Chapter Text
Apparently, being a savior of the fucking universe wasn’t enough to get a discount on groceries.
“What did you just say?” said the old lady at the cash register. Actually, no, it wasn’t just any old lady. This old lady was his new mortal enemy. Forget Zarkon, this was the real representation of pure evil. He’d tripped walking to the register and she’d scoffed at him. She hadn’t even asked how he was when he stood back up.
“Blue paladin? Voltron? Galra? Any of this ring a bell to you?” Lance looked at the screen beside her, waiting for the words -10% off to appear. “A giant robot guy that defeated a bunch of furry purple aliens?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, calculating, and he held his breath.
“If you don’t have any money, then leave the store. There’s no freebies here, and we don’t help beggars,” she grumbled, looking down at her gardening magazine or whatever it was that bored, old people read.
“That’s not even what I—” He groaned. “Fine, fine. Whatever. Okay, I’ll pay.”
Lance wasn’t broke. Far from it, actually; Allura kept a steady stream in his account, refilled on the dot at the same time every month. He didn’t even know where she got Earth money, being an alien and all. He preferred to give most of it to his family, though. With a lot of their assets having been destroyed during the war, it was the least he could do for them after running off for a few years.
After paying for his groceries, he loaded them into his bright pink grocery cart—stylish, a gift from Hunk—and began to walk home. People waved to him as he walked down the street, but the novelty of having a famous person in the city had worn off after the first few weeks.
In the ‘before times’, also known as before he’d decided to become the dashing, wise person he was now, he had thought that having hoards of people fawning for his attention would be cool and flattering. In reality, it was far from that, and he was relieved when the only people that came up to him nowadays were tourists and aliens.
He lived a good walk from the main street. He could’ve lived closer to the merchant, but he liked the side streets. They were lit by lanterns on the sides of the road, and occasionally there’d be a travelling tradesman settled at the corner, just far away enough that he wouldn’t be shut down by the police, but close enough to be noticed by the locals. It was quaint, and he liked the silence.
It was good exercise, anyhow. He didn’t want to lose the bulk he’d gotten when he trained everyday as the blue paladin.
“Need help there, Lance?” a voice called and Lance turned his head, seeing one of the nice boys—Carlos—from the neighboring street. He reminded Lance of Keith a little, reckless but smart, minus the whole ‘asshole’ thing.
“Nah.” He lifted the bags just to show off, grinning. “Besides, aren’t you walking the other way?”
“You’re getting old, so I thought I might as well try and do my good deed for the day.” Carlos stuck out his tongue. “Have a nice day, man.”
“You too,” Lance called back, laughing.
Was he getting old? When he was Carlos’ age, he’d thought twenty-five was old, but considering the average life expectancy was roughly one-hundred nowadays, he wasn’t even halfway through his life yet. The idea was a little daunting, knowing how little he’d gone through in such a short time, but exciting.
Really, now that he’d gone through at least a dozen near-death experiences, everything else should be a piece of cake.
Peaches greeted him at the door, winding her fluffy tail around his leg and purring against his leg. He dropped his bags and immediately fell onto the floor with her, letting her climb onto his chest.
“Hey there, girl.” He pet her head lovingly and she beamed up at him happily. “You guard the house for me?” Raising his voice, he squeaked, “You guarded it so well. You’re such a good girl.”
She rolled onto her side, stretching out, and he scratched behind her ears before standing back up. He’d be covered in cat hair now, but whatever. Cats were worth it.
Surveying his living room to see what damage she’d done while he was gone, he was pleasantly surprised to see that the only thing that’d changed this time was that the TV remote was on the ground. She was the softest and most affectionate cat he’d ever met, but also the most annoying, constantly knocking things over. But only when he wasn’t home. Little shit—she knew she was cute and she used it to her advantage.
“You only messed up one thing today. Good girl,” he gushed again, despite his thoughts. Regardless of how much of a nuisance she was, she was his, and he loved her to bits.
She meowed back at him and went to her usual place on the couch, curling up on top of her designated pillow.
He brought the groceries into the kitchen and sorted them into their appropriates places quickly. Admittedly, it’d been getting a bit bare before; he hadn’t been shopping in almost two weeks. Or, actually, he hadn’t left the house in almost two weeks.
But that time of his life was over. He was now a changed man, with hordes of delicious food to make and consume.
“Peaches, what should I make for dinner?” he asked, tapping his chin and looking at his now-bursting fridge. “Don’t say cat food.”
She didn’t reply. Why was she only talkative when it was useless to him?
“Helpful,” he said. “A microwaved meal it is.”
Correction: the hordes of delicious food would start tomorrow, because he was too tired to make something now.
He grabbed one of the microwavable meals from the fridge and peeled off the cover, placing it at the edge of the microwave. Gourmet spaghetti and meatballs, the packaging said, but Lance knew for a fact that those words were a lie. It was two star at best.
Leaning against the counter, he stared intensely at Peaches as he waited for the familiar beeping of the microwave. She glared back at him, reverting back to her natural state of feline nonchalance now that he wasn’t in a position to pet her.
“I know you’re secretly in love with me,” he said to her. She stayed silent again, clear evidence that he was right.
He ate on the couch with her next to him, her little nose twitching at the smell of food. He didn’t think she’d like it even if it she could eat it. She had high standards, and this food wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of taste or nutrition. He shoved her whenever she came too close, imitating her disgruntled face back to her. Eventually, she settled down beside him for a nap, leaving him alone.
Reaching for his remote on the ground, a precarious motion that involved navigation around the bowl on his lap, he turned on the TV.
“Altean princess Allura gives an address at the 3rd Annual Alien-Humans Relations Summit yesterday, commending Earth’s humane space-travel initiative, particularly its promise of non-aggression…”
Oh, right, he’d forgotten that conference was happening. He’d been invited, but he didn’t go, because someone he really, really didn’t want to see would be there. Plus, Hunk and Pidge both weren’t going, and he didn’t feel like awkwardly standing beside Shiro for a thousand forced pictures.
