounds that would set him off in the middle of the living room with his family all there to see, it feels like… running is the only safe option for him right now.

He doesn’t want to let them down, doesn’t want to struggle so much in front of them.

His phone rings and one glance tells him it’s Keith. His heart moves, shifts, stretches. He has to clear his barely used throat. 

“Hello?”

“Lance, hey.”

Lance smiles down at the knitted blanket thrown around his shoulders, absent minded. “Hey.”

“Are you busy right now? I thought maybe you could come out for a sec.”

They’ve been hanging out a lot more since the carnival. And Lance honestly is so glad for it, but he’s just… not feeling up to it right now. 

“I’m actually not really feeling it today,” he answers honestly. “But… you could come over instead? We could… watch a movie or something. I have hot tea.” He considers this for a moment. “We can cool it down, too.”

“Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m just a little blue, is all.” 

Keith’s hum crinkles through the phone. It finds Lance’s cheeks like a gust of cold air that would usually smear them in red. 

“If you wanted to do something else then it’s fine—”

“I’m on my way,” Keith cuts in. “I just want to see you.”

“Oh,” Lance says, more automatically than anything else. He rolls his lips together, feeling warmer than winter would ever allow. “I’ll… be here.”

When he arrives, Lance is very much surprised to see him carrying two bags. He beckons him inside and Keith sets them down onto the counter, where he begins to take things out to show to Lance. 

“I brought a couple things since… you said you weren’t feeling well.” He rummages through the bag and pulls out one of those niche chocolate bars he would find at Kroger, a bag of salt and vinegar chips and another of doritos, a couple packs of hot chocolate powder, and a container of muffins from the second bag. “Adam made these so I thought you’d like some. They’re really good, promise.”

Lance rubs the back of his neck and feels himself blush as he takes in the haul. This is one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for him, and it makes something fuzzy and nice and comforting take shape in his tired heart.

“Thank you,” he says, around a smile he tries not to convey as too wobbly. “This is really sweet of you, Keith. Seriously, thank you.”

He kind of really wants to hug him, so he doesn’t overthink it and comes closer to wrap his arms around him. “Thank you,” he says again, this time into his shoulder. 

Keith hugs him back, a pack of the hot chocolate crinkling against Lance’s back. “I…” he starts, and then, “it’s no problem.” He squeezes his side with his free hand, and Lance brushes a hand through the length of Keith’s hair, which only seems to be growing longer these days.

“You know, maybe we can practice some mindfulness with this,” he says, breaking away to pull a wide bowl out of the cabinet. 

“Did your therapist make you do the raisin thing too?”

“He just had me meditate for like a minute,” he murmurs, and pops open the salt and vinegar chips. “But I know food is a good way to be mindful. It was actually… pretty peaceful?”

“Yeah, but it was… kinda hard not to get impatient with it.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Lance says with a knowing eye, and Keith rolls his eyes. Lance opens the doritos after pouring the salt and vinegar into the bowl. When he rips open the bar of chocolate, Keith gives him a cautiously curious look. 

“Are you going to put those in there too?”

Lance shrugs. “Yeah. I feel like it’ll be good.”

Keith laughs through his nose, a little shake to his head. “Yeah okay. Why not?”

They take the bowl up to the guest room, where Lance has been sleeping, and sets the bowl onto the bedside table. “So, do you want to watch a movie or something?” he asks as he plops down onto the bed. The blanket around his shoulder falls off, and he rights it back up again.

Keith pulls his phone out of his pocket and slides it through his hand for a minute. “I was thinking, if you want, we could listen to some music?”

“Oh,” Lance sits up, still tired but also intrigued. For a second, he’s surprised that Keith listens to music. It’s pretty ridiculous to think, but when most of his knowledge about Keith is how good he is with a sword and combat, it also isn’t surprising. He scoots back and pats the spot next to him. “What do you like to listen to?”

Keith sits down as he fiddles with his phone and headphones. He hands Lance one headphone and tucks the other into his ear. “Anything with good guitar.”

And if that just isn’t the greatest thing Lance has ever heard.

“You like the guitar?”

Keith clicks on a song and grins up at him. “Something like that. Yeah.”

They lay down next to each other, munching on sweet and savory goodness, and play each other music they used to love before… everything. He lays here and lets himself feel everything, the overwhelm and the nasty jumble of emotions that have been waving through him all day, but also the bubble of true elation when he listens to more and more of Keith’s favorite songs. The anticipation when Lance plays one of his jazz favorites for him, watching his face for his reactions. The realness of this moment. 

Frank Sinatra comes on when they’re looking at each other and Lance begins singing the words that seem to have withstood the intensity of space and time. It feels instinctual, to want to sing along, as lightly and croaky as it leaves him.

“I know I stand in line until you think you have the time to spend an evening with me.”

Keith’s brow raises, lips curling. He’d been humming most of the time, but he relaxes into singing the next part. “And if we go someplace to dance I know that there’s a chance you won’t be leaving with me.”

“And afterwards we drop into a quiet little place and have a drink or two.”

And Keith, devastatingly: “And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you.”

Frank continues in each of their ears, and he shifts closer.

*          *

Present Day

Lance tries to put his all into lecturing. He never likes to lose himself during lecture, always attempts to keep his attention on his words and the logistics of them. Lacking on his work is a huge no-no for him. He always strives to give his all for his students. He thinks he manages pretty well considering his recent cause of stress, though he does space out on more than one occasion and the end of each period is still a huge relief.

He stays afterwards. Doesn’t really feel like moving his legs elsewhere. He sits in one of the many seats in the hall and stares up at his lone lecture slide. It’s several screens of different magnetic compasses and aircraft radar, shown to ask students if they can read them.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, slower than the breath he takes in. He feels that nice mind buzzing feeling and sags a little in the uncomfortable chair. He closes his eyes for the time being. 

He gathers his things, later. Takes his time putting his papers into his bag and settling his laptop inside. He remembers to turn off the lights when he leaves and makes the trek for his car. 

He doesn’t actually turn on the ignition. He holds onto the steering wheel as if bracingly, and then takes out his phone. His heart is beginning to beat faster. He looks down at the time, the call should be coming any minute now. He at least tries to relax his shoulders, takes a couple of deep belly breaths, slowing down on the exhale.

The call comes on an exhale, Kolivan lighting up his screen. He accepts it with a clammy finger.

“Hi Kolivan,” he greets, while hooking his phone up to the phone holder so he doesn’t make his nerves too explicit.

“Hello, Lance.” Kolivan actually forms some kind of half-grimace almost-smile at him, which isn’t so odd on him now compared to years ago, but it still catches Lance off guard sometimes. The lights behind him are still in that same purple hue that they used to use in their Marmoran ships. They had rooted Blade HQ in Phoenix and still went with the same schematics as they did before. “What did you mean to discuss with me?” 

“It’s good to see you too, man. How’s the husband? Kids?”

Kolivan looks more confused now. “You called to exchange pleasantries?”

“Well, no, but not everything’s gotta be so snappy snappy quickie quickie!” he says, to no avail. Alright, he came to bite the bullet anyway. “I wanted to ask how everything’s going with the rebels.”

Kolivan hums, low and contemplative. “I see.”

“Don’t sound like that please, for my own sanity. Tell me something promising. We… this isn’t looking like a war, is it?”

“No,” Kolivan replies, swift and quick. “We won’t let it get that far. We’ve located several hideouts and have caught a chunk of rebels from the Mitryulat quadrant, which we’ve surmised to be one of their main bases. It’s unraveling at a likely pace. We caught the ones who snuck into Niltae as well. That hideout was much smaller, and easier to break into. The mission otherwise was a success.”

“Oh,” Lance breathes the word. His shoulders fall, his back caves in, and his chest slumps. His body releases some of the tension he’s been carrying. All he expected was horrible news, so this… this is nice. “That’s good. Great. I’m glad to hear things are going in our favor.”

“They don’t have anyone to be loyal to,” Kolivan adds. “Their king has long died, and their leading commander was killed long ago. If we don’t catch them all, they’re bound to break apart on their own. They won’t make it for long.”

Lance nods, knowing the details better than anyone. It was his husband, afterall, who delivered the final blow and declared the universe saved. 

These kinds of things are still dicy, though. These groups can always grow bigger and stronger with the right resources, which is what makes this so difficult. He squeezes his fist and thinks, this is a perfect time to say it. He can tell him right now that he’s ready to be of service when needed. That he’s ready to go today. Tomorrow. The day after. 

He can’t let the remnants of an old war try to take his home away from him again. Not when he has even more to lose. 

And yet, he hesitates. The words don’t want to come out of his mouth. Is this really the right thing to do? Isn’t he supposed to be choosing his health over things that could very much threaten it? Hasn’t this been what he’s been trying to do for himself since the end of the war?

“If things get out of hand, give me a call. I’m ready to get back in the field if need be,” he says, and knows deep down that he shouldn’t but he does. 

Kolivan himself doesn’t seem to like that very much, has always been adamant about the paladins getting their final, well deserved leave. He inclines his head in a small nod, though, and that’s the equivalent of his word.

“I spoke with Keith after the attack,” Kolivan prompts, his brows drawn. “I thought he would want to get out there as well. But he said he had no intentions of doing so.”

Lance freezes up completely. The back of his neck is immediately overcome with ice cold heat. He thinks back to a couple nights ago, when Keith sounded like his mind was already made up as he was consoling him. He didn’t even hesitate to say they would go together, and yet he told Kolivan he wouldn’t? 

And just like that, the minute scoop of peace of mind he managed to acquire disintegrates. 

“Oh,” he says, and realizes a slice of what he’s feeling is shame. Finding out his husband made a decision like this second hand is… not a good feeling. Why didn’t Keith tell him about this?

The drive back home passes by in the flash of an eye, like Lance himself isn’t the one driving. He’s on the road for a blink, and then pulling into their driveway with another. He fishes his keys out of his pocket and slowly fits it into the keyhole and then — a memory; of jamming it in with unsteady fingers while laughing about something Keith had said on a dark night, tipsy and warm-stomached — and twists the knob. It’s like a stone has been dropped into the pond of his belly.

He finds Keith on the ground, shaking a toy in front of Sail and tugging it around before she can catch it. His other hand is scratching Kosmo’s neck, who’s laying beside him and looking perfectly content with the attention. Lance doesn’t even want a pulse of breath to tarnish the moment. 

But of course, Keith notices him as soon as he comes in. He looks up, his grin heart-stopping and all Lance has ever wanted. “Hey, you’re home.”

