Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Lance was outgoing. He was talkative, he could carry any conversation, he could befriend anyone. He would wave at you first, talk to you first, text you first. He would make sure you felt included. His mother had called him pastor de la gente, shepherd of the people, because he always shepherded people together and kept watch over them. 

“Tienes un regalo increíble, mijo,” she would say. She would touch his cheek, and remove a smudge of dirt, and then she would usher him outside to shepherd the other kids. “Reúnes a la gente.” It was what he was good at.  

Nothing about Keith made Lance want to shepherd him.

Lance didn’t want Keith to be an enigma, and truthfully, he didn’t think he would have been at first. When Lance looked under all the stoic confidence and silent brooding, he could tell that Keith was a fairly simple person, somehow. Simple in the fact that he took every bait Lance threw at him.

It was something about Keith. Something about the way he stares so intensely, the way he folds his arms to ward people off, the way his temper is a short fuse that would get ignited at the smallest spark.

Just something about him that really bothered Lance to his core. Whenever he laid eyes on that guy, Lance would get the intense feeling of wanting to yell at him, even though he would just be standing there.

Keith would be just standing, like he did at the garrison, waiting for his name to be called to fly the simulator. Standing like he did when he welcomed Shiro back to Earth. Standing like he did when he was pronounced the paladin of the fastest and fiercest lion.

“Hey,” Shiro said now, pinning him with his scrutinizing gaze that had Lance guessing what he did wrong. Although, in this case, Lance knew, he just didn’t want to admit it. “What the hell was that out there?”

It somehow wasn’t fair.

“Why are you telling me?” Lance shrieked, his teeth gritting which caused Shiro’s jaw muscle to jump. “Keith was in on it, too!”

Shiro looked at him incredulously, as if he couldn’t believe the words that had just left Lance’s mouth.

That was the thing about Shiro. He always believed the best in people, which seemed to be especially the case with Keith. Somehow, the guy just turned softer whenever he was to tell Keith off, telling Keith in soft tones what was right and what was wrong, giving him second chances, clapping him on the shoulder with his approval.

Lance had fought tooth and nail to get where he was at the Garrison. He had studied so meticulously for the written entrance exam, he had been convinced he bled coffee. He had bags under his eyes for days — days! — after the exam, and when it came to the practical exam, he had taken anxiety pills — mild ones — to calm his nerves.

Lance had managed to build his own platform when he had gotten that acceptance letter, only to be pushed aside by the boy wonder, the greatest fighter pilot in his generation. What had Keith ever fought for?

“I intend to talk to Keith, too, but you shouldn’t have baited him in the first place, Lance.” Shiro pronounced his name the same way several of his teachers, flight instructors and Iverson had.

It was very different from the way his mother said Leandro.

Lance lowered his eyes to the ground, his arms stiff by his sides, and his fingers twitching. He almost looked to his side to see Pidge in the same position, only to remember that he was in the control room of the castle, standing alone.

And then, “You are better than this,” Shiro said, and Lance’s head snapped up to look him in the eye. 

Shiro’s jaw was set, but he wore a kind of expression that Lance had only seen once by his fifth grade physics teacher, when she continued to explain to Lance for the fifth time what a magnetic field was, and how it affected its surroundings. 

“Both of you. You’re supposed to be a team, not goading each other into pulling dangerous stunts. I know,” Shiro added with a tired sigh when Lance looked sceptical, “Keith seems a little…”

“Impervious? Infuriating? Arrogant?”

“Tense,” Shiro cut in, giving Lance a look that told him not to try his patience. “But he’s seen some things in life, experienced hardships. If you give him the benefit of the doubt, he’ll do the same for you.”

Lance remembered Keith at the Garrison, walking through the halls with whispers following him, with giggles about him, with teachers comparing others to him. He remembered always seeing Keith’s score, name, face at the top of the list, remembered his name being used as a reprimand, as a pedestal Lance could never reach the top of, or even graze below.

But he also remembered Keith sitting alone in the cafeteria during lunch periods. In the hallways he would grab the straps to his bag tighter as Lance’s glare followed him and after simulations, he would stand a bit off to the side, from everyone else, eyes down, hands in fists, until Shiro came and whisked him away.

Lance looked away from Shiro now, crossing his arms tightly across his chest and suddenly feeling very much like he did when his mother had caught him pulling his sister’s hair. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Whatever.”

“Think about it,” Shiro said, laying a hand on Lance’s shoulder that had Lance whip his head up in surprise. “We can’t have a team if you keep bickering. And we can’t form Voltron without you.”

Lance stood still in the hangar for some time, even after the doors closed behind Shiro. He looked to the Blue Lion and the underside of her jaw masking the mechanical yellow of her eyes that had seemed to follow him.

He traced her metal the same way he had traced the carvings in the cave, and he wondered  if Keith had felt the same energy coursing through his body that Lance felt at that moment.

Then, he curled his fist.

“Yes, you can,” Lance said, his balled hands swinging by his sides, the doors to the hangar hissing open in front of him. “You can’t form Voltron without Blue.”

***

More times than one, Lance would look to Keith during debriefing, which he was getting increasingly annoyed at himself by. No doubt Keith would voice his opinion about anything, but he would only ever voice them to Shiro.

Which makes sense, of course. Keith is Shiro’s right hand, literally, the pilot of the Red Lion. He was Shiro’s brother, friend, soulmate probably. They had grown up together, or at least, Keith had grown up with Shiro.

So Shiro trying to intervene was probably the right call whenever Lance took the fights a little too far. Sometimes he would even cut Lance off before he could come with a snide comment at Keith. Of course, he would never say anything to Keith . Not in front of the others, anyway.

It only served to aggravate Lance more. Some part of his brain told him that this was good, because it meant Lance could go back to shepherding, but something about the situation irked him somehow. Keith would leave the room, and Lance wouldn’t have any time to catch up to finish what he started. 

The first few years after entrance to the Garrison Junior Class was built for training the cadets until they eventually had to branch off into different sections. There were five within the pilot roles: Fighter pilot, Liaison Pilot, Bomber Pilot, Cargo pilot and Experimental Pilots.

Each section had to take a test for a given seat on the section, and each cadet had to rank the sections from most desired to least desired.

Lance had chosen the following according to his desire: Fighter, Cargo, Bomber, Liaison, Experimental. There was no way he would end up being the test dummy for malfunctioning ships. He would rather have the title of the actual pilot for himself, thank you very much.

The entrance exam consisted of a Numerical Reasoning Aptitude Test, which consisted mostly of physics, as well as a 30-minute simulation score with a chosen crew. Lance had chosen Hunk to be his Flight Engineer, obviously, and a girl named Lai whom he had inherently flirted with and then subsequently groveled to get her to agree.

Lance spent every waking hour practicing, rehearsing, preparing for the test, sneaking into the simulation after hours to perfect his loops, the way he “thread the needle” between tight spaces. Rehearsing codes until he could tell them in his sleep, repeating landing mantras and aircraft names until his tongue felt like lead.

Lance had been caught once, by a Commanding Officer, whose name he had forgotten now.

But despite all of that, he knew now — as he saw Keith loop between Galra ships, between Galra drones, shooting left and right, evading and maneuvering — that no matter what Lance did, all those waking hours, he wouldn’t have made that list.

Keith was the greatest pilot in his generation, owning the sky and winking at the stars as he zoomed by, using the universe as his platform, the Red Lion the pedestal that he stood atop.

Everyone had told him already before the branching began.

Fighter Pilot? What, are you going to try to beat Keith Kogane?

Fighter Pilots are for the best of the best.

And after: Need I remind you, that the only reason you’re here is because the greatest pilot in your generation washed out because of a disciplinary issue!

Foolishly, Lance hadn’t listened. He had fought and scraped until his nails were bloody and raw, gritting his teeth against comments that he would never be the new Kogane, the next Kogane, the any Kogane.

The test results came out with Keith on the top of the list for Fighters. And with Lance on the top of the list for Cargos.

Truthfully, Lance understood some of Keith’s confusion. 

Sometimes, Lance would let his walls fall down — not often, very rare in fact — and see Keith for what he was in that moment. 

When Allura explained the assignments to the individual Lions, Keith had been an excited adventurer, ready to take the world by storm. When Keith floated in space, awaiting demise when he was unable to connect with the Red Lion, he was a scared teenager, still trying to find his place in the world.

Sometimes, Lance would let his walls fall down. They would share a brief moment in shock as they had finally gotten along on something. And then Lance would see his name at the top of the list for Cargos, and their conversation would take a turn.

“Yeah? Well, your brain is empty as a hornet’s nest!” yelled Lance. 

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Keith shouted back.

The thing about Keith was, he was almost too damn perfect. He was a great pilot, the greatest, he was kind to alien strangers, he wore leather gloves, he had Shiro’s favor, and he seemed to get along with Pidge almost only a couple of days after meeting her, when it had taken Lance months of simulation training.

But Lance knew Keith’s biggest flaw, and that was his temper. This Lance used to his advantage whenever he could.

“You don’t make any sense!”

“What does that even mean? ”

This time, Shiro took Keith aside instead of Lance, and Lance had felt a weird sense of satisfaction at seeing the exchange. He had almost said something, but then another feeling — other than the grim excitement of Keith getting told off, and the immediate gratification of yet another successful bait — kept him from opening his mouth.

He only saw Shiro take Keith away, and returned the stare Keith offered him on his way out. 

**** 

What his mother failed to tell Lance was that he was too perceptive for his own good. Maybe that was why he was so good at shepherding people. He would find a common ground, first with himself and then somehow apply it to the other people he knew in his life, until they were one whole flock of sheep that Lance could watch over with his olden, wooden stick.