“... The advancements that will be put into place with this initiative are truly remarkable for not only humans, but the rest of the galaxy. I have full confidence that only good things will come from it,” Allura said, her confident, melodic voice music to his ears even after all these years. She looked more than gorgeous in her gown—she looked freaking ethereal.
She spoke a bold promise, but if Allura said it then it must be true. He didn’t know much about the initiative beyond that it was a draft written by most of Earth’s prominent nations, promising to explore the untouched galaxy safely. Space exploration safety had become a big thing after Shiro returned to Earth. Briefly. Before taking off into the great unknown again.
Lance still didn’t get it, exactly, but he didn’t blame him for wanting to get away. Out of all of them, Shiro had it the worst by far, carrying around a piece Galra technology at all times. Earth was obsessed with it, and every article about him seemed to carry a quota of mentioning it at least five times.
“Altea provides its full support to the initiative and offers its help in any way necessary.” Allura smiled. She really was the perfect diplomat. “Thank you for having me, and let’s have a good night here, shall we?”
Her image stayed on the screen as the TV announcer continued, “the Altean princess’ good friend, Takashi Shirogane, who was born in Japan and was the pilot of the Black Lion, was also in attendance.”
It was weird how after the age of like, twenty-five, Shiro seemed to stop aging. Lance was twenty-five now, so did that mean he was going to stop aging?
Shiro complimented Allura perfectly, wearing the same shades, but different enough colours that he looked distinguished on his own.
Clearing his throat, Shiro placed his hands on the stand. He didn’t smile like Allura did when speaking, but his determination was clear. It was a different kind of leadership from Allura’s, but just as commanding. “I’m grateful that so many countries have come together to write this draft. Exploring space is vital to our planet, but keeping us, and other planets, safe is just as important.”
The announcer’s voice came back again. “Takashi didn’t comment on his past experiences with aliens. For our viewers that may not be aware, Takashi was captured by the Galra, the alien race that almost wiped out the galaxy and replaced his arm with a dangerous prosthetic.”
Lance rolled his eyes. There it was.
“I truly believe we’ll see many incredible things come out of this initiative, when it’s put into place. Thank you for listening.” He bowed slightly, then walked off the stage.
Not the best speech ever, but it’d do for the people that it was meant for. Going to these conferences were just for fluff, anyways. It wasn’t like Shiro had any real say in what the initiative said. His presence was just meant as a pat on the back for everyone who’d written it.
There was free food, though, so that was a nice drawing point.
“In addition, Keith Kogane, born in South Korea and raised in Canada, and pilot of the Red Lion, was—”
Lance shut off the TV, huffing. Why couldn’t he go at least one week without seeing Keith’s stupid face on something?
“Don’t let boys ruin your life, Peaches,” he said sagely, patting her head. She sniffled, looking up at him grumpily, not amused that he’d woken her up. “No one deserves your heart except me.”
He dumped the rest of his uneaten spaghetti into the trash and then cleaned off his plate. When he was a kid, he’d had a fancy dishwasher. All he had to do was load in the roughly fifty dishes that came with his family dinners, press a button, and voila. Funny how he’d gone backwards in terms of technology.
Maybe he was getting old. Lots of old people were scared of technology. But Lance wasn’t scared, he just liked doing things himself. Pidge once said he was trying to fill the void of adventure by busying himself with mundane tasks. He hated how she was always right.
He was about to go to town with the novel he was currently reading when there was a beeping from his room.
The monitor on his desk was lit up with Hunk’s grinning face. He replaced that picture every time Hunk came to visit—most recently, that was a month ago, but they were due for another night out soon.
He tapped the screen and the video call started with a buzz.
“You’re not Peaches,” Hunk joked, pouting, and Lance barked with laughter, plopping down on his chair. It swivelled with the force of him sitting. Lance was almost one-hundred percent sure that chairs that had wheels were mankind’s greatest invention.
“Nice to see you too,” Lance replied, kicking up his feet. “How goes it?”
“Finally got Hali to go to sleep.” Hali was Hunk’s adorably crass four-year-old adopted daughter. She was a sweetheart, honestly, but man, she had a mouth on her. Lance had no idea where she got it from; Hunk was almost painfully careful not to say anything that could be considered even slightly inappropriate around her. Privately, he had a list of suspects as to who the bad influence was.
“I have a new theory that she turns on the TV when you’re not around. That explains all the swears she knows, and also how absurdly good she is at video games.”
“Electricity bill doesn’t show any increased usage of the TV.” Hunk shifted in front of the camera, crossing his legs and setting a bowl of what looked to be ice cream down onto his lap. “The mystery continues, I guess.”
“Did you watch the conference thing?” Lance asked, now wishing he had ice cream. That should’ve been the number one priority on his shopping list. The him from three hours ago was a fool.
“You mean the initiative one? Nah,” Hunk said, spoon in his mouth. “But Keith called this morning and gave me the run-down.”
Lance’s expression immediately shifted into a scowl. He knew it did, but he was helpless to stop it. He couldn’t help it. The mention of Keith’s name had some kind of weird power to make him simultaneously angry and upset, and he wore his heart on his sleeve.
At least, that was the excuse he gave so he could show off his annoyance.
“Really?” Hunk sighed. “All I did was say his name.”
“It’s practically a swear in itself. You should censor it, especially around Hali.”
“If you two would just talk…” Hunk started, but Lance quickly cut him off. He loved Hunk dearly, but he really, really did not want to waste time on this.
“Not happening,” Lance said. “Did Shiro or Allura call?”
“Nope.” Hunk looked tired at Lance’s forceful change of subject. Good. He was hoping that Hunk would give up on that idea soon. “They’re probably still on their way back home.”