Lance walks over and kneels down next to him. They lean in and Lance is so used to it that it sends another pang to his heart when their lips connect and Keith goes back to fluffing Kosmo. It’s become so instinctual that he doesn’t normally pay much mind to it, until now, when he’s aware of too much. 

Lance picks Sail up and lets her squirm. She settles down eventually, on his thighs with her paws wrapped around his arm. 

“Yeah… I actually just got off the phone with Kolivan.” 

Keith’s hand pauses in its petting, before slowly resuming. He turns more intentional eyes on him. “Yeah? How’d it go?”

He looks down at Sail and sighs. His head hurts, and his stomach hasn’t given him a break all day. He feels lost again, desiring to run, jump, scale the unknown and pretend like he can make something sensible out of it.

“Keith, be honest with me. Do you want to go back?”

Keith stops petting Kosmo and turns fully to him. “Do you?”

“Don’t do that. I’m asking you,” he says, and yet he hasn’t picked his head back up to look at him.

Keith’s hand comes into view, gently tugging on his chin, but Lance pulls away and turns his head aside. Sail jumps out of his arms. “Lance,” Keith murmurs, and he thinks that’s the most hurt he’s ever sounded while saying his name. Tears well up in Lance’s eyes as Keith tries to turn him back by his shoulders, but he just continues to pull away. He stands up and wipes his nose with his sleeve, Keith following him up instantly.

“Kolivan told me you had no plans to go back,” he says, and it makes Keith’s hand freeze from where he’s reaching for him again. “When were you going to tell me?”

“Lance…” Keith sighs, threads a hand through his hair. “We were going to have this conversation sooner rather than later.”

Lance crosses his arms, squeezes his biceps tight, then drops onto the couch with a disgruntled sound. 

“I’m prepared to come with you if that’s what you really want. I go where you go,” Keith says, and sits next to him. “But as your husband, as the person who loves you more than anything in this world, I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t tell you how much of a bad idea it is.”

“Keith…”

“This fight… isn’t ours anymore, love,” he says, notwithstanding, and Lance’s chest grows loose and tight at once. “The war took its toll on us. And I know for a fact going back is going to make things worse. The attack back on Niltae was horrible. I don’t… I don’t want you to experience that either.”

Lance digs his fingers into the palm of his other hand, his lips wobbling because deep down he knows he’s right. He’s thought of this already. 

He tries to open his lips, feels the weight of his feelings in his throat, pauses, then tries again. “I was going to go for you.”

“And I was going to stay for you.” Keith reaches over to wipe a stray tear caught on the side of Lance’s eye, then takes his hand and holds it in between both of his. “There’s nothing we could’ve done about the attack. Nobody knew. But I’m okay, you’re okay, and that’s all I care about. Stop… stop blaming yourself for something neither of us could control.”

Keith leans in and lays his forehead against his, and Lance closes his eyes.

“I’d do everything and anything to protect you. To protect our life and our family. I’ll always have your back, but I’d never ask you to do the thing that’s caused you so much pain.”

Lance reaches up and holds onto his wrist, his throat heavy. “I’d never ask you to do that, either.” He reaches further and strokes his hand through Keith’s hair, pushing it gently out of his face. He brings Keith into his arms and holds him like this is it, this is the answer, this is what they should do. 

“You have nothing to prove to me, Lance.” He feels Keith’s lips on his jaw.

Lance sighs and buries himself closer to Keith’s neck, nuzzling in. “It’s…” Lance murmurs to him, letting his head lay onto the cushion of his shoulder. “I don’t… I’m not trying to prove anything, I just…” he fists Keith’s shirt, determination in his grip. “I’ve gotta do all I can to keep you safe.”

“I know,” Keith says, only like someone who really and truly understands can. “But putting yourself back in the middle of a battle… that only hurts me, love. All I could ever ask for is your health and wellbeing and peace of mind. I don’t think I’d forgive myself if you went because of me.”

And just like that, the last thread he was holding onto snaps. “God, Keith,” he says in frustration. “I…” he isn’t sure what to even say, so he pushes his palms into his eyes and curls his fingers into his hair.

“We agreed to take care of ourselves, remember?” Keith says, and Lance loves him like the sun might love a lake frozen over in the winter. In frustration. In desperation. Never enough.

“In sickness and in health, I think it was,” Lance murmurs, picks his head back up. 

Keith cradles his cheek and it’s reminiscent of their wedding reception, when he thumbed at a freckle next to Lance’s eye and murmured, “I always loved this one, right here,” as though he didn’t have the slightest care in the world that all their friends and family were there, watching them.

“In sickness and in health,” Keith affirms, sounding like he had also just revisited a memory, and doesn’t let him go.

Lance lets himself be still.

*          *

Past

It’s like the inside of a wave. He’s spent so long in between the roaring waters that breathing outside of it is exhilarating. 

It’s month 3 and Lance is sitting inside Red. He’s done it before, but with his therapist inside with him. He feels the weight of sitting here, in his body and his mind, but the distress is minimal. He knows it’ll never truly go away, but he uses what he knows and allows all the images and thoughts that might find their way inside his mind. It’s painful — but he knows this. He feels it in his chest and in his stomach, the nausea touching him in varying levels. 

He takes four breaths in, holds it, and lets it go for a count of seven. He makes sure he breathes deep into his stomach.

He tries his best to focus on the feeling of the chair beneath him. On the clothes that rustle against his skin. On the nothingness around him.

He can do this. He can keep going. 

He has to. 

Lance stands in front of Shiro and Adam’s porch. Keith has his hands in his pockets, looking down at him from the top of the steps. Lance has been walking backwards the entire time, not wanting to turn around and stop looking at him. Not wanting to leave at all, really. 

The idea comes to him just like that. 

He stops meters away and then comes running back to him. Keith blinks at his return. 

“Hey, have you ever had a sleepover?”

“No…?” Keith answers, curiosity tinged in the reply. 

“Me neither,” he says. “Being at the Garrison squashed all chances of that. But, if you want… we should have a sleepover, dude. See what all the hubbub is about.”

Keith quirks a brow, his smile spreading so easily on his face that it makes Lance breathless. “Hubbub?” 

“Yes. Hubbub. You know, face masks, doing our nails, playing video games, watching movies and eating a truck load of junk food. Hubbub!”

Keith doesn’t really have much consideration going on in his face. His shoulders go lax as he looks at him, an answer all on their own. 

“Yeah, alright. Why not?”

“Cool, cool. We’ll hold it in Montana next month as an extended birthday present!” he hollers, before recognition dawns on Keith’s face.

“An extended birthday present? Lance—”

“Yup! And it’ll be the best extended birthday present ever if I have anything to say about it,” he declares, and then quickly runs away before Keith can protest. 

“Lance!” he shouts out right on cue, but all Lance gives him is a raucous laugh as he zooms across the lawn. 

Edging on early December, they ride an airplane to Montana. The discomfort of getting inside is still palpable, but he doesn’t feel the overwhelming need to avoid sitting inside. He sits in his seat and breathes, and listens to the hum coming from inside the walls and slides his hand across the seat underneath him. It feels thick and lightly textured. It’s there, solid. Real.

He sits all the way back and turns his head over to Keith, who’s stuffing his bag into the compartment overhead. When he finishes, he tugs at the neck of his shirt, plops down next to him, and exhales a giant breath. 

“Did you take your meds?” Lance wonders, and Keith also sits back, his head cushioned as he turns it over to him. It makes his hair curl and writhe beneath his cheek. 

“Yeah,” he says, his brows loosening their hold on his eyes. Relaxing. “Did you?”

Lance hums, feels his brows relax in the same way. 

“We’re gonna have a good time,” he says, like if he puts it out there then it’ll have no choice but to be true. 

“You seem to be determined,” Keith says, smiling. “So it must be true.”

Lance chuckles. 

The plane rumbles and the speakers crinkle with instructions to put their seatbelts on. He latches himself in and takes a deep breath. 

“You ready?” he asks, though his own stomach turns in on itself. He doesn’t want to be disappointed in himself. He shouldn’t be disappointed in himself, he tells himself. The airplane is slowly moving and preparing to ascend into the sky, and he tries not to think about his thoughts, tries to focus on the slight vibration beneath his feet and the hexagons on the seat in front of him and counts the corners of them.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

The airplane stills. They must be airborne.

His nausea abides, ebbing away slowly but surely. He swipes his thumb beneath his thighs, over his own seat. 

He looks over to Keith, not sure what he’s going to find, but it isn’t Keith with his eyes closed, his brows going back and forth between tensing and relaxing. Making an effort to keep his features lax. 

Lance reaches over to lay a tentative hand over Keith’s own, gently rubbing his knuckles with a finger. 

Keith has taken to mediating a lot, even when he had a hard time with it at first. His bond with Black definitely helped cultivate that, but therapy has helped him utilize it in all the ways he might need it. Like right now. 

Lance meditates when he can, but he doesn’t very much prefer it. He would rather reach out into the world when he feels the tug of an intrusive thought or sensation, to be mindful of the area around him and where he is. It calms him first and lets him do the work of not attaching himself to everything going on inside of him. Makes it easier.

The rest of the plane ride isn’t too bad. He and Keith watch whatever movie they have offered and snicker over all the clichés they can catch. Lance does most of it, but Keith seems to be listening resolutely, no matter how tired he looks. It makes heat spread throughout Lance’s cheeks, and he has to clear his throat, to try and find what it was he had even been talking about before facing Keith’s eyes. 

When they arrive, the icy cold temperatures of Montana greet them by slithering through the hair that peeks out from their hats and all the skin that has gone uncovered. Lance shivers and shimmies further into his coat, feeling the drastic difference between Arizona winters and Montana winters like a slap in the face.

Snow covers the ground in glittering waves, and it’s almost enough to distract him from how cold it is. 

They call an uber and head to the resort, where Lance falls face-first into one of the twin beds and rubs his face into the warm sheets. 

“Oh my god,” he groans out. “Montana is just one big icicle.” 

Keith also drops down on the other bed, flat on his back with his arms stretched out to his sides. “Pretty sure I can’t feel my nose.”

“Ditto.” He gets an idea and he sits up with the sprout of it, suddenly beaming. “Come’ere.”

Keith lifts his head and raises a brow. Lance crawls closer using his elbows. Their beds may be separate, but they’re pushed smack dab right next to each other, so it really just… looks like they’re laying in one big bed. He reaches his hand out when he’s got his top half propped up right next to Keith. 