When he had first met Hunk, he had found the instant way to his heart, and Hunk had found the direct course to Lance’s. After a day or two of awkward conversations where Lance would just run his mouth to fill the silence, Lance had noticed that Hunk had brought his own little box of food instead of eating the cursed foods of the cafeteria. The Garrison may have been a pristine academy, but its foods were clearly those of below average in flavor.

So instantly, Lance had asked to it, and it was like a light flickered on behind Hunk’s eyes. Hunk let Lance into his secret, that he snuck into the Kitchen after hours to prepare his lunch for the next day, and Lance had created the common ground for them both to sneak off into the night and do lawless cooking that they kept to themselves.

It had only taken a day or two, and since Hunk was such a natural sunshine, any friendship with Hunk, once he opened up, would last forever. They had been twelve at the time. Now they were seventeen.

The deal with Pidge had been harder. At first, Lance had tried to find the common ground of both their distaste for Iverson, but Pidge had seemed less than enthused about keeping any sort of conversation with him. She seemed a little warmer to Hunk, but Hunk was Hunk, so that was understandable.

So, when it came to Pidge, Lance had cheated a little. Unintentionally of course. He used the thrilling adventure of saving someone’s life from the evil grasp of the government to find a common ground with Pidge. And it had worked.

The thing with Pidge was, she had some issues that Lance was sure she never talked about or ever let show, but as said before, Lance was unnaturally perceptive. Pidge, once she formed a bond with someone, held onto it with an iron grasp that warded off anything that could threaten it, thus keeping it close to her heart, safe and tucked. Lance knew Pidge enough to know she showed this with her sharp tongue, and her witty ridicule.

Lance wasn’t bothered, because he had managed to shepherd another friend for life.

Keith, similarly, reminded Lance of Pidge a little, but he couldn’t put his finger as to why.

Lance was incredibly attentive and perceptive, but he could not for the life of him figure Keith out. Granted, Lance didn’t try as hard.

It was a little hard shepherding someone who was so focused on their own path, and had such a clear set goal as to what they wanted that it was almost impossible to fit into that concept. Keith was focused, cutthroat, and — begrudgingly admissible — talented in more ways than one.

It was almost impossible for Lance’s shepherding to fit anywhere between Keith flying the Red Lion, and Keith doing an inquiry into his weird but cool dagger.

Lance had always been told he was a shepherd of the people, but he couldn’t shepherd someone who wanted to be alone.

Things turned around, haltingly, when Allura threw the first goo at Pidge. The whole team had moved as a unit, and Lance, coincidentally linked with Keith on the one side, and Hunk on the other, had worked well with both of them.

They were a chain of reaction to offense, defending each others backs and making sure as little goo as possible breached their walls as possible. Keith had a good offensive arm, reaching far with his throws and gaining the upper hand. Hunk was a great defense, deflecting goo aimed at his friends with his own body used as a shield. 

They maneuvered like a team, working together against one enemy, like a unit fitting together perfectly in the slots that shaped their life. It was the most progress Keith and Lance had had in a while, which was probably why — although adrenaline could also be the cause — Lance told Keith that he actually didn’t hate him. Lance had thought they had finally found their middle ground.

He was, of course, wrong. Because with Keith, nothing was ever that simple.

They had an argument not long after that. Lance still couldn’t remember what it was about, but he just had this deep unsettling feeling in his chest that made him want to react violently every time Keith was under his gaze.

After the goo fight, Lance had thought things had changed, but Keith was as aloof and dismissive as ever. Nothing in his behaviour claimed that he cared about anyone else’s opinion but Shiro’s. He would train instead of sit in the common room with Lance, Pidge and Hunk. Sometimes, even Shiro and Allura joined. Coran always joined, because he was getting “rather fond of their fascinating alien behaviour”. That was to say, everyone joined, except Keith.

Lance couldn’t help but take it as a personal offense, as he had somewhat of an inkling it might have something to do with him. Once during a debriefing, only five minutes had passed before Lance had started another fight. He knew, because Hunk told him he had counted.

“Is that really English I’m hearing? It sounds like English, but I could be wrong.” 

“Come on, Lance, be smarter than the table.” 

“Hey! At least I’m smarter than you!” 

“You sure about that?” 

“Try me, dropout.” 

Shiro broke it up, but not before Lance saw Keith’s reaction. Again, Lance was too perceptive for his own good, so when he saw Keith’s nostrils flare at the name dropout, his mouth twitching downwards and his arms tightening, Lance filed it away for later bait material. 

And when Keith had been the first to withdraw his fist, his eyes flashing like lightning, Lance had felt something in that moment. Something other than frustration and anger and irritation. It was something that had before wiggled in his chest, but now lay flat like a docile cat. 

It went away the moment Shiro isolated Keith from the fight, however. And this time, when he took Keith away to talk to him, Keith wouldn’t engage in any of Lance’s probes for the next week. 

**** 

Lance would admit, sparking up arguments with Keith was getting tiring, especially when Keith didn’t respond as much as Lance wanted him to, or as he used to. It must have been all of the talks with Shiro. Lance didn’t know why, but he felt a slight irritation at him for that.

“It’s not like I just start the fights for nothing,” he told Hunk one late evening in the kitchen area. 

Hunk was working on improving the goo somehow, so that it didn’t feel like they were eating sludge, or taste like they were eating cardboard. To Lance he gave a deadpan look over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow in doubt.

“What! I don’t! I have to get better than him somehow, and what better way to learn than by doing?”

Hunk clicked his tongue and mixed a sample of the goo with an ingredient they had been given by the Arusian people. “And what are you doing, exactly?”

For some reason, Lance couldn’t come up with a straight answer. “You know,” he said, waving his wrist in a rolling fashion, “debating, flying, running, whatever. Everything. I have to be better in everything.”

“Why?”

“Because!” Lance shouted, incredulously. Shouldn’t Hunk know by now? “He’s always one upped me in everything. Now it’s my turn!”

A few seconds went before Hunk answered, filled instead with the squishing sounds coming from the batch Hunk had tugged under his arm. He turned around to face Lance, mixing the batch with one hand and securing the bowl in the crook of his arm with the other. “Why don’t you just talk to Keith? He’s a cool dude, I’m sure he would be willing to teach you if you asked.”

“What! Hunk, are you insane?”

Hunk shrugged, and turned back around. “Just saying.”

“That would be mortifying! I would rather eat my left foot than ask Keith to teach me anything!”

Lance heard a sigh in between the mixing of the goo.

“Look, man. We’re all getting pretty tired of your fighting. It would be nice for a change if you two got along, is all I’m saying.”

Lance shook his head slowly, “Hunk, you’re my best friend, but that is by far the worst advice you have ever given me.”

The mixing ladle clattered against the bowl as Hunk stopped stirring, whipping around to look Lance directly in the eye. 

He wasn’t wearing an apron, but Lance could imagine the way he would have wiped his already dry hands on it like a towel, to have something to do. Instead he placed his knuckles on the side of his hips as a resemblance to staring Lance down, even though Lance was perched on the kitchen island.

“So,” Hunk said, not unkindly, instead with a patience Lance could only dream about, “what do you plan on doing? Keep poking the bear?”

When Lance shrugged, Hunk sighed and shook his head, turning back to the mix. “If you keep poking, the bear will eat you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Hunk took the ladle and put some goo in a separate bowl. From the place Lance was perched, he could see the goo had a slightly more jelly consistency than when Coran had presented the food. 

Hunk handed it to Lance with a spoon. “Try this,” he said.

“Hmm,” Lance perked, after he had taken a bite, “Amazing! You have done God’s work, Hunk.”

Hunk smiled, his hands clasping in a hopeful prayer. “Really?”

With a playful tap on his arm, Lance returned the smile, mouth full of goo. “Hell yeah! Nice job, buddy!”

Even though the goo had improved, Hunk’s advice had not.

There was no way Lance could ask the guy about flying tips after all the antagonizing he had done the last few weeks. Social Etiquette permitted a proper apology before such an occurrence could… well, occur — Lance’s mother had not raised a barbarian after all — but whenever the thought crossed his mind, he had to physically stop himself from cringing.

It meant, however, that Lance had to resort to his old methods, no matter how outdated they had become. Also, irking Keith was just too easy.

Lance only had to insult his personality and his rash behaviour once for his eyebrow to tick, and if Lance was looking for a physical fight, all he had to do was call Keith a dropout.

It was getting increasingly harder to do as time passed. At first, Keith would actually turn to remark something back to him, but a clearing of his throat from Shiro would always stop him before he could respond.

Then it was down to a couple of eyebrow ticks, some clenched jaws until finally there was no response at all.

“Tell that to Keith, so he won’t shoot first and ask questions later.” 

Met with silence. 

He didn’t even turn his head to acknowledge Lance had spoken. Pidge sent him an incredulous look while Hunk beside him just looked tired. Frankly, Shiro’s reprimanding look at Lance was successful in causing Lance to cower, but the one sheep meant to catch the bait had turned the other cheek.

Lance was supposed to be the shepherd of the people, but how could he shepherd a person that wouldn’t respond to his calls? 

Regardless, Lance retracted his snide comments. This meant that whenever Lance and Keith did see each other, they were basically non-existent, even if they right beside each other.

This also meant he almost never saw Keith either, except for when they went on missions. Lance only talked to Keith if it was necessary or through others. So, when they weren’t on missions together, Keith was basically nonexistent. Lance rarely saw him. And when he did, he turned the heel before the feeling in his chest could get ahead of him. 

So Keith didn’t want to be shepherded. Fine. It wasn’t Lance’s problem anymore.

Lance may have been the shepherd of the people, but he couldn’t shepherd someone who turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

**** 

It had been an okay sort of routine that Lance had put himself in. It wasn’t optimal, granted, as also marked by Hunk’s serious problem that everyone didn’t get along (How can I be friends with both of you, but the both of you can’t be friends? It stresses me out, man!)

