Archive of Our Own ^beta

It wasn’t like it was unbearable, per se. Difficult to navigate, at first. A loss that took getting used to again, and again, sure, but not unbearable. Lance was… adapting. This didn’t have to be hard.

To start, their missions had taken a more whimsical direction in the efforts of forming a coalition, which at first was super fun and a refreshing change of pace, but quickly started to feel – as had already been hotly pointed out like the famous last words used to describe the final straw atop a haystack of minor transgressions – superficial. Like a distraction. Like a side quest selected to avoid the main objective. Like the reason they were down one paladin and Lance had his own steadily-growing haystack of transgressions to sulk about.

And Pidge was gone, off alone looking for Matt, so that sucked too, since on top of everything else going on lately, he couldn’t help but worry about her, hope she was keeping herself safe out there. Eventually he had to come to peace with the fact that if Shiro had enough faith in her to let her off alone like that, then he should, too. Even if it was beginning to feel like more of a reminder than a natural instinct to even trust Shiro these days. Which was another thing that sucked, because. Well, two weeks ago, he had a leader he’d come to trust without question.

And Pidge being gone now too, only left him and Hunk. Which could have been fun if not for the fact that it was actually depressing. They played video games and made milkshakes from the milk Lance got from Kaltenecker, but that only filled so much free time.

In the end, there wasn’t much else to do but train, which was easier now, since the training deck was… noticeably more vacant these days.

And it was slowly sinking in, in a painful way that every time he told a joke, there was only Hunk’s laughter. That every time he made a bad pun, no one was rolling their eyes across the room at him. That no one was glaring at him when he flirted with the girls they saw after performances, and no one was awkwardly trying to feign relaxation when he chilled with Hunk on the couch.

It all had to do with the fact that even though there were technically –  assuming Pidge made it back soon, anyway – enough paladins for lions, there weren’t enough paladins for the castleship to feel like it was functioning normally. Worse than that, it had more to do with the fact that he didn’t want to say aloud with his own mouth, “I think I miss Keith.”

Maybe that was why, when Kolivan pinged the castleship again to discuss the new intel they’d learned this week, Lance just about went into shock that this time, Keith was there on the screen beside him. It made something weird force a deep, jugged gash through the middle of his chest because seeing Keith wasn’t supposed to be shocking, it was supposed to be normal.

But nothing about this was normal – starting with the fact that Lance hadn’t seen Keith in weeks and the first time he does, it’s through a screen, and ending with the fact that he looked like he hadn’t slept in roughly three months.

He had that stupid hood on, even though it looked for all the world like he and Kolivan were holed up in a small room somewhere to make this transmission. It was dark and the red lighting made Keith’s eyes look weird – they looked entirely black, and it was the most… nonhuman Keith had ever looked.

His bangs were getting too long. He constantly had to tick his head to the side to move them out of his face, and the bags underneath his eyes were ridiculous, accentuated by all the weird shadows on his face. His skin looked sallow, pulled just a bit too taut over his cheek bones and….

What the fuck were they doing to him over there?

And then Keith’s mouth moved, no sound came out but Lance could clearly read that he said, “What.”

What? Lance puzzled as Keith raised a brow at him expectantly – oh. Lance was staring. Keith thought he wanted something because he had been staring. Lance quickly shook his head in what he hoped seemed dismissive, then dropped his eyes to the ground for the remainder of the transmission.

Keith had barely said two sentences when it was over, but it went heavily overlooked by all of Kolivan’s good new intel. Lance hoped that meant that whatever Keith was putting himself through over there was worth it.

*

They were still on Olkarion when Pidge made it back with Matt. Lance didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t for Matt to look so much like her.

He certainly hadn’t expected the guy to take such a quick liking to Allura, that was for damn sure. He was jealous over that for longer than he was proud of, took a little too long to remember that he was supposed to be happy for Pidge, here. Not that she really noticed.

Matt and Pidge spent the entire day together after that, not ceasing Pidge’s tour of the castleship until later that night when Hunk made dinner. Pidge trotted in, pulling Matt behind her by the hand and squeezed him into the seat next to her, where he’d had to convince Pidge to reluctantly put a hold on catching up with him long enough for him to get to know anyone else.

He had escaped the Galra ship with a band of rebels who sneaked onto the ship to rescue prisoners. He didn’t know where his father was; he hadn’t seen him for weeks before the escape. He had been trying to track down Shiro and his father since he’d made it off the Galra ship.

Normally, about now, Keith would be pushing the conversation toward any intel Matt might have learned while imprisoned on the Galra ship. Instead, Matt was sitting in his seat. A testament – a cruel lesson in all that irony Lance had never paid attention to learning about in English class, over beginning to dread seeing it empty.

And really, that was the last straw.

He waited until everyone else had gone to their rooms before heading onto the control deck, starting a transmission to the Blade of Marmora before he could get smart and talk himself out of it.

It only took seconds for the transmission to connect.

To Kolivan.

“Oh,” Lance said, stupid and naïve. He felt something heavy fill the cavity in his chest that felt an awful lot like… disappointment. He didn’t know why he was surprised. He should have expected Kolivan. He was their leader, of course, he should have expected Kolivan. God, realistically, it would have been a wild twist of fate to have been greeted by anyone else. “Hey. Kolivan.”

“What is it?” Kolivan asked instead, stoic, without preamble, as always. “Where is the Black Paladin?”

“Shiro? Oh, no – it’s nothing like – it’s not,” Lance stammered out, tried to make sense of his thoughts, tried to pick a direction to think toward. “I was just – just looking for Keith.”

“Has he done something?”

“No!” Lance said quickly, digging his own grave and possibly Keith’s if Kolivan’s tone was anything to go by. “I just wanted to tell him something.”

Kolivan stared a moment, facial expression never changing, but Lance felt like he was about to get the scolding of a lifetime. “This is not a toy. These transmissions are for emergencies and intel, only.”

The screen went black.

His chest felt heavier, just like his head, just like all the rest of him. He stayed there, staring at a blank screen until it caught up to him what he was doing, what he had just tried to do. He shook his head, headed off to his room.

*

Though Lance knew that Matt had more in common with Hunk, there were still things that he and Matt could talk about. For example: Allura. Which, admittedly, he hated doing just for the fact that Allura was his friend, and that being said, he had… dibs. (It was bro code, Matt should know.) Besides, talking about Allura was better than sitting in silence until Pidge came back with whatever it was she went to find in her room.

But that died down all too soon, and they were right back to silence.

“So,” Matt started, once the silence had stretched just this side of too damn long, “Pidge tells me you stepped in for her once back at the Garrison, when Iverson was going off on her for speaking up about Kerberos.”

“Oh, that was – that was nothing,” Lance answered, a little awkwardly but admittedly thankful for the praise. “I thought she was crazy,” Lance admitted. “Well, I guess I thought he was crazy. That’s when she was pretending to be a boy.”

“She was what?”

“She was – she didn’t tell you?” Lance grinned. “She created an entire new identity to find you. All badass like.”

“My little sister,” Matt smiled wistfully. “Dad’s gonna kill her.”

“Saves the galaxy, gets grounded,” Lance chuckled.

Matt snickered. “So, how did you all wind up out here, exactly?”

“Keith,” Lance said, without thinking once. “He was – well, me and Hunk followed Pidge onto the roof. She was looking for aliens and she happened to see Keith. Which admittedly, should have told us something,” he explained, trying for a joke that fell so flat he wanted to lie down himself. “Then we had to save Shiro, and then, we had to run from scientists and Keith was living in a shack and we found Blue and went into a wormhole and we all broke curfew.”

“I,” Matt faltered, shook his head. “Okay, we should probably spend the rest of the day talking about all that other stuff, but first things first: would you happen to be talking about Keith Kogane?”

“Yeah,” Lance said hesitantly. “You know him?”

“Yeah, we were friends,” Matt smiled, voice excited, nearly gushing as his expression turned relieved. “Shiro, and Keith and I were all friends back at the Garrison. I always wondered how he was doing.”

And, okay, regardless of why – since he couldn’t wrap his mind around anything he was feeling anymore – Lance didn’t like that at all.

“Hey, I found it!” Pidge yelled, running into the room. She threw herself down beside Matt, basically landing all over him. She held out a notebook that Lance wasn’t too surprised never to have seen before. “This sucker was buried.”

“Katie, you didn’t tell me you came out here with Keith!” Matt blurted like she hadn’t said anything at all.

“Well, sorry, it never came up,” Pidge retorted, all previous excitement gone. She’d visibly taken it the worst when Keith left. Sure, she would have gone to find Matt anyway, but Lance always thought that choosing to do it after Keith left was painfully convenient. “Why are you talking about that? What did I miss?”

“I was worried about him, too, you know,” Matt explained, albeit a little sheepishly, and Lance didn’t like that at all. “I was worried if he’d make new friends when me and Shiro left. He was–”

“Oh, God, not this again,” Pidge interrupted on a closed-eyed, exasperated sigh.

“Uhm?” Lance asked eloquently.

“I didn’t know Keith before we were Voltron,” Pidge started, face somehow looking both taunting and exhausted, “but I know that Matt had an enormous, gay-ass crush on him.”

“Hey, I never told you that,” Matt hissed.

“You didn’t have to!” Pidge retorted, the spark back in her eyes at the prospect of teasing her brother. “You’re always so obvious about your crushes and you literally never shut the fuck up about him.”

“He–!” Lance stammered out, trying to process. “Why didn’t you – how come we’re just hearing about your brother having a crush on Keith?!”

“Well, believe it or not,” Pidge started sardonically, eyes lidded with the weight of how unimpressed she was. “Things got a bit hectic when we came out into space. And like I said, I never knew Keith before Voltron. As I’m sure you know, there are lots of guys named Keith. My first thought upon meeting a Keith wasn’t ‘oh, hey, maybe this is the one my brother liked.’”

“But – but,” he paused waiting until his brain stopped whirring round and round like a race car on a track. “You’re not even surprised. How is this not blowing your mind right now?”

“Well,” Pidge said thoughtfully. She regarded her brother, then Lance, a knowing smile spreading across her impish face as Matt’s face reddened. “Keith is totally my brother’s type.”

“How would you know my type?!” Matt demanded, mortified at having this conversation with his little sister, Lance was sure, whereas Lance was just mortified.

“Well, I didn’t before, but now I do,” Pidge smirked. “Awkward, emotionally constipated, dark, edgy pretty boy is all you, bro. Keith being your type actually helps me understand a lot more about you,” she continued.

“How are we sitting here talking about crushes right now when I haven’t seen you in months!” Matt protested. “There are a thousand other things we could be talking about right now!”

“Oh, my God, Matt, do you think you still like him?!” Pidge gasped, voice coming out deeper and in slow motion as Lance’s world came to a screeching halt.

“Wh-what does that matter?” Matt demanded, speeding it right back up.

“Because I think you might be Keith’s type, too,” Pidge answered excitedly.

“You’re… ridiculous,” Matt replied, looking flustered beyond all reason. Lance only hoped Matt could prove that Pidge, in fact, was being ridiculous. “I can’t believe you’re pushing this so hard.”

“Yeah, Keith doesn’t have a type, he has a mullet,” Lance tried pointlessly.

“Guys, Keith definitely has a type,” Pidge insisted, like she was talking to two five-year-olds. “How have you not noticed?”

“How would anyone notice what anyone else’s type is in the middle of all this?!” Matt demanded, laughing.

“What’s Keith’s type?” Lance blurted out like an idiot.

Pidge paused, and Lance could see it in her eyes that she was working something out in that brain of hers – something Lance was trying very hard not to deal with inside his own. “It’s… obvious,” she said finally. “He gets all flustered over shitty puns and most physical comedy. And have you seen the way he stares at Hunk when he’s going on about the mechanics of something? Like how the lions work? I’ve literally seen him blushing when Hunk goes into explanation mode.”

“So, you think he has a crush on Hunk?” Lance squawked, feeling like he needed to talk to Hunk about this – demand to know how long this had been going on –

“No. You bonehead,” Pidge laughed, sending Lance a sympathetic smile and Lance felt busted, caught in a lie. “I’m saying any dad-joke-telling, klutzoid with good grades has probably got a pretty good shot at Keith.”

Lance felt it all sinking in, absorbing right into his damn skin that Matt was all those things. Matt had the humor and the moves and the brains to be anyone’s type. And Lance couldn’t even – couldn’t even get Allura to look twice at him.

“So, where is he?” Matt asked hesitantly, like he knew he shouldn’t expect good news.

And as Pidge geared up to start that conversation with Matt, Lance decided it was probably a good time to pretend he was going to bed. Maybe there was one good thing to come out of Keith leaving. At least Matt couldn’t try anything with someone who wasn’t here.

*

“Dude, did you know that Matt has a massive crush on Keith?!”

Lance paused his game, more from the jump scare than from what he heard, whipping around to face Hunk, hanging in through his door looking crazed like he got when he had great gossip – then Lance registered Hunk’s conversation starter. Gossip. Sure. He sighed, pressed play on his controller. “Yeah,” he mumbled, back to Hunk as he tried to reemerge himself in his game. “I did.”

“Well, isn’t that crazy?!” Hunk continued, shoving into the room.

No, Lance thought as he watched Hunk shove clothes and other paraphernalia off his messy bed and onto an even messier floor. It was annoying was what it was. For the past week, it was Pidge either teasing Matt for his crush on Keith or plotting how Matt should make a move when Keith came back.

And when it wasn’t that, it was Matt reminiscing with Shiro over their Garrison days, or the adventures they’d had with Mr. Holt, and that Lance could handle, no, what he couldn’t handle was when they reminisced about Keith. Because that turned into Shiro teasing Matt about Keith or laughing along as Pidge came up with more and more ridiculous confession ideas for Matt and Lance was –

Well, he was holed up in his room playing video games was what he was. “I guess it’s not that crazy,” Lance answered finally, moving the controller in his hands as if that would make his character lean further right. “If you think about it. Keith has a type. Apparently.”

“Oh, so you think he likes Matt back?” Hunk asked, voice rising in pitch in his excitement.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Lance growled, clearing his throat immediately after because he wasn’t angry, he’d been sitting here for hours, he just needed water. “Matt’s Keith’s type.”

“Works out pretty well for you,” Hunk continued, turning onto his side to shoot Lance a knowing look. Lance tried for a smile that probably came out more like a grimace and he turned back to his game.