Keith is still looking at him strangely, suspiciously. 

“Just gimmie your hands,” he says. 

Keith regards him for a second more. “What are you going to do?”

“Come on, I won’t bite your fingers off or something!”

Keith sits up and puts his hands forward, his lips pursed. Lance takes them and begins rubbing them gently in between his own, and Keith looks down at him with the most surprised expression he thinks he might have ever seen on him. 

“What are you…”

“It’ll keep your hands warm,” he says, smiling. “I would do this all the time for my nieces and nephews back in Michigan.”

“Oh,” Keith says, his lips quirking as he watches Lance. Lance realizes then that he has just put himself in another situation where he’s got Keith’s attention focused solely on him, and isn’t sure why the fact makes him nervous. 

He shouldn’t be. There… there shouldn’t be anything about this that makes him nervous.

He rubs his chilled fingers, then takes one hand and slides it in between his own and does the same to the other. He feels the distinct presence of calluses on both of his palms, reminding him of Keith’s love for hoverbikes. 

Lance has heard the stories from Shiro and Adam of how he stole Shiro’s car when they first met. How Keith would love to race Shiro in the wide expanse of the desert. Fondness is the only word he can think of to describe the emotion that dwells in his chest at the reminder.

Eventually, he lets him go and scoots back into his own proclaimed bed. “There, um, isn’t much to do about your nose… but yeah. Hope that warms you up a little more.”

“I can do it to you, too, if you want,” Keith offers, puts a hand out and everything, and Lance’s throat becomes a criss-cross of tangled wires.

“That’s okay,” he says, and tries for a nonchalant grin even as his heart races. “That… warmed me up too.”

They both sleep for the next couple of hours, until their phones ring and wake them. Looks like the rest of the crew is here. 

He tries waking Keith up, but he doesn’t budge. He mumbles something indistinctive and continues to snore, and Lance sighs. He goes down and greets the others alone, and finds Keith still sleeping when he comes back.

When he does wake up, it’s ten minutes before they’re supposed to leave for dinner. His sleep touched eyes are staring up at the ceiling and he doesn’t look very enthusiastic about having to get up. Lance comes out of the bathroom and finds him in this state.

“Come on, get up unless you don’t want any free dinner. Pretty sure this is Shiro’s treat.”

Keith slides a hand down his face and sighs. He looks… really tired. And his eyes look so… blank. His listlessness is making itself apparent in them.

Lance frowns and drops his hands from where they had been fixing his collar. Before he can ask anything, Keith sits up and cracks his neck, then stands up. He gives Lance a small grin, probably for Lance’s benefit, and heads into the bathroom. 

“I’ll be ready,” he calls behind him.

Lance isn’t sure how to feel about all that. He’s more concerned about the fact that he knows what Keith’s smile looks like, at least when it’s directed at him, and it’s… it’s not that. Never that tight.

At dinner, Keith’s behavior would be almost undetected. He’s usually quiet and observant, making comments here and there. But he looks lost in thought, doesn’t follow the conversation like he usually would. Lance eyes him worriedly and wonders what could have happened during these past couple of hours that could have upset him. 

Back in their room, when Lance sinks into his bed, he turns and watches Keith get in his own bed. He gets under the covers and lays on his side, facing Lance. He blinks at him. 

“Why are you looking at me?” Keith asks. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, outright. 

Keith makes a questioning face. “What do you mean?”

“You’re upset. You’ve been upset since we went to the restaurant.”

Keith frowns. “There’s nothing wrong.”

Lance thins his lips at him. “It’s— you can talk to me. If you want. We’re friends,” he says, and bites his tongue. God, why does that sound so weird? He takes in a breath and releases it heavily. “I just, I hope you know what I’m trying to say? You can talk to me.”

And he already said that. He closes his eyes and curses. 

Keith’s face has relaxed when he trains his eyes back at him, his lips doing that thing where they settle more naturally on his face and aren’t tugged by tense lines. 

“I know,” Keith says, softly and easily. “It’s nothing. I just… I miss flying.”

Lance’s shoulders drop. “That’s not nothing.” He slides further down the mattress and turns, so their faces are leveled. 

“It’s easier to get on a plane, now,” Keith confesses, his brows pinching together. “But not easy enough to be completely at ease.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, knows it’s probably the last thing Keith probably wants to hear but his own tortured passion makes him say it. “I get how you feel.”

He remembers Keith during drills, how his love for flying had been so crystal clear with every move, with every glide of Red or Black. He remembers how invigorated he had been to fly Blue and Red, too, and the unmatched feeling of being able to zoom through the sky at his own accord. His fingers tingle just thinking about it. 

“Don’t let it go,” he says, feeling absurdly brave. Righteously angry. “There are a lot of pilots with PTSD who fly again. Don’t rule yourself out just yet. You’ve been doin great, too.”

Keith doesn’t say anything, and his eyes are indecipherable. Like he isn’t sure he’s looking at Lance, or that he’s heard him at all. 

“I should say the same to you,” he says, and Lance is very keenly aware of the small space in between them, the way they’re both laying down close enough to call it side by side. “You’ve been doing good too.”

Lance grins and pokes at a loose thread on the bed. What he doesn’t say, what his throat twitches to attempt to say but he holds down is, I’m scared. I’m so scared of what will happen next and what this means for me and I don’t want you feeling this way, either.

“Did Shiro tell you about his offer?” he asks, the words come out scratched by the ones lining his throat. 

“About teaching at the Garrison?”

“Yeah.”

“I told him I’d think about it.”

“Ah,” Lance says. “So your answer is no, then.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What’s so wrong with teaching? I kinda like the idea. We’d… still be in the field, too.”

Keith pulls the side of his lip up in a dubious manner, an unexpressed thought sitting in the crease of his cheek. And then he sighs, letting it go completely unvoiced. 

“We should go to sleep, I don’t want to talk about this here.”

Lance frowns. Keith turns and Lance reaches out to tug his shirt. “Keith, come on, it’s okay to say it.”

“Not here,” he grouses again, and Lance pushes up on an elbow and scoots all the way over onto his bed to look down at him. 

“Why not? If something’s bothering you you should talk about it.”

Keith’s back heaves. Lance doesn’t move. 

He turns his head back to look up at Lance. “This trip is supposed to be a break, right? We came here to have fun.”

“Well yeah, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about serious stuff at all.”

“I want it to be good for you,” he says, still. As wholehearted as can be.

Lance’s chest fizzles with warmth. His throat is at it again. 

“It’s okay,” he says in a whisper so thin, he isn’t sure if he even hears himself. “I promise it’s okay.”

Keith is quiet, and Lance isn’t sure if he’s going to make this out alive. His heart, it’s beating so fast he thinks it might just crawl out of his mouth to settle in the dip of Keith’s hand.

“Being a pilot is the only thing I ever wanted,” Keith says, and brings Lance’s attention back to the pain that deepens his eyes like a shadow. There’s a modicum of acceptance in it that turns Lance’s veins into righteous fury. “It’s the only thing that mattered to me. For a long time. The only thing I could see myself doing.”

Lance feels nothing more urgent than to do the impossible, to turn the sky upside down just so Keith could have a taste of what it feels like to fly through the stars again. His fingers prickle teasingly, like if he moved them even an inch the clouds would sway under his command.

“So I don’t know. If there’s anything else out there that I want,” he continues, before Lance can go and blurt about how he’s ready to end the world they’d gone through hell and back to save if only it would make him happy. 

Lance licks his lips and puts a hand over Keith’s chest. “I sound like a hypocrite saying this because I don’t know what’s in store for me, either. But if you stick close to your heart… you can’t go wrong. I want to believe that. So just… don’t give up on yourself and the rest has to follow.”

Keith physically sags further into the mattress, like his touch is some sort of comforting heating pad. He looks at him scrutinizingly, taking the words in, a brow twitching, then reaches up and slowly takes his hand. 

“Thanks, Lance.” The gray storm clouds that had been brewing in his eyes subtly become clearer the more he looks at him. Lance feels his body turn into a single flame as he watches him. “I think… I’ve been doing a pretty good job of that.” 

Lance isn’t sure what he means by that. Or maybe he does. Or maybe he wants to think he does. 

“Sticking… close to your heart?” he tries. He doesn’t want Keith to let go of his hand. 

Keith’s eyes are liquid gold. Warm. Inviting. Open. “Mmm.”

“Then that’s… good. Great. Amazing. Keep doing it.”

Keith closes his eyes for a beat too long, as though agreeing with him. 

“Come on,” he says, when he opens them again. “Let's sleep for real this time.”

Lance (reluctantly) scoots back over to his own bed, and flops down onto his back. Keith turns over to the other side. The back of his neck peeks through his shirt, where a scar reaches up from his back and disappears into a curve around his shoulder. Lance wants to kiss it. 

The thought is blistering hot. It burns his cheeks like boiling tea would on his tongue. 

“Goodnight,” Keith calls out. It sounds like an echo. 

Lance shoves himself underneath his sheets and dives face-first into his pillow, and isn’t sure if he can spare anymore words for the night. 

The next morning, they find themselves on the slopes. And Lance is faced with many things. The cold, for one. The blizzard-like intensity of the snow that slams into him from all sides possible. Keith, swathed in the center of it all. With speckles of snow sticking to his hair and eyelashes and eyebrows. 

He can tell even from behind the goggles and scarf that he’s looking at him combatively, what with the way his eyes move from Lance down to the track they’re about to take, his game-face has gotta be on.

Lance points at him and then down on the ground, letting him know that he’s definitely going down. 

Skiing down is exhilarating. Swerving and challenging the biting winds that try to sneak through his goggles and scarf. Keith is right on his other side, head to head with him. A burst of adrenaline fires inside him and encourages him to hollar out the closer they get to the bottom, bending down low enough to garner more speed. 

He doesn’t know who finishes first, but his stop isn’t so smooth. He yelps as he flings right into the snow. It’s so deep he thinks he could sink. The cold wetness seeps into his pants and coat and through his scarf and it’s the grossest feeling in the world. 

“Lance,” Keith’s voice is there, and then his hands, hauling him back up by his armpits. Lance gets up with a wobble because of his skis and groans out loud. Keith swivels around to stand in front of him, still holding onto his shoulders to keep him up. His scarf is pushed down under his chin and his goggles are stuffed into his messy windswept hair. His mouth curves upward in amusement as he swipes snow off of Lance’s face. “Holy shit are you okay?”