Hunk, like Lance, was very close to his family, but unlike Lance, he didn’t have a million and one siblings, so he wasn’t used to fights between family that couldn’t be resolved, and definitely not used to the tension that would typically follow along.

In more ways than one, Hunk had encouraged Lance to go talk to Keith, but Lance didn’t see any reason to. Things were fine the way they were. Keith stayed out of Lance’s way, and Lance stayed mostly out of Keith’s.

Lance had tried finding middle ground with Allura the same way he had found middle ground with Coran. Through both missing their home. But with Allura being so mesmerising and beautiful as she was, Lance couldn’t go ten seconds without saying something completely idiotic that would ruin any chance he would have of progressing any sort of relationship with her.

It wasn’t until after a training session with the team where he had somehow managed to shoot Keith instead of the bot (“ It’s not my fault you’re always in the way, Mullet ”) that he was so frustrated about everything, he couldn’t even be worried about Allura being a literal princess.

He had started ranting about how he hadn’t asked for this, that he hadn’t asked for any of it, and that he just wanted to go home, that Allura had softened her scolding expression and settled into something a little more sad.

It was then that Lance realized that he shouldn’t have worried about what Allura was to him, or how out of his league she was, how unreachable she appeared, because no matter what, she was a person, too, with her own sorrows and worries and dreams.

And that had settled their middle ground. Lance let go of the fantasy that she was the object of his affections, and that he was her knight in shining armour that caught her when she fell, and he began to see her as the person that she was underneath all the diplomacy. She was a scared girl who had lost everything she had ever known in a matter of hours, even if in reality it had been 10.000 years.

“I didn’t realise when Zarkon started to attack that it would be the last time I would ever be surrounded by everything I knew,” she had said, her snow white eyelashes a stark contrast against her brown skin.

Lance had thought in that moment, I didn’t realise when I flew the Blue Lion from the cave that it would be the last time I would be surrounded by everything I knew.

It had been occasion to an epiphany, one that should have enlightened him about his other problems that he could apply this outcome to, but he couldn’t think further than, I think this brought me and Allura closer.

So, when it was time for a mission, it was to no one’s surprise that there was still a missing link in the team.

Voltron had caught wind that the Galra had intention of conquering planet Hefa, a relatively known planet for its endurance against the war-mongering conqueror with a specialised fleet technology that surpassed that of the old Alteans, even, with the help of the quintessence mines that were their life source.

The Galra wanted it, both to eliminate the threat of a rival in intergalactic travel and territory, as well as to harvest the quintessence that would no doubt unlock many possibilities for the Galra witch, Haggar.

Voltron’s mission was clear. Galra intended to weaken the planets defenses with an ion cannon that would somehow reverse engineer the quintessence harboring the planet to that of which the Galra could manipulate, not unlike the same way Sendak had infiltrated the castle in Arus. So what Voltron had to do was infiltrate the base that most likely had the schematics for the ion cannon, so that they could work to counter it, or disable it altogether. Luckily, that such base was right in their neighbouring system.

Pidge was the most skilled when it came to gathering intelligence from foreign databases, so she would have to gain direct access through the base control panel. She was small and nimble and worked well without being seen, but she could not do it alone.

Keith was to go with her to create a path for her to follow, redirecting, or getting rid of sentries that were in their way as quietly as possible, plus he could open the Galra’s doors for some inherent reason, which everyone seemed to want use to their advantage. Shiro was too big and too recognisable to join, only causing more attention when they wanted less, and Hunk was just a clumsy spy who didn’t know how to keep quiet. 

Despite Allura’s shapeshifting, she couldn’t do anything about her Altean marks, which were a dead giveaway, and thus would not help her with opening the doors either. And Lance, as much as he boasted about it, was regrettably a long-range marksman which made him unfit for any spontaneous hand-to-hand combat that might occur, and therefore perfect as backup.

Everything so far went according to plan. Lance tracked the green and red dot as they slowly made their way through the base. Shiro was guiding them through the comms from where he could see the interior of the base, and it sounded like the passage was somewhat smooth.

They were nearing the central commission bridge in the ship, Keith probably opening the door to give them access to the room. Everything seemed to go fine, the comms from the other side silent as Pidge worked on hacking the control system, and Keith keeping a lookout.

At least, until Pidge started swearing.

“Oh, fuck,” Pidge drawled, a clicking noise suddenly starting in the background of their comms. Oh shit. Pidge was typing hard and fast. That wasn’t a good sign.

Shiro must have thought the same thing. “Team, what’s going on down there?”

But all that came back was Pidge’s mantra of ‘fuck, fuck, fuck’ over and over again, as the clicking noise increased in both volume and rapidity.

“I don’t know. All I see on the screen is a bunch of text,” Keith answered instead.

A sharp intake of breath was heard from Hunk’s line of communication. “Oh, no, that’s not good. It means they’re—”

But whatever he was going to say was drowned out by a bang from the other end of the comms. From where Lance was sitting in his pilot seat, all he could hear was the beginning of shots being fired, and a bayard activating.

Shiro lurched forward in his lion immediately, Hunk and Lance following close behind as Shiro commanded, “They’ve been spotted! Lance, go to the central control room and provide back up. Hunk and I will flank the other side to provide a distraction.”

Lance gave a salute, despite not being seen. “Roger that, boss.”

He branched off from their flight formation that he couldn’t help but compare to the basic training that was learnt in the Garrison and remember how far he had come.

Once he was inside the base, he followed the map he had show from his wrist-tech, which lead a rather smooth path as all the soldiers had most likely left to gather at the control room.

“Keith,” Shiro sounded from the comms, as Lance rounded a corner.

Shit, there was a sentry.

“Lance is coming to you, now, for backup.”

As if the sentry could sense Lance behind it, it turned and lifted its weapon. Lance was faster though. The wrist-tech disappeared as he lifted his blaster and took the shot, a singing hole forming in the middle of the chest plate. Luckily, it had been a mechanical sentry.

The comms crackled to life again. “Tell him to hurry up!” 

A few more sentries rounded the corner when they heard the gunshot, and Lance grit his teeth, but it wasn’t for the sentries. He shot as many as he could while he was still running in the direction he remembered from the map, and once he was too close to shoot, he swung his blaster and hit the last sentry on the head.

The sentry stumbled to the side, but it turned out to be yet another mechanical one, because it quickly regained its balance, and surged forward.

Lance quickly listed his blaster and shot the sentry right in the helmet, electricity sparking out from the hole it created as it fell to the floor with a clang.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” he said into the comms, and resumed running towards the control room. “Try not to get your panties in a twist.”

“Pidge!” He heard Keith bellow, when he turned down another hallway. Lance’s stomach dropped, fearing the worst until, “A little help!”

“I’m busy!” was Pidge’s answer.

Lance breathed out as he turned another right, then immediately began to wonder if maybe he should have slowed down and considered what he would be meeting once he got there, and how he was going to go around it. Once he was nearing the control room, the hallways became more and more compact with Galra soldiers.

The entry pad was singed and smoking beside the wide opened doors, and every so often a soldier would either go in or get thrown out. From the doorway, Lance shot those he could see, watching them going down only for a tick before he moved onto the next and the next, until the swarm of Galra soldiers lessened considerably.

He could enter the room, and he saw Pidge standing at the control panel, typing furiously and swearing just as furiously, her eyebrows lining to one and meeting her eyelids, almost. She was relatively safe on the other side of the control panel, but it took Lance shooting the wrist of another soldier to comprehend why.

A flash of red shot past from his periphery, and with a turn of his head, he saw Keith, a whirlwind of chaos, bringing Galra soldiers down so fast, Lance wondered for a moment if he was seeing this fast forwarded.

There was a limited time between the red bayard being sunk into the Soldier’s abdomen before it was embedded within a second’s armpit and then a third’s thigh. They went down like domino pieces, one by one facing the wrath of Keith Kogane. Keith never let any of them stray too close to the control panel, handling them with an elegant expertise, that had Lance thinking they didn’t really need backup.

Until he witnessed why Keith couldn’t possibly have been enough.

While Keith may have been preoccupied with close combat, he couldn’t take on those long-ranged weaponized soldiers who could shoot at Pidge from afar.

But that was where Lance had perfect timing to come in.

He spotted a Galra sentry aiming their gun at Pidge from afar one second, and the next they were going down, smoke rising from their neck from the singe of the blast.

Next, Lance shot the sentries that were swarming Keith, one going down, and two of them retreating.

Keith looked mildly confused from where he had raised his sword, but once Lance spoke into the comms, he seemed to deflate a little.

“You guys having a party without me?” Lance said, shooting another gunman from afar and moving on to the next one.

He saw Keith shake his head from his periphery, but the next second he was keeping other sentries at bay.

With the two of them playing defense, the crowding of Galra-sentries lessened significantly, until Lance and Keith stood shoulder to shoulder, their guards still up and eyeing their surroundings, taking shots and swinging swords as they continued to fight for their lives.

There was blood on Keith’s sword and a little on his visor, but he wiped it away with the back of his hand as he turned towards Pidge who still seemed to be in distress.

“Pidge, we need to leave, now!”

Lance held his eye through the sniper vision his gun had formed, and he was shooting sentry after sentry down, making sure to shoot Galra soldiers in the legs or their knee caps. But if they got too close, the target moved to their chest and their head.

“No! I’m almost through the self-destruction protocol. We need those blueprints!”

“To your left!” Keith yelled behind him, and his weight against him disappeared as he leapt out to defend Lance from three storming sentries. 

Lance stepped out and shot at the sentries and Galra soldiers that were advancing towards Keith’s now unprotected back. The Galra soldiers went down, their weapons flown out of their hands as they fell. The sentries ended up with a hole in their chest or head, blue sparks sizzling on the mechanical sentries as they fell down as well. 

Keith looked at him for a brief moment and nodded a thanks and Lance quickly thought that that was the most communication they’d had in a couple of weeks. 