“Yeah, how’s that?” Lance chuckled, forced.

“Matt was really into Allura?” Hunk said, a longer, more drawn out way of saying “duh.” “But if he and Keith hit it off, then there’s no more competition for you. You can go right back to being the only one pestering her.”

Oh.

Well, realistically, Lance knew deep down that neither of them were really every going to be any true competition for Allura. She could have anyone in the galaxy, why was she going to fall for either of the two of them? But, admittedly, that wasn’t really the thing that concerned him. The thing that did was that since this whole thing started about Matt having a crush on Keith and Keith having a type, Lance hadn’t thought of Allura once.

*

After a while, Matt left the castleship, needing to join back up with other rebels. Pidge was fine, for the most part. This time, she knew he would come back and how to find him if he didn’t.

Regardless, Lance couldn’t help but notice Pidge around him more. She had told him once, long ago, late at night when the castleship was quiet and she was tired enough to be entirely too honest, that he often reminded her of her brother. In a lot of ways, Pidge reminded Lance of his own sisters. He could understand that out here, in the middle of all this, it was good to have someone that felt like part of you.

Hunk missed Matt already, having grown pretty fond of having someone else to talk to over the few days he had been with them. The three of them fell back into a familiar orbit, now that Pidge had free time. Lance had the thought that maybe it was just a cheap tactic to keep anyone else from leaving, executed too late. He thought, with not a single complaint to be had about it, that they were swarming each other. That no one could feel unwanted if they were never alone.

So, there the three of them were on the control deck when they received a ping for an incoming transmission. Pidge crossed the room to click it open as Lance sighed. It had been a couple days after all. They were long overdue for one of Kolivan’s very serious quintessence/rebel updates–

“Guys, where’s Shiro?”

Lance’s head snapped over in the direction of what he knew had to be a cruelly vivid hallucination so fast, his neck cracked, because that wasn’t Kolivan’s voice he had just heard.

“I think he’s on the training deck,” Pidge answered quickly. “I’ll go get him,” she said, rushing out of the training deck.

“Keith!” Hunk spoke up from beside Lance. He stood and walked closer, smiling up at the screen. “Hey, buddy!”

“Keith,” Lance murmured, pushing himself off the couch, stepping hesitantly toward the screen and Keith paused in whatever he had been about to say to Hunk to address Lance. Appraise him, more like. Well, as appraising as someone’s stare could be and still come across Keith-style awkward.

And it was another eternity before he opened his mouth again to say something, right as Pidge jogged back in with Shiro, Allura, and Coran on her tail.

“Keith!” He exclaimed, running right up to the screen, forcing an abrupt change in mood. “What is it?”

Keith shook his head, switched his eyes to Shiro so quick Lance felt a little forced back as Keith rushed to explain about what he’d learned on his most recent mission. Not that Lance could really keep track.

He should be paying attention, should be able to pay attention, but he knew he’d have to get Hunk to fill him in on all this later.

Keith still looked otherwise exhausted, but… better. Possibly due to the fact that he was very visibly happy. Elated, even. Lance couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him look like that. Not since long before Shiro had disappeared. Maybe Keith leaving wasn’t so bad. Not if it made him look like that. The coalition side of the war was fun and everything, but the more Lance thought about it, Keith could never function with only forming alliances.

He had to be where the action was. He had find somewhere he could be the fiery ball of unstoppable energy Voltron couldn’t accommodate right now.

Keith didn’t take long, saying what was needed, then ending the transmission, something he must have learned from Kolivan.

*

And so later on that night when he was out on the control deck with Hunk who was obviously dozing off though he insisted in unintelligible mumbles that he wasn’t, the last thing he expected was another ping for a transmission.

And Lance looked to his left to see Hunk finally passed out along the end of the couch, meaning he definitely didn’t hear it, too. He looked to his right to see Keith alone on the screen again – Keith was on the screen again.

“Lance,” Keith said, by way of stiff, awkward greeting.

Lance rushed across the room, wondering what could be happening now, why Keith didn’t look the least bit, well, urgent. “Keith, what the fuck are you doing?” He ordered before he could think of anything else to say.

And Keith started, eyes widening a bit like that was the last thing he had expected to hear Lance say to him, then cleared his throat. “Well. Kolivan told me a few days ago to tell you guys not to call unless it’s important. I asked him who tried to talk to me and he said it was you.”

“Why would it be me?” Lance demanded defensively, flustered and embarrassed at having been busted so easily. And that Keith was here calling him out on it like this.

And Keith scoffed, like he saw right through him, like Lance was transparent as glass, or maybe he was just projecting. “I guess that’s what I want to know,” Keith remarked slowly.

Lance stared a moment, stalling, because to say the truth would be admitting defeat, and he had never done that, much less to Keith. Keith still had that stupid hood on even though it was dark all around him. He looked like he was all but holed up in a corner somewhere and his hair was in his face as he waited patiently for whatever bullshit Lance was sure he’d spew whenever his mouth came up with something.

“Well, it wasn’t anything, you know. Important,” Lance shrugged finally. Because it hadn’t been urgent enough for Kolivan to let him through. It had been just important enough for Lance to convince himself it was worth contacting Keith in the first place that night. “Just thought you should know that Pidge found her brother while you were gone.” Lance explained, voice a tad more heated than he’d intended.

Not that Keith would have any idea what Lance had intended, since he looked guilty anyway. “Oh. That’s amazing,” Keith said meekly. “She didn’t tell me that.”

“She probably didn’t want you to feel bad,” Lance said quickly, trying to fix it. “Plus, when would she have had time to tell you that?”

“How is he?” Keith asked, like Lance hadn’t spoken.

And Lance was right back to not liking that at all. “Matt?” Lance asked, remembering with gritty war-like flashbacks the way Matt had blushed all over the place about him, like a school girl. “Fine.”

Keith paused, a smirk forming as he regarded Lance a little too knowingly. “He hit on Allura, didn’t he?”

Lance glared, couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

Keith laughed softly but didn’t say anything else as he regarded Lance with a look a lot like homesickness – Lance would know – the more indignant Lance started to look.

“He had a lot to say about you, though,” Lance blurted out.

“What?” Keith said caught off guard before this look came across his face that Lance couldn’t read. “Oh, yeah,” he said slowly, after a moment. “He and Shiro and I were friends. Back at the Garrison.”

“Yeah,” Lance said, unimpressed. “That’s what he said. He said he was worried about you.”

Which sent Keith right back into looking guilty. “Really, how is he?” He insisted.

Lance paused, didn’t know how to feel about… this. “He’s fine. He actually left a few days ago to go back to the other rebels. He was here a little while. Pidge was really happy,” Lance grinned involuntarily. “You should have seen her.”

“I don’t regret leaving, but I wish I had been there to see him,” Keith admitted, looking off to the side, and Lance could have sworn he had to look bashful, why else would he be looking off to the side like that–

“Yeah, too bad he’s gone now, we don’t know where he is or when he’ll be back, but I’m sure he’s pretty far from here, he said he had a lot to do,” Lance blurted out, all in one deep breath of stupid.

“He–” Keith paused, probably trying to catch everything Lance had just rambled out. His head tilted to the side, eyes squinting, and he was right back to appraising him like he was earlier today. “What’s wrong with you?” Keith puzzled.

“I’m fine, but you should probably sign off before Kolivan comes to find you and yells at me again, later, Keith!” And Lance watched his own hand reach out and end the transmission. “I’m,” Lance groaned to himself, squeezing his eyes shut tight so he wouldn’t have to look at the dark screen where Keith had just been, as wave after wave of embarrassment washed over him, “a goddamn mess.”

“Wow, that doesn’t even cover it,” Hunk spoke up suddenly from behind him as Lance yelped.

*

And as difficult as that was to stop physically cringing over, Lance was eventually able to find other things to let weigh on his mind.

The coalition was still growing, slowly, but it was growing. Coran was getting more and more ambitious as far as how to keep it up, though. Lance supposed that could be a down side, if Clear Day and their failed performance at the hospital were anything to go by.

It didn’t take long for Kolivan to reach out to them again, looking just as unimpressed as usual as Lance told himself that he wasn’t in trouble. That Kolivan wasn’t here to bitch him out for talking to Keith the other day.

Lance was no longer surprised to see Keith there, but he was surprised to see his eyes right on him – even more surprised to see them dart away the moment he realized he was caught.

Then Kolivan opened his mouth, not to admonish Lance for doing the exact opposite of what he was told, but to say: “I was told there was a rebel aboard your ship. Is it true that one of you, of your own skill set, was able to track down one of the rebels?”

“Yeah, that was me,” Pidge piped up. “He’s my brother. He was missing for years, but I found him.”

Kolivan continued on to convey, politely, on behalf of the Blade of Marmora, that they admired her success, that Voltron was lucky to have someone so resourceful, but Lance found his attention drawn back to Keith who was looking everywhere but forward because – because why did Kolivan know that?

The only way he would know that would be if Keith was talking about Matt and why was Keith talking about Matt to Kolivan–

No, wait.

Better yet, why was Lance acting like this? Why was he being so weird just because Keith talked about Matt? He was being ridiculous. He was a paladin of Voltron, for God’s sake. He was supposed to be working to save the galaxy, not falling to pieces just because Keith apparently had a type and Matt was apparently it and–

He forced his eyes over to Kolivan, telling himself to please focus.

Lotor was off making plans that didn’t make sense, the new strain of quintessence the Blade had gotten a hold of was stronger than anything they’d ever faced before, the Voltron coalition had to get bigger, and all that had to be more important than anyone Keith might be talking about while he was away.

Of course, that only led to Lance not being able to sleep later that night since night was the only time he could be petty and immature with what he thought – couldn’t stop his dumb, childish brain from jumping all over the place like Keith owed him something when he was this tired with nothing else to think about.

It was late when he wandered onto the observation deck, eyes blurry and distressed at being so tired yet unable to stay fucking closed, so when he looked to his left and saw Keith on the screen, taking up an entire glass panel, obviously, he tried to rub whatever the fuck kind of space dust that had gotten into his eyes out.

But Keith was still there when he took his hands away.

“Lance!” Keith exclaimed, expression surprised.

And Keith was talking to him. And when he pinched himself, he knew he was awake, so something must have happened. “Keith,” Lance fretted, rushing closer to the screen, “What’s wrong? Did something happen? Do you need me to go get Shiro?”

“No,” Keith answered quickly, “actually, I was looking for you.”

Keith was… “You were looking for me?”

“Well. Yeah,” Keith nodded, hand cupping the back of his neck as he looked off to the side. “I’ve been pinging in for the past hour,” he admitted. It went unsaid that he was obviously, very intentionally using the covert transmission line that Pidge had hooked up weeks ago for Matt, so he wouldn’t wake anyone up on the regular one used for emergencies – these days specifically for the Blade.  “I thought you hung out here all night?”

“Well, I was tired tonight,” Lance huffed, feeling defensive all over again for no fucking reason.

“So, what happened?” Keith asked, confused.

“Nothing,” Lance snapped, entirely unintentional. He sighed. “Sorry.”

Keith paused, eyeing him a long moment as his eyes turned concerned. “What’s with you?” He asked finally. “You’re being weird.” His eyes narrowed in his confusion, brows pensive over them and his bangs were too long, curling around the sides of his face down to his cheek bones, he could only imagine how long the back of it had gotten – if he ever took that goddamn hood off –

“Ugh, take your hood off,” Lance’s big mouth said, while the rest of him stood back in stunned shock. “It’s just us. You don’t have to be all dark and mysterious, I already know you’re Keith.”

And Keith gave two quick blinks that should have meant the end of this transmission, but instead he laughed – a choked up chuckle, the helpless kind that made shoulders bounce. “Well, you’re making fun of me again,” he said, reluctantly tugging his hood down like a reward for the laughter to reveal a slightly shaggier mullet. “I guess that’s not so weird. Comparatively. To how weird you’ve been lately.”

And then Lance said, “How come you were talking about Matt with the Blade?” like he was trying to prove a goddamn point.

“What?” Keith said, taken aback, then he processed what Lance said and sighed. “Oh, I thought I should let them know that Voltron had another ally, so that way if Kolivan ever pinged in to you guys and there was someone else there, he would know he could trust Matt.”

“Oh,” Lance said dumbly. “That makes sense.” You goddamn idiot, he thought to himself. “It’s just… you never told us you knew Pidge’s brother. You never really told us anything about yourself. How come the Blade gets to know?”

“Why does that matter?” Keith puzzled.

“It doesn’t,” Lance lied. Badly. Keith knew it, and he knew Keith knew it. “It’s just I was kind of under the impression that we were definitely better friends to you than the Blade is. If anyone gets to unlock ‘Keith’s Tragic Backstory,’ it should be us, is all I’m saying,” he huffed.

Keith laughed again, more of a huff this time as he regarded Lance like he couldn’t be serious. Then he decided he was. “Shiro showed me around the Garrison my first day and I met Matt because he was Shiro’s best friend and he had lunch with us.”

“Oh. That’s anticlimactic.”

“He’s the biggest nerd I’ve ever met,” Keith continued, looking down as he reminisced, a small amused grin taking up residence on his face. “Like, textbook. The type of guy I would have probably kicked the shit out of to prove myself or some shit if I weren’t at a military school. I honestly… didn’t know how to be friends with him – with somebody like that, who was just nice, didn’t do anything to anybody, always had these dumb jokes, talked about his sister every single damn day,” he chuckled lightly. “So, I really tried not to be. I thought I’d just wind up being mean to him on accident, so I tried to stay away from him. But he was always, always with Shiro. So, he was always around me. We were friends before I realized we were. That’s what he said.”

“That’s,” Lance paused. He should hate this, wanted to hate that he’d had to hear all of that, should have hated that it had been years ago, but Keith was smiling about it, still looked so fond of it, had probably been thinking about it since Lance told him they found the guy two weeks ago. Lance sighed, willing all the evil and maliciousness to go out with it because Keith was his friend. He wanted his friends happy. “That’s nice, Keith. I’m glad you… had someone you cared about like that. I’m glad he’s okay.”

And the absent smile snapped right off Keith’s face as soon as the words were out of Lance’s mouth. “That’s…. See this is what I’m talking about, weird. You’re being so fucking weird, what’s wrong with you?”