“Right.” Lance leaned back. He forgot how far they lived. Space used to seem so tiny when they were flying around in some of the most powerful ships in the galaxy. Now, they all were confined to things like the ‘human knowledge of physics’ that stopped them from going even half as quick. The lions were with Allura and Coran, and while he would give a fortune to have Blue with him, she was safer with them, compared to sitting in Lance’s puny backyard.
“It’s wild, right? Feels like just yesterday we were all together.” Hunk’s shoulders slumped.
“I kind of miss it,” Lance admitted. ‘Kind of’ was an understatement, though. He’d spent the past two weeks flipping through photo books of their adventures. Blocking out Keith, he really did miss it. The thrill of adventure alongside his friends, saving the universe in style.
“Kind of? I sure do, no kind or of.” Hastily, he kept talking, “not that I’d want to give up Hali or anything. But just… all of us together. That was nice.”
“Yeah,” Lance said absently. They hadn’t been together as a group in years. Which was mostly Lance’s fault, but not really, because it was Keith’s fault that Lance didn’t want to be around him. The last time it’d been over half of them, though, had been two years ago. That in itself was too long ago.
“We should have another meetup, soon. Pidge mentioned it a few weeks ago. Maybe once the whole initiative thing finally gets implemented. I bet Allura’s going to be busy for the next little while with that.”
“Let’s go to an amusement park this time. The last location sucked. I mean, a circus? Who reunites with their fellow defenders of the universe to go to a circus?”
“If I had a choice, we wouldn’t have gone either,” Hunk said, looking queasy. “But Allura is scarily insistent sometimes. It wasn’t that bad in the end, though.”
“Says you.” Lance shivered remembering the clowns, with their horribly mismatched outfits and soulless eyes.
“I was thinking we could go see a movie. I haven’t been to a theater in a year. A year, Lance! The popcorn sucks, but those seats are comfy.”
“They don’t have movie theaters in space?”
“They aren’t the same,” Hunk said miserably. “The chairs don’t recline up here.”
Lance snickered, “Pity.”
“It is. Thanks for caring.” Setting the bowl of ice cream aside, Hunk leaned back, mirroring Lance’s position. “By the way, you look pretty awful.”
“Thanks,” he replied, his snickers faltering into a half-frown. Hunk didn’t mean it in a rude way, and Lance knew it was true, but still. Best friends were supposed to let each other live in bliss, weren’t they? “I was sick for a while.”
“Sick, huh?” Hunk looked at him in disbelief. “That’s what they’re calling it nowadays?”
“Shut up.” Lance ran a hand through his hair. “I got a little bit sad, yeah, but I’m fine now. I went for a walk into the city and got harassed by an old lady.”
“That’s what they call progress. But, seriously, if you just reached out to him, I know he’d answer. He’s not going to tell you to go away.”
“You don’t know that.” Lance crossed his arms over his chest. “It wasn’t even about him.” That was the truth, too. He’d been thinking about them as a team, not just about Keith. In fact, he’d made it a point not to think about Keith.
“It usually is though,” Hunk shot back. Lance looked away from the monitor, suddenly feeling tired.
“Would you look at the time,” he said. His clock wasn’t even on the wall he was staring at. “It’s time for bed, that is.”
“It’s ten o’clock, Lance.” He could hear Hunk’s disappointment even without seeing it on his face. “But fine, if you want to continue avoiding it, I can’t force you. Just take care of yourself. And call me if you ever need me. Or Pidge. Or even Shiro.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Lance waved his hand. “I know. I will, I promise. But I’m fine, I told you.”
Hunk smiled at him encouragingly. He didn’t want to say it out loud, but damn it, he wanted Hunk’s big, warm arms around him and that toothy grin directly in front of him, even if it did come with irksome comments about he-who-must-not-be-named.
“I’m going to go work on some stuff, then hit the hay.” Hunk gave him a tiny wave. “Talk to you tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Lance smiled back. “Talk to you later.”
After a moment, Hunk’s image froze, and then disappeared, leaving Lance with a view of his homescreen: a massive, stretched out photo of his family. He needed to change that. It just made his bad moods worse.
It wasn’t that he hated Hunk’s reassurance—he just hated knowing they all pitied him. He didn’t have it that bad. He had Peaches, and a nice home, and he got to fly whenever he wanted. It was a lot better than they most likely imagined it was, and he often found himself taking how peaceful his life was for granted, save for Peaches trying to tear apart his home.
He put his computer into sleep mode and then went back to his living room to check on Peaches.
“They need to come here and see you so they realize my heart’s already taken,” Lance said, crouching down in front of her. She opened her eyes sleepily, yawning in his face. Her breath was awful, but she was so cute that he didn’t care. Kissing her forehead, he stroked her back slowly. “Don’t make a mess while I’m asleep. You’re a good girl.”
She preened under his touch, but gave a look that clearly said she didn’t care what he thought.
Once his nightly ritual of cat-petting was complete, he put on his pyjamas and crawled into bed. His ceiling was outfitted with a map of the galaxy. He and Pidge had mapped it and Hunk had installed it. It twinkled overhead, not bright enough to limit his sleep, but beautiful enough that it calmed him. It reminded him of all the best parts of being in space; seeing so many different places and planets, meeting so many new people and creatures.
Shutting his eyes, he fell asleep to the feeling of melancholic nostalgia; zipping around in Blue, shooting down evil aliens and laughing with his friends.
///
He hit his head when he woke up.
“What the fuck—?” he yelped, both because of the pain and because there was a freaking alarm going off in his room. Rubbing his eyes, he jumped out of bed, an instinct that carried over despite all the years it’s been since he’d been in constant danger.
Looking looked around his room wildly; his foremost thought was that Peaches had accidentally pulled off something important and it triggered the alarm system, but then he noticed the monitor on his desk, lit up with Shiro’s image.
God damnit, Shiro. They’d all had an addition to their alarm systems installed so that Allura or Shiro could call them in case of an emergency. But Shiro wasn’t even home yet; he’d probably pressed the button by accident.
He went to his monitor and clicked the ‘accept’ button, shutting down the alarms. His ears rang with the sound still and he rubbed his temple, wincing.