Then he quickly turned back towards the sentries that were heading their way. Keith’s weight settled behind him again as he focused his attention to the front. 

“Any chance you’re close to the blueprints?” Lance didn’t have to yell, the comms carried out his words clearly. Pidge responded with an unintelligble frustrated noise. 

“I have overridden the kill protocol, but I still need to locate what we need. Shouldn’t take long.” 

Somehow, Lance wasn’t reassured. Keith must have read his thoughts, as he turned to Lance after knocking down a sentry. “Lance, call the others. We need extraction immediately.” 

Keith shifted against Lance as he struggled with a sentry, then a Galra soldier who seemed insistent on trying to cut Keith’s ear off. Keith drove the Galra soldier a little bit forward, one of the Galra’s blows barely avoiding Lance’s shoulder.

Lance shot at several sentries who had their shields up, hoping his blasts could somehow override their code and break through. Tough luck. “Sure, let me just dial their number while trying to stay alive.”

 “Just hurry. I don’t know how many more we can— Lance!” 

A shield materialised in front of Lance before he could blink, saving him from purple blasts that would have put holes in his abdomen. Lance blinked and saw Keith standing beside him, his shield protecting them both from the shots the sentries were aggressively aiming at them. 

Lance looked over his shoulder. The Galra soldier that had attacked Keith lied on the floor, his side bleeding, and his head limp.

He took this opening as an opportunity to turn on his comms, connecting with Shiro’s immediately. “Shiro, Hunk. We almost have the blueprints. Uh, backup and extraction would be nice.”

Shiro’s strained voice crackled from the other end, “I hear you. We’ll be there in ten ticks.” The comms clicked off again, and the only sounds now were the battle against the blasts from the Galra sentries.

“You have a shield for a reason,” Keith hissed, the shots seeming to strain him as they intensified.  

Lance activated his own shield and stood with Keith against the heavy fire. “Right, but I also have a gun for a reason. These robots don’t take out themselves, you know.” 

Keith huffed and grumbled, “You’re welcome.” 

“There!” Pidge exclaimed through their comms. She was holding up a small flash drive. “I got it!”

And Lance thought for a moment, that even though their plan had somewhat derailed, they would be fine. They got the blueprints. They would save planet Hefa from destruction and enslavement.

Then, everything happened at once, as if in slow motion. He had thought too soon. Lance must have let his guard down from Shiro’s confidence, or Pidge’s jubilance, because a second after Pidge had yelled out, she crumpled where she stood.

Her entire body was lurched forward where she bounced off the control panels and fell to the floor. Behind her was a Galra Commander, the line of her gun still aimed at Pidge’s limp body.

Someone shouted Pidge’s name, but Lance’s arms were already moving, his shield deactivating as the sniper’s eye realigned with his vision. The next second, the Galra Commander fell to her knees, her eyes wide in shock.

Lance scrambled to his feet, his eyes on Pidge on the floor, but in that moment, the Yellow Lion tore through the ships hull, its jaw opening as Hunk ran out.

Lance acted on instinct, and turned around to give Hunk cover as he picked Pidge up from the ground. Keith was still there beside him, his shield providing them both with protection until they were safely inside the Yellow Lion. They jetted as fast as they could back to the castle, Shiro having picked up the Blue Lion on his way back.

Once they were back at the castle, Shiro was already there, waiting by the Yellow Lion’s jaw and having his hands reached out for Pidge’s body. 

Her blood was dripping onto the floor. It made something inside Lance a little queasy, despite the fact that he had seen an injury like that before.

Hunk carefully handed her over to him, trying for delicate despite the wobbling feeling of lurching through wormholes and Lance braced himself on the wall of the lion’s open jaw from the feeling.

Once Pidge was securely in Shiro’s arms, he bolted to the infirmary where the healing pods were. Lance saw them disappear behind the doors.

Somewhere in the distance, Hunk said, “Hey, Lance… What are—”

But the queasy feeling was coming back with a vengeance, the nausea turning into outright dizziness. It came so sudden, Lance lost touch with the wall, his vision blacking out with dark spots. Luckily, before Lance could fall to the floor, he was caught beneath his arms. 

“Woah, there,” Hunk said. He sounded like he was in distress. “Are you okay? What’s wrong, buddy?” 

Lance tried shaking his vision from double to normal, but it only made it worse. He then tried getting his feet under him again, supporting against Hunk’s weight. “I’m okay, just feel a little dizzy.”

He had felt dizzy when he had stood up too quickly before. This was just another case of vertigo. Except, the other times he had vertigo, his vision didn’t give out on him.

Then suddenly, Keith was there, at the corner of his eye, frowning, and looking at Lance’s leg. He touched it idly. “Lance, you’re bleeding. You were shot in your thigh.” 

“What…?” Lance started to say. He didn’t feel any pain from that area, but when he looked down and saw that Keith was right, his feet suddenly decided to give out completely. 

His thigh was one big area of a bloody mess, the outline blackened with dried blood, and streaks of it were pulled by gravity and slid down the length of his armour. As if the wound suddenly went aware of itself, Lance’s leg started hurting with a red-hot flare of pain exploding and making his muscles give out. The room swam as he went down. 

Keith caught him at his other side, cradling him along with Hunk. “Hunk, take him to the infirmary. I’ll run ahead to tell Coran to ready another med-pod.” 

Hunk nodded, then turned to Lance who was starting to lose vision in the corner of his eyes, the bite of the pain in his leg increasing by the second. “Hey, buddy, come on. You’re gonna be alright. We just gotta get you to the pod, okay? Gonna patch you right up, good as new.” 

Lance just kept nodding, distantly hearing fast footsteps, then a door whooshing open, trying to fight the sleep and the bite of the pain that was dawning over him. He knew in these situations that he was supposed to stay awake, but if he was on his way to the healing pods, anyway, how bad could resting his eyes for a few moments be? 

But whenever he started to close his eyes, Hunk nudged him open with a ‘nuh-uh’, then basically carrying him down the halls towards the med-bay. It wasn’t far, but Lance felt like it was galaxies away. Eventually, Hunk had to actually carry him, and it got harder for Lance to stay awake. 

Then, Lance couldn’t help it. His head was too heavy, his eyes too tired, and his leg hurt too much. “What about a nap,” he murmured, his eyes sliding closed. “I can take a nap right? Just a little one. I’m so tired…” 

Hunk said something, but Lance couldn’t hear what it was, because then his eyes really didn’t want to open, and unconsciousness took over him. 

When he came out of the healing pod again, everyone was there, except Pidge. She was in the pod beside his. Her injury must have been severe.

Shiro clapped his back once he got his feet under him, Hunk hugging him tight to his chest.

“God,” Hunk said, Lance struggling to breathe as Hunk pressed his face deeper into his sternum, “Sometimes I forget more than one of us can go down.”

When Lance was released and able to breathe, he gave Hunk a small smile, and looked to Pidge again.

She looked out of place in the pod. Pidge had been the one of them yet to go in there and Lance didn’t like the way she looked when her eyes were closed. She wasn’t even wearing her glasses.

Allura touched his shoulder, her face kind when he turned to her. “Let’s have some dinner while we wait. She shouldn’t be there for much longer.”

Coran nodded from behind her, both his hands behind his back, and the twitch of his mustache indicating he was also smiling.

When everyone filed out to make ready for dinner, Keith had been the last to step out of the infirmary, touching Lance’s shoulder for a second or two, then said, “This is why you have a shield. Use it next time.” 

It was the exact sort of thing Lance had expected him to say that he couldn’t help the smirk from forming on his face. “Hey, I was trying to save your back, remember?” Lance followed Keith as he exited the med-bay, Lance’s shoulder tingling where Keith had touched him.

Pidge came out of the pod a few hours later, gobsmacked and relieved when she witnessed a long awaited conversation between Lance and Keith.

***

Lance had prepared everything from home. He had gotten the schedule in the mail a few weeks after his acceptance letter, and he had started preparing with his mother on his right side.

She had pointed out when he should take breaks, while he had scribbled down when he would start flying, highlighting it with a yellow highlighter. 

Veronica had walked past the kitchen and reminded him he should also lay down nap times, and Lance had stuck his tongue out at her, but he had written the times in parenthesis anyway.

His father would ruffle his hair, and remind him to eat well, despite the food at the Garrison containing just the bare minimum of every protein and mineral they needed. 

Marco took one look at his schedule, then at Lance, and then he had proceeded to throw him in a headlock, because Lance needed to learn to defend himself, you’re just a scrawny little kid, they’ll eat you up over there .

Rachel strangely hadn’t acknowledged the schedule at all, but she did push two or three empanadas extra his way at dinner the days leading up to his departure.

Luis hadn’t been home. He was still living with Lisa 20 minutes away, but on the day Lance left to the Garrison, he had lifted him up and hid his tears in Lance’s hair.

You’ll touch the stars, hermano, he had said, and his father had smiled wistfully behind him. Catch the biggest one for me, yeah?

Yeah, Lance had said, because if his family had asked him for it, he would have brought the whole universe back to them.

Once Lance finally did arrive at the Garrison, everything he had planned for went out the window.

The schedule didn’t tell him how hectic it was going to be between classes. Everything had been accounted for in the schedule, and Lance, foolishly, had thought it was just as fluid as the one at his old school. It was an unforgivable timetable of plans from morning to evening, no room for anything other than what had been appointed on the piece of paper.

Classes started 8:15 in the morning, the first subject Physics, because you needed to know about nebulas before you went to pursue them. Next was chemistry, biology and history, but not the world history like Lance had learnt in school, but the history of Space travel, and the history of space and the discovery of it.

Lunch became a relief from all the knowledge his brain tried to seep in, but directly after that was physical education, flight simulations and first aid rehearsals. Hours ended at 18:30 and students were allowed to roam within their quarters until curfew at 21:00, when all the lights were shut. But the only thing the students had time for in that small window of freedom was dinner.