Lance screws his mouth up and shoves his hands into Keith’s chest. “Dude! You’re totally laughing at me!”

“I’m not!” Keith says, really looks like he’s using effort to keep a straight face, but then it’s bursting out of him; he laughs so hard his mouth stretches as wide as it possibly can across his face. Lance can see his canines, sharper than ordinary, poking out.

Whatever Lance was going to say is lost on him, because Keith is laughing with the full strength of his chest and shoulders while continuing to brush off the snow on his face and Lance can’t take his eyes off of him. His heart dips and bends and rewires itself into the shape and motion of Keith’s mouth. 

Oh no. 

No, no, no, no, no.

Not Keith, not his best friend. 

He thinks he should panic. He loves being Keith’s friend too much for his heart to get in the way. 

But also, also , as Keith unwraps his own scarf and begins to tie it around Lance’s neck, he thinks there isn’t anyone more deserving of his love. How… how can he panic about this? He loves Keith as a friend, so deeply, but this… this doesn’t have to be a problem. 

It’s okay, he tells himself, as he buries his face into the scarf and the smell of Keith’s cologne overcomes his entire being. Things won’t change.

It’ll have to be okay. 

It’s him and Keith, after all. 

They’ll have to be okay.

They’ll have to be. And he’ll do anything and everything to make sure of it.

*          *

Present Day

Lance gets the alert on a Wednesday afternoon. He’s in the middle of picking up Kosmo’s food bowl when the TV lights up with the bright red banner. Kolivan appears on the screen.

“Attention all civilians, this is an intergalactic announcement. The remaining rebels of the Galra Empire have been captured. We have seen an uptick of activity in the past year, but found the main headquarters of the loyalists yesterday night and launched an attack. We’ve captured their leader and will be processing them after thorough deliberation with the worldly front. It is another win for freedom today.”

Lance drops the bowl in his hand, barely noticing the thing, and comes down to his knees. His stomach is quivering and fluttering, all the way to the rest of his organs. He breathes and it feels like relief, but his eyes are unable to leave the floor. He grips the carpet and closes his eyes. 

Strangely enough, he hasn’t thought about how this moment would feel. Hasn’t allowed his mind to even brush against the possibility of this being over this soon. He grips his shirt over his heart, and lets it all in.

I’ve been in pain. Oh fuck I’ve been in so much pain.

He feels it everywhere. This relief is as soothing as it is a somber reminder. 

What kind of irony is this; for him to still sit here in his home and wield this double edged sword?

*          *

Past

Lance is knee deep in a pile of kittens when he gets a phone call from Shiro. He wonders at the screen before accepting the call and cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Lance,” Shiro greets, but with such a strained voice that it immediately grabs his attention. 

“Shiro? What’s up?” 

“I don’t want to worry you,” he says, and Lance’s heartbeat thumps thumps thumps. 

“What’s going on? Did something happen?”

He sighs. “It’s Keith.”

Lance springs up and forgets that he’s holding onto a kitten, so the poor little thing cries out and looks around in discombobulation. He mutters an apology and rubs his thumb underneath their chin in an absentminded haze.

Keith. Something’s wrong with Keith.

“What happened? Is he okay? Was there an — an accident?”

“No, no, I’m sorry for making it sound like that. He’s — I don’t know where he is.”

“What?”

“He left five days ago. We got into an argument… and he left. He still hasn’t showed.”

Lance swallows. “He hasn’t contacted me.”

Static is all he hears for a while before Shiro replies. “You two have been getting close, so I thought he might have mentioned something to you.”

“He didn’t,” Lance says, quite helplessly. They do text often and even call (especially throughout the night when they can't sleep) but they haven’t texted in the past couple of days. “But… if he’s upset, then maybe he just needs some time to cool down. Keith doesn’t do well under a lot of nudging.”

Shiro laughs, but it sounds tired and weary. “Yeah, I know. He’s just been having a tough time recently. But if you hear anything, make sure to let me know.”

“Yeah, will do. And you tell me if he comes back.”

Lance leaves the shelter with worry in all the crevices of his joints. Shivers crawl up his arms and legs and he quickly pulls his phone back out to leave Keith a message.

(3:50 PM): Hey, Shiro just called me. Can you text me when you can? 

He runs to the train station after that, walking leaves him too frustrated and agitated. He needs to expel all this energy somehow, which makes sitting inside the worst thing ever. His foot doesn’t stop bouncing for a second, not even when an elderly lady sends glances his way. He swipes his phone open and checks his messages. No reply. 

The rest of the ride is spent in identical fashion. He gets off at the outskirts of Feon, where the Galaxy Garrison largely claims most of the territory from here. Citizens can’t cross over without a thorough security detail, which he painstakingly has to go through every single time despite the whole universe saving thing. 

He’s taken across the desert on a bus, thumbing consistently at his silent phone. He sighs and lets it drop onto his lap. He can only stare out the window, where the burning peaks of the Sonoran Desert are whisking past. The falling sun stains the sky and mountains in colors far too gentle and deceiving for the desert. Cotton candy up above, and the lightest of amber streaks slant over the mountains and sparse areas of shrubs and cacti.

And just as he thinks it, he realizes.

Keith is made up of these valleys. How long had he spent just staring up at this same sky? Maybe even daring to climb those boiling rocks they call mountains? Sitting at the top and counting the constellations between rounds of investigation? Rolling down through the haze of ungodly heat on a hoverbike, knowing exactly where he’s going? All by his lonesome. 

He’s been alone for so long. It’s no wonder he likes to be alone so very often. Or maybe it’s not that he likes it, it’s just what he’s been used to. 

Where Lance sees patches of sparse dry plants and biting cacti, Keith might see home. Might have felt the longing to go back for a moment. He hopes he’s okay. 

Maybe he’s thinking all this to convince himself that Keith’s okay. That he’s somewhere safe. Though the novelty of that doesn’t stick for long because he starts thinking about the near week long radio silence and his panic amps right back up again. 

He’s frowning down at his phone as he walks up the hill toward Veronica’s apartment when he hears footsteps approaching. He thinks it’s Veronica, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight that meets his eyes. Keith is standing with one foot in front of the other; he probably stopped when he saw Lance approaching. And he’s covered in grains of sand. He looks like he’s been rolling around in the pit of the desert.

“Keith?” he murmurs, stepping closer. “What’s — where have you been?”

Keith takes a step back. “I was going to leave.”

Lance’s brows screw up. “What are you talking about?”

“I shouldn’t have come.”

“Keith,” Lance tries coming closer and reaches out to hold onto Keith’s sandpaper hand. He’s saying he shouldn’t have come and yet he managed to make it all the way to his front porch. To him. “What’s going on? Shiro called me, he sounded worried. I was worried.”

Keith isn’t even looking at him. His eyes are focused on their hands, where Lance still hasn’t let go. He doesn’t plan to. 

Unexpectedly, Keith tugs on his hand until Lance almost trips against Keith’s boots. He’s stepping on them and thinks he should pull back, but with Keith’s eyes so close he isn’t sure how that’s going to be possible. And oh his eyes, they look so hurt. There’s so much pain tucked into such beautiful irises. Hesitantly, Lance reaches up to brush away all the bits of sand that cling to Keith’s jaw. The scarf tied around his neck is coated with it. 

“What’s wrong?” he whispers.

That seems to be Keith’s undoing. His chest and shoulders relax incrementally, though his hand is still firm around his own. 

“I… needed to get away, I guess. Went to the sand dunes in Yuma,” he says, then crashes into him. Lance quickly raises an arm and wraps it around him, his other still held in his clutch. This is worrying. He fists his hand in the back of Keith’s shirt. 

But Keith sighs and curls his arm tight around Lance. “Missed you.”

Oh. 

Lance’s hand grows clammy, but he swipes it up and down in what he hopes is a comforting motion. “I was a phone call away.”

“M’sorry,” Keith murmurs against his neck. “This is all probably confusing.”

“Kinda, yeah,” he says, keeps his hold around Keith tight. “But I’m more concerned than anything.”

This is a lot of things, actually. For one, Lance still isn’t used to all the ways his crush makes him feel. And being cloaked in Keith’s warmth like this is making his heart roll and tumble all the way down into his stomach. He continues rubbing Keith’s back, which also happens to be littered with sand. 

“Did you by any chance take a whole bath in the dunes or something?”

Keith huffs a breath. “Sand sledding. It, uh, can get everywhere.”

Sand sledding, Lance mouthed. He had no idea that was a thing. 

“Come on, you should take a shower and then… we can talk. If you wanna.”

Keith looks unsurely from the door to Lance. “I… I didn’t come here for that.”

“Well, I’m not letting you trail sand all over the place. Veronica’s not even home, she’s off at some conference. Come on, it’s fine.”

He takes advantage of their tied hands and tugs him so he can walk up to the door. Keith looks too tired to argue, but he says, “I don’t want to shower like this in your sister’s bathroom.”

“It’s not like the sand’ll clog the drain or anything!” he says, though he doesn’t actually know for sure, and then tilts his head. “That’s a sentence I never could’ve predicted I would say, huh.”

He unlocks the door and encourages Keith forward. They let each other go; the cooling air of the inside wraps around his heated hand anew. He can still feel the pressure of Keith’s hold, and he mourns it as it acclimates.

Keith doesn’t put up much of a fight about using the shower, which again, is worrying. There’s something… resigned about him. Over the past couple of months, they really have been making due on their promises and getting closer. More words shared, more experiences taken. He’s honestly been having such a good time. So seeing Keith close in on himself again is… disheartening. He obviously respects Keith if he wants to keep things to himself, but he’s pretty sure this isn’t about a personal secret. He looks troubled. 

He heats some left over stew while Keith showers. Who knows if he’s even had anything to eat, planting himself in the middle of the desert like that for days on end. 

When he comes out, it’s in the shirt and sweatpants Lance picked out for him to wear. He’s tugging on the end of the shirt, which has a drawing of a tea bag with the words tea shirt written on it. Keith is quirking a brow at him, and Lance can’t help but feel giddy. 

“Isn’t it a good shirt? It’s one of my most prized possessions.” 

Keith shakes his head at him, but there it is. The edge of a smile, if hesitant. Lance beams at him nevertheless. “I’ll take that as a yes. Come sit, I heated up some stew.”

Right on cue, Keith’s stomach lets out one loud, famished growl. He touches his abdomen with a guilty look on his face, but doesn’t move.