“What the hell, Keith, being nice to you is weird?!”

“Well, you’re hounding me about my past out of nowhere, which is something you’ve never cared about before, much less, expressed a genuine interest in like this,” Keith challenged, brow quirked as he waited. “For some reason, you’re literally stuck on Matt, and suddenly now you’re up all hours of the night because you can’t sleep, which never used to be a problem and on top of all that, you’re genuinely trying to be pleasant to me, which to me constitutes as weird.”

And what the fuck, since when was Keith Kogane this observant about abnormalities in behavior? “Well – why have you been pinging twenty transmissions here all hours of the day, huh? You said you were waiting for an hour, hoping I would just show up? How about you answer that?” Lance crossed his arms, smug and cocky, and bluffing – though he had a point, holy shit, was he bluffing.

“Well,” Keith started, heated like he was going to keep arguing, but, “I was,” he tried again, more softly. “Look, I was just trying to apologize. For the other day. When Kolivan hung up on you like that. I was trying to say that last time, but you brought up Matt.”

“Oh,” Lance uttered, caught a little off-guard that that was all he’d wanted – something so… so wholesome. “It’s fine,” Lance assured him, waving him off, trying not to look like it mattered at all, trying to put on a good face. “It makes sense, I was being stupid. And kind of irresponsible.”

“Well, Kolivan isn’t the boss of me all the time,” Keith said suddenly, mouth quirking up at the side in a mischievous, impish smirk which shocked the fuck out of Lance because what? Keith Kogane? Disobey orders and not even to throw himself into the line of fire? Talk about abnormalities in behavior. “He says I’m not allowed to talk to you guys outside of intel transmissions, but if it’s you calling to talk to me, it’s gotta be important, right?”

“Um….”

“I can… check in with you guys. Around this time every few days. Kolivan won’t find out.”

“But, what if he does?” Lance asked, because what the fuck else was he supposed to say to that? No?

“He won’t.” And Keith sent him this determined look that made puzzle pieces start moving in order and slotting together until he had the full picture and it was that, his age-old tactic of “it’s not there if you don’t look at it;” his tried and true strategy of endless denial, at least as far as Keith was concerned, wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

*

One thing none of them could deny, on the other hand, was that Coran was becoming concerning. He was twitchy, almost seeming paranoid, and he didn't even sound the same. Recruiting was quickly just becoming the act of entertaining – taking a turn for damn-near morally reprehensible.

The most personally offensive of it happened when he cast Allura as Keith as if he was just a warm body to fill a spot. It was a burn that just kept stinging, every time Lance had to address “Keith” like it was supposed to be the same; every single time Lance was forced to accept that Allura was wonderful and beautiful, and perfect, but she wasn’t Keith.

Then the shows got more and more grandiose. It… wasn’t fun anymore.

Hunk hated them, but not nearly as much as Shiro, and despite the act he put on, no one hated them as much as Lance did. He was starting to understand why Keith left. It felt like they were wasting time.

The coalition was growing, sure, and Lance had had his fun in the spotlight, but it was only growing because they were treating this more like a sports event than an upscale war.

Keith was out there making real headway, putting his life in real danger every day, and Voltron was here headlining pep rallies, and Coran only wanted more and more and more and–

Keith had told him last week that he was going on a secret mission. That was all he could tell him, not where, not for how long, not why, just that he was going. That way Lance would know he wasn't ignoring him when he didn't ping in for a while.

That was what Keith was doing while Lance was memorizing lines and what the fuck did that make him?

Pidge felt the same. They all did, but especially Pidge, who had a rebel brother out there being just as useful as Keith was able to be. Fuck, maybe they really did belong together.

They could be heroes together while Voltron steadily became a mascot.

It was shortly after that realization that Lance stopped counting the number of performances they’d put on, the number of allies they'd gained….

The number of quintents since he'd last talked to Keith, most specifically. The further Keith was from this and what a mess they all were, the better.

Of course, that didn’t stop Keith from somehow still knowing about it.

He pinged in two weeks later, and the first thing he mentioned was the shift of focus going from Voltron to them, with something an awful lot like disapproval in his voice, and Lance just – God, even though they were stars and stars apart, the universe was still giving Keith sound reason to continue looking down on him despite the fact that they’d been steadily on their way to becoming equals.

“You have quite the stage presence,” Keith said on the screen, big as the wall. It looked like it was snowing behind him and Lance wondered where he was. He regarded Lance with a carefully blank expression, everything flat, but his eyes were judgmental. Reprimanding.

“Thank you for noticing,” Lance said back, because that was what he did – went along with flash, but nothing underneath. Not when it hurt, not when it mattered to him, not when he could be vulnerable.

Not in front of Keith.

“So, that’s all that’s been happening the entire time I’ve been gone? The shows got more ridiculous?” Keith demanded.

“Is that why you called after two weeks of nothing?” Lance demanded back before he could consider the words. “To bitch me out when you’re not even here?”

“I said I’d check in,” Keith reminded him, arms crossing as he shut his eyes, like Lance was just so much to handle, “when I had time. Between missions. Actual missions that accomplish something.” His eyes opened, and he was glaring, like he’d never been more disappointed, never been more let down and Lance felt two feet tall. “And what are you guys doing? Putting on kid’s shows? I’m out here – all alone on some fucking blizzard planet on a mission that – that everyone else was too high-up to take so it fell to me! And you guys are taking Voltron around the galaxy on a party tour wasting time while innocent people die and get captured and Lotor–”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Lance snapped, voice rougher than he meant it, but he  couldn’t care under the weight of everything he had been holding in. “Don’t you think I want to feel like I’m doing something useful, too? Because I do! But unlike you, I don’t get to just leave and go somewhere else, because I know what a team is, and the team all decided that forming this stupid coalition is what’s most important right now, so it doesn’t really matter how I feel!”

Keith was quiet, starting to look guilty and that should have been enough for Lance, but his voice wouldn’t stop going, brain wouldn’t stop rushing and coming up with thoughts and feelings he couldn’t organize before he said them and–

“Coran’s going fucking crazy, something is weird with Shiro, Pidge can only focus on these dumb shows every few minutes she’s not worrying herself sick about losing Matt again and I have to keep this all in all the time, but I can’t and now you–! You’re not even here – what would you know, you don’t even have anything to fight for, I’m the one with a family that probably thinks I’m dead back on Earth and you–!”

Right that moment, his brain and his mouth caught up with each other, were on the same wavelength, finally in the same time zone where he was floundering like a fish. Where Keith was biting at his lip, looking right at Lance like he was something that was broken.

“Um. Yikes,” Lance uttered. “I’m–”

“I’m sorry,” Keith interrupted quickly. He winced the longer he looked at Lance, hand tugging his hood a little further up as he visibly shivered. “I just thought you were – I’m sorry. I underestimated you. I thought you were goofing off again.”

“It’s f–”

“Lance,” Keith interrupted again, with authority. Voice hard and commanding and he stared Lance down, wanted to make sure he had his attention. “You’re always acting. You’re so good at pretending, that I forget there’s more to you.”

And Lance. Didn’t know what to do with that, with the tone of Keith’s voice through their shaky transmission feed, with the weight of his eyes boring through him, right through his skin and bones and soul like he knew everything Lance was hiding. He didn’t know what to do with… being turned inside out by someone who wasn’t even here.

“I’m sorry,” Keith said again.

“Shut up,” Lance ordered. “You always do this. I go on a screaming tirade at you and you still manage to be more dramatic than me somehow, what kind of bullshit is that? Can’t let me have this one thing – always gotta one-up me.”

Keith chuckled at that, and it undid everything tangled in Lance’s chest. “Look at you, though. Still better at pretending.”

Lance sighed, exhausted and annoyed at Keith for being the one person who couldn’t just let him get away with this. “Fine, no more pretending, then. Fine.” He looked up at Keith, told himself that Keith already knew he was a liar and a coward so what was confronting it going to hurt? “I know I’ve been weird lately. I know I’m a mess and I’m kind of all over the place, because I don’t know how not to be okay.”

He paused, let it sit a moment, tried to see how it felt to say that much. He didn’t feel anything. Keith wasn’t saying anything. He hated awkward silence.

“And I know that it really started when you – when you left,” pushed up and out of his throat like he was throwing it up and he knew there was no stopping it now. “And I know you’re just trying to do what you think is right. I know you didn’t leave because you don’t care about us – I know you didn’t just… run away. I-I get that you just have to be where the action is. I know you left for a good reason but… the bottom line is that you left and we’re. Not okay.” I’m not okay.

Keith froze, like the last thing he had been expecting to hear was that, but he’d have to take a backseat to Lance who had never even expected to say it. Keith looked down, away. Because Keith didn’t pretend, he hid. “I didn’t fit there anymore, Lance. Shiro is where he belongs again. Shiro is who you all need. He’s a better leader than I could ever be. He knew how to put all of you first. All I know how to do is run headfirst into danger. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m putting myself where I’m useful.”

“You were plenty useful here,” Lance told him, still under the harmful influence of not pretending.

Keith quirked a confused brow. “You’re being weird again.”

Lance shrugged, perfectly aware of that fact, but less and less bothered by it the more it happened. “I guess I’m kind of over that thing we do where we’re mean to each other all the time. Especially after you called me out, I don’t know how to go back to casually bullying you.”

“Of course, that’s what it was,” Keith chuckled lightly, eyes rolling as something in his head very visibly clicked. “More pretending.”

“So,” Lance started instead of responding to that comment, “Are you…safe out there, at least?”

“What?”

“Are you safe?” Lance stressed, impatient and tired of feeling so open. “You said you’re alone and freezing in the middle of nowhere. Are you safe?”

Keith paused, regarded Lance with the very same concern Lance was showing Keith. “Last I checked,” he answered finally.

“You don’t sound so sure,” Lance smirked, to cover the worry. “Check again?”

“I’m safe. Don’t worry about me.”

“Crazy talk,” Lance blurted.

Keith smiled, soft. Lance probably would have missed it if his eyes hadn’t been trained on Keith’s face for the past half hour. “Should have told you to stop pretending months ago.”

I should have told you to stay.

Lance bit down on his own tongue.

*

Then Coran actually started making them have rehearsals. Lance was going to lose it. Keith had told him a couple times now not to worry so much about what the Blades were doing – that the more shows they got through, the bigger the coalition grew, the sooner they could stop. Which was not at all what Keith would have done (it in fact wasn’t what Keith had done), but it was Lance-tailored advice that actually made sense and that was meaningful enough. But.

But instead, what Lance tended to remember was the determined look on Keith’s face when he’d said it. Lance tended to remember the sincere way Keith had advised him – like they had always talked to each other like this, like they did that all the time – rather than the actual advice, itself.

Either way it worked – got Lance enough out of his funk to keep up the act, because in a way, it really wasn’t so bad, at least not this arena. The Bih Bos were great, especially Bih Bo Bi, even if Coran had a bit of a weird tension going on with him.

They were going to be planet side here for almost two weeks, according to Coran’s schedule, which meant they were swarmed with people and faces twenty-four-seven, and all Lance could focus on was the fact that the coalition was pretty much as big as it could get this side of the galaxy, and Keith telling him not to worry so much.

That night, back on the castleship, Lance walked onto the control deck, where he’d taken to relaxing, waiting in case Keith pinged in, but was surprised to find Pidge and Hunk there. They were bent over her battle seat, staring at her screen in hard determination, and they spoke in hushed whispers, didn’t even notice Lance had walked into the room.

“Hey,” Lance said, sudden and intentionally loud, smiling when they both jumped at the sound of his voice. “What’s, uh. What’s going on here?”

“Shut up!” Pidge hissed, but she waved a hand rapidly in his direction, gesturing him over. “Shut up, we’re doing research. We don’t know what the fuck got into Coran, but something did, and we’re trying to find out what.”

“Oh,” Lance breathed. “Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“Matt sent me this list of substances he’s run into around the galaxy that might make someone act like this,” Pidge continued.

“We’re going to see if we’ve come across any of them since we started forming this coalition,” Hunk finished.

“Anything adding up?” Lance asked, trying to lean over Pidge’s shoulder to see her screen.

“No, not yet,” Pidge sighed. “This is so frustrating. All of it. The stupid shows, Matt being gone, Coran going crazy, Keith being gone…. When was the last time we even heard from Keith?”

“Hey, maybe we can ask the Blade if they know what’s making Coran so crazy,” Hunk offered.

Fuck. Well, it could be considered a problem that it was only now Lance even really registered Keith saying over a month ago that he could check in with them and Lance responding by just… never telling anyone else.

“Maybe Kolivan will have intel soon,” Lance chimed in, feeling guilty. “It’s been a bit since his last transmission.” And he didn’t know what the fuck about that sentence was suspicious enough for Pidge to be looking at him the way she was – like she knew he was hiding something when that was impossible.

“Do you think something happened?” Pidge mused, looking concerned.

Oh, or maybe Lance was just guilty and projecting. Maybe Lance needed to tell Keith they had to find a way for him to ping them when everyone was awake without getting caught by Kolivan, because he was selfish and wanted to keep his time at night with Keith, well, to himself.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Lance said a little dishonestly, because at least as of two weeks ago, Keith was on another mission he couldn’t talk to Lance about. Also, because Pidge was quicker to worry than to breathe these days. “Worrying about Matt twenty-four-seven is enough, don’t you think?” Lance asked softly, lying a hand softly over her shoulder. “Worrying about Keith, too, is going to kill you,” Lance said with experience because, yeah, it was already killing him. “Those two? Matt and Keith? No one in the galaxy needs to worry about them, they can definitely take care of themselves. Kolivan will ping us in a few days – probably tomorrow – and Keith will be right there with him, perfectly fine and in one piece.”

Pidge huffed, the air leaving her lungs in one long, extremely loud sigh as she looked over her shoulder to shoot Lance a small, thankful smile. “Thanks, Lance. You’re… probably right. That makes me feel better. At least for the next couple hours until I go back to having nonstop panic attacks, I can just worry about Coran. God, it would be so much easier for me if my brother and Keith were dating,” she sighed out an airy amused laugh as she turned back to her screen. “Then they could just take care of each other.”