“Took you long enough,” Shiro said, and why the fuck was he wearing his armour? “I’m going to send you coordinates. You need to get here as soon as possible.”
“What?” he said, the only reasonable words one could say when their team leader was dressed like he was going to go beat up some aliens. Which was impossible, because all the evil aliens were decidedly very dead.
“There’s an emergency.” Shiro turned away from the camera, raising his arm. Which was glowing. Okay then. “Just get here as fast as possible.”
The video feed turned off, leaving Lance with what was the beginnings of a heart attack. The coordinates Shiro talked about came through onto his screen, and judging by those numbers, they were a long, long way from Earth.
“What the fuck,” he said again to the air. “Okay, okay. Holy shit.” He didn’t even know where his armour was. In his ship’s storage? He didn’t think he’d ever need it again. And his gun was with Blue. How the hell did Shiro expect him to do this?
He took a deep breath, forcing himself to focus and be logical. Shiro was in danger, or was on his way to it. Allura and Coran were both supposedly with him, though, so if it was something minor, then together they should’ve been able to take it down. This meant that it was something big. No big deal, they’d saved the universe before, they could do it again.
Plucking Peaches off the couch, he laughed to himself. “Yeah, this is fine. Just going to put my life back on the line. No problem.”
When he’d spent the last two weeks reminiscing about the past, it hadn’t been for the part where he was unprepared, rusty, and a few minutes away from throwing himself into possibly life-threatening unknown levels of danger.
She squirmed and squeaked in his arms, unhappy at the sudden movement, but he wasn’t about to leave without putting her somewhere safe. She lifted her small, adorable head up and his heart broke.
He didn’t want to leave. Fuck, he’d wanted to do stuff, yeah. He missed the feeling of adventure. But not randomly like this.
Shoving her into his neighbor’s cat door, he knew she would be taken care of, at least. His neighbor was an old lady, but not an evil one, and admittedly, it wasn’t the first time he’d put Peaches through that door. His neighbor took care of Peaches whenever he had to go on overnight flights, and she always welcomed more cats.
Peaches stared at him from the other side of the door, confused and lost. Her puny brain couldn’t comprehend what was going on. That was fine, because Lance couldn’t either.
He forced himself to look away, else he’d never get going. Whatever it was, Shiro needed him. Shiro had saved his ass more than a dozen times, and even if the situation was sudden and nonsensical, he wasn’t going to let him down by not getting off his ass and going.
He didn’t bother putting on real clothes, praying that his armour was in his ship. No one would see him walking at three o’clock in the morning anyways.
It felt like walking on lego, though, every step that he took away from his home and Peaches. Every step took a massive amount of effort, only spurred on by the thought of any of his friends being hurt.
His ship was parked in the storage lot on the outskirts of the main area of the city. He unlocked it with his handprint, climbing inside and shutting the door. His hands were shaking; he shook them anxiously, still trying to reel in his hold over himself.
First things first: he had to find his armour. He’d stashed it somewhere in the back compartment years ago. Fishing it out while he was slightly dizzy wouldn’t be fun.
He didn’t use his storage often, though, so there weren’t many boxes in the back. It was just messy. He lifted the lids on a couple before he found his armour. It was covered in dust, but when he wiped it off with his sleeve, it was just as sturdy as he remembered.
After putting it on, which felt both terrifying and invigoratingly familiar, he went to the dashboard of his ship and sat down.
In all of his years flying since their Voltron days, he hadn’t once taken out his ship into deep space. He had no reason to go anywhere beyond their solar system—Hunk and Pidge both lived within it, and they were the only two people he actively talked to that didn’t live on Earth. He didn’t even know if it’d fly fast enough to get to Shiro on time for whatever it was that he needed Lance for, but he started up the engine. There was no use in worrying over that now.
As he flew into the atmosphere, he let go of the controls and stared down at his neighborhood, which was becoming smaller and smaller. He couldn’t pick out his house anymore among the others on the block, and eventually the city became a black speck, barely visible beneath the layers of clouds.
Turning back towards the sky that was steadily turning into space, he sighed.
This was really happening. He wasn’t prepared for a lot of things. It wasn’t only limited to the fighting, which on its own was bad enough. But he had no idea, frankly, how to interact with them, at least not in the same way as they did seven years ago. He was a different person, and they were as well.
And if Shiro called him, he knew that Keith would be on his way too. He didn’t even want to consider what he would have to say to him yet. Nothing was a good idea. The silent treatment was a classic.
He inputted the coordinates that Shiro had given him into his ship’s system and then set it on autopilot. Until he got out of the solar system at least, he should be safe. He set an alarm just in case he fell asleep. Plausible, since it was essentially still the early morning, even if he was steadily moving further away from the sun.
What would be waiting for him once he got to the coordinates? Shiro was on the move, whatever he was doing, and he hoped that he’d thought of that when he gave them to him. Then again, it was Shiro, master of plans. He had to have faith.
Beyond the glass of his ship’s visor, stars began to come into view, planets and suns that were comparatively close to when he was just another person on Earth. At least he’d have a nice, scenic view while travelling through the solar system and into the rest of the galaxy. Seeing pictures on TV and in books wasn’t the same as seeing them with his own two eyes.
Pressing the recline button on his seat, he leaned back and pressed the back of his head against the plush cushion and shut his eyes for now, his head buzzing with the tug of sleep. He could enjoy the view once he got out of Earth’s immediate vicinity. Time to get some shut-eye while he still could.
///
He really hoped that waking up to sirens going off wasn’t going to become a constant in his life.
“Fuck,” he swore, stretching out his back. His senses booted up quickly and he yawned, putting his hands on the dashboard. “What now?”
“A collision has been detected,” the ship’s mechanical voice buzzed. “A collision has been detected in the…”
Its voice trailed off and he groaned. He should’ve gotten that fixed months ago, but his flights around Earth didn’t require the voice system. He’d never fallen asleep in his ship before. Reaching into the ceiling, he pulled down the monitor for the ship’s back camera.