“I… didn’t come here to use your shower and eat your food.”

“Didn’t say you did,” Lance says, and turns the heat off. “You keep saying that.”

“What.”

“That you shouldn’t have come here. Then why are you here, Keith?”

Keith frowns and looks Lance over. “You’re upset. I didn’t mean— what I meant to say was…”

Lance crosses his arms and waits. Keith’s stomach grumbles once again in protest of all this, and Keith’s stare turns harder. He looks like his resolve is crumbling, much like it did outside, but Lance isn’t even sure what he’s holding onto so closely. Eventually, he gives up on saying anything at all and throws himself into the seat. He shoves his face into the bowl of stew, eating like a fiend and probably burning his tongue because he doesn’t slow down at all. 

Lance sighs and leans back against the counter, biting on the nail of his thumb.

When Keith finishes, he places the bowl into the sink and swipes a hand across the back of his neck, looking even more awkward and uncomfortable than before. 

“Lance…”

Lance stops whatever he was going to say and takes his hand, resolute with an idea, and tugs him out of the small nook of the kitchen. Keith looks down at their hands, but follows, his legs thumping with no direction but his. 

“What’re you…”

“Come on,” he says, and Keith’s brows crease. He continues to the door and leads them outside, where Keith’s gaze turns up at the sunless yet luminous sky. “The sun is setting.”

“What about it?” Keith asks, still staring. Lance looks from one twinkling star to another. 

“I like to sit outside when the stars come out,” he says. “If there’s one good thing about the desert, it’s the night sky. We can talk out here.”

He sits on the edge of the patio, legs dangling down into a little collection of xerophytes and arms looping around the wooden railings. Keith joins him a moment later, their legs bouncing off of one another. Lance digs his chin into the wood and breathes in the air. He can’t quite rid his eyes of the canvas up above. Moonlight and starshine create a quenching ocean across the barren desert. He can’t bear to feel anger against the sky now, not when it holds them together like a tarp in the wilderness. 

“What did Shiro tell you?” Keith asks, gentle. So gentle that Lance wonders what he thinks would happen had he spoken louder. Would it shift the order of the stars up above? Skew them and tarnish the way they appear to them now? Does he not want to ruin it? Does he think this would?

“Just that you guys got into an argument before you left,” Lance answers, resting his cheek down onto the wood to look at him. The spines of the Milky Way hang behind Keith and disorients Lance for a moment, not used to seeing them combined outside of a spaceship. 

Keith’s chest hefts with a breath. He keeps his eyes trained up at the stars. “I couldn’t really… stand anything. I just knew I couldn’t stay in one place anymore. Had to go… some where. Sorry if Shiro made it sound dramatic.”

“Were the… did you always visit the sand dunes before?”

“Yeah. Used to go with my dad all the time.” His eyes grow far, not just looking at the stars anymore. Lance’s heart aches.

Keith is made up of these valleys.

Suddenly, he feels the need to run as fast as he can down the desert floor and be swathed in the sand that would thrash in his wake. 

“Has… therapy not been helping much?”

“It has. For the most part. But I don’t exactly feel good about things right now.”

He recalls his bedroom floor or the living room couch, how impossible it can be to take a step out the door. That gucky, gucky feeling blinking its eyes open in his chest. “Yeah… I get where you’re coming from.”

Keith shakes his head, looking down. “I told myself that I would do things differently after the war. But I still feel like running.”

“Running isn’t always a bad thing,” he says, with fresh air swirling inside his lungs. It’s something his past self would probably never say. But now… “Sometimes it’s good for you. To get away for a while.”

“I wanted… I wanted to see you.”

Lance grips the beam, looks back at him. “Why didn’t you?”

Resignation overcomes his features. “I felt like an intruder.”

He watches Keith, for a second. His strong shoulders are slumped, tugging and wrinkling the shirt; the blisters on his hands, slowly fading; his hair drying in the air they share. It curls when it’s fresh out of the shower, little ringlets taking shape. 

He looks up and meets his eyes. “I love you, Keith.”

Keith blinks, his shoulders flinching. He looks as though he hasn’t heard him properly. “...What?”

“I love you. I feel like I say this so much but your friendship means a whole lot to me. You’re always there for me when I need it — you’ve been there on my darkest days and I could never really think of the words to tell you how much that meant to me. Ever since the war, I knew I could rely on you. Like I hoped you could with me. And I don’t want to lose you. When I make friends, I plan on keeping them for a long, long time. So you’re not going anywhere, I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

Keith’s eyes glisten with unshed tears, irises moving from Lance’s eyes to his nose and all around again. Lance leans closer. 

“You’re never going to be an intruder, Keith. And if you want to run away, I don’t mind doing it with you.”

Tears fall, and then Keith leans forward until his head is resting against Lance’s head. He sighs, a sound that feels necessary, like he’s expelling his fears with it. Lance pulls him closer and slams his arms against the railing to get them around him. He grunts — Keith chuckles softly — and has to shift to get them over Keith’s head so he can finally dig them into his back and hug him. He presses his face into Keith’s neck and roams a palm up and down his back. 

It’s the longest hug they’ve ever shared. Maybe even longer than the one they had in the hospital. Lance doesn’t really want to let him go, but when it happens, it isn’t at all awkward. Small watery glances, fingers wiping at cheeks, tiny smiles, and Keith’s hand lingering on his shoulder. It slides down the length of his arm and settles on his hand, where Keith takes it between his own and sort of holds it before placing it down gently onto Lance’s thigh. 

“Thanks for saying that,” he says, his smile as real as the stars shining down on them. “I… I love you too.”

Lance grins wide, his heart thumping as though a hummingbird is encased inside it. He feels red and blistering, but if he’s going to show his hand by telling Keith this then so be it. “It was about time I said something. You’re my friend, Keith, and there’s no going back I’m afraid.”

Keith chuckles, the sound wet and choked. He clears his throat, the line of his shoulders relaxing. “I have a feeling I’ll be just fine,” he says, then jerks up like he suddenly remembers something. “Oh, um, I actually wanted to show you something. One sec.” He stands up and goes back inside; Lance hears him rustle around. 

Lance eyes him curiously when he comes back… trying to catch a glance at what he’s holding so gently in the palm of his hands. Keith sits back down and holds his arms out to him, unfurling his fingers.

It’s a flower. Petals white with the barest and lightest stripes of green lining the middle of each one. There are little yellow flowers sticking out from the middle, and it looks so pretty. “While I was out there, I found a couple of these.”

“What is it?” Lance sounds mystified, but maybe that’s because he is. Flowers in the desert? He didn’t think it would be possible aside from cacti and shrubbery.

“Desert lily,” he says, rolling the tiny stem carefully between his thumb and forefinger. “There are a couple of these that can grow out here. They have their way. But I brought it back because I thought you might like it.”

Lance swallows, unable to stop observing the beauty of the plant. “Me?”

“Yeah… I know you’ve been missing the rain and snow, and it hasn’t been all that ideal out here for you, but the desert can be… pretty nice too.” He hands him the flower and Lance carefully takes it. 

He looks down at the lily and smiles fondly, gingerly sliding his thumb up over the nearest petal. “Yeah. It is, isn’t it?” 

Lance sticks the flower behind his ear and looks over at Keith with a beaming smile and a hand underneath his chin, showcasing the flower. “How do I look? I’ve always wanted to try putting a flower here. Always thought it would fall off, but I guess not!”

Keith grins, his eyes smiling with him. “You pull it off really well.”

“You’re not just saying that are you?”

Keith shakes his head at him, gladly exasperated. “I would never.”

Lance laughs and slides closer, their attention turning back up to the desert sky, where the universe is still there, hanging over them almost like they’re just two boys who can look up at it and see nothing but stars and dust.

Keith and Lance are streamlining down the desert. The sun is setting, and Lance is given yet another breathtaking portrait of the sky. Hot air blows past his growing hair and sun-stroked cheeks. His goggles protect him from the speed of it, though he doesn’t really spare the sunset much of a glance. He’s too busy pressing his cheek into Keith’s shoulder and squeezing him perhaps too tightly, but is there such a thing when you’re riding on the back of a hoverbike? He doesn’t think so.

Keith parks at the hoverbike station a couple blocks away from the restaurant. Today is the opening day of Griddle, a friend of Shiro’s restaurant. There’s a small line already forming when they get there, but it doesn’t take long for them to get inside. They find Shiro standing next to a tall man with a goatee, shoulder length hair, and an apron tied around his waist.  

Shiro waves at them and walks over, his smile kind. “Hey guys. Glad you could make it.”

“Glad to be here.” Lance bounces into his seat and grins, taking in the portraits hanging up on the walls of very random, very fluid looking figure eights. All in different colors. Lights dangle from the ceiling, tucked inside round fixtures. And the floors are made of luminous maple wood, casting a brighter glow to the entire restaurant. It’s strangely comfy.

“Hey, Keith, mind if I have a word real quick?” Shiro asks just as Keith is about to take a seat.

“Sure.” He pats Lance’s shoulder as he passes by. “Be right back.”

Lance hums and picks up the menu, looking over it in the meantime. His eyes widen when he scans down the sandwiches section, not able to recall seeing as many options as this in other restaurants. Definitely way more than Panera, and their whole thing is literally bread. They must specialize in sandwiches here. Immediately, he thinks: sandwich and soup. As he practically wiggles in excitement, he launches onto their soup section and tries to find something yummy sounding. 

Hm. Is chili considered a soup? (He wonders mostly for the sake of wondering).

The sound of feedback rings throughout the room and Lance jumps in his seat, looking around before he settles on the stage, where… Keith is holding onto a microphone and wincing. He holds a bass guitar in his other hand. Lance’s lips drop open.

“Uh. Hi. Sorry about… that,” he murmurs, then shoves the microphone into the stand. Lance blinks like he’s having trouble seeing. “The original act unfortunately couldn’t make it, but I hope you’ll enjoy this all the same.”

He sits on the stool and swings the guitar onto his lap. Keith starts to sing when his fingers first strum down the strings of the guitar, and he’s — Keith is singing. Singing. His Keith is singing. His old teammate, used-to-be leader, now-turned best friend, grand ole’ comrade, can sing.

And he sounds absolutely amazing. Drool piles up in his mouth because it’s still held wide open, which, embarrassing, but he just cannot believe his eyes right now. He quickly closes it and sits up straighter, but is unable to take his attention away from Keith. It’s like he’s being introduced to a whole other part of Keith he had no idea even existed. 