Then Hunk let out a soft chuckle in agreement that made Lance want to kick something so he wrung his hands together behind his back and kept his damn mouth shut. And while he was controlling himself and muzzling himself, Hunk looked over his shoulder and looked Lance right in the face and –

His eyes went wide, and his jaw dropped as a look like understanding crossed his face and made Lance wonder what the hell his own face must have looked like for Hunk to figure it out that fast and –

Wait, shit, had Hunk figured it out? “What?” Lance asked, a little defensive as his tongue unlocked.

“Oh, my God, Lance,” Hunk marveled, expression becoming more and more certain the more nervous Lance got. “Do you–?”

“No,” Lance blurted, before he could think about how that sounded – denial before the damn question was even out, Jesus Christ. “Anyway, it’s late, you guys should go to bed soon,” he said quickly. “We have a show bright and early, and drugged or not, Coran will kill us if we’re not at one-hundred percent in the morning.” And he scurried out of the room with his tail between his legs because, God, all he had was pretending, and acting, but when it fucking mattered he wasn’t even good at that.

*

He could pretend, if he weren’t getting so goddamn sick of it, that he wound up in Keith’s room by accident. He could pretend that he was tired and just pushed into the wrong door – Keith’s room was right next to his own, it was viable. Perfectly believable if he really pushed it. He could pretend that this happened entirely because it was the one place he knew Hunk wouldn’t look for him, wouldn’t try to corner him and talk to him about that night like he’d been trying to do for the past few days. But that would only be a half-truth.

The whole truth was that hiding from Hunk was the excuse of a lifetime. Hiding from Hunk meant he’d have to think of places to go where Hunk would never think to look. Hiding from Hunk meant he’d jumped at the opportunity to use Keith’s room as soon as he’d thought of it.

He felt like he couldn’t pretend in here. Not when it was the one thing Keith had asked him not to do since he’d left. Not when… Keith’s room was kind of… closed away and sectioned off almost. Almost like a memorial, waiting and gathering dust until he came back.

The last time he’d been here was almost six months ago, now. When he had tried to talk to Keith about his concerns about the team dynamic. When Keith had told him then, just like he did now, not to worry so much. And Lance didn’t know how to do that, didn’t know how to stop worrying, so he’d gone right back to pretending – to making Keith think that was all he’d needed.

Keith’s jacket was still here, hanging on the wall beside the door. Lance reached for it before he could consider it, brought it down into his hands, ran his fingers over the leather – cold to the touch after months and months. Holding it out in front of himself, he realized how small it was. How small Keith had really been.

He’d carried himself so tall, was so demanding and intimidating, put so much distance between himself and everyone else around him, built up so much pressure on his own shoulders, that you didn’t even notice you could have wrapped him up twice in your own arms.

He moved to sit on the bed, meticulously made, like Keith had never even slept there. Like he’d done all he could to erase himself – his jacket all that was left, a piece of himself that he’d shed, left behind to crack and gather dust.

From what he remembered, this room had hardly looked lived-in even when it was.

Keith had never kept anything personal here, had never tried to make himself at home here. He’d never bought anything for fun at the space mall, or tried to decorate. All he had was his knife – the thing that led him away.

There were still a few of his shirts in his closet. There was the Red Paladin robe, hanging untouched, just like Shiro’s and Pidges. And there at the bottom of the closet were the red slippers.

That Keith had also never worn.

That… weren’t Keith’s color anymore.

That were technically Lance’s color now.

When he took them, he pretended that was the only reason.

*

“Lance!” Keith exclaimed, snapping Lance awake. He looked over to the screen and there Keith was, looking smug and a little excited. Lance felt himself smiling back, stretched his arms above his head and made a show of sauntering across the room so he wouldn’t run the distance and show how desperate he was.

“How was your mission?” Lance asked, conversationally. Cool and nonchalant people did that – asked casual questions instead of falling to pieces at finally seeing their former teammate after three weeks of silent worrying. He took a seat on Allura’s platform, the picture of cool.

“I can’t talk about specifics here, but it went well. We found out what we needed to know and Kolivan says we’re going to arrange a meeting there, on the castleship, so we don’t have to discuss it over transmission,” Keith explained, grinning like he’d won the lottery.

And so was Lance, but he had the nervous inkling that it wasn’t for the same reason. “That’s great, Mullet,” Lance chimed in, trying to appear normal, because he most definitely wasn’t. “You’re really excited about this, huh?” Lance edged.

“Well, yeah, all these missions are finally coming together and we’re finally getting somewhere,” Keith explained, eyes alight in his excitement and if that wasn’t the goddamn cutest thing Lance had ever seen–

“That’s all?” Lance blurted.

“What else is there?” Keith puzzled.

“I mean,” Lance cleared his throat. “You’ll be here. In the same room with us. It’s been four months, you know, and – Pidge really misses you. Well I mean, they all do – we all do. But especially Pidge. Yeah.”

“You–” Keith started, then he stopped. His excitement dwindled down into something calm and collected. Something questioning. “Yeah. Pidge. Well, the thought had crossed my mind that I’d be there with you guys again. Wait, will Matt be there?” He asked almost distractedly, like he hadn’t previously considered that possibility.

“Uh, well he kind of comes and goes,” Lance said honestly.

“Oh.”

“But, uh, maybe when you get here, you can work something out with Pidge,” Lance offered, hopefully. “She was really missing you the other day, so maybe she’d figure up something so you can talk to her. And talk to Matt, if you want,” he tacked on, eyes falling to the floor, hoping he wasn’t making whatever face it was that got him found out by Hunk.

“If she misses me so much, why doesn’t she just talk to me when you do?” Keith asked innocently – just oh so innocently – eyebrows furrowing down above his wide endless eyes.

Lance knew that he should have felt mortified then, that Keith had asked that, that he had caught him. But instead he was… a little bitter. Bitter that the last shred he’d had of thinking Keith might have known about their secret hour, held it just as personal to himself as Lance did, had just been dashed.

“Lance, you didn’t tell her,” Keith realized, face becoming scandalized as he thought on it further. Lance was fucked, he was fucked, so fucked, he was fucked, fucked, fucked– “You didn’t tell anyone.”

And Lance was kind of, well, mute currently, because yeah, again, he was so fucked, but goddamn did Keith look cute when he thought he knew everything–

“Why wouldn’t you tell anyone else? You tell everyone anything you ever do,” Keith accused, then he paused, looked at Lance like he was about to say something outrageous. “Is…. Is this 'being nice to me’ thing embarrassing for you?”

Which… well, now that he was considering it from Keith's point of view, it didn't seem that outrageous at all, unfortunately. But Lance could certainly be convincing at acting like it was. “No way, Mullet, it’s just that everyone’s always asleep. That’s all,” he bluffed. “You remember the first time you pinged in this late and I was with Hunk and he was asleep on the couch over there,” Lance continued, throwing an arm out behind him as a gesture causing Keith’s eyes to jump with it, then he froze.

Confused, Lance glanced back over his shoulder to see what Keith was looking at – fuck. Well, at least he got to ask Keith's permission now.

“Hey, are those my lion slippers?” Keith asked.

“Yeah,” Lance admitted sheepishly. “I found them.”

“You found them,” Keith deadpanned. “They were in my room.”

“Yeah, well I needed something in there!” Keith didn’t respond, but definitely not because Lance had managed to convince him. Probably more like it was literally useless to press him on a lie that obvious. “And I saw them, and I remember you never really wore them, so I was wondering if I could have them.”

Keith’s expression went from heavily unimpressed to reluctant. His big, dark eyes darted from Lance to the slippers and back, bottom lip dragged between white teeth and Lance tracked the motion. “You want those? But those are – I mean, you already have the blue ones.”

“Yeah,” Lance started, beginning to feel like he’d just stepped into something, but his mouth had a mind of its own. “Yeah, but now I’m the red paladin, I have to match,” he joked lamely.

“Right. Yeah.” Keith said, eyes down, hair hanging over them “I… I mean, I guess so. Yeah, you can have them. I wasn’t using them anyway. Even when I was there.”

“Fuck, Keith, I’m not gonna take them, if it’s making you look like that,” Lance decided, meant to be reassuring, but–

“It’s fine,” Keith insisted quickly, like Lance couldn’t see that he was clearly at least a little torn up about it. Lance regarded him with his own, unimpressed, knowing look until he cracked. “It’s just,” he huffed. “I really miss Red. I kept those in my room because they meant her. Even when I was the Black Paladin, I missed her, so I wanted something to remind me that I was hers once,” he admitted, eyes to the side, like he was lost in his thoughts. “I especially miss her now. She was the closest thing to me. I don’t worry about her, though. You’re taking care of her, so. I’m happy.” He looked up right into Lance’s eyes, voice calm and sure like it was something he’d had to come to peace with long ago.

And Lance knew the feeling. He missed Blue like he missed his own family. And he might not know about Blue, but he knew for a fact how Red felt. “Keith,” Lance said, waiting for him to look up. “She misses you, too, I can feel it. Every time I fly her.” Although it was a little difficult to differentiate most days over how much he, himself, missed Keith.

Keith blinked. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lance said, holding his gaze. “All the time.”

“We’re both pathetic,” Keith said after a moment, in this way that made Lance think they were talking about two things at once.

“You’re the one that’s better off, I promise,” Lance said, just in case they were.

*

It hit him that night, as he tried to sleep and remembered Keith calling him out for not telling anyone else about their transmissions, that Keith had never once asked where anyone else was since they’d started.

*

Lance was sure to act surprised when Kolivan pinged them in the morning, requesting a meeting aboard the castleship in just a few quintents. Keith stood beside Kolivan in the feed as always, hood drawn, bangs long, but eyes jumping back to Lance again and again and Lance bit down his grin – had to do so long after their transmission feed ended.

The following days should have dragged on, but they didn’t.

The rehearsals and the arenas and the screaming kids were nothing. How could they be when Lance was so way up high in the clouds? And nothing could bring him back down, not even Coran’s scripts, not even Hunk’s knowing looks.

And when the day had almost arrived, Lance had trouble sleeping, stayed out on the training deck just in case and wound up falling asleep there, was loudly smacked awake by Pidge’s flailing arms vargas later.

“Get up! What are you doing?! Keith is going to be here, get dressed!”

He could only hope, as he scurried back to his room, that Keith hadn’t tried to talk to him last night. But the best part was, it didn’t matter. He’d see him before the day was out. In person.

Fuck, his skin looked like shit, and his hair was barely cutting it, but at least he smelled good. That could affect everyone. He washed and moisturized his face as quickly as he could with the amount of time he had, threw on his clothes, shrugged his jacket on all the way back down the hall into the observatory deck where he –

Waited.

And waited. And waited.

Why the hell did Pidge wake him up like that?! Pidge looked over from her side of the couch like she could feel his eyes, like she could hear his thoughts. “This is too easy. You’re so fucking obvious,” she said by way of shitty explanation and that wasn’t ominous at all.

Hunk snickering along was what made him sure he was securely caught, but he wasn’t talking about it with them.

When the Blade of Marmora came onto the castleship, there were only six of them, and Keith standing just about half their height. And against the entire movie reel his brain had been playing for hours inside his head of him calmly walking up to Keith and actually knowing what the fuck he was doing, that was all blown out the window when Pidge ran across the room and literally jumped into his arms so forcefully that Keith fell over with the weight of her.

Lance heard Keith laughing before he could wonder if he was okay, and then Lance had to wonder if he was okay because Keith sat up, grinning at Pidge in a heap on the floor next to him like he couldn’t be happier.

“We missed you,” Pidge said.

And Keith already looked so happy to hear that – then, by the time Lance realized his feet were rooted to the floor, Hunk was barreling over, wrenching Pidge and Keith up and into one of the good bear hugs, Lance could tell from his time-out corner across the room, and–

“Hey,” Shiro cleared his throat, sharp, but reluctant, like he didn’t want to ruin this moment, but knew he had to. “Important meeting, remember?”

And Hunk and Pidge groaned in response, but reluctantly unwound their arms from Keith’s person, slowly stepped closer to Shiro while the Blade looked uncomfortably out of place but did the same, and then –

Then Keith’s eyes were on him. He looked calm while Lance felt like he was falling to pieces, crumbling like a statue. And he sent Lance a small smile, a greeting nod, and Lance’s knees unlocked.

Slowly, so as not to disturb the others, who were actually paying attention to how to save the galaxy, he made his way across the room, stopping right beside him. Keith was right beside him. Looking at him, up at him. Lance had gotten even taller since they were last in the same room together.

And Keith was just as gorgeous as always. Even with his hair in his eyes and his stupid hood –

Lance rolled his eyes, reaching up to tug at said offending garment. “Hood off on this holiest of grounds. You’re Keith here.” He admonished, playfully, feeling it come back – his goddamn brain – as he remembered in an instant how to interact with Keith.

And Keith, unlike anything he would have done five months ago, huffed out a breathy laugh and tugged it back, let it fall off, like it was something they had already agreed on. “Happy?”

And there was Keith. All of him. Big, dark eyes that no screen in the world could do justice, bangs grown way too long, hanging into his face, making Lance want to brush them back, and that suit, fuck – he’d get to it.

Keith wanted to know if he was happy?

“You need a haircut,” Lance said instead of going anywhere near answering. He lifted a hand to flick at dark locks – fuck, soft, no. “What’s the plan here?” he continued, voice teasing, and lilting and nothing was off at all. “Mullet upgrade to hair-band style mullet? Because there’s a reason that died out.”

“Shut up,” Keith snickered.

“You could French braid this,” Lance pressed on. “Oh, is that what this is? I guess even you’d want to fit in sometime,” he sighed, laying it on thick, “and the Braid of Marmora does seem exclusive….”

“What the fuck,” Keith laughed out, a bit too loud. He slapped a hand up over his mouth, eyes wide in embarrassment, but he kept laughing, breathy and uncontrollable, just between the two of them.

“Paying attention, Lance?” Shiro demanded suddenly. Lance snapped his attention over to see a very impatient Shiro flanked by one absolutely impish-looking Pidge and a cooing Hunk.

“Yes, sir!” Lance bluffed, straightening his posture as Keith laughed silently beside him. “Absolutely paying attention.”

Shiro sighed. “I’m not even going to ask you to repeat what I just said.” Resigned, he turned back to Kolivan.

“Back on the ship two minutes and already causing trouble,” Lance hissed, bumping Keith’s shoulder with his own.

“You’re the one that won’t stop talking,” Keith protested, bumping back.