Two ships were trailing him with flags hoisted at their fronts. Space pirates were very real, and very dangerous. They also weren’t nearly as cool as the idea sounded in theory as a kid. Lance wasn’t carrying any important cargo, but the Earth emblem on his ship must’ve made them think he was.
Whatever they’d breached, he wasn’t losing speed, at least. Unlocking the autopilot, he drove his ship forward, picking up speed. He was pleasantly surprised that the thrusters were still in tact. Now with the speed advantage, he turned his ship towards them, setting the parameters on his cannon: full charge, but he locked it onto one of the ship’s engines rather than the cockpit. Whoever these pirates were, he didn’t want to kill them, just get them off his tail.
Pirate ships tended to have guns, not cannons, and their blasts game synchronized when his cannon began to glow with energy. The pattern was predictable, though, and he lowered his ship out of the way.
It was child’s play, really, but with how long it’d been since he was in a real fight, it was almost exhilarating. Fully awake now from adrenaline, he pressed the release button for his cannon. The beam hit one of the ship’s engines full-force and it was thrown wildly into space.
One down, one more to go.
The remaining ship fired angrily at him, but the shots were reckless and inaccurate. Lance laughed a little to himself. He could easily imagine a teenager, hungry for cash and jewels, wildly trying to bring his ship down. Charging his cannon again, he lazily swerved out of the path of the shots.
He was just about to press the button again when suddenly a flaming blast hit the ship head-on, incinerating it. The pieces of metal flew right towards him and he scrambled to get his hands back onto the steering controls, hastily moving out of the way.
“What the fuck?!” he grit his teeth, frantically looking around for the source. The other ship was still spinning into space on his back monitor, with pieces from the other ship now floating into his view.
When he looked ahead, he saw it.
“Charge your cannon.” Keith’s voice droned over his ship’s comm system. “There’s more coming.”
He couldn’t see Keith, but Lance would know that obtuse voice anywhere. But he didn’t need to hear or see him to know that it was Keith—because no one else in the universe could pilot Red so effortlessly.
His first instinct at seeing her was pain, remembering Blue. His second was anger, because it was Keith, who, for some horrible reason, was not only talking to him, but within his vicinity. His third was fear, because the situation had just become even more unpredictable. The fourth was just more anger.
He flipped on the switch on his microphone. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Saving your ass,” Keith answered. “Now charge your cannon before the reinforcements arrive.”
Lance looked down at his ship’s area monitor. He didn’t see any ships on it other than Red and the one that was still steadily spiralling out of control.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, immediately regretting it once he realized that Keith would actually answer.
“Just charge it, damn it!”
Lance slammed the button, but he was already preparing his spiteful ‘I told you so’ speech when nothing happened. Stupid Keith. Lance had lived a blissful seven years without him. And maybe it was childish to be so hung up over something that happened when they were teenagers, but Keith was an asshole, and Lance didn’t associate with assholes. He was a grown ass man now, capable of choosing his own friends.
Now filled with more irritation than adrenaline, he almost jumped out of his seat when another three dots appeared on the monitor.
“They’re here,” Keith said. “You take on the one in the back. It looks the smallest, and I don’t think your ship can handle the other two.”
“Can’t handle it my ass,” he snapped, turning towards the ships that had just warped into space. The three ships formed a triangle, with the largest one at the center. He brought down his ship’s guns and began firing at it.
“You’re an idiot.” Red’s flamethrower hit one of the ships on the outside, but it only scorched the plating. He heard Keith breathe in deeply with rage and then Red’s guns unfurled from her sides.
Lance looked back at the center ship, which was charging its own cannon. His shots hadn’t done much aside from denting the helm. These ships were different from the ones he’d just battled even though they held the same flag on them. They were clearly more expensively made, from resistant materials, and his puny ship wasn’t a match for the metal that encompassed them.
The ship’s cannon glowed and Lance barely made it out of the way. The beam glowed overhead and Lance could easily imagine the feeling of it slicing through his body. Shivering, he put one hand over his stomach.
“Just distract it while I get the other two.” Keith had evidently resorted to ripping them apart. Red’s claws dug into one of the smaller ships, pulling off the top and flinging it in the opposite direction. Her weight crushed the rest of the ship before jumping off and circling around to the other one, whose cannon was frantically charging. “Since you clearly can’t follow orders.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” Lance snarled back, moving around in front of the large ship. He could see its cannon moving with his every movement. It was locked onto him, and he had to stay alert if he was going to avoid its next blast. He didn’t have time for Keith’s immature demands. And he definitely wasn’t following them by distracting the ship—he was doing it because it was the most logical thing to do, not because Keith asked him to. “I’m saving myself, not you.”
“You’re a dick,” Keith answered. He repeated the same process on the other ship as he did with the first one, beginning by ripping off its cover and then beating it together. There was no chance that whatever was inside had survived, between the exposure to space and Red’s ferocious metal paws suppressing the ship.
Keith’s comment didn’t hurt him. He knew he was being rude, but it was Keith. Keith knew what he’d done to make Lance bitter, so he could deal with Lance acting like a so-called ‘dick’.
He saw the flash of the final ship’s cannon at the same time as he saw Keith turn towards it. He flew out of the way, but the cannon followed him, aiming higher than he’d calculated. He raised his arms, bracing for the throttle as the beam hit something on his ship. The sirens started again and he turned them off at once. That noise was really starting to annoy him.
“What did it hit?”
Like you care, Lance thought, looking over his dashboard. What he saw made his heart stall in his chest for a moment and he rapidly looked between it and the alien ship that was approaching steadfastly approaching him. “Oxygen.”
“This just keeps getting better and better,” Keith said dryly. “I’m going to fly over you. Eject when I get directly above you.”
“What?” Lance squawked, then cleared his throat. That was not a tone of voice that he was proud of. “No, no, no. I’m not doing that. Especially not with you!”