But it was fine. It was all fine. Lance was adaptable, he learned hard discipline and trained his ass off, because that’s what it took to bring some stars home for his family, and if he lied a little about the amount of food breaks there actually was, well then they would be none the wiser.

Calls to home were not as frequent as he would have liked, but when they did happen he told them everything he could say in a breath or two.

He told them about this boy named Hunk who he had been assigned to share his quarters with, and he was the coolest dude who shared his amazing cooking, and parents liked him instantly.

Once, Lance had ushered Hunk close to the phone to say hi, and Hunk, the sunshine that he was, knew exactly what he needed to say to melt the hearts of his family.

He became an instant member.

Shortly after they also got a brief whiff of a boy named Keith Kogane, who apparently was great at flying but, It’s not like the simulations are that hard, anyone could be great at flying.

Except, Keith’s name was still at the top of the board, and Lance was still a few ways away from being second.

We believe in you, Lancito! Bring home the stars for us.

And he would, if he could, if only he could get his name at the top of the list.

He reached fifth place, fourth place, third place.

Even when he reached second place, he grumbled and almost tore down the list from the wall, Keith’s name taunting him from where it was perched, untouched, with the number one before it. 

Because if he wasn’t first place in simulation scores, he could never bring home the galaxy.

*** 

Lance learned that his and Keith’s middleground was the battlefield, despite popular belief. They worked like magic.

They were still training as a team in the training sequences, sometimes even one on one with Allura or a bot to practice stance and flexibility. But sometimes, one on one pairs were required, and Keith always chose Lance.

For those training sequences, it was mostly hand-to-hand combat where they had to learn to duck and swing. Keith was surprisingly good at hand-to-hand, but then Lance remembered that the Garrison had an exclusive course in combat training to the fighter-pilots.

Cargo-pilots had an exclusive diplomacy course.

Nevertheless, Keith moved like a turtle in the water. When he was in his element, there was no force that could stop him.

Luckily, Lance had also taken the exclusive course in combat training, but since he had only been there a year, he wasn’t nearly as good as Keith who had learnt for all of three years.

Lance landed on his back more times than he would have liked, but he kept Keith on his toes, in the sense that Lance was an unpredictable fighter, and he could see it with the way Keith fought back.

Lance had learnt flexibility from the day he had to move country, to move specialties, to move galaxies. So, naturally, he learned to use his surroundings to his advantage.

Keith was a little more narrow-minded in that field. He was all hard-edge training formations and combat dances, acting out the sequences with an immaculate discipline. It made him critically predictable.

Which was the reason why Lance landed the right hook in the first place.

Shiro to the side winced, but Allura tapped her staff against the floor to indicate that they continue.

Lance didn’t know how he felt with the others watching, at least not in the beginning. Now, he was pretty much feeding off of the pride it gave him that he had managed to land one on Keith.

Keith wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looking at Lance from under his bangs, and Lance could have sworn he saw his mouth tilt up.

“You’re— woah!” Lance narrowly missed Keith’s swinging kick, advancing to punch him in his left side that he had left exposed, but Keith was quicker now, and didn’t let himself be caught off guard again by blocking the punch.

Keith grabbed the arm that had swung, spinning Lance around to kick him to the ground. Lance, just as he was about to kiss the dust on the floor, twisted to his right at the last second so Keith was forced to let go, lest he crush his hand under Lance’s weight. 

With that advantage, Lance swung his foot to connect with Keith’s side, knocking him to the ground and holding him there by putting his forearm on his throat. He panted as he looked down. “I was about to say, you’re letting your guard down.”

Keith glared up at him from the chokehold Lance had on him, and Lance took the moment to grin at him, thinking he had won. It was a mistake to think that.

Keith grabbed Lance by his midriff with his calves and rolled Lance over his head so that Lance ended up with his back to Keith. Before Lance could counter-measure, Keith had lifted Lance off of him with his thighs squeezing Lance’s side, flipping him over and tightening his legs around Lance’s throat. Keith held Lance’s arm up and away to prevent any retaliation.

Lance struggled, wiggling in place to try and loosen the hold, but it was no use. Keith had strong leg-muscles, and Lance was pretty sure he could go all day.

“I’m sorry, what?” Keith said, sounding out of breath, “I can’t hear you over your choking.”

Lance wasn’t actually choking, but if he was the enemy, he would have. Lance tapped Keith on his calf after a failed attempt at escape, and was released promptly no more than a second later.

He could feel all the heat in his face now, but it didn’t stop him from glaring at Keith. “Fuck you.”

Keith just smiled smugly.

On the sidelines, Allura tsked and tapped her staff on the floor again, the loose hairs from her bun swinging as she shook her head. “Sloppy.” She handed her staff to Shiro and stepped onto the training platform, her arms hanging loose beside her.

“Lance is right,” she says, stepping up to Keith, “You are letting your guard down.” She didn’t even give Keith a second before she struck.

Keith deflected the first punch, but he couldn’t possibly stop the other from coming, earning him a fist to his cheek and a kick to his stomach. To his credit, he fought back, viciously, but Allura was a princess of Altea, she had the most advanced fighting simulation earthlings would have only dreamed of. She was more than skilled at combat.

Naturally, this meant it didn’t take long before Keith was forced to go on the defensive. As both Lance and Allura had told him, Keith let his guard down the instant he looked to the opponent, lending Allura an opening to kick him back, again, and twist his arm behind him until he dropped to the floor with his cheek against the tile.

“Oof,” Lance said, wincing at the impact. “Manhandled by the princess.”

“You must remember to never let a friendly face fool you. Haggar has her ways to trick the mind.” She released Keith, who grunted and stood, but he wasn’t wearing a blush as Lance had hoped. Allura turned to address the others as well. “No matter what you see, always stay on your toes.”

Lance didn’t see the kick coming before it landed on his shoulder. Since he wasn’t standing in a solid stance, he was knocked off his feet, landing with a thump on the tile.

Above him, Allura smirked down at him as he groaned. “That goes for you, too, Lance.”

With a bend of her fingers, she called Shiro onto the platform with her staff. She was handed it, turning briefly to the team as Lance and Keith settled on the bench beside Pidge and Hunk, Lance rubbing his shoulder, and Keith and Pidge snickering at him. “Shiro and I will demonstrate.”

Shiro sunk into a fighting stance, holding his fists loose and his arms raised, waiting for Allura to attack. He didn’t have to wait long.

Allura swung with her staff, bringing it down his a force that would probably dislocate Shiro’s shoulder had he not blocked it. They were going at it with each other, not showing the other mercy, and Lance could see Allura withholding a small smile.

“So,” Pidge said from on the other side of Hunk, grabbing Lance’s attention from the fight, “How long you think before they get it on.”

Lance looked from Pidge to the fighting platform, back and forth as if he was watching a tennis match. “Who, Shiro and Allura?” he asked, incredulously.

Keith on the other side of Lance snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“I don’t know,” Hunk said from beside Lance and Pidge, “I could see it.”

“Right?” Pidge said.

“What!” Lance tuned their conversation out, turning to Keith for support. “What does Shiro have that I don’t?”

Keith snorted. “You mean besides being twice your size? And being actually respectful of Allura. And listening to her when she talks—”

“Yeah, okay,” Lance interrupted. He folded his arms over his chest and glared at the way Shiro’s arm bulged when he flexed. “I could totally take him.”

“You can barely take me.”

“Hey, I almost won fair and square. It's not my fault you have freakish leg muscles.”

“I don’t have freakish leg muscles!” Keith objected.

Lance looked at him, a smile playing at his lips that he didn’t want Keith to see. Keith was glaring at his feet as if they had personally offended him.

“Hey,” Lance said after a while, nudging Keith with his elbow. “You don’t think they’re actually—”

“No.” Keith was smiling, as if he had just heard a joke. It was a strange expression on him. Lance didn’t know if he liked it.

“How are you so sure?”

Keith looked to him then, tearing his gaze from the fight to settle it on Lance. It wasn’t an answer, but Lance couldn’t help but feel as if Keith was trying to tell him something.

“Hey! Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” Pidge yelled. She was standing in the middle of the platform beside Hunk and Shiro, her hand on her small hips. “Training simulation. Get off your butts.”

“Gee, what crawled up her—”

“Lance,” Keith warned.

Coran was preparing the simulation for the team exercise, painting their surroundings in that of a Galra ship. The team’s objective was to reach a certain destination on the ship without communicating or being discovered. The training bots were provided to act as the Galra’s sentries.

At first, the sequence went good. Shiro took the lead and seemed to communicate his silent language better to Keith than Lance had, so everyone move seamlessly. Another great thing about Shiro is that he knows his team, and he knows who to use and when.

That is why he used Hunk to pave way for Keith, who silently took down the bots so as to not disturb the peace of the make-believe ship.

He nudged Lance to get in position in the higher ups so that he could take the bots down from above, and Shiro would go with him to provide backup. 

This left Pidge to go ahead. Her small size made for an excellent spy, as she could fit into any nook and cranny there was to hide in. She wasn’t easily seen. And since the time Sendak had infiltrated the ship, she had gotten good at knowing how to stay quiet.

Pidge maneuvered back and forth, Keith taking out any bots threatening to alert the central base. Hunk took out a panel from the doors, and re-placed some wires, which gave Pidge the access she needed to break into the doors mainframe and open any door she liked without needing Keith’s hand.

The sequence was over faster than Lance had expected. Maybe it was because of their recent mission, or maybe they were just getting better at teamwork, but sooner rather than later, Pidge entered the final door to the destination.

Lance took out a bot that was in the intersection of Pidge’s path, taking it out before she could be spotted.

Pidge slammed her hand on the simulated control panel, throwing her fists up in the air in victory.