Silently, grinning to himself, Lance bumped Keith again, and when Keith bumped back, he didn’t move away.

The meeting went on, somehow both much longer than Lance had expected, and at the same time, exactly as he’d expected. It quickly became only Shiro, Coran, and Kolivan talking after a while, even with Coran only pitching useless ideas for even better shows, the other Blades seemed to have zoned out.

The remaining paladins had slowly inched their way toward Keith without Shiro’s notice. Or maybe he did notice and knew it was pointless to try to stop them. Allura took one good look at Keith and sighed, fondly rolled her eyes.

“Follow me,” she directed gently. “You look like a Nasegojasean crobut.” With that, she led Keith out of the room, leaving Lance alone with Hunk and Pidge who didn’t take more than a second to pounce.

“I mean,” Hunk said to start, “wow.”

“That was disgusting,” Pidge grinned, like she couldn’t be happier, like it was a complement. To her, it probably was. “When were you going to tell us–?”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Lance interrupted, high-tailing it out of the room before they could ask him anything else. He was surprised when they didn’t follow him. And why was Pidge acting happy? Wasn’t she supposed to be rooting for Matt, anyway?

He had a good idea where Allura would have taken Keith. He would wait until they were done, giving him plenty of time to get himself together before he showed Keith the surprise he’d planned before Keith would have to leave. He probably had even more time than that the way Kolivan, Coran, and Shiro were talking.

He lowered himself onto the floor against the wall outside Allura’s bedroom door, took a well-needed break from all the panicking and squeezing his heart did every time he looked at Keith.

He tried to think of Allura accidentally fucking up Keith’s hair, even though he knew that wouldn’t happen. She had gotten used to doing Pidge’s and Coran’s. Hunk usually did Lance’s these days, Shiro did his own, and everyone knew not to fuck with Keith’s. Until, apparently, today when he came onto their ship looking like a scruffy dog.

A puppy, more like.

And Lance’s heart was right back to squeezing.

It took about twenty more dobashes for Keith to emerge with Allura on his tail, and he was on his feet before they even had time to notice him. Keith jerked around at the movement, visibly relaxed to see that it was only Lance and that he wasn’t about to be attacked.

“Lance,” he said then, the tone so relieved that Lance knew he was going to have a hard time thinking of Keith saying his name any other way.

“Yeah, hey,” Lance said dumbly, because his heart was squeezing again and–

“So, how do you think I did?” Allura piped up, reaching a hand up into Keith’s dark hair. “He squawked like an infant the entire time, but it came out rather nice. It looks perfectly presentable,” she grinned, admiring her handiwork as Keith ducked his head down, expression turning sheepish with the weight of Allura’s and Lance’s eyes on him, and, boy, were Lance’s eyes on him because–

Because it did come out rather nice, Keith did look perfectly presentable, if he was going to sound professional about it, he – something about what Allura had done had his hair framing his face so nicely, and the back of it was just that much shorter than it’d been when he left, and in the front, it no longer completely concealed his eyes, barely giving Keith anywhere to hide when he got embarrassed like this, and–

“Come on,” Lance’s mouth said. He watched himself reach out and grab Keith’s hand, pull him quickly behind him down the hall as he started to run.

“What are we doing?” Keith called out.

“I have to show you something,” Lance answered back, pulling Keith behind him on a sharp left.

Lance was sure Keith knew where they were going when they got close enough, could feel the muscles in his hand clench when they ran into the hangar. “What are we doing in here?” Keith asked, eyes wide as he took in Red, and Lance was pretty sure Keith knew why they were here.

“I thought – you know, you said you missed her. I thought you could spend some time with her before you had to go.”

Keith whipped his attention to Lance for a second, hair hanging into his eyes instead of landing over them, but it was still enough to tempt Lance into swiping them aside. Keith would probably punch him, he told himself. Though that was getting harder to believe with the way Keith was looking at him.

“So,” Lance said, so he wouldn’t do something stupid like touch him, or – God, he had to get out of here. “Have fun.”

“Wait, what are you doing?” Keith stopped him, reaching out to grab Lance’s jacket by the sleeve. “You don’t have to go, I mean–” Lance turned over his shoulder to see Keith looking so determined, brows furrowed as he tried to be convincing. “You can stick around. If you want. She’s your lion, too.”

Keith had just said Red was their lion.

God, this wasn’t what Lance had intended to happen, but fuck, being bonded together by this lion sounded awfully intimate. “Okay,” Lance said, and left it at that because his heart was squeezing again and he’d do something dumb like talk about it.

Keith snatched his hands away, walked silently and quickly over to Red. Not knowing what else to do, Lance followed Keith across the hanger, to Red’s giant paw, up the ramp she extended from her mouth and into the cockpit, where he.

Stood behind Keith as he froze. As Red talked to him. Lance leaned forward, over Keith’s shoulder to see that his face was completely blank, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

Keith did that sometimes, when he was overwhelmed.

Gently, Lance dropped his hands onto Keith’s shoulders and pushed him forward. Keith looked back at him, but he didn’t look angry. Instead of speaking, he reluctantly sat in the flight seat.

Red was grumbling, low, but strong enough that Lance could feel it. He didn’t know what she was saying at the moment. He couldn’t understand her all the time, not like he could understand Blue, but he could feel how worked up Red was. Keith had shut his eyes, hands tight on the controls as Red got a little louder, the feelings from her starting to press harder on Lance, and he felt like he was intruding.

The moment he thought that, he started to hear Red a bit clearer. It was frantic and he still couldn’t catch what she was saying to Keith, but she was telling Lance thank you, thank you, thank you.

And Lance thought, no, as he watched Keith smile soft and wobbly-happy as he melted right into the seat. Lance leaned back against the wall, bent his head where it rounded into the ceiling and tried not to look at Keith. He failed. It was Red who deserved the thanks.

“It’s probably,” Keith spoke up after what Lance was realizing must have been a really long time. He stood up, hands resting awkwardly at his sides and in this lighting, he looked like something else. Like something out of a dark dream. The way his suit hugged every curve of his body, the way the red tones played with the pale of his skin, was mesmerizing. “I should get back to the control deck. Kolivan didn’t want to stay too long,” he explained, eyes darker than they should have been.

“It’s probably been way too long,” Lance admitted sheepishly, backing out of Red’s cockpit, out of the room where Keith looked like a deal he’d make with the devil any damn day. “If Kolivan’s mad, you can blame it on me,” he continued, back out in the safety of the hangar.

“If,” Keith scoffed. “He’s always mad.”

“Let me do the talking,” Lance offered, cocky as Keith followed him out of the hangar. “I’m great at dissolving hostile situations.”

“You really think he’s gonna be happy that I went missing with you?”

“Well, technically,” Lance protested, affronted, how dare Keith? “You went missing with Allura.”

“Lance,” Keith said, pulling Lance to a stop by his hood, voice serious, as it cut through the easy mood Lance had been trying to build up to. “Before you start making jokes and getting all obnoxious or whatever, thank you. For letting me see Red. I wouldn’t have thought to ask, I just got used to it.”

“You’re welcome,” Lance said back awkwardly. He turned to face him, all pretenses of control shattered at Keith’s insistence that they have a moment. “Like I said, she misses you, too. It only made sense.”

Keith nodded, face going a bit red out of nowhere and started back toward the control deck, Lance trailing behind, until they reached the doors, and Lance realized he didn’t want to let Keith go, yet.

“Listen,” he said suddenly, reaching for Keith’s shoulder to stop him entering the room. “Any – any time you wanna see her, you can,” he said uselessly, but it stopped time for just a few more ticks, kept Keith close to him just that much longer.

And Keith opened his mouth to respond, and Lance was hanging on, when the doors whooshed open and Pidge and Hunk rushed out, stumbling to a stop at the sight of them. Keith turned to face them, Lance groaning out loud behind him.

“There you are!” Pidge smirked, shooting a taunting look at Lance over Keith’s shoulder. “I wanted to find you before anyone in the Blade saw you,” she said a bit more quietly to Keith. “Look, I made this for you last week,” she pulled a small screen out from one of her pants pockets. “I figured you might get in trouble for having it, so I’m sneaking it on you. This way, you can talk to us more! And, you can call Matt from it, too!” She continued, voice unreadable. “I’m sure Lance told you Matt’s been asking about you.”

What did Pidge want? What did Lance have to do for her to get her to stop talking?! Hunk was having a field day, watching Lance like he was just so transparent and Lance wanted to die, but at least with all the time he’d gotten to spend with Keith, he could die happy.

“Thanks, Pidge,” Keith smiled down at her. He let her lead him onto the control deck and Lance slumped behind, trying to ignore Hunk not-quite-so-inconspicuously- bumping against his shoulder.

Then, as Kolivan said his collegiate goodbyes, Lance was back to having to watch Keith leave, back to having to watch him align himself with a team that wasn’t theirs as he stood beside Kolivan just three feet from him.

And he tried to look happy, because this wasn’t about him, this was about saving the galaxy, and he should be grateful that he got to see Keith at all, but–

“You can keep the slippers.”

Lance blinked to see Keith looking awkward, but determinedly down at the ground, bottom lip pulled between his teeth again. And he stood, stock-still, a little stunned, and a lot stupid as Keith turned tail to catch up with the Blade and didn’t look back.

*

Red always expressed a deep-rooted feeling of longing these days. It wasn’t hard to piece together why.

Lance just thought they were feeding off of each other, though Red was purely longing while Lance was feeling a mix of things concerning the former Red Paladin. He couldn't shake the worry that he'd gotten Keith in trouble by dragging him off like that.

He also couldn't shake the fear that there was a lot having to do with that that Keith wasn’t telling them.

*

After too many guilty stares at Keith’s red lion slippers in his room, he finally caved and put them back into Keith’s room. He hadn’t ever worn them. Not once before, and especially not after, Keith had expressed feeling weird about losing them. Lance had Red now, and Keith was right, that should be good enough.

Not as good as actually having Keith back, but. Well, it was like the next-best thing, and these days, Lance was kind of desperate. Keith had been back in their sphere for a small blip of time, and it had been great while it had lasted, but it had really hurt and stung afterwards.

The past few days had been filled with idiotic daydreams of the next time Keith might come back to the castleship, and if maybe that time, they could all convince him to come back. Maybe, he thought as he sat hopeful on the couch in the observatory deck, if he saw how much he really mattered to them, then –

The sound of a transmission pinging in broke his train of thought, and he felt himself smiling before he even looked up. Damn-near obsessively speak of the devil….

“Mullet,” Lance crowed, at a slightly fuzzy Keith. He moved from the couch to take a seat on Allura’s platform. “Long time, no see.”

“It’s been five days,” Keith deadpanned, but Lance was giddy enough that Keith had apparently been counting. “And I was there like an entire hour,” he continued.

“Yeah, but still.”

“Yeah, still,” Keith looked off to the side, but there was no mistaking the red dusting his cheeks.

“So,” Lance started, trying to sound noncommittal, like he hadn’t been worried about it the last week, “about that hour, was Kolivan mad?”

Keith looked up, brows furrowing as he very visibly tried to find the right words, which was telling enough in Lance’s opinion. “He was fine. I knew I wasn’t supposed to go off like that, but I did it anyway. I’m kind of always doing that. He’s running out of stuff to say about it.”

“Well, we always kind of liked that about you.”

“Well, it’s–” Keith started, too heated. He took a breath, looked down at the ground. “It’s different here. I have to get better at listening. And,” he groaned like he dreaded the thought, “following orders. You said I didn’t know what a team was in Voltron. I’m supposed to be one part of a giant body, now. Actually, I guess I still had to do that in Voltron,” he mused, “just, it was more literal with you guys.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have said that,” Lance told him, “I didn’t mean it anyway. I was just angry, but that’s no excuse.”

“It’s fine,” Keith shrugged. And now that his hair wasn’t hanging in his face, Lance could see the bags under his eyes again. “You were kind of right. I just get it in my head what I need to be doing and everything else fades away until I get where I need to be. Like tunnel vision, but I’m fucking everything up along the way.”

“You’re not fucking everything up!” Lance argued. “Just last week, you were all excited about all the new stuff you found out, remember?” Lance scoffed, looking back on every other time Keith was unsure about something and pulled a victory right out of thin air. “Actually, you’re always out here excelling at something impossible and you don’t even care – fucking pisses me off.”

Keith snickered, choked up and helpless like he hadn’t wanted to, but he couldn’t stop it. “You always say the wrong thing at the perfectly wrong time, Lance.” He said, tone strangely fond, like a compliment. “You know, people don’t really talk much out here. Nobody makes fun of my hair or anything. No one’s constantly complaining about me.”

And maybe Lance was reading too far into it, but he felt like that was meant to be more than just a dig at him. “Keith, it’s been five months. You haven’t made any friends?”

“What?” Keith puzzled, caught off-guard a second, before he sighed. “That’s not really important. I can make friends when we win the war.”

“’I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to win.’”

“Lance,” Keith groaned out, laughing silently. “Speaking of television personas – that’s actually the reason I called – Loverboy Lance?” he cackled.

“Don’t think you’ve distracted me from the ‘friends’ topic,” Lance droned, “but you can laugh all you want, I won’t be embarrassed. Wait – how do you even know about that?”

“Pidge sent me a video,” Keith answered, smugly. What the fuck was that little gremlin playing at?! “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“You’re not the only one who’s flexible,” Lance told him.

“What are you talking about now?” Keith demanded, amused.

Lance rolled his eyes. “Please,” he drawled out. “Jumps into the air and kicks the same guy twice in the neck? Does a backflip from out of nowhere with no hands and a spin kick with literally no momentum? Moves arms in an entire three-sixty circle to throw his goddamn knife and do, yet another flip into the air, Keith?! I’m not flexible, he says. What are you talking about, he says.”

“I worked hard to get here,” Keith smirked. “Without pole dancing.”

Lance chuckled. “Only people who wish they could pole dance throw shade at people who can,” he retorted, grinning when Keith laughed. He forwent the flirtatious remark bouncing around his head about maybe teaching him someday, in favor of not making Keith cringe. “So, you’ve been talking to Pidge?” he asked, voice deceivingly calm as he checked the doorway to the control deck to make sure she wasn’t here somehow.

“Yeah,” Keith said with a fond smile, for some reason taking mercy on him and allowing the abrupt subject change.