Keith’s voice is just as he would expect it to sound; rich and soothingly raspy and laced with vibrato that honest to god makes Lance’s heart change its course to match the smooth rises and falls. A puppet to his vocal range. He’s heard him sing before, but that was just them, singing quietly and aimlessly in the cave of a bedroom.

He feels completely enfolded into the song, into his voice. He swallows, and holds on tightly to the edge of the table. 

He’s falling. He’s falling so damn hard.

When he stops, it’s like Lance is suddenly being tossed out of a dream. Like he expects Keith to sing forever; as if it defies logic to simply not now that he knows he can sing like this.

Keith thanks the audience, walks into the back, and then is coming out and heading right for him. Lance’s heart decides to slide down his intestines and swirl back up and hang out in his liver and then shoots right into his throat. Why is he coming over here so quickly? Does he not deserve at least a couple seconds to gather himself?!

“...Hey.” Keith sounds hesitant, and Lance for the life of him can not comprehend why. 

“Hey.” Lance laughs, he’s gotta laugh to dispel some of this energy, alright? “You… never told me you were a rockstar.”

Keith rolls his eyes and sits down. “Far from a rockstar.”

“You can sing,” he says. Too late to shove it back in his mouth and take it back. 

Keith shrugs. “A little.”

Lance looks as though that personally offends him. “And you can play the guitar.”

“I… yeah. I used to kinda play after leaving the garrison.”

“And you just. Never once bothered to mention it?”

Keith picks up the menu. “It never came up.”

“Don’t do that!” Lance bats the menu down and points a finger at him. “Don’t distract from it. You’re freaking amazing, Keith! That was so good!”

Keith chuckles now, his cheeks pinking. He scratches at his nape, shrugs again. “You really think so? It… felt really good to play again.”

“Uh, hell yeah!” he says, like it should be the most obvious thing in the world.

He grins. “Thanks.”

“ Thanks, he says,” Lance sits back and sighs, shaking his head. He picks his menu up and tries to read it, but can’t focus at all, so he just throws it back down. “You just. You. Ugh. I’ll be right back.”

He honestly doesn’t know where he’s going, just walks with the full force of his thundering heart and luckily manages to find the bathroom to slip inside it. It’s empty, thankfully, so Lance doesn’t care when he leans back into the wall and grips his shirt tightly, trying to get his poor heart to calm down. 

Oh, god. Dear lord. Holy saints. He’s not even religious. But this is as close as he’s ever come to having had some kind of religious experience. It was like they weren’t even in the restaurant anymore, like Keith was singing only for him and everyone else simply disappeared. 

He closes his eyes.

Come on, he wills himself. Remember. This is Keith. Your Keith. You can’t fuck this up.

This is… going to be way harder than he ever would have thought.

Going home is a difficult endeavor. Lance talks to his therapist about it, about not wanting to let people down. He remembers his own embarrassment over his struggles. His impatience, frustration, annoyance. What would his family think?  

He’s learning that this period of his life is nothing to be ashamed of. That he can improve, that he deserves to improve, that despite what haunts him deep down, he’s done all he could before, and the only thing he can do right now is try not to overthink things. And yet… why does it still feel so hard? 

But after that night with Keith… with bits of the Milky Way holding them tight as though in apology, and his declaration to him. I love you . He means it. Oh how badly he means it. He thinks about it the next morning, about a lot of things, actually. About their clear love for each other, for one. It doesn’t have to be romantic in nature, and right now, it’s the most loved Lance has felt ever since he had his first attack.

It’s important. This is important. He taps his finger tips against the table.

He loves Keith with everything he thought was decaying inside him. It almost feels like it could be improbable, but he does. He loves him. He’s capable of it, of loving. He feels it inside him like the gentle glow of a firefly. 

And… doesn’t that mean he deserves love, too? That despite how he feels about himself, he deserves that kindness? That unconditional acceptance? No matter the pit in his stomach, his heart?

So, he goes home. He lets his mother hug him tight and he lets himself sag into her like when he was six years old and had scraped his knee on concrete. He apologizes through tears but she shushes him and takes him inside and asks him if he’s eaten. She puts out bread slices and makes him café con leche and he lets himself be loved.

He talks to his siblings and tells them about everything. The PTS and therapy and how hard it’s been and all the progress he’s making.

“You didn’t have to hide it from us. We want to be here for you Lance, especially now,” Rachel says, frowning but not in any way chastising or anything. He knows how much they all care for him, he wants to remember how much they all care for him. 

“I’m trying,” he says. “But… I also didn’t really know what was happening at the time. I was in denial for a while.”

Marco gives his hair a little ruffle, though Lance can read him so easily, the tension in his expression. His worry. “You had us worried, hermano. This will always be your home, never forget that.”

Lance smiles gratefully at all his siblings. Being surrounded by them like this, it makes him feel so emotional. He’s missed them so much throughout all of this, and having their support means the world to him.

They stay wrapped up together for a while before they separate to head to the beach. Oh the beach .

He also tells them about Keith, how can he not? It feels so wrong not to, when he’s discussing all these important facets of his life as of late. His mom immediately calls Keith and invites him to dinner, not right away of course but as soon as possible and Lance doesn’t feel all that embarrassed about it. Just giddy. He catches himself wondering how Keith looks as he talks to his mother on the other end. It makes him laugh, warm hearted and all.

Lance spends the rest of the week soaking in time with his family, up until Keith shows up the week after. He doesn’t even tell him he’s coming, he just wakes up to the sound of his mother loudly proclaiming, “Keith! Oh how wonderful, come in sweetheart.”

And hearing his mom refer to Keith in such a familiar manner… he thinks of all the gas and dust that makes up a galaxy. He thinks of how cold and dark he felt in the start of recovery and now, just sitting in his childhood bed with morning nostalgia coming through his window and hearing an exchange between the two people he loves most, it’s like planets and stars and moons shifting into his galaxy. 

He shoots out of bed and runs down the stairs and Keith is there, bent down to hug his mother who’s continuing to fret over him.

“You should have told Lance, he would have picked you up from the airport!”

“Keith,” he says, then almost trips on the last step. Keith reaches out like it’s instinct and catches him by the elbows, his smile swift and beautiful. 

“Don’t get too excited,” Keith says, and Lance rises up to his full height to shove him in the shoulder. 

“Don’t be a jerk when I’m happy to see you,” Lance says, then hugs him. Keith wraps both arms around him, neither of them letting go when the time for a regular hug elapses. It’s long enough for his mom to leave them alone, for them not to notice that she left at all. 

“I’m happy to see you too,” Keith tells him, and when they finally lean back to look at each other, Lance is devoured by the desire to kiss him. It doesn’t help that Keith is looking at him like he’s thinking, Jupiter and Europa and Ganymede and Callisto and Io .

“You really should have told me you were coming.”

“It’s fine, I’m here aren’t I?”

Lance sighs and tugs him into the dining room. “I don’t know why I bother.”

Keith is bombarded by the entirety of his family as soon as they set their eyes on him, his attention flung this way and that while trying to address everyone. Lance savors the fluttering aliveness of his heart.

“So you’re like… the leader of Voltron?” Silvio asks, looking up at Keith with awe in his eyes. 

“Silvio,” his father, Luis, chides. Careful with topics surrounding the war.

“Oh,” Keith says, and then he gets this far look in his eyes. He’s caught unaware, like he has to think back to it. “It’s alright,” he says to Luis. They’ve spoken about far more in therapy, had to dig much deeper and stay there until it didn’t feel like an abyss with no ground to catch him anymore. “Yeah, that’s me,” he says, eventually, and Lance throws an arm around his shoulders to chime in, “we were co-leaders, if you will.”

And Keith turns to him with a slow spreading smile on his face. “Yeah, Lance always had my back,” he says, so solemnly while still looking at him like… like that . Lance’s face blossoms with heat. 

“Yeah, um,” Lance loses his words just like that, gone out the window are the jokes about Keith being a goner if it wasn’t for him. He’s losing himself in Keith’s eyes, in the potency of them, how he can see the many qualities that make him Keith by simply looking at the inviting hue of them; it’s nothing new, Lance can’t imagine how many times he’s made the trek around Keith’s eyes, and yet here Lance is again, reality crumbling into itty bitty pieces all because Keith is looking at him.

“We just…” Lance murmurs almost without his own permission, speaking now by the will of his feelings. “...we fit perfectly together. Complimented each other really well. As leaders.”

“That’s so cool,” Silvio pipes up, and Lance has to look away to smile down at him. 

“Yeah, it sure is.”

They eat dinner, during which Lance stacks an assortment of different foods on Keith’s plate when he settles for only the rice and black beans, which is good and all, but—

“You’ve gotta eat the beans and rice with the fried plantains and pork, my man,” he says, sagely, as he scoops up spoonfuls of each and makes Keith’s neck burn red under the glance of his mother. She smiles in satisfaction at his full plate and nods encouragingly. 

Keith eats two whole plates with what Lance can swear is a sparkle in his eyes, especially when he has a taste of his mother’s delicious roast pork. 

After dinner, Lance is unceremoniously dragged away to entertain his little nieces and nephews while Keith makes nonsensical chatter with Luis and Rachel. Lance keeps glancing back at him, knowing this isn’t exactly Keith’s forte, but he seems to be faring well. Though when conversation fades out, he feels nearly scandalized by how often Keith keeps glancing at him .

He feels his eyes on him the entire time as he helps Nadia and Silvio set up their little doll house. Feels compelled to turn back to him and send him a teasing, yet curious smile. Keith pretends to cough as soon as he’s caught, and turns his attention elsewhere, one hand squeezing his knee in a white-knuckled grip.

Lance chuckles himself into a tizzy. 

As the night lengthens and grows darker, Keith’s departure draws nearer. Lance takes him into the kitchen before he does, and fills a tupperware with as much food as he can for him to take. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Keith says, quite earnestly. Like taking some extra food is a crime of some sort.

“Of course I do. It’s home cooked food, Keith. You can’t just reject it. And you’re the one who didn’t have to book a room at a hotel. You’re welcome to stay, always.”

“I know,” Keith says, not a hint of tightness to his tone, open and honest. “I just prefer it like this. This way no one has to sleep on the floor.” 

Lance wraps his tupperware up with a nice piece of cloth to keep it warm. We could’ve shared the bed, he thinks of saying.