Hunk hooted with her as he stepped up beside her, and Shiro was walking towards them, smiling proudly.

Lance wanted to move, but he was frozen in his spot. One moment, he saw Pidge, standing in her civilian clothes, her bayard deactivated, a huge smile on her face. And the next she was crumbling before him, her green armour covered with the red of her blood, and there was someone standing—

They were right behind her—

The sound of a bayard activating suddenly filled Lance’s ears, and he didn’t know it was his own before he had shouted out Pidge’s name already and aimed a shot past her shoulder.

Shiro looked over his shoulder in surprise, shock painting his features as Lance took the shot and Lance realized his mistake too late, his hands were shaking his aim was off—

And then he was pushed to his right, the aim off-kilter at the last second and whizzing by Shiro’s shoulder, missing its target.

Someone said his name, but all he could see was the smoke from his blaster and the black soot on the wall behind Shiro, and then his bayard was suddenly clattering to the ground.

He saw Keith somewhere to his left and thought he must be wearing one of his intense looks, but Lance couldn’t bring himself to meet anyone’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, but he’s not sure anyone heard him. He thought maybe the cold sweat is too loud for anyone to hear his words.

A hand was on his shoulder suddenly, and Shiro was there, looking concerned despite Lance having tried to shoot him. He’s saying something, but it sounded muffled, something about everything being okay , but it’s not and suddenly Lance couldn’t breathe.

He stepped back, Shiro’s hand falling from its hold on his shoulder and he said somewhat absentmindedly, “I need a break.” and then he ran straight out of the training room.

The sweat on his body was cool, but it turns ice cold when he ran, and he didn’t know where he was going, just that he needed to get away—

Lance had done this before. When things got too much he would turn his back and leave until things got better.

Once, he and his mother had gotten into a fight. Something about how the Garrison was draining him, or something. He didn’t remember quite honestly. It seemed stupid now.

But he had gotten so angry, and he had thought she had been angry, too, but now he realised she was probably mostly sad on his behalf, or— worried.

He had turned his back though. He had turned his back and walked out the front door, slamming it in its doorway so hard the glass rattled, and then he had just left.

Ironically, this time, Lance left for home again.

He found it easily on the star map, and he enlarged it until the planet was bigger than his head. He found Cuba quickly, because somehow he always found his way back home, and he would have given anything to hug his mother now, even though she was probably still angry— no, sad maybe. Worried.

She had told him he should catch some stars for them out there, but she hadn’t meant that he should sacrifice his health to get there. He was a shepherd after all. He was no space ranger.

And then Lance had left to be just that. A space ranger. Now he was here, shaking with the cold of the war, wishing beyond everything that he had just listened to her.

He was a shepherd. He wasn’t a space ranger.

But when he enlarged Cuba to show Havana and Varadero, the doors hissed open behind him, and Keith came up on his right.

Lance could feel the intensity of his stare, and he thought he might have liked a hand on his back then, but it was still cold with sweat, so Lance said nothing.

And then Keith said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Lance thought of glass rattling, of doors slamming, of footsteps stomping away. He said, “No.”

So Keith didn’t say anything, either, just sat beside him and looked up at Cuba with him for some time, and Lance thought, maybe this was what he had needed back then, with his mother. Sitting in silence together. Maybe he could have listened then. Maybe she could have.

Was he a space ranger? Or a shepherd?

He thought: he could be both.

***

“This is it?” Lance said, as he stepped through the doorway into an area of the castle he hadn’t seen before.

The area was one that overlooked one of the many observation decks on the castle. There was a ledge that Keith sat on, his legs dangling over the edge. The screen for observation was bigger here than the other decks, but that might have been because of the extra floor.

 “I thought we weren’t doing something boring.”

“Shut up for once, and sit down.” 

Lance fought a smile when Keith started moving his legs to swing them more forcefully. He sat down beside him, his hand behind him to support his weight as he leaned back. “Rude,” Lance muttered.

Keith turned to him from where he had been looking at the vast darkness of space. “I thought you liked the stars.”

Lace shrugged, and pursed his lips. “When you see them all day every day, they start to lose their entertainment value,” he said, while he twisted the fabric of his pants between his fingers.

“Aren’t they why you became a pilot?”

“No,” Lance scoffed.

“Then why did you?”

Lance considered him. He could imagine Keith wanting to become a pilot, because he was good at it, because of the glory, because it gave him praise. Or maybe that was just Lance’s reason. Except…

When Lance was little, he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he heard the door close behind his dad, when he came home from a night shift. His dad would come to his room, after he had visited the others, and he would sweep Lance’s bangs from his forehead and press a kiss, and say, “Llevo la carga para que tú no lo hagas, Mijo.”

Lance didn’t know what it meant, until he saw the bags under his mothers eyes and the two different uniforms that were hung up for drying.

Maybe, Lance had wanted to be a pilot because it was a great opportunity for boasting, because it meant he would do great things and live a great life, and maybe he would see his name up there with the other heroes and legends that went down in history.

Except, one day his mother had slipped up and forgotten to check the mail, and Lance saw all the bills that were overdue.

Lance smiled and shrugged, his thumb and forefinger under his chin in a pose, “For the ladies of course. Imagine how they would swoon in a line, when I mention I’ve been to space!”

Keith stared at Lance, seeming conflicted, but he ended up rolling his eyes. His mouth ticked, though, and he leaned back on his hands, his eyes drifting back to the stars where they zoomed past.

On the top of the list for the Fighter Pilots, Keith’s had always been the first one, and Lance thought maybe he did do it for the glory. Maybe he did it to gain Shiro’s favor. Maybe he did it because he knew he was good at it.

Readjusting his weight, Lance knocked his shoulder into Keith’s. “Anyway, don’t tell me you didn’t do it for the parades.”

Keith looked unimpressed at the universe. “I didn’t.”

“I don’t believe you,” Lance said haughtily. It wasn’t as if orange wasn’t Keith’s color.

“I really didn’t.”

“You mean to tell me you never thought of using your title to sweep a lady off her feet?”

The smile Keith wore matched the one Lance saw a few days ago in the training room. As if he was part of an inside joke, or as if he knew something Lance didn’t.

“Never,” he said, with all the confidence in the world. Lance thought he knew now what he thought of the smile. He kinda hated it.

He rolled his eyes to mask the tick of his mouth, “Psh,” he said, because that would cover it up even better. “Whatever you say, Samurai.”

Keith looked back out the observation screen, but the smile stayed stained on his lips.

“No, alright, you know what? I’ll bite. Why did you become a pilot, then, Mr. Hot Shot?”

Keith snorted, folding his arms over his knees, as he drew up his legs from the ledge. “Mr. Hot Shot is more befitting of you.”

“Don’t try to distract me with my favorite topic, namely my excellent skills. Come on, if you have a better reason then let’s hear it.”

Keith didn’t answer immediately. He looked instead to where Lance was tapping absentmindedly at his knee, his feet swinging with the tune in his head. 

There were a few moments between Lance and Keith where the silence filled the space between them, and Lance thought maybe this was one of those topics Keith didn’t want to talk about for some reason.

But then Keith shifted, his hands going back behind him to support his weight, his ankle crossing his knee as the other dangled again over the edge. Quietly, like the room, like space, Keith said, “Shiro told me to.”

Lance felt his eyebrows raise, but he knew better than to interrupt.

“Or at least, it started that way. But then… At the trials for Junior Class,” his eyelashes met his cheeks, long and dark fanning over the pale of his skin. It reminded Lance of the stars outside. “It was breathtaking,” Keith sighed.

Lance knew what he meant. He found himself hanging onto every word, desperate for more. To know Keith Kogane was like being let in on a secret. Sacred and crucial, meaning you were trustworthy, and had the responsibility not to let that trust fall and break.

Lance held a part of Keith’s past in his hands now; he couldn’t move even if he wanted to. It was the same as when a pet fell asleep on you. You were helpless to do anything but watch as they took another breath in their slumber.

If they opened their eyes to look at you and still didn’t move, you were given something a little more close to trust. It felt like that, at least, when Keith opened his eyes to look at him.

“I felt more alive then, than I had in a long time.”

Despite Lance’s best efforts, his tongue didn’t seem to want to work. What could he possibly say to that? How could he respond without being equally as honest, or without sounding like a complete asshole?

How could he tell Keith that he related on a personal level without telling him why? How could he tell Keith that that explanation was so far from everything that he thought he knew about him that Lance wanted to pry and ask more? Why did he listen to Shiro? What was his life like before the Garrison? Why did he stop flying for a year?

“Well…” Lance began, “that’s nice.”

Really, either option would have been better than that.

A reaction Lance hadn’t prepared for was Keith bursting out laughing, “That’s nice?” he heaved, supporting his weight on his knees, “That’s all you had to say about that?”

Lance tried holding back a smile, but Keith laughed so loudly, and it was the first time he had heard Keith laugh for so long, “W-well, you caught me off guard! Who knew cold-hearted, emo Keith Kogane was secretly a poet!”

Keith laughed so hard he had to lay down, his lashes blinking up at the ceiling as his laughter drifted to chuckles to giggles to silence.

Lance chuckled with him, watching the planets zoom by them as they headed for another system. How long had they been up here, anyway?

“What about you?”

Lance looked to Keith questioningly, but he didn’t elaborate. “I told you already—”

“What if I don’t believe you?” Keith said, a spark of challenge igniting in his eyes. Lance may have been good at baiting Keith, but Keith was equally as good at baiting Lance.

Lance huffed, folding his arms on his knees. “Believe what you want, Mullet.”

“I will.”

***

“Hey. We make a good team.”

Keith looked at him as if he had struck him. He looked almost wistful, or something close to it. “You think so?”

“Yeah,” Lance said, giving Keith a pat on the arm as he walked past. “I do.”