“Talk to Matt yet?” Lance said in this voice that couldn’t be his own, was far too layered and heavy with every jealous thought he’d managed to keep at bay the last week.

“Oh, yeah,” Keith said, face lighting up a bit and Lance hated it and loved it at the same time. “He’s kind of in the same situation as me. Can’t tell me where he is, or what he’s doing. He’s still the same somehow. It’s refreshing.”

Lance hummed, because it was safe.

“So,” Keith started suddenly. Lance looked up to see that Keith had turned hesitant, like he was about to say something risky. And since when did Keith stop to consider things like that? “Did he do something to you?”

“What?” Lance squeaked, eyes darting back and forth between the floor and the screen where Keith was scrutinizing him with his arms crossed.

“You don’t like him,” Keith explained.

“No, it’s not that,” Lance protested, because that wasn’t it at all. He really did like Matt when he could think a single thought about him that wasn’t drenched in jealousy. He was just another Pidge, and Pidge was great when she wasn’t being a troll. Aside from the obvious, what was there not to like?

“Then what is it?” Keith pressed, impatient, and tired, and something else that made Lance feel caged in, so Lance–

Lied. “Nothing. It's nothing. I swear.”

“Lance,” Keith glared. “Can you just once be straight with me? Matt's my friend. And I kind of thought you were, too, but it's like you don't trust me.”

And Lance didn't know if it was intentional, but Christ what a guilt trip. And all he could hear was Keith in his head telling him all those months ago that Lance was so good at faking, with this look on his face like that was one of his least favorite traits about Lance, and–

“Pidge thinks,” Lance bit out, arms crossed over his chest, eyes heavy on the ground as the damn broke and drowned him with the water. “That Matt used to have a thing for you. And that he still does. Because apparently, he used to talk about you all the time on Earth, and the second I told him you used to be a paladin, his face lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree. And all he did was talk about you ‘til he left.”

“So?” Keith said, perplexed, eyebrows furrowing further as he frowned and how could he not get this? It wasn’t difficult!

“So, he likes you!” Lance exclaimed without thinking, without considering what a dick move that had been. He’d have been mortified if Hunk ripped the dusty, moldy sheets off his own feelings like that. “And you two would probably be really good for each other,” he finished, trying to sound impartial, trying to sound noncommittal, but there was no point after the outburst he’d just had.

Keith paused. Lance was afraid to look up and find out why, see what he looked like. “And that bothers you?” he asked finally.

Lance looked up to see Keith looking so… winded. And surprised, and open like a book, face the farthest thing from blank or guarded or anything Lance was used to, and he was looking right at him and Lance couldn’t hide, couldn’t pull himself out of the headlights.

You’re always acting.

“Well… yeah,” Lance admitted, eyes back on the ground, willing it to swallow him up, as he tried to think of literally anything to change the subject.

“Oh,” Keith said after a long moment of processing, after a long moment of the floor not swallowing Lance up and spitting him out into the empty vacuum of space. “Is that what’s been bothering you?”

“Keith, can we please, please talk about something else?” Lance asked, desperate and still too afraid to bring his eyes up and see the gentle disdain on Keith’s face at the idea of Lance feeling this way about him.

“Lance–?”

“We’ve all got stage personas, by the way,” Lance pressed on, strong, and determined to not talk about this. “Coran’s trying to turn Shiro into walking sex, which, admittedly isn’t hard, but, you know. And he cast Allura as you.”

And Keith sighed, Lance heard, him, still not looking up, before finally speaking again to say, “Wait, cast? Allura?!”

“Yeah, crazy, right?” Lance said, risking a glance up to see Keith’s face looking utterly unreadable, but at least it wasn’t judgmental, or disgusted. He sighed in relief and uncrossed his legs, finally feeling relaxed enough to stretch out his limbs.

Keith’s eyes jumped down, then stayed, and before Lance could glance down to see why– “You’re wearing the blue ones?” He asked, sounding confused. “After you made such a big deal out of wanting the red ones, and I told you, you could have them. What the fuck?”

“It didn’t feel right,” Lance said, too honest. “If I leave them in your room, then you’ll have to come back for them. Everyone deals better if we just leave your stuff there for you.”

“Well,” Keith started, face redder than it should have been, his turn to look off to the side. “They were supposed to make it like I wasn’t so far away.”

Then Lance, a known idiot, said: “It’s kind of starting to sound like you miss me,” and promptly wanted to fucking die.

At least until Keith said: “I thought that was obvious,” with this innocent confusion in his eyes, in his voice, all over his face like it was the most normal thing in the world to say after what had transpired not ten minutes ago.

And it made Lance say, because he never learned: “More than Matt?”

“Oh, my God.”

*

It was hours later that Lance sat up in his bed out of a dead sleep when it hit him that he’d basically confessed to Keith earlier and then made him shut up so he wouldn’t have to hear Keith reject him.

Like a ten-year-old.

Like a goddamn kid, holy shit, he was a baby.

Stressful as that was, however, he was too tired to consciously dedicate too much time to it before sleep was forcing him back under and stuffing his head with unwelcome dreams of Keith going on dates with Matt who could buy him alcohol and expensive dinners and all the other wonderful things babies couldn’t do.

*

With Coran finally, blessedly, back to normal, thanks to Bi Boh Bi of all people (the universe senses a disturbance and it’s Pidge groaning astronomically and throwing out all her wasted resources), Allura and Shiro decided it was time to finally assemble to coalition Voltron had formed.

Everyone had their jobs. Voltron was set to descend on Naxzela tomorrow.

Lance should have been asleep. Keith should have been, too. But Lance couldn’t help being immensely hopeful that Keith would be irresponsible and ping in to him the night before they took a third of the Galra Empire.

They hadn’t talked in eight days. Lance had been scared, and Keith was probably mad. He wasn’t going to pester Keith with it, and he prayed to the cosmos and whatever else was out there that Keith wouldn’t bring it up, either.

And when Keith pinged in, he looked so stressed, Lance almost took it back, almost kind of wished Keith would have been responsible just this once. They didn’t speak for a long time. Keith looked like he really wanted to, and Lance sat curled up on Allura’s platform with his chin on his knees observing the ridiculous bags under Keith’s eyes. His hair looked like he’d been running his fingers through it, and he looked paler than usual.

“Are you scared?” Lance mumbled, after taking in everything he needed.

“Yeah,” Keith admitted, surprisingly simple. Honest. Something else he was better at than Lance. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Lance scoffed. “Can I ask you something?” Keith waited. “After this, are you going to come home?”

He saw Keith flinch just so at that word. His hand went to the back of his head, rustling it up even further and Lance wanted to reach through the screen and grab it. “I don’t know,” he admitted, finally.

And Lance, should have expected it, but somehow, it was the last thing he saw coming. “Keith, what do you mean you don’t know? After this, you have no reason to stay there anymore. Don’t you want to come back?”

“That doesn’t matter, I have a job to do.”

“I didn’t ask what matters, I asked if you want to come back,” Lance insisted, because he knew Keith would do that. Because Keith had a savior complex that rivalled his very own and he constantly tossed aside his own needs for everyone else’s.

“Yeah,” Keith huffed, arms crossed as he gave Lance a look. “Yeah, Lance. Of course, I want to come back.”

“Cool, I think you should.”

“It’s not that easy,” Keith sighed.

Lance rolled his eyes, because of course, that was Keith’s response. “You know, I really think it could be if you actually wanted it to be.”

“What’s that mean?”

Lance blinked, tried to find the words that wouldn’t start a fight the night before they could all die. “I think you make everything harder for yourself because you’re afraid to be happy,” he said with the kind of hard-hitting clarity that only came from being exhausted, and scared out of his mind, and hopelessly in love, and desperate for things to just come together. “I know that’s kind of hypocritical coming from me, the one who can’t be honest, but… listen you’re my friend, and I think you’re miserable over there.”

“Wow, it really is hypocritical coming from you,” Keith scoffed. “You’re always acting, when are you ever really happy?”

“With you!” Lance glared. “With Hunk and Pidge and Shiro and everyone here! I’m happy with my friends, just like you were until you decided that was too nice a way to live!”

“Lance, is this really what we’re gonna do the night before we go into battle?” Keith snapped. “We’re gonna fight?”

“No,” Lance said, forcing his voice down, but he couldn’t stop glaring because fuck Keith always had to make everything so difficult. “I didn’t want to fight with you, I just. Look, things have been adding up since we’ve been talking and you’ve been gone, and you think you’re fine, but I really don’t think you are.”

“I will be once we defeat the Galra,” Keith bit out.

“Keith, that could take years, and you’re not going to slowly deteriorate before our eyes until that happens! You look like you sleep two hours a week! You look like you’re barely taking care of yourself over there! And you’ve spent six months away from us, with people who literally do not seem to have emotions, and I know you think you’re like that, but you’re not and I don’t like the idea of you stuck all alone with your angry emo-ass thoughts all the time, so I’m worried, you dick!”

And Keith looked shocked for all of two seconds before he lapsed into laughter, the helpless kind that made his shoulders shake and his lips bend up just right so his dimples poked through. Jesus.

“Glad you thought that was so funny,” Lance glared, though it crumbled under his wobbly grin the more Keith laughed. “Pouring my fucking soul out over here and you just–”

“You’re really important to me,” Keith interrupted, eyes still smiling as his laughter toned down. “I pinged in to tell you good luck, and you spend ten minutes screaming at me, you dick.”

You knew that, Lance told himself so he wouldn’t freak out and overreact, because he did know that. Of course, he was important to Keith, or the guy wouldn’t keep pinging in late at night to talk to him. We could die tomorrow, Lance told himself. Keith was sounding touchy because anything could happen. That was all. Lance had crushes all the time, but no one ever liked him back, and that was how it went, and this wasn’t any different.

He was important to Keith as his friend. And that was okay. Because even if Lance would probably always want more, Keith was important to Lance that way, too. Still, he had to force his smile. “Just take better care of yourself, asshole.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but there was no hiding the fond expression on his face. “Shut up. Do yourself a favor and try to remember it’s not the Lance show out there tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah, get some sleep,” Lance retorted.

Keith smiled, arm reaching out, presumably to end the feed. “See you out there.” Then the screen went black.

“See you,” Lance said to the air.

*

“He was headed straight toward it,” Matt had said.

None of them could figure out how to get rid of the barrier, except for Keith, who had tried to do the unthinkable. Except for Keith who thought it perfectly reasonable to fly himself right into it, for the sake of the galaxy.

Like a goddamn martyr, because he never took his own head out of his ass long enough to think about the aftermath.

“He wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t even respond to me,” Matt had said.

He’d said it almost an hour ago. And Keith was still, at that point, probably with the Blade until, in light of Matt’s news, Shiro and Allura demanded that Keith be allowed to come onto the castleship.

At that point, Lance had just kind of.

Shut down.

No one stopped him when he stood up and left the observation deck. Or maybe they had tried, but Lance couldn’t hear them. Keith was on the way there. This was too big for Lance to joke his way out of. It wasn’t his decision; his body took him away and didn’t give him back control until he was safe in his room.

He crawled into his bed, where he’d had dream after frustrating dream about Keith for months until he could finally admit to himself what they meant. Where he would lie awake at night when he couldn’t sleep and plot on how to beat Keith’s training score the next day, though he never did. Where he sat, like a lovesick teen, unable to shake the thought that Keith was only twenty feet away – that he could be a whole lot closer if he were brave. Where he berated himself when it became apparent that he wasn’t.

Where he reflected on fond, grainy transmission feeds, longing for Keith to be just twenty feet away again.

It was where he sat now, slowly absorbing the fact that, if it weren’t for Lotor, Keith would have died.

And he probably would have thought he did the right thing.

It felt like eons passed before someone came to check on him. Three uncertain knocks against his door. He wasn’t dumb enough to hope it was Hunk. He heard his door slide open. He couldn’t take his eyes off the wall. He couldn’t look at him. He couldn’t see him, or this became real. He wasn’t ready to address this out loud. His body was still trying to protect him.

“Lance?”

It hit him like the loudest thing he’d ever heard and he winced, shut his eyes. One last-ditch effort at keeping himself together.

“Look at me.”

Meek, and almost tortured, and cracked – he looked just because Keith begged, and then he couldn’t look away.

Keith wasn’t looking at him, eyes trained heavily on the ground, shoulders hunched up to his neck, and arms wrapped tight around himself like they were the only thing keeping him in once piece.

His hood was up again. It made him look even smaller – the dying embers of what had once been a roaring forest fire. He looked like he was barely even here, like he could pass out and never wake up. Like he was one misstep from falling over.

The numbness was gone, replaced entirely by anger.

“Allura and Shiro wouldn’t let me help interrogate Lotor,” Keith started, glancing up to see that Lance wasn’t amused. He was floundering. “They made Kolivan tell me to sit it out. Because they want to talk to me, but they can’t afford to take their eyes off Lotor for a second. I know Matt told you guys what happened, but I didn’t–!” He shook his head, risking another glance up, then dropping his eyes back down. “You weren’t out there with everyone else. Hunk told me you–”

“How could you do that to me?”

Keith’s eyes snapped up, arms squeezed tighter around himself as Lance slowly pushed himself up from his bed.

“How could you do that to Pidge?” Lance continued, trying to keep his voice level. “Pidge who already went through losing a brother once and doesn’t need to go through it again, especially if it was going to be intentional. How could you do that to Shiro?! Don’t you think he’s been through enough?”

Keith dropped his eyes back to the ground, mouth a hard line. “It was – I had to do something. I had to break the shield.”

“By destroying yourself?!”

Keith flinched, but set reluctant, fiery eyes on Lance. “That’s the – that’s how it is with the Blade, the mission is bigger than me! I have to do what I can, no matter what!”

“Jesus Christ, I knew you weren’t okay!” Lance exclaimed, taking two strides to cross the room and stand before a stock-still Keith who kept glaring, who thought he was entirely justified, Jesus fuck. “Is that what you’ve been learning over there! Fucking killing yourself is just a check on the list of possible things to do to achieve the greater goal?! That’s fucked up, Keith! That’s real fucked up!”

“This is a war, Lance – everything’s fucked up!”

“Do you hear yourself?!” Lance roared back. Keith flinched again in response as Lance started to feel that his eyes were wet, but he was too angry to care. “You almost – you almost took yourself away from everyone, Keith! You almost took yourself from Red! And Matt and – and all of us because you can’t get it through your thick skull that you’re more than just a body!”