“Lance.” Keith was getting closer at the same rate as the other ship. Lance’s lower lip curled inwards. There was an almost one-hundred percent chance that he would be dead within the next two minutes if he didn’t go along with Keith’s plan. But that was the problem: it was Keith’s plan, and how did he know he could trust him? Not to mention the most obvious part, which was that there was no part of him that wanted to see Keith’s face again. At least, not without at least a week of planning jabs and comebacks. “Ten seconds.”
The alien ship’s cannon was beginning to glow again and the oxygen levels in his cabin was steadily dropping. It was becoming harder and harder to breathe with every moment, and his fingers itched over the controls, not pressing down.
“Eight seconds. Come on,” Keith barked, now hovering over Lance’s ship. “Lance, I have no idea why you’ve spent the past seven years acting like I’m Zarkon reincarnated, but if you don’t—”
Lance pushed the button just so Keith would shut up. And also because he was beginning to choke.
Being pulled into space was worse. The air was non-existent. The pressure on his chest was more than just pain, it was as if the entire space around him was trying to overwhelm him. His natural attempt at breathing was stopped full-force and his vision began to darken. He wanted to yell at Keith to hurry up, but he couldn’t even get a scream out, let alone form any words.
His head spinning, he knew he was about to pass out when a tugging sensation pulled him forward towards Red. The last thing he saw before his vision went black and his mind turned into a dead hum was Keith’s unpleasantly beautiful face, holding out his hand.
///
He woke up on the ground, his body aching from head to toe. He felt like he’d been to Hell and back and then back again. It took more focus of every other excruciating experience he’d ever went through to be able to sit up. His armour wasn’t on anymore, at least, but even just the fabric of his pyjamas felt too heavy.
He groaned, raising his hand slowly to his forehead. The noise and shifting must’ve alerted Keith, who’s grating voice unfortunately came to Lance’s poor, already-wounded ears. “Awake?” He almost wanted to just go back to sleep.
Ignoring him, he looked around. The inside of Red looked the exact same as he remembered from when he and Keith spent time in her years ago. Not that he wanted to remember that. Keith turned on his seat, his knees propped up to his chest, and Lance got his first good look at Keith in almost seven years.
Much to his dismay, he looked almost exactly the same. Like Shiro, Keith didn’t look a day older than he did when they were teenagers. His hair was a little longer than Lance recalled, but his skin glowed, his eyelashes just as long, his lips just as pink. Lance scowled. He’d seen pictures of Keith over the years, of course, but they didn’t capture how he looked in real life.
Pointedly looking away at the wall, he huffed. He needed water, first of all, and it said a lot about Keith’s manners that he hadn’t offered him a glass yet. Assuming Keith was smart enough to stock water on his ship, which Lance wasn’t entirely sure about.
He braced his hand on the cold floor and tried to push himself up, but the pain that spread over his spine stopped him in his tracks. Wincing, he fell back onto his ass, rubbing his back.
“Water?” Keith asked, sliding off his seat. “I’ll get some. For your sake, I’d recommend not moving.”
He walked to the back of the room and rifled through some sort of container. While Lance still felt sick at the idea of Keith helping him, when he saw the water sloshing around in the cup Keith held out, he took it eagerly, downing it in one long sip.
Keith took the glass back from him wordlessly and filled it up once more before sitting back down on his chair. The back of it obscured most of his face but as he drank his water, he saw one thing wrong with Keith. The circles under his eyes were dark and deeply set despite the rest of his skin being flawless. It felt like a win for Lance, that Keith was still just as human as him.
“Sorry about your ship,” Keith said, glancing out through the glass and into space. Lance followed his gaze; the stars shone in front of them, but there were no signs of the battle they’d been in. “It wasn’t very good, though.”
It wasn’t, but he didn’t need Keith’s insults. “I didn’t buy it while thinking of whether you’d approve,” he replied harshly.
Keith visibly rolled his eyes. “How did you manage to infer that from what I said?” he asked, wrapping his arms over his knees. He still wore those impractical gloves that Lance used to love to peel off. He ushered the image out of his brain just as quick as it came; just because Keith was right there didn’t mean he needed to expend his internal thoughts on him as well.
“It was implied!” Lance said, because it was. He hadn’t asked for Keith’s opinion, thank you very much, and he never would. Who cared about what he thought? He wasn’t some kind of ship curator.
“Alright.” Keith dropped the subject almost too easily. “No need to get so worked up over it.”
He turned in his seat again, back to the chair and to Lance. He frowned. It should be him ignoring Keith, not Keith ignoring him. After setting down his empty water glass, he tried to stand up again. His legs were like jelly, wobbling underneath him, but he managed to stand up by the help of a ridge on the wall. Fingernails digging into the metal, he scrambled to keep himself upright.
Now that he was standing up, he could study the interior properly from a level that wasn’t like a child’s. There were a few things different that he hadn’t noticed before: there were more monitors showing the sides of the ship, hanging over the dashboard, like in most standard Earth ships; there was a picture of Keith and someone else that Lance couldn’t recognize taped onto the glass over his control stick, which made Lance’s head burn; there was a package of mint chocolate cookies sitting on the arm of his seat.
“You actually modified Red?” he asked, slightly disturbed. They were ancient pieces of alien technology, not to mention practically sentient beings. It wasn’t so much the act of changing them that concerned Lance more than the fact that the Keith he knew wouldn’t have seen any reason to.
“Yeah?” Keith looked over his shoulder, eyebrows furrowing. They were still thick, framing his face perfectly, and his lips parted. “What, are you a ship purist? If you’re concerned for her livelihood, I assure you that she doesn’t care.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Lance answered.
“That,” Keith looked back at the space outside, “is not something to be proud of.”
Lance grit his teeth. Stay calm. Keith was trying to rile him up, but Lance was an adult who was capable of not losing his temper. Crossing his arms, he almost slipped and fell from the loss of balance. He barely caught himself by leaning back on his heel, swaying precariously.