They head to the porch. Lance shoves the container into his chest and smiles as widely as he can to hammer the point in. There is no going back; he will take the food. Keith huffs through a laugh and sets a hand over Lance’s on the container, keeping it there. Their feet are basically touching.

“Today was good,” Keith declares, and Lance’s whole expression takes a turn for sincerity. 

“My family really likes you.” He doesn’t make a move to let go. How can he, anyway? When he has Keith’s eyes all to himself?

“Good,” Keith says, and then quickly adds, “I like them too— obviously.”

Lance tries really hard not to laugh. Oh, the joy in trying so hard not to laugh. 

“Obviously,” he remarks, instead. 

Keith’s finger taps against his knuckles, a nervous tick or idle movement, Lance doesn’t know. But then, his brows dip in determination and he’s suddenly leaning forward and Lance’s heart tumbles and trips and slips all over itself — and Keith presses his lips onto his cheek. So soft, so slight, that he almost doesn’t feel the entirety of his lips. 

Right here, on Earth, in the front yard of his childhood home, knowing exactly who Lance is and everything that comes with him, Keith kisses him.

Lance blushes with a frenzy and looks at him with what feels like disbelief — a moment he swears is as though born outside of time — before he’s outright leaping to capture his lips with his own. 

Lance panics as soon as he does it, because what if Keith means to kiss him as a friend? He himself has grown up kissing his aunt’s and uncle’s cheeks in greeting because propriety calls for it. Oh god, what if he misread the entire situation?

But Keith expels all the worries from his mind when his hand immediately holds tight to his, and begins kissing him like it’s no tumble at all. Lance is instantly tormented between keeping a hold on the damn tupperware and focusing on the feel of Keith’s lips. 

Oh, god, there’s so much more he wants to do. He wants to let the container fall to the ground and hold Keith as close as he possibly can and discover how all the angles feel against his mouth. But it’s all for not, when the door behind them is whooshing open and his mother’s voice breaks them up. 

He gasps, eyes falling down to Keith’s lips and following them without even realizing it, stepping one foot closer before quickly moving back, his back sizzling with heat. 

“Oh, good, you haven’t left yet. We wanted to see you off and make sure you had a safe departure,” his mother says, and questions nothing of how red and blistering they both are. Lance’s fingers twitch and curl and he wants so badly to reach out and tell him, stay.

“Thank you for having me,” Keith tells her, reigning himself in drastically better than Lance has. Though his own hand is fisted against his side, shifting and flexing and practically giving Lance all the assurance he needs to know of the effect their kiss had on him. 

“Of course, you’ll always be welcome here,” she says, and his eyes soften considerably when she comes over to give him a hug. Lance swallows with his heart deep in his throat as he watches, his brain going in boisterous circles of dust, gas, dark matter, gravity . Only he's a little dizzy from that kiss so it’s a bunch of Saturn Saturn Saturn twirling around and he’s happily swinging on its rings.

“He’s going to be a couple minutes away. It’s fine,” he manages to say, even when he feels the indescribable emotion of watching the creation of a galaxy take shape.

“Yes, which reminds me, Keith, you have to join us for breakfast tomorrow, alright?” She says, giving Keith a pat on one cheek.

Keith nods firmly. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

They text like normal that night, and not a word comes up about the kiss. Lance doesn’t even feel panicked about it… at least not that panicked about it. He and Keith actually just kissed. He can’t even hold in the thrill, and hugs his pillow to his chest and squeals into the mattress like a school-boy who’s crush just looked at him twice.

There’s no one he would trust his heart with more. There’s no reason to be scared. 

Nothing could have prepared him for this, though. This being Keith sitting at breakfast next to him and their arms bumping when Lance reaches for the syrup, and smiling into their plates about a little something only they know.

Keith tugs him aside later, though, and asks to talk. Nerves have their way with him, no matter the ease Lance thinks he should possess he can’t seem to help it. 

They walk ashore the beach, and Lance feels like a teenager filled with butterflies in his stomach as he waits for his crush to either reject or reciprocate his feelings. He shoves his hands into his pockets and kicks at the sand, his heart doing the waltz in his chest and wondering why Keith isn’t dancing with it. 

“When I kissed you,” Keith says, and stops walking to turn and look at him. And that’s the thing with Keith, he talks with his eyes and hands and legs and brows; they fill in the gaps of his words for him. Oh, and his shoulders. Usually so confident and set straight with composure, are dipped to the side as he tucks his bare hands into his pockets, away from him. But his eyes are all Lance’s, focused and painfully sincere. 

Lance faces him with anticipation. “Yeah?”

“I wanted it to mean something. It meant something to me. Does — did it mean something to you?”

Lance stares at him with round eyes when he hears it, tilts his head as if puzzled by the question. This is certainly not how he thought the scene would play out. How — how does he not know? How does he not see all that Keith makes him feel? 

“I crushed my nose into yours,” he says, sounding on the verge of madness. “Of — of course it meant something to me. Keith!” He lets out a hysterical huff and rakes his fingers messily through his hair, then grabs a surprised looking Keith by the lapels of his jacket to tug him into a kiss he’ll make sure he never forgets. 

Keith latches onto his waist as they crash into one another, like an anchor keeping them still lest they tumble into the water with how hard Lance had pulled him in. Keith falls into the kiss not a moment too late, and Lance’s legs feel like putty with every swipe and shift and it’s everything he’s wanted — but this is urgent .

“That meant something to me. And this means something to me,” he stops to say against his mouth, and then kisses him again. “And this one does,” and again, “and this one does,” and again, “and this one does.”

and this one and this one and—

*          *

Present Day

Lance lays down on their bed with his laptop sitting in front of him, his head cushioned by his old sea otter stuffy. He’s watching a nature documentary, something he always used to watch in secret back in the day, when he was a teenager and didn’t want to be thought of as less cool for it. It’s ridiculous, he knows, but he always used to watch these kinds of documentaries when he needed a break from everything. Living in the desert because of the Garrison made documentaries the only thing accessible to see the ocean, which he was thankful for.

David Attenborough is narrating this one, and he finds it more comforting than he would think. This episode is about the high seas, all the visuals breathtaking and beautiful and calming. 

There’s this part, though. This part that makes him sit up and lean closer to the screen. David is talking about cloud formation, how moisture from the ocean and particles from phytoplankton can form clouds upon clouds upon clouds that rise up, up high in the sky. So many of them that they reflect the energy of the sun back into space.

And this… this link between the ocean and the sky and space, it makes Lance’s chest stir and ache, his eyes growing wet. He rewinds it and listens again, paying attention to how high the clouds expand and how they still linger near the ocean that birthed them. Never do they dissipate, not even during roaring, pounding thunderstorms. 

Lance pauses the episode and stares at the gigantic clouds on the screen. 

Lance walks into the dean’s office on Thursday morning. Ms. Bailey glances up from the letter he gives her, a rather surprised look in her eyes, behind her glasses. 

“You wish to resign, Mr. Kogane-McClain? I must say I am quite surprised.”

Lance gives her the best cordial grin he can muster. “Yes, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. And I think it’s time I acted on it.”

She has a considerate look on her face, then opens the envelope and scans through his letter. Lance picks at his thumb. “I hope you know you’re a valuable asset to the faculty. You seem quite sure of yourself, but I’d like to ask if you’ve thought this through.”

Michigan State definitely gained from his position. Having two Voltron pilots as professors here garnered well enough attention, that’s for sure. 

“Thank you. I’ll miss being a part of this team.” He’s not lying when he says it. Out of everything, his coworkers were great people. He rights his jacket over his stomach. “My goals… have changed. I know myself better than when I first applied for the position years ago. But I’m grateful for all the university has done for me. This just isn’t where I want to be at the moment.”

She smiles, her eyes curved in that sad way Lance believes to be genuine. “Well, you will surely be missed.”

Lance takes a stand and reaches a hand out. “I will certainly miss teaching here. I’m willing to stay on until the end of the semester, of course.”

She also stands up, and takes his hand. “Thank you, that’s certainly appreciated.” And expected, but she doesn’t say that.

His jacket pocket is empty when he walks out, the space of the resignation letter begging to be noticed. It’s scary. Fear and doubt are his greatest enemies and they’ve been waiting for this chance to strike, but Lance knows. He knows that this has been a long time coming. He’s moving, he’s got momentum, and he’s not going to second guess himself. 

He’s doing this for himself, and he’s not going to taint something as pivotal as that.

He once thought that he’s already done all the healing possible over the years. All the therapy and exposure and building himself back up again. But right now, as he walks out of the university, he thinks maybe there’s been more healing to be done after all.

Lance comes home to a blast of spices marinating in the air. He follows it to the kitchen, where pots and pans and spices have taken over most of their counter space. With a quirk to his lips, Lance leans against the wall and watches the man in the center of it all. 

Keith is holding his phone between his shoulder and ear. He’s still dressed in his work suit, his jacket gone discarded while the sleeves of his button-down are rolled up to his elbows. He holds a pestle in one hand and the mortar in his other, grinding whatever it is that he’s got in there. 

“Garlic, black pepper, salt and… what was that last bit?” Keith asks through the phone, then reaches for the cloves and is about to drop them into the bowl but stops when his eyes make a quick glance over to the corner Lance leans in. “Yes… the cloves and allspice, that’s right…” he murmurs back into the phone, his eyes not once glancing away from Lance. 

“Just in the pan with the rest of the ingredients,” he says, nodding. “Yes, except for the bell peppers.” He continues and Lance walks over to sniff the concoction he made in the mortar. “Thank you for all your help, suegra. I will make sure to do that.”

Lance sends him a questioning eye at that, before a smile slowly spreads across his face. Keith pulls his lips to the side disapprovingly at his look, and when he ends the call, he says, “you’re not supposed to be home until seven.”

Lance slides his arms around Keith’s middle and tilts his head at him. “Were you talking to my mom about cooking?”

He sighs. “I was… asking for a specific recipe.”

The pot on the stove boils over in a sizzling heap. Keith flinches and hurries over to turn the heat on low. “Shit.”

Lance comes over and tries to peek inside the pot, but Keith turns and blocks him from getting closer. 

“This was supposed to be a surprise,” he says, frowning now that his plans have been ruined. 

“ Aww, come on, I’m sorry. My meeting ended early!”

Keith still looks ruffled, so Lance takes one giant whiff of the air around them and hums gratifyingly. “It smells delicious already!” he says, and reaches over to poke Keith on the cheek. “Anticipation is way better than surprise.”