“You keep acting like I was trying to–!” Keith yelled, then fell short and he groaned. “I didn’t – It would have been–!”

“You better not be trying to say it would have been okay,” Lance interrupted, “because it wouldn’t have just been fine, Keith, that would have destroyed us! It would have ruined me!” He tried to stay on that track, tried to convince Keith that he wouldn’t have just faded, he would have left a gaping wound, but his brain was stuck on the one thing circling his mind again and again that wasn’t Keith trying to defend himself. “Last night, you told me I was important to you and this is how you show it?! Keith, how could you do that to me when you know how I feel about you?!”

Keith visibly jolted, eyes widening, truly caught off-guard. Then, his brows furrowed over open eyes as his jaw clenched. “No, I don’t know how you feel about me because you keep beating around it and you won’t just tell me!”

“And what, this stunt was supposed to make me say it?!”

“No!” Keith yelled back, beginning to look more upset than angry. “God, no, Lance! Is that what you think of me?! You think I’d do something like that?!”

Of course, not, he wanted to say, should have said, but the truth was, “I don’t know anymore, Keith, I just can’t figure out why you’re always – fuck. You’re always trying to throw yourself out, away into something worse, into something further and further gone so none of us can reach you, but I thought,” he shook his head. “You were talking to me. Finally. But then you pulled this! We were getting to be on even ground. And I wasn’t below you, anymore. But you still pulled this, and – God, I thought you were finally going to stop trying to leave me behind!”

Keith stood silent, posture straight, but his arms were still holding him in. He looked shocked, and lost and everything Lance felt, and that somehow made Lance feel even worse.

“If you ever do anything like this again, I’ll never forgive you. You’re not allowed to fucking sacrifice yourself, Keith. And if you can’t just do that one thing for yourself, then at least do it for Shiro, or Matt, or whoever you think would miss you most.” He shut his eyes, felt the stinging behind them. “You can stay in here if you want to, but I have to get out of here or I’m gonna lose it.” He was tired of screaming, and if he kept looking at Keith, he thought he might reach out and crush him into his arms, hold him there until he was sure he wouldn’t vanish into thin air. He stepped around him, toward the door. “I need to go calm down somewhere.”

“No!” Keith said quickly, finally speaking up and Lance watched Keith’s hands finally uncurl only to reach out for his jacket sleeve. “I’m sorry,” Keith rushed out, voice gutted and raw and honest. “Lance, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, please don’t go.”

Keith’s hair was in his face, the hood had fallen further over his head, too, keeping his eyes hidden as his head angled down. Lance turned back, expecting Keith to release his sleeve, but he never did. His fingers gripped harder, like Lance might run if he let go.

“I won’t do that again. I didn’t even want to do it this time, but I didn’t think, I just acted, and I was so scared. After Lotor came in like that, I sat in my pod just shaking, and the next thing I knew, I was here and Hunk was telling me that you were in your room because Matt told you.” Keith looked up, then. “I didn’t want this – I-I’ve never been that scared, and I still can’t even really process it, just, please don’t leave. I feel like I’m going to pass out and I don’t want to be alone, anymore, I’m so tired of being alone all the–”

Lance cracked, reaching out and pulling Keith into his arms and Keith went silent. He leaned his head against Lance’s shoulder, too tired to let his arms do anything but hang limply at his sides. That was fine, Lance did all the holding Keith couldn’t do.

“Do you need a cryopod?” Lance asked into Keith’s hood after Keith caught his breath.

“I need to stop thinking.”

“Okay, then you should at least go to sleep for a while,” Lance decided as the only option left. “Then, you’re getting in a cryopod. You’re a wreck.”

“So are you,” Keith argued, lifting his head and they were nose-to-nose. “You’re going to collapse any minute,” he said with pouty lips and drooping eyes. “Just let me rest. We’ll figure it out after.”

“Okay,” Lance relented after a long moment of nothing better coming to mind. All the anger and sadness and shock left him too exhausted to argue any further, anyway. “You can have my bed. I’m going to go tell Coran–”

“No.”

“What?”

Keith didn’t answer. Eyes down as his fingers went back to the sleeve of Lance’s jacket, gripping it tight to keep Lance from leaving. He stayed that way until Lance finally surrendered, letting Keith hold onto his sleeve as he walked them to his bed. Keith shut his eyes the moment he was off his feet.

Lance carefully situated him against the wall, so he wouldn’t fall off the bed. So Lance could feel like he was protecting him. Then he laid himself down as far away as his bed would allow.

Keith was still as he lay on his side, facing Lance with his eyes closed. His hood had slipped off on the way to the bed and his hair spilled out onto Lance’s pillow, dark and silky, flowing in a cascade down into his face.

Lance was helpless. He lifted a hand to brush it aside and saw Keith’s eyes fluttering as he slept. “I am so fucking mad at you,” he whispered. Because he was heartbroken. Because he loved Keith.

“Lance,” Keith mumbled back, slurred with no follow-up or explanation.

“Keith,” Lance sighed back, hopeless and lost and exhausted. He watched as long as he could until he started to fall under. He was in his bed, and Keith was only one foot away. It wasn’t at all what he thought it’d be.

*

He woke up, sprawled across his bed, alone. He still felt half dead, and it quickly became apparent that the only reason he’d woken up when he did was because someone was knocking on his door again.

He had the thought that if he didn’t say anything, maybe whoever was outside his door would just give up and go away, but he found that he had no such luck. His door slid open to reveal Hunk and Pidge, who regarded him with such pitying expressions, he shut his eyes for a moment. Pidge had never looked like that before, and he never wanted to see it again.

He pulled himself up, scooting over to sit against the wall, making room for Hunk and Pidge on his bed. Hunk sidled up to sit right next to him against the wall, and Pidge sat with her legs folded across from them.

Lance tried to wake himself up while they waited for someone to say something, but he couldn’t stop feeling like he was stuck between two planes of existence. Like he’d just come from some reality where everything he’d ever wanted came with a horrible twist – like he’d just experienced every cautionary tale he’d ever heard, and just as well, he couldn’t remember a thing he’d been dreaming. Lance cleared his throat.

“Was that real?” His voice was scratchy and thin. “Did Keith really almost do that?”

Their solemn silence was answer enough.

Hunk hesitated a moment before speaking. “He’s been with Allura and Shiro for the past two hours now,” he revealed.

“The Blade is going to stay on the castleship for the next few days,” Pidge informed him. “It’s easier with Lotor on the ship if we’re all here. And this way, we get to keep an eye on Keith.”

“He slept in here,” Lance mumbled, still a little out of it, still trying to catch up from the moment Keith knocked on his door who knew how long ago.

“He said you were pretty upset,” Hunk said carefully, after a beat.

“Well, yeah, we all were,” Lance said.

“You should see Allura,” Pidge sighed. “Shiro and Matt are furious. They’re just about demanding that Keith quits the Blade of Marmora and comes back to Voltron. At least here, he didn’t want to die.”

“He didn’t want to die,” Lance spoke up, letting his head slump back against the wall, he was still too tired. “He just… didn’t think it was super crucial that he lived. I don’t know how I missed it. I spent so much time talking to him since he was gone, and I knew he wasn’t happy, but he told me he was fine enough, and I believed him.”

“You’ve been talking to him this whole time?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah, Lance stays up all night to talk to Keith, who he’s in love with,” Pidge smiled softly, happy for the lighter tone of conversation. “God, who isn’t in love with Keith these days?”

Lance lifted his head enough to shoot her a glare. “I’m not even going to ask how you knew that. Or what game you’re playing at. Or who’s side you’re on.”

“So, you guys are cool now,” Hunk chimed in, trying to lessen Lance’s embarrassment. “No more fighting?”

“I don’t think the fighting was ever real,” Lance admitted.

“Well, yeah, I knew that,” Hunk rolled his eyes. “I just didn’t think you did.”

“Of course, it was never real, and I only figured that out two months ago,” Pidge scoffed. “The first two months they spent apart, they couldn’t stand it. Did you see them the last time Keith was here? I was gagging.”

“I’m trying to make a point,” Hunk pressed, a little impatiently. Pidge made a show of zipping her lips as Hunk turned kind eyes back onto Lance. “If you stayed talking to him this whole time, then that means he likes you at least enough to listen to you. Maybe you can convince him to come back.”

“I tried, Hunk,” Lance sighed out, deciding not to betray Keith’s trust by mentioning how he didn’t feel useful as a paladin, anymore. How he didn’t feel like he was doing anything worthwhile unless he was completely miserable about it. “He doesn’t want to.”

“Well, we’re going to have to try harder,” Pidge decided. “We can’t risk him feeling like he’s interchangeable with fucking cannon fodder.”

“Well, we’ve got Lotor on the castleship, we’ve gotta catch some kind of breakthrough with him, here,” Hunk mused. “Maybe Keith won’t even have to go back.”

“He’ll find a way,” Lance bit out, voice rough, and still bitter. “He always finds a way to–” He made himself stop before he said something he’d regret. He’d done plenty of that earlier when he couldn’t stop screaming at Keith. “Listen, did you guys just come here to talk to me about Keith?” he demanded.

A beat passed with Pidge and Hunk sharing a concerned glance, then turning pitying gazes back onto him. “No,” Pidge said finally. “We just… wanted to let you know what was going on with everything since you disappeared so quick after Matt told us what happened.”

“And,” Hunk started reluctantly, “I just wanted you to talk to me. I know how you feel about Keith, dude. You normally talk to me about this stuff and I couldn’t understand why you didn’t this time.”

“Well,” Lance started, a bit more defensive then he intended. God, he was raw from all this. “What was I supposed to say? ‘I know you’ve both figured it out by now, but I’m stupidly in love with yet another person who’s way out of my league?’ ‘Hey, Hunk, I’m feeling super self-loathing, so why don’t I entertain the ridiculous idea out loud that Keith and I could ever be anything?’ Especially since we found out about his and Matt’s old thing – no thanks, I’d rather pine in silence.”

“You’re shitting me right now, he slept in your bed with you!” Pidge exclaimed, utterly exasperated.

“Okay, yeah, I know we’ve always… had this… thing,” Lance groaned, scrambling off his bed because he was very much on his way to being done talking about this. “But so do him and Matt, and let’s be honest – he could do a lot better than me.”

“Matt,” Pidge echoed, face softening with the beginnings of a smile. “My brother, Matt, who literally is you?”

Lance paused, taken off-guard a moment, but forced himself to recover. “Okay, fine, yeah, we share some similarities, but–!”

“Do you remember a few months ago?” Pidge interrupted, standing, but hanging hesitantly by the bed, like if she moved toward Lance, it might spook him. “When you and me and Matt were talking one night, and I said Keith has a type?”

Did Lance remember the conversation that literally started it all? Yeah, only every single goddamn night. “Yeah, you said it yourself – his type is Matt.”

“Lance,” Pidge said, emphatic and even slightly apologetic. “His type is goofball nerds with hearts of gold. You fit that criteria. Try and look past your inferiority complex and see what’s around you. Keith definitely likes you.”

“But, Matt–”

“Has a chance just as much as you do, dude,” Hunk interrupted. “The only difference is that Matt’s not wasting his.”

“I’ll say this and then I’m done talking about it,” Pidge drawled, “but I honestly think you’ve got a better shot than my brother. Before I knew Keith, Matt always described him as this… God among men type celestial being that Matt could never be cool enough to attain, and I think on some level, he may have had a point, in that, Matt’s just too… sweet for someone like Keith. He puts him on a pedestal. But you and Keith on the other hand… I mean, you’re definitely on the same level. You’re definitely both fucking idiots.”

“Hey–!”

She let out a peal of malicious laughter on her way around him and out the door before he could catch her. She was halfway down the hall before Lance could even track all her movements, but he couldn’t deny that it did make him feel a little better.

“Come on,” Hunk said, crawling off the bed and heading toward the door. “You should eat something after sleeping an entire day. Shiro and Allura are going to want to talk to all of us together about Lotor, then you can deal with your love life.”

*

As it turned out, Allura, Coran, and begrudgingly Shiro, were being oddly protective with them when it came to Lotor, in that, they never let the remaining paladins into the room with him while they tried to assess the exact level of threat Lotor possessed, which was undoubtedly “a lot.”

Keith made the obvious case that they were paladins – defenders of the universe who definitely didn’t need to be protected like children, but considering the source, Allura and Coran’s sudden inclination to shield their surrogate younglings from all danger started to make sad sense.

So, they had a briefing while the Blades watched over Lotor, the major points of which being that Lotor was professing to have a lot of knowledge about quintessence that matched up pretty heavily with what the Blades had been discovering for months. Also that he was a Galra fugitive, and therefore had no reason to harm them since he wasn’t allied with the Empire. There was no way he could think that would work on anyone, but he was insisting.

And finally, that even though it was going to be damn near impossible with Lotor on the fucking castleship with them, Allura and Coran thought it was imperative that they find a way to take things easy for a little while.

It was obvious that what they meant was that they all needed a break after the stress they had all gone through worrying about Keith. Most importantly, Keith needed time to process. He needed a window of time where he didn’t have to be stressed enough to neglect himself. They knew better than to say that. It was the kind of thing that was best left unsaid.

And when Keith made himself scarce shortly after, the reason why went unsaid, too.

He didn’t show himself for the rest of the night, even skipping dinner. Matt left the dinner table early, a bowl of food goo in hand, undoubtedly for Keith. He came back not too long after, having left the bowl by Keith’s door when he wouldn’t answer. “He might be asleep,” he shrugged, going for nonchalant but failing miserably.

It wasn’t like they all weren’t just as concerned.

“Lance,” Matt had said quietly, when the others were dispersing from dinner. “Maybe you should try talking to him.”

Lance blinked, taken aback. He didn’t know what this was. Sure, they had spoken since Matt came back aboard the castleship, but it wasn’t about Keith, that was for sure. And he wasn’t entirely sure whether or not Matt knew he was competition, or even that there was one, or if the whole thing was entirely in his own head, or what Pidge had told him.

With all that on the tip of his tongue, what found its way out was: “Oh. What?”