***

Things were cool between Lance and Keith. Yeah. They were cool. They would banter but it wasn’t anything serious. If it did turn serious, they would just play a game of tic tac toe and release that tension in that way. Lance would deal with the writhing in his chest, and Keith would be calmer during the day. Especially missions. Somehow, Lance and Keith communicated better on the field now, and Keith made fewer rash decisions based on his gut-feeling. 

That was a bit weird, Lance would admit. But it was a nice change. Keith started listening to the others more, and they seemed to appreciate the frenemies thing Lance and Keith had going on. At least, Hunk berated Lance less about snapping at Keith and in turn just watched them with amusement. Of course, Pidge would sometimes show no feelings about it whatsoever, but Lance did catch her lift her glasses to hide a smirk. 

Lance didn’t know what all of that was about, but whatever. At least things were as they wanted it to be now. Even Shiro had less talks with Keith, and really, isn’t that what counts? As long as they all work out as a team. Right. 

And it wasn’t as if Lance didn’t enjoy the time with Keith either. Yeah, Lance might have thought initially it would be a true nightmare to hang out with Keith all the time, but it really wasn’t that bad. They had fun together when they competed against each other and berated each of their techniques. 

Lance would try and distract Keith by poking him with his foot, and Keith would answer by bumping his shoulders into Lance. Now, he just tried not to think about how, when Keith did that, it sent shocks through his skin and into his chest where the feeling lay wiggling. 

Lance couldn’t explain it. At least, he was a little afraid to. 

So, this would be another night spent awake.  

Why couldn’t his brain just turn off? Why did he have to think about how quick Keith was to answer Lance’s bait, or when he suspected Lance of letting him win, he would demand a fair rematch, despite Lance’s denial of ever doing such a thing? Why did he have to think about the way Keith smiled haughtily when he won, or the way his brows creased in concentration, or the way his nimble fingers held the pen when they played tic tac toe? Why did he have to think about Keith at all? 

That didn’t make sense. 

***

At the market of planet Dijion, in the city of Ha’al, Lance had found a miracle.

Luckily, he had caught sight of it, right by in the corner of his eye as he turned away from the booth he stood at now. It flashed white in the sunlight, and Lance may have gasped at the sight, like it had descended from heaven and immediately went up to the man behind the booth and asked: “How much?”

He got it for a fair price, a little stingy, but hey, it’s not everyday you find this stuff in the middle of space.

So he waited until Shiro, Allura and Coran had left. Lance knew that Shiro would be the typical Space Dad and remind them to remain responsible, that they were paladins of Voltron and fun is a luxury we can’t afford or whatever. Allura, because she would be absolutely scandalized and How could you allow for this, Lance, we are in a war. Coran because, well, Coran would probably steal all of it for himself, and that wouldn’t do.

So when the door shut behind Shiro as the last to leave from the common room, leaving Pidge, Hunk, Keith and Lance alone together, Lance pounced or rather, he prepared.

“Hey, kids,” Lance said suspiciously. All three heads of the remaining paladins raised from Pidge’s computer screen to look at him as he put a hand inside his jacket. “Want some,” Lance pulled the bottle out, the liquid inside sloshing a gleaming marble white, “liquor.”

For a solid three seconds, no one said anything as all three stared dumbfoundedly at the bottle held in Lance’s hand.

Then: “Dude,” Hunk said flatly.

Lance raised his eyebrows and bit his lip to contain his glee. “I know, right?”

“No, I mean, dude.”

“What is it?” Keith asked, leaning over the back of the couch to look closer with squinted eyes.

Lance’s face fell flat, his hands spreading as if the answer was obvious. “It’s alcohol.”

Pidge made a noise that Lance couldn’t quite identify, staring unamused at the bottle then at Lance. A second’s pause, and she went back to clicking on her computer. “No, thanks.”

“Aw, come on!” Lance threw his arms out in an attempt at groveling, but he was still seated on the couch. “I never thought we’d see alcohol again. I spent all this time planning to sneak it by Shiro!”

“When did you buy it?”

“...Yesterday, but that’s not the point!” He turned to Hunk, who had continuously been staring at the bottle with increasing concern. “Hunk?” he pleaded.

Hunk immediately shook his head, holding out both of his palms. “No way. You know the relationship between me and alcohol, man. It’s not pretty.”

On his fifth year at the Garrison, Lance had dragged Hunk out of the facility into the nearest town to sneak into a club. He had bought Hunk a mojito drink and then immediately dragged him out onto the dance floor. Hunk basically stayed in the bathroom the rest of that evening until Lance had called it a night. He tried not to wince at the memory.

“Listen, Lance,” Pidge said, adjusting her glasses, “no one wants to drink your alien vodka. We would rather do cool stuff, like turning the food goo purple.”

Hunk lit up beside her, holding up a finger, “Oh, dude! I think I might have something that could do that!”

“Seriously?” Pidge asked excitedly.

“Seriously?” Lance repeated flatly.

Hunk stood up from the couch, holding his fists enthusiastically in front of him. “I was just walking by the Space Mall in Laferia, you know, on Karth, and I found this weird looking bottle filled with green dust and I was all like ‘oh?’ but when I tried it in some of my new recipes, it turned—”

And then they were gone, leaving Lance to wonder what the fuck just happened, his lone bottle held in his hand and sloshing around unconsumed. Great.

Lance sighed. Guess he would just have to drink it himself then. He turned the bottle cap, ready to take a slurp when the couch dipped beside him. He jumped, his head swiveling to his right to see Keith sitting down and eyeing the bottle curiously. Lance had almost forgotten he was there.

“So,” Keith started, eyes flicking quickly to Lance before finding their home again at the bottle. “What does it taste like?”

For a second, Lance didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that out of all the people, Keith had stayed behind. He looked briefly to the door, then to Keith again, half expecting him to get up and leave just like the others. But Keith stayed staring at the bottle, and somehow, Lance was convinced, determined not to look at Lance.

Lance glanced down at the bottle again, watching the liquid sloshing around inside as he extended it to Keith. Keith started a little, looking briefly to Lance before taking the bottle and downing a swig.

Almost immediately after the rim left his mouth, Keith started coughing, doubling over his knees and thrusting the bottle back to Lance, who squeaked in protest as he clutched it to his chest.

“That’s,” Keith rasped, “the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.”

Lance couldn’t help but laugh, eyeing the bottle with somewhat worry, then deciding, fuck it, and downing it. The taste was bitter, but not unfamiliar as it left a trail of acid down his throat. He made a face at Keith. “It tastes just like Vodka.”

Keith wiped at his mouth, glaring at Lance from under his lashes. “It’s disgusting.”

Lance raised his eyebrows at him challengingly, tilting the bottle to his mouth again, “If you’re too chicken, I guess I’ll have more for me—”

With a quick swipe of his hand, Keith now tilted the bottle to his own mouth, his lips brushing the rim before he knocked his head back and swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing with each one. Holy shit.

“Jesus Christ, Keith!” Lance exclaimed as Keith continued, grabbing the bottle from him before he burned his liver. 

Keith bent his head and shivered, holding a hand in front of his mouth. 

“This isn’t beer, you can’t just chug this shit, you goddamn animal.” Lance couldn’t quite leave the laughter out of his voice, the image of Keith looking so green and so regretful in a matter of seconds just too humorous. “Let’s make a game out of this.”

Keith made a noise, his head tilting ever so slightly towards Lance in an almost slow fashion. “A game?” he slurred.

Damn, was he already drunk? This liquor must have been stronger than Lance thought.

“Yeah,” he said, drying the rim with his sleeve, “A twenty questions kind of thing, except with alcohol. If you refuse to answer the question, you drink.”

Keith looked at Lance for a tick, looking ready to hurl everything within him. He blew a breath, saying: “Why do you hate me?”

“Come on,” Lance whined, pouting theatrically and cradling the bottle.

Keith sighed, and Lance could have sworn the corner of his mouth turned upwards. “Fine, but,” he added, when Lance had his silent victory dance. “I start with two questions, since I basically downed half the bottle already.”

“S’not my fault you can’t handle your alcohol.”

The first few questions Keith threw at him were tame. Mainly about his family, and his childhood, or what his favorite color was. Lance learned on the other hand that Keith didn’t have a crush on Allura. He learned that Keith’s favorite color was not red, as the fates would have assumed, but rather the soft orange glow of the sunrise or sunset from the view by his shack in the desert (‘Lame’, ‘Shut up, Lance’).

He also learned that Keith refused to answer any questions about his family, or his childhood, or anything before the Garrison.

So as Lance gave the bottle back to Keith, after Keith had asked Lance what his favorite fighting stance was, he took a chance that was technically in the window of available information. “Why did you drop out of the Garrison?”

Keith’s hand paused just as he accepted the bottle back, his fingers curled around the glass, and his eyes fastened on the seat of the couch. Lance thought for a second he wouldn’t answer, as he slowly tilted the rim back to his mouth, but then he lowered it again, and looked straight into Lance’s eyes.

“I didn’t drop out,” Keith started slowly, his eyes flicking about the room as he considered his next words. His finger lightly traced the sticker of the bottle that was half-wet from all the half-spills their drunken selves had made. “I was kicked out. Because I punched Iverson in the eye.”

A beat passed in which Lance couldn’t for the life of him couldn’t think of anything to say, because out of all the possible answers he had thought of, he hadn’t expected that. When Iverson had continuously said he had dropped out because of ‘disciplinary issues’, Lance had assumed it was either because Keith had refused to give up the simulator, or because he had gotten in a fight with the other students one too many times. He had never imagined Keith punching Iverson.

Lance continued to gawk at Keith, as the other boy took a swig, grimacing and looking particularly green. “What?” Lance winced, his own voice coming off a little too loud, than he intended, his weak laugh becoming a squawk.