“I wanted to do something nice for you,” Keith says, and before Lance can even try to respond, Keith turns him around by his hips and proceeds to push him out of the kitchen. Lance cackles delightedly and jumps around, grabs him by his hands and tugs him forward to leave a speckle of kisses all over his cheeks. 

“I’m sorry, I really am, but I’m gonna love it anyways,” he says, though he’s unable to keep himself from laughing. Keith finally smiles, his eyes full of exasperation, but a smile no less.

“Go get ready,” he tells him. “I’m almost done.”

“I’ll wait for you in the shower, in that case,” Lance remarks, sending him a small smirk as he walks backwards up the stairs. 

Keith also walks backwards into the kitchen, a brow raising up high. “I don’t want the food getting cold.”

“We’ll be quick then!” he says, before bolting up the rest of the stairs. 

He hears the tailend of Keith’s chuckle, and then the following clang of metal dropping onto the floor. 

After Keith finishes and they’re done with their shower, Lance skitters across the kitchen floor and uncovers the lid of the skillet with excited fingers. The stairs rumble with Keith’s hurried footsteps.

“Lance! Are you serious—” Keith groans as he races to him, a towel still in hand and shoved into his wet hair. 

“Ropa Vieja!” he exclaims with pure glee, and Keith deflates. “You made me Ropa Vieja! If we weren’t already married, I swear I’d propose to you right now.”

“I was— I wanted to plate it for you with… with that wine you like!”

“You still can!” he beams back, dancing his way over to the dining table and settling onto the chair with all the finesse he can muster. He settles his chin into both of his palms and looks expectantly over at his husband. 

Keith is shaking his head at him, letting his towel pool around his neck as he reaches up to grab plates out of the cabinet. He scoops two heaping hills of rice onto the plate, then dives into the scrumptious meat. Lance licks his lips at the sight of the strips dangling from the spoon. And then, Keith grabs a wine glass and pours a fine amount of Merlot.

He sets the plate and glass down in front of him, and scratches behind his neck. “Surprise, I guess.”

“Keith, this looks so freaking amazing, I’m not kidding,” he says, not waiting a second before stabbing a fork into the meat and shoving it into his mouth, immediately moaning around the bite. 

Keith huffs, a sound that Lance knows means he’s amused. “Don’t overdo it.”

“I’m serious!” he says, sounding absolutely aghast. “Don’t you dare try and say this is anything less than amazing.”

With a small grin, Keith sets his own plate and glass down and joins him. 

“Is there a certain occasion I’m unaware of?” he asks around another bite and the wash of soft wine. 

“It’s your favorite dish,” Keith says into his fork. “I wanted to make it for you. Or at least try to.”

Lance’s smile softens, though his cheeks remain bulged with yummy goodness. He chews through it and swallows it down quickly, and doesn’t miss the way Keith tries to hide his own smile behind a hand as he watches him. 

“Well, it’s great,” he says at last, feeling warmer than a second ago. He reaches out and squeezes Keith’s hand. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it,” he says, relief evident in his voice. “I’m kinda glad you spoiled it, actually.”

“Oh?” Lance wonders with an inquisitive brow. “Why’s that?”

“You look happy about it,” he tells him, and rubs his thumb across the ridges of Lance’s knuckles. 

Lance blinks, his eyes turning down. “Oh.”

“If it’ll make you this happy then I’ll make you Ropa Vieja whenever you want.”

“Keith,” he murmurs.

“It’s alright. I know,” Keith says, imploringly. “I’m just… happy that you’re lookin happy.”

Lance softens and sighs. He picks Keith’s hand up and presses it to his cheek, where Keith lightly circles his thumb beneath his eye. He’s glad he’s feeling better, too. It’s still hard to think about, to not dwell on what could have happened. To forget how immediate his panic had hit when the threat of war returned. But every moment with Keith is a treasure, and he’d feel worse if he didn’t cherish them like he might his ring in between his fingers.

“I wanted to talk to you about something, actually,” he says, gently laying his hand back down. 

Keith makes a curious sound.

“I handed in my resignation letter today.”

Keith’s brows inch closer and sets his utensils down. “To the university?”

Lance nods. “I want to put this chapter to a close, once and for all. I was thinking of going back to school but… I honestly just want to be next to the water right now.” 

He feels very much vulnerable, baring his passion out like this and waiting for it to be judged. But this, this is such an instinctive reaction for him to have — he realizes — because Keith has always been nothing but loving and supportive and the most wonderful. Wonderful wonderful wonderful. He can’t believe how just for a second, he forgets how lovely his husband is. How his heart flips itself over everyday for no small reason.

Keith is no small reason.

And he is proved correct — of course he is — when Keith does nothing but smile and reach for his hand. “That’s good news, then. The best news. I’m — I’m really happy you’re taking this step, Lance.”

Lance chuckles, perhaps because of his relief. The relief to finally have solved this little thorn that’s been stuck to his side for years. The relief to finally be able to put words to what he’s been feeling and contemplating.

“In the beginning, I couldn’t even let myself think about letting go of piloting. And a part of me will always love it, but I think I just… couldn’t let go of everything that’s happened. What the war did to us. To me.”

Keith nods, eyes scrunched as he listens.

“And I’m honestly not even sure I’m ready. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that ‘readiness’ is bullshit.” He and Keith share knowing grins. “I just know I don’t want to be held down by everything anymore. I want to give myself the chance to focus on something new. And I’m… actually excited about this.”

“Sounds like you’ve figured some important things out,” Keith says, smiling with all the genuinity in the world, and takes his hand to press a kiss onto his knuckles. “I’m more than happy for you, love.”

“Thank you,” he laughs, at this and that and the entire past couple of years. The past couple of weeks. “Niltae… made me think about things again. All this made me realize some important things about myself. Things I haven’t finished yet.”

Keith’s smile turns sad, but ultimately understanding. He takes his wine glass in hand and raises it. “To something new.”

Lances takes a breath and raises his own glass. “And continuing on.”

With the sound of clinking glass, Lance leans over and presses a giant kiss onto his husband’s cheek, and digs into his most favorite dish. He laughs and smiles nonsensically and holds anxiety's hand when it decides to pay him a visit in between huffs of joyful breath. His fingers feel as though they’re buzzing against his spoon and then against Keith’s stubble as he remembers Adam and Shiro’s invitation for dinner tomorrow night, and recalls Keith’s upcoming gig at the club downtown.

There’s so much to be excited for. 

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Dear Lance,

My love, my dearest, my most cherished. These are the words I think of when I look at you and when I think of you. You’ve been many things to me, sweetheart. You are my companion, my most treasured teammate, my friend, and… the first person I have ever fallen in love with. (And the best other dad to Kosmo). I guess, this is a letter trying to tell you how much that means to me. How much you mean to me.

I never really thought this would ever be a position I would be in. I didn’t think I’d ever feel this way about anyone. Mostly because I wouldn’t really let myself. Leading the team with you by my side, though… is what made me realize it. I just knew I would love you. I could feel it like nothing before. I wanted to do everything in my power to make sure you knew how important you were to me. To the team. It was also the first time when being on a team felt right. You made it right. You made the thought of having a family feel right.

After everything, I was sure that was it. The team would be split. I wouldn’t see you again. I could barely handle the thought of losing you during the war, and being on Earth made me confront that. All my fears. I decided I would be stupid to let you go. I couldn’t take the thought of it.

I had no idea what the future would look like, but I knew more than anything, that I wanted you to be in it. Regardless of what way or how, I just wanted to be able to see you without feeling like I needed an excuse for it. I wanted you as a friend, as a person who likes my presence as much as I liked yours. Little did I know you’d end up my greatest, most treasured friend. My light in the dark. My future in ways I could have never believed. 

You have no idea how badly I wanted to tell you how I felt. But I… feel like you’ve always known. And I know you know this now. All I could think of was telling you as soon as I was kissing you. I wanted to show you exactly how I felt about you in every way I could. I still do. I think a lot about all the different ways I want to show you.

I love you.

I’m not the best talker. But writing this to you is the easiest thing I have ever done. 

You make me want to sing and write cheesy things I didn’t even know I was capable of writing. I can’t believe how lucky I am sometimes. Right now would be a good example. 

Lance is already crying by the time he looks up and Keith is right there, down on one knee. He reaches up and takes Lance’s hand with his own. “There was so much I wanted to say. I needed to make sure you heard all of it,” he says, as if explaining the letter. 

“Keith,” Lance whispers, sniffs and grips Keith’s hand. “Keith.”

“You mean so much to me, Lance,” he says, and takes a breath. “I love you with everything that I am. I want to sing to you for the rest of our lives, even if it sucks.” 

That brings a surprised laugh out of Lance, so surprising that it rattles out of him like a wet cough. He clears his throat, pushing more tears down his cheeks. 

Keith smiles up at him, and presses the gentlest kiss known to mankind right beneath his knuckles. He stays there for a moment, then leans back with this sturdy, certain air about him. 

“Lance McClain, will you marry me?”

Lance’s lips wobble now that he has to speak and he wiggles in place through all his feelings. He takes a watery breath in, and tells him, “yes, yes, oh my god, Keith.” And then he tackles him and cries into his long, beautiful hair and holds him like he’s never held him before. 

He leans back and kisses him square on the mouth, just pressing their lips together as deeply as he can. When they stop, it’s so that he can say, “your music doesn’t suck.”

Keith laughs, his smile curving the lines that his own tears are leaving behind. “Okay,” he says, rubbing their noses together and coming in to kiss him again.

“I — I… you have no idea,” Lance murmurs, and like that, he forgets what he even wants to say. He looks wholly and truly speechless. “I love you, and you just proposed to me, and… and you’re gonna be my husband .”

Keith brushes Lance’s bangs to the side and skims his hand down his face to dry his tears. But the space to complete the task is limited, it seems, because Lance steals his mouth just as quickly. Over and over and over again. Lance isn’t sure how to even name all the emotions he’s experiencing. How real is this? That they’ve come to this point? That he’s going to marry the man who’s had his heart for so, so long?

Lance keeps thumbing at his jaw, his smile shiny and wet and incapable of being small. Their foreheads rest against each other, and they stay like that for a while. Mindless touching, kissing, and smiles above smiles.

Lance has many, many things he wants to say. They’re buzzing in his chest like a swarm of excited bees, but the urge to hug him surpasses it all. He pulls Keith in by the back of his head and hugs him as tight as can be. 

He’s not going to be able to let go for a long time, he thinks.

(This poses to be true. But you already know this, huh?)