“You should try talking to him,” Matt repeated himself, without an ounce of condescension or malice at all because he was Matt, the human cinnamon roll. “He can’t stay holed up in his room forever, but he’ll try. It’s either gotta be you or Shiro, and if Shiro tries to talk to him, he’ll just close himself off more, so it makes more sense if it’s you. He listens to you.”

And Lance thought, no he didn’t. He didn’t listen to him at all since he’d left Voltron, he didn’t even tell him the truth about things Lance had blatantly asked about. He had faked and faked and faked until he nearly destroyed himself. Lance didn’t want another screaming match over it and he was sure Keith didn’t either.

“Okay, it probably doesn’t seem like it to you,” Matt said after a while, like he knew exactly what Lance was thinking. “But I can promise you he listens to you better than he ever listened to me or Shiro.”

Lance was skeptical. But if this was Matt extending a genuine olive branch of concern, then Lance was accepting. “That’s hard to believe,” Lance chuckled out, forced, but he was participating.

“Honest to God, Keith never fucking listens to us,” Matt chuckled back. He started to make his way out of the dining area, waiting for Lance to follow suit. “I wish I knew how you did it.”

“Damn, I wish I knew how I apparently did it,” Lance mumbled.

Matt laughed. “I don’t even think Keith realizes when it happens. Keith and I talked a few times before this happened, when we were between missions. He was telling me about how he had to be the Black Paladin. He says he was a terrible leader, though I kind of doubt it,” Matt said, with that fond smile Lance was beginning to hate less and less out of sheer relatability. “But he kept saying he could have been so much worse, but you kept him in check.”

Lance kept walking just fine alongside Matt, but he definitely felt like he was frozen, state of consciousness left a few feet back before Matt had just said that. “Me?” Lance managed, finally. “He said that?”

“Yeah,” Matt said slowly, like he was surprised and a little amused Lance didn’t know. “Among other things.”

Lance let that sink in a moment, mind taking too long processing before it hit. “Keith talked about me?”

“More like ‘talks,’” Matt nodded, small smile back in place. “He listens to you. A lot. He… thinks very highly of you.”

Lance hummed back distractedly as he thought back on months ago, through new eyes, on the way he’d dreaded the thought of Keith talking about Matt when Matt wasn’t there.

*

By the time everyone went to bed, Lance felt like he finally wasn’t angry anymore, past that stage and into something less tense. Something that was more grateful that Keith had made it out of it fine, and less angry that he’d done it at all, now that he’d had time to process and accept that it had happened, and there was nothing he could do about it.

If things had gone just a little differently, Lance would be lying on his side, blankets up to his chin, looking at the wall he shared with Keith, just like he was now. But instead of the longing he always felt while staring at it, he would be struggling to make peace with the fact that Keith would never be on the other side of it again.

But he’s there. He’s still there, Lance told himself, shaking his head as if that would dispel the torturous thought that he wasn’t.

And he was just twenty feet away.

Groaning, Lance turned to lie on his other side, facing his other wall where –

Where Keith had been the last time Lance had been in his bed. Just yesterday, Keith had been there right across from him, eyes shut, face more relaxed than Lance had ever seen it. He’d fallen asleep almost immediately, like on top of the pure exhaustion they both knew it was, Lance made him feel safe.

Lance was the one Keith had come to when he was tired of being alone.

Keith had talked about Lance while he was away.

Keith was just twenty feet from him.

He tossed his sheets off himself before he could change his mind. This time, he could be brave.

It wasn’t until he’d made it out of his room and knocked on Keith’s door that he realized he didn’t really know how late it was now. Which was an admittedly dumb thing not to note before possibly waking him up–

The door slid open, revealing a bed-headed Keith in his black shirt and boxers. He had definitely been in his bed, but he didn’t look necessarily tired. “Lance?” he said.

“Hey,” Lance said, and that was it. Because he had thought literally none of this through. Then Keith stepped aside to let him in, which was. Not how Lance saw this going, so he hesitated, trying to at least think this through, but.

Keith rolled his eyes, reached out for Lance’s arm and pulled him in. He looked at Lance a moment, in the quiet of his dimly lit room before quickly looking away. He walked over to his bed, crawled over to the wall just like he’d done in Lance’s bed. He shimmied himself under the sheets, then held them out to Lance like it made all the sense in the world.

Lance felt like this was all too fragile for him to speak. Keith was in his bed, looking at him like that, and holding out his sheets to him expectantly – it had Lance Dream written all over it.

“Lance,” Keith said, like he had to snap him out of a trance, which, yeah. Lance moved to slide under Keith’s extended sheets on autopilot.

They were quiet, a foot apart facing each other just like the day before. Laying with Keith in bed under his sheets was somehow much more intimate than lying with Keith in Lance’s on top of them.

Lance’s eyes were finally adjusting fully to the darkness around them. Keith was a vision in low lighting like this. Hair darker than night splayed out against his pillow, shadows playing with the pale tones of his skin. His lips looked a little fuller like this, not scowling, not sucked between his teeth. His eyes were dark and looking right back at him. Lance had never seen him look so content.

“Can I ask you something?” Lance asked quietly.

Keith blinked, looking more alert now that the silence was shattered. He hummed in response.

“Are you going to come home now?”

Keith hesitated, looking torn. “I still don’t know,” he admitted finally. “I’m sure you’re going to be seeing a lot more of me around here, though. Shiro’s going to be watching me like a hawk.”

Lance breathed out a chuckle, more out of relief than anything else. “Good. We need you, Keith. And I really think you need us, too. No amount of fighting it is going to change that.”

Keith breathed out his own small exasperated laugh, accompanied with a sleepy smile that nearly had Lance cooing.

“Can I ask you something else?” Lance said instead.

Keith hummed again.

Lance took a deep breath. He told himself to be brave and he was. He breathed back out, and with it tumbled the jumbled-up words: “Do you like Matt?”

Keith’s expression did something funny then, turning both searching and just a tad smug as he regarded Lance. “No. Not anymore. Not for a long time,” he divulged. Lance noticed they were closer now, that the tip of Keith’s nose was just one forward motion from touching Lance’s and he didn’t know which of them put them here.

“Okay,” Lance whispered, feeling his face burn, feeling his heart beat faster. “One more question? Do you…?”

Keith hummed again, for Lance to continue, but Lance noticed Keith leaning in closer and suddenly, he couldn’t untie his tongue. “Do I…?” Keith prompted, like Lance could form a word or even a thought with him leaning in closer like that.

It was impossible, after that, to keep up with anything he’d wanted to say, so he let it go, eyes slipping closed as he waited.

And waited.

And waited–

He peaked one eye open to see Keith leaned back, biting down on his lip, trying not to smile, trying not to laugh but failing the moment he saw Lance’s eye open. He lapsed into the cutest peal of laughter Lance had ever heard, and he was grinning so wide, Lance thought his cheeks might split.

He was the cutest thing Lance had ever seen. Lance felt himself grinning right back as he reached out, grabbed Keith around the waist and brought him flush against him. Keith was still laughing when Lance leaned in and pushed their lips together, hungry, and demanding, and – finally, and Keith caught right on, lips opening around a smile and Lance’s curious tongue.

Keith kissed slow, like he had hours, and Lance really liked that prospect. He kissed heavy and deep and electric, he took Lance’s breath away, made him feel light-headed until he had to pull away. He could feel how debauched he looked, and he could see the smugness in Keith’s eyes about it.

Keith was watching him, back to grinning while Lance tried to catch his breath.

“Why–?” Lance panted. “Fuck – why are you better at kissing than talking?!”

Keith snorted, circling his arms around Lance’s shoulders. “Why are you so stupid?”

Lance felt it all along his shoulders and neck where Keith was touching him, like his skin was searing, and his lips were still tingling and he could feel the dopey grin on his face, wait. Lance forced himself to come down, come back down, “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Keith sighed, like this was all so taxing, but his expression couldn’t be more amused. “I love you, stupid.”

Lance squawked, defensive. “Well, how was I supposed to know that? I was–” Lance froze, brain finally catching up and he wanted to be embarrassed but he couldn’t stop grinning. “You – you love me?”

Keith's cheeks flushed darker as he looked at Lance. “Yeah,” he said, sounding a little exasperated. He tried to untangle himself from Lance’s arms. “Shut up,” he mumbled, turning his face away.

“No, no, no, no, Keith!” Lance exclaimed, holding him tighter, bringing him in closer. “You just said you love me, and – and you’re incredible and amazing and you like me and you love me?!”

“Stop,” Keith groaned, face blazing as he dropped his head down under Lance’s chin.

“I’m – just in shock, you’re literally beautiful? This is too good to be true and you just sprung this on me like it was nothing, you have to give me more than two seconds to process this!”

“Well, compare your two seconds to my year and a half,” Keith murmured, deep into the skin of Lance’s collarbone, so lowly, Lance had to strain to hear him, then take a moment for the words to make sense.

“You–! What–?! Am I dreaming?!”

“Lance,” Keith snapped, still muffled.

“Okay, okay, I’m – I’m done,” Lance decided, tangling his legs with Keith’s as he tried to calm himself down. “I’m calm. I’ve processed. I’ll be quiet.”

Keith hummed, and Lance told himself that he could keep it in, he could come to grips with this – the greatest thing to happen to him this side of the Milky Way, he could accept it and let Keith sleep tonight….

But, no. No, he couldn’t. “Keith,” he whispered.

“What, Lance?” Keith mumbled.

“I’m comparing your year and a half with my two years and, I hate to break it to you, but I think I win.”

Keith didn’t say anything back, but Lance could feel him smiling into his skin. It was still there even when Lance finally fell asleep.

*

Epilogue:

Keith always tried to be quiet when he sneaked in, but Lance always heard him. Like his brain was wired to know when Keith was around, whether he was asleep, or in the shower – no matter what.

This time, Lance was asleep, but he still heard his bedroom door slide open, then he heard a large stomp that was probably his boyfriend tripping over nothing again in attempts at being quiet.

His eyes peeled open as he forced himself awake. “Keith?” he grumbled.

“Go back to sleep,” came back the heated whispered reply followed by another loud stomp, letting Lance know that he needed to clean all the clothes off his floor.

“Keith,” Lance said again, because it was early and he wasn’t fully awake and his brain only possessed a limited number of words before a certain hour. He yawned as his brain started to load more. “Come here.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Keith snapped back, tripping again and groaning out loud.

Smiling, Lance scooted to the edge of his bed, legs on the floor beside red lion slippers as he watched his boyfriend trying – struggling, more like – to get out of his suit. His hair was getting a little too long again, it was caught in the zipper at his nape and he couldn’t quite reach it himself. His eyes were shut in frustration, groaning again as his fingers just barely brushed the metal and. Lance knew he was a little biased, but he truly did have the most adorable boyfriend in the world and he thought Keith should know.

He cleared his throat, wanted to sound as awake as possible when he drawled out: “Is that Keith, or an angel?”

Keith’s froze in trying to get his belt off, hunched over himself as he sent Lance his iciest glare, which was impressive because it usually took Lance talking that way for a couple of hours before Keith looked at him like that. “Go the fuck back to sleep, you’re obviously delirious.”

“Eh,” Lance shrugged. “You look like an angel when I’m not delirious, too,” he reasoned. “Let me help?”

Keith’s glare didn’t waver as he alternated his gaze between Lance’s undoubtedly dopey face and his outstretched arms. Finally he sighed, stepped just close enough for Lance to pull him into his grip. He felt Keith’s posture relax as he pulled Keith against him, resting his head against Keith’s sternum, arms wrapped tight around his waist, legs caging Keith in. “What are you doing here?” he asked, muffled into the fabric of Keith’s suit. “You’re supposed to be another week.”

Keith sighed and peeled Lance off him, lowering himself onto Lance’s lap before he could start whining about it. “Yeah, well, Kolivan noticed I was getting antsy, so he let me come back sooner,” he explained, arms looping around Lance’s shoulders.

“Aw, yeah, early visitation,” Lance grinned, bumping his nose into Keith’s. “Does that mean we get you an extra week?”

“Stop referring to this like a messy divorce,” Keith snapped.

“Dude, convince me it wasn’t.” He reached up behind Keith’s neck and found the ever-evasive zipper, tugging it down inch by inch. Keith let out a relieved sigh once his shoulders were free. “So, extra week? Yes? No? Because I had plans I had to shave down to fit into the one, but if we have two, now, then–”

“Yes,” Keith said softly, watching Lance softly like he did when he was thinking. “Two weeks. You made plans?”

“Yeah,” Lance smiled, pulling Keith’s arms free of his suit. “I love you. I love spending time with you, and we don’t have much of it these days, so we’re going to make the most of visitation.”

Keith snorted. “I love you, too, Lance.” He was always refreshingly simple like that.

Lance still blushed every time. “Up, up,” Lance said, rather than address it. “Finish getting changed.”

Getting changed was just Keith stripping off the rest of the suit and climbing into Lance’s bed in his boxers, but that was fine. Ideal, really. More skin for Lance to nuzzle into.

Keith settled himself against the wall like always, waiting until Lance climbed in to tangle their legs together and rest his head next to Lance’s on his pillow. He rolled his eyes fondly as he noticed Lance checking him over. “Get it over with.”

“You’ve been sleeping as regularly as possible?” Lance asked, noting that the bags under Keith’s eyes were a bit less oppressive than usual.

Keith hummed in affirmation, eyes watching Lance right back.

“And eating?”

“That’s a lot easier than sleeping, so yeah.”

“Talking to everyone?” Lance continued. “Not just me?”

“I talked to Pidge and Matt yesterday.”

Lance grinned. “Okay,” he said, leaning forward to press his lips against Keith’s in gratitude. “Thanks for taking better care of yourself.”

“Thanks for making me want to,” Keith said through a yawn that may or may not have been intentional, but Lance still heard the words, still heard how much Keith was growing.

“Time for sleep?” Lance suggested, bringing Keith against him so Keith could settle himself against his chest like he liked. “We’re gonna be grateful for the rest tomorrow. I thought I still had a week, but my surprise is already ready, so wait till you see what I have planned. You’re going to love me so much tomorrow,” Lance bragged.

“I love you every day, dumbass,” Keith murmured into his skin, sounding sleepy and happy and perfect. “Two years and counting.”

Lance grinned and rested his head over Keith’s, eyelids heavy as they slipped shut. “Two years, seven months and counting,” he noted.

Keith didn’t say anything back. He never did. That was okay, because Lance knew they both won.