“Who is that?” He took five very, very slow steps towards the front of the ship, ignoring how close he was to Keith in favour of snooping around his dashboard. He squinted at the picture, but his vision was still a little blurry from almost falling.
“That’s my dog,” Keith said, covering the photo with his hand. “Go sit back down before you crack your head on the floor.”
Lance guffawed, pressing his back to the wall to regain his balance. “I’m not going to fall over.”
“Whatever you say.” Keith let go of the picture and Lance took the opportunity to quickly peer at it again. He could vaguely make out an animal-like figure beside Keith. The picture was shaky and poorly taken; Lance snickered.
“Did you take that?” he asked.
“No,” Keith tapped at the controls on his dashboard, not giving him the grace of looking up as he spoke. “Shiro did.”
He glared at the back of Keith’s head. Why was he being so civil? Was he suffering from memory loss? Or was he just hell-bent on ruining Lance’s day and life?
He breathed in sharply. No, he was not going to let Keith have that power over him. Keith could take his fake civility and suck it.
“What are you even doing here?” he asked roughly.
“Coming back from the conference?” Keith shot back his question with another one, but it was clearly sarcastic. “I was visiting Hunk, and then when I got into space to fly back home, I got Shiro’s message. So I went home, got Red, and set the coordinates. I picked up your distress signal and changed course to save you.”
Okay, that was a lot to digest. ‘Phone call’ his ass. No wonder Hali had gone to sleep so easily. It was because it hadn’t been Hunk who’d tucked her in. He knew, logically, that Hunk and Keith were still good friends and talked often, if not almost as much as Hunk and Lance did, but it still left a bad taste in his mouth. Hunk was his best friend, not Keith’s.
“And now here we are,” Keith finished.
“Distress signal?”
“You don’t know the capabilities of your own ship?”
“I’ve never been in distress before,” Lance said, and then continued promptly, “not that I needed help. I bet you just wanted to stroke your ego.”
Keith sighed loudly and continued to press at the controls methodologically. His fingers glided over them with ease and Lance couldn’t help but be jealous. Keith was only that good because he had Red. If Lance was with Blue, he’d cream all over him.
His mind supplied him a very unhelpful image then. Bad choice of words.
“Why did you save me?” he kept pestering. He saw Keith frown, just barely, and he whooped in triumph in his head, knowing he was bothering him.
“I don’t know what kind of person you think I am, but I would never leave you to die. You, or anyone,” he said carefully. “And I don’t appreciate all this aggressiveness. I know you aren’t a terrible person—at least, that’s what the others tell me—so if you could just stop already—”
“You don’t need to fake being nice,” Lance said testily, cutting him off.
“Christ.” Keith pinched the bridge of his nose, ducking his head. “I’m not faking, Lance. I know I made a mistake, okay? I’ve been beating myself up over it for seven years. But believe it or not, I’ve been trying to fix it. I’ve tried to talk to you fifty times. You’re the one who won’t talk to me.”
“You didn’t just make a mistake.” Lance ground his teeth together. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Keith had been having a tough seven years? What about Lance? Unbelievable. “But whatever. Whatever! You don’t seem to get it.”
“I already admitted I was wrong. What more do you want?” Keith questioned, lifting his head and staring Lance right in the eyes. There was the fire that Lance remembered, and it sent a flood of memories through him that he’d spent years shoving into the back of his mind to the front. It felt good, though, almost electrifying, to know that he could rile Keith up after all this years.
“If you can’t figure that out yourself, then you don’t deserve to know.” Keith’s eyes narrowed, his lips pursing with anger, and Lance felt almost giddy. He didn’t even know what he wanted from Keith, other than for him to leave Lance’s immediate area, but it felt good to leave him speechless, even if it was only for a moment.
“You haven’t changed at all,” Keith mumbled, tearing his gaze away from Lance’s. He reached out and pressed one of the buttons that Lance didn’t recognize on his dashboard.
The glass lit up with a blue loading screen, and then a picture of Shiro appeared. Lance instantly recognized it as being the same system he had on his own computer at home. He swallowed; it would have been difficult to transfer it into a ship, let alone one that was intricately made as Red. He hated how impressed he was and decided to assume that it was Pidge who had installed it.
“He’s not going to answer,” Lance said, simply to annoy Keith.
“Shut up.”
The hum of the ringing forced a silence between them, but Shiro’s picture never shifted into a video. The hum came to an abrupt end when Keith pressed the same button, sighing.
He grinned, knowing he was right, and then frowned, because if Shiro wasn’t picking up Keith’s calls of all people, it meant he wasn’t in a position to pick them up at all.
“Do you know what happened?” he asked. That was something he could do. Save Shiro and prove to Keith that he was the better person, just like when they had first met.
“No,” Keith said shortly. When Lance didn’t reply, he shut down the screen and shifted to sit cross-legged, rubbing his face with his hands. “He just said that there was something attacking and that he needed Voltron.”
The idea was preposterous, a thought for a bad day, at best. He wasn’t going to forget what Keith had done to him, and he was pretty sure synchronization was one of the essential parts of forming Voltron in the first place.
“Are you worried?”
Keith sent him a withering glare. “Is that a real question?” he questioned in a tone that said he thought Lance was was an ass.
Lance huffed loudly and looked around, disregarding Keith’s, again, stupid question. He spotted a box at the back of the room and, using the wall for balance, he dragged it over to sit at the dashboard. And, unfortunately, beside Keith. But he wanted to be able to see where they were flying. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it’d do better than sitting on the floor, and it wasn’t like he could escape Keith’s presence at the moment anyways.
He could feel Keith’s eyes on him the whole time. He looked away when Lance turned to stare at him back, cheeks colouring. He flushed a rosy pink and Lance imagined what it’d be like to brush his fingers over it and feel that warmth underneath his fingertips.
So he could make fun of him for it, of course. Not because he actually wanted to touch Keith. He berated himself internally. Keith was probably doing these things on purpose, to draw out the feelings that Lance had had when they were teenagers.
He was strong now, though. He could acknowledge that Keith was still physically attractive, but that also came with the knowledgable of his terrible personality, which was a massive turn off.
“We’ll need to stop for rations somewhere,” Keith said after a few minutes of pleasant silence between them. As usual, Keith had to go and ruin things. “There’s a planetary system coming up that was freed from the Galra during the war. It has a populated planet that might give us some supplies.”
“Do you often use your status to get free things?”
“You don’t?” Keith replied. Lance remembered his last attempt miserably. He did, but it didn’t usually work. He had no intentions of telling Keith that, though.
“Fine.” Lance kicked his legs up onto the dashboard. It felt good to stretch them out. He hoped they’d be better by the time they got to Shiro, else he’d be running around in spurts, or crawling. Both options were equally as cringeworthy. “But we have to do it quickly, obviously.”
“I didn’t say we needed to take a vacation. We just need enough food and water to last us until we get to the coordinates, else we’re going to starve on the way there, and that’s not helpful for anyone. I didn’t pack for two people.”
“You don’t pick up people often?” He reassured himself that he was only asking as a sarcastic comment and not for any other motive.
“This is the first time I’ve flown her in years.” Keith ran his hands over the edge of the dashboard. “Lots of people would kill to get her. There’s no reason to fly her for any reason other than emergencies.”
Lance leaned his cheek against the wall. Keith might’ve been an asshole, but she was made of the same metals that Blue was, and the cool feeling over his skin felt nice.
“Did you steal her?”
Keith released the dashboard and inclined back. “Let me set something straight here for you,” he said. “I’m not a criminal. I’m not evil. I don’t get pleasure from tormenting people. And no matter how much you try and make me hate you,” he breathed in sharply. “I won’t, so just stop.”
Lance tried to open his mouth to counter that, but he couldn’t. He didn’t even have a chance to answer before Keith shut his eyes and tilted his head back. The first thing Lance’s eyes went to was his long neck, covered on the sides by his messy hair. He clamped his mouth shut so he could swallow.
“I’m taking a nap. Wake me up if anything happens. Don’t murder me in my sleep, please.”
Lance waited, and waited, but Keith didn’t speak up again. His eyes were kept tightly shut, eyelashes fluttering every few moments but never opening. His arms were crossed squarely over his chest, and his position reminded Lance of a child’s, curled up in a small space.
Eventually, his breathing evened out, chest rising and falling to a steady beat. Lance was amazed, really, that Keith could sleep during a time like this. This meaning being on a ship that was flying to an unknown destination, with his only crew being his ex-lover.
Well, not lover. That would imply that Keith loved him, and Keith had made it evident that there was none of that from his side.
He had nothing better to do but glance between the dark sky outside and Keith’s face. The stars were beginning to grow fewer and fewer in number as they began passing through an area with little in it, aside from masses of rock that occasionally floated over them.
Twelve hours ago, he’d been cuddling Peaches. Now, she was thousands of light years away from him, and his replacement was Keith. It couldn’t compare to any of his worst nightmares.
He tilted his head and caught sight of the picture that was taped to the glass. Plucking it off, he squinted at it, trying to make out what was happening. It couldn’t have been taken long ago, judging by the length of Keith’s hair, which was now the only indicator Lance had for Keith’s age. He was smiling at the camera, the small, barely there one that Lance knew as his most genuine one. A dog was sitting beside him, its happiness almost tangible through the film.
It was strange to know that, like him, Keith had taken up a pet to be his primary companion. Unless Keith had someone else in his life, but Lance wasn’t sure if Keith was capable of holding a long-term relationship.
He put the photo onto its place on the glass again, before looking back at Keith.
Somehow, he was both the same and different. There was no doubt that he’d changed a lot, personality-wise—the Keith that he’d last spoken to wouldn’t have admitted such a major misstep. He hadn’t, which was how Lance knew. And it was true that Keith had tried to call him, but those calls began becoming less and less frequent years ago.
He hadn’t picked up because there was always the chance that Keith was going to turn on him again, and he wasn’t sure if he could handle that. It was shameful, to be so hung up over something that had happened so many years ago, but Keith didn’t get it. Lance hadn’t just been in love with him. He’d been fully prepared to live out the rest of his life with him, away from the rest of his friends and family, just like Keith had wanted. That wasn’t something to be taken lightly.
But to grow up so much that they could even just be friends again was too good to be true. Keith had irreparably damaged their currently non-existent relationship.
The worst part was that there was still a lovestruck teenager lurking inside of Lance that wanted to get back together. It was by far the most foolish thing he’d ever thought of, and that was saying a lot, because he’d made a lot of blunders in his lifetime. The sight of Keith lying beside him, asleep, did things to Lance’s heart that he longed to leave behind.
He forced himself to look out at space instead. He was not going to succumb to Keith’s attempt at playing him. Keith’s courtesy might’ve not been malicious, but he didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of having any sliver of Lance’s affection, even if this Keith was truly a better person.
Lance was allowed to be childish. Keith had robbed years from him that he’d never get back, marring the memories that should’ve been happy and calming.
The memory that was the most vivid was Keith’s face when he’d proposed they move away together. He remembered Keith’s smile and the way he whispered ‘yes’ against Lance’s lips, before disappearing the next day, his things missing, and no trace that he’d ever been there. Lance bit his lip hard enough to draw blood so he wouldn’t start crying. He was past this. He was past this, and Keith was ruining everything, just like he always did.
“Guys, you better appreciate what I’m doing for you,” he whispered into the quiet air, and Keith hummed in reply, head lolling to the side. He stirred slightly, shifting to lean onto the same side as Lance, his hair brushing over the corners of his seat. He was close enough that Lance could easily reach out and card his fingers through that fluffy hair. He wondered if it was still as soft as before.
With only the sound of Red’s engines to ground him for the next few hours, he settled in for a long ride.