Keith didn’t flinch, instead tracing the rim, this time, with his finger. “Said I should reconsider my flight pattern, unless I wanted to end up like Shiro.” He winced, as if the words were still freshly thrown at him. Lance wished he could somehow have caught the words and thrown them the other way, any other way, than at Keith. “The words ‘pilot error’ just flashed in front of me at that moment, and— I don’t know,” he sighed, “I guess I just lost it.”

He could almost imagine Iverson in front of him, the downturn of the corner of his mouth set in a permanent scowl, one of his eyes closed indefinitely and his uniform annoyingly pressed and perfect.

He could hear the sneer in his voice every time he reprimanded Lance for his maneuvers in the simulator.

“Yeah, well,” Lance said, snickering half-heartedly and taking the bottle. He took a swig, his head feeling a little lighter, and his shoulders feeling a little heavier. “Maybe he deserved it.”

The only reason you’re here is because the best damn pilot in your generation had disciplinary issues.

“What?” Keith asked.

“Nothing. It’s your turn.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, it’s your turn to ask me a question, tonto.”

Keith gave him a dead panned look. “Lance,” he said, his teeth flashing from under his upper lip. His voice was slurred, his eyelids droopy. Lance decided he didn’t like the way Keith said his name.

He took a swig.

“We said we would be honest.” The lighting in the room made Keith’s eyes significantly darker, to the point where Lance wasn’t even sure what color his eyes were anymore. To be honest, Lance didn’t think he ever really knew. Which he thought was insane, for some reason.

Lance threw indignant hands in the air, sloshing the last bit that still remained in the bottle. “I am being completely honest! Open as a book. Wide as a door.”

“Lance.”

Yes. Lance definitely did not like the way Keith said his name.

Lance glanced at him at the corner of his eyes, wanting to cross his arms, but not wanting to let go of the bottle, so he opted to just cradle it to his chest instead. “He was just a dickwad, okay? A doucheface. A fuckeroo if you will.”

Keith looked mildly confused. “Fuckeroo.”

“Ask me a question, Keith, come on.”

Keith chewed on his lip, the teeth Lance had peeked before gnawing at the pink skin, tearing the dry flecks. Lance chose to fiddle with the sticker instead of waiting, circling the rim with his index finger as Keith had done before. The rim which Keith had brushed his mouth against before he took a drink.

At the sharp intake of breath, Lance looked up to see Keith wearing a peculiar expression. Maybe it was his drunken state, but Lance had never seen that expression on Keith before. He couldn’t quite point out what was weird about it. Keith was looking at him from below his eyelashes, his dark overgrown hair casting his face in shadow against the harsh light of the common room.

“Are you…” Keith started, then seemed to hesitate. “Are you in love with Allura?”

Out of all the questions Lance had feared he might ask, that definitely wasn’t one of them. Lance had started sweating a little down his neck, but now his skin turned cold, and he felt weirdly caught, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Then he started considering. He thought of the day he’d met Allura, her falling right into his arms, and then subsequently throwing him to the floor. He thought of the way her white hair flowed behind her like a bridal veil, and he thought of how her laugh sounded proper and girlish, not like Keith’s rough chuckle, as if he was barely used to laughing.

He thought of the way her brows slanted when she concentrated, and the way she pouted when he flirted with her. Then he remembered her throwing goo at his face, while he was linked to Hunk on the one side and Keith on the other, and how that was one of the best days Lance had had since finding the Blue Lion, and how he and Keith fought well together, when they had a common enemy, or when Lance put Iverson aside to really explore that side of them. 

Maybe that was what she had wanted, when she first threw that goo at Pidge. Maybe that was why she had smirked so smugly and triumphantly.

Lance considered drinking the bottle. But there wasn’t much left, and he still had a question in mind for Keith that he wanted the answer to, even though he shouldn’t, so he gave Keith the bottle instead and opened his mouth to answer. 

“I don’t know, dude,” Lance started, a bit surprised that the words came out at all, “Sometimes I think I would really like to touch her hair, is that weird? Tha’s probably weird, but then I also want to touch your hair, even though you have a really bad haircut,” Lance laughed briefly, his eyes blinking slowly, but then hurriedly added, “And like, I’ve braided Pidge’s hair? And Hunk’s hair and, man Shiro has some funky bangs have you seen them? Man, I don’t know. I don’t know.”

For a while, Keith just sat and stared at him with a rapt attention that contradicted his heavy eyelids. Then he took the bottle, but didn’t otherwise react to his answer.

“Do you really think I’m the worst pilot ever?”

Keith had been looking consideringly at his fingers before Lance had asked his question, but once Lance finished, he looked him directly in the eye, his eyebrows meeting his eyelashes so that he almost looked angry. “What?”

Lance shrugged. “You heard me. Do you really think I suck at piloting?”

Keith looked to the side, as if he was searching for a hint somewhere in the room, and Lance couldn’t help but feel an impatient annoyance that he took out on the couch and pressing his fingers in between the cushions. It hurt a little bit when he twisted his index finger in the space.

For a time, Keith just looked at Lance with his intense, dark eyes that invited an unwelcome silence between them. Lance realized he was tensing his shoulders, and tried to forcibly relax them, but he felt that didn’t escape Keith either.

Finally, with a swig of the last liquid in the bottle, Keith licked his mouth and said, “No.”

And that was that.

Lance furrowed his eyebrows, and raised his hood over his hair, to feel a little more sheltered and trying not to stare at the way Keith’s hair spilled over the back of the couch. “Whatever. S’not like I care.”

The bottle was laid, or rather dropped, to the floor where it rolled away and stopped in the middle of the floor.

Keith didn’t say anything about it. Instead he laughed quietly, and – Lance definitely knew it was the alcohol talking – it was the best fucking sound Lance had ever heard in his life. 

Keith’s laugh was so rough, like sandpaper on wood, or a like the dents in Lance’s desk that sat at home in his childhood bedroom. He felt weirdly accomplished at something, satisfied. He wanted to do it again. 

“If you don’t care, then why did you ask me?”  Keith answered, leaning down as if Lance couldn’t see the flash of his teeth. 

The gesture of Keith leaning against him heated his face more than the hood ever did. Lance’s eyelids felt heavy when he looked at Keith, but not in a tired or exhausted way, but like he was drunk – which he was – but also like he was drunk. Drunk on Keith’s smiles and soft laugh and gloved hands and black t-shirt that fit him nicely, and wow, okay, that was exactly what Lance had hoped the alcohol would stop. 

Lance snorted, because he thought he might have looked at Keith a little too long, “It’s the game. It’s just the game.” But the game was a ways away from them, and without it, Lance couldn’t escape Keith’s heavy gaze as he looked at Lance with a sleepy sort of fondness.

Keith’s mouth quirked as if he didn’t quite believe him. It settled a little something in Lance when he saw it. Keith leaned an elbow on the headrest and rested his head – hah! – on his fist, as he sighed and shook his head. “You’re insufferable.”

“Yeah, but also adorable.”

Keith didn’t say anything to that. Lance looked away before he stared too long at the softness of Keith’s features, and looked instead at where Lance’s hand rested by his ankle which was bent on the cushion, and how it was only a little distance from where Keith’s gloved hand rested by his knee. Now his vision was going weirdly dark. 

Suddenly Keith was there, taking Lance’s arm and flinging it over his shoulder. Lance forced his eyes open and tried to say something snarky, but Keith’s side was brushing up against his, which made all the words turn to ash and glide down his throat.  

“Not here. Let’s get you to bed,” Keith muttered, or something along those lines, Lance wasn’t sure. He couldn’t think clearly when Keith was so close and smelling of alcohol and leather, and definitely not when he sent Lance one of those teasing little smiles. 

It seemed like all of Lance’s breaths had gathered and abandoned his body, and Lance was left completely breathless and in Keith’s mercy. 

Turns out Keith wasn’t much help. He was swaying himself, too, which made walking down the hallway a dangerous game of who caught who before they fell. Lance held on tightly to Keith’s jacket, and Keith had an arm around Lance’s torso, his hand sometimes drifting up to the space between his shoulder-blades. Then it turned into a game of how many times Lance could suppress a shudder. 

The way to Lance’s room was longer than he remembered it to be, but they got there eventually. Keith and Lance giggled the whole way, spouting words in Spanish at each other, Lance mostly making fun of Keith’s weird accent, and Keith just calling him an asshole repeatedly, like it was Lance’s legal name or something. 

Whenever Keith would say something in Spanish, though, that’s what really got to Lance. 

Lance giggled as his body hit his mattress. Keith was so funny in Spanish, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t tried to make him speak his language sooner. Keith still didn’t quite get the hang of rolling his r’s, so every time he said problema or cabrón, it would sound like he had some sort of porridge stuck in his throat. It was the most hilarious thing Lance had ever heard. 

Suddenly his head was pressing against his pillow. Lance didn’t quite know how he got there, but he could feel the weight of Keith’s hand on his arm with a sober clarity. He reached up without thinking about it and grabbed a fistful of Keith’s shirt as he tried letting his giggle die out. 

“Espera, espera.”  

Keith raised a brow at him, but he didn’t pull away. His intoxication filled his eyes like mist obscuring vision. His pupils were dilated, black against his pale face.

Lance smothered another giggle that settled in his throat. “Say, ‘París romántico’.”  

Keith smiled drunkenly and looked away. He squinted his eyes, then looked back. “Par —Lance stop giggling, I can’t concentrate! París es romantico.” 

Lance couldn’t help it. He let the laughter bubbling in his stomach spill out of him, filling the space between him and Keith. “Why are you growling it?” 

Keith hit him on his arm, but the alcohol they had both consumed too much of lessened his blow to a nudge. Lance’s arm was on fire. “Shut up. I did this for you. Don’t make fun of me!” 

“Okay, okay,” Lance said. He adjusted his head on his pillow, his vision angled better to see Keith’s face more clearly. 

Keith didn’t actually look angry, just a little bit flustered, and maybe a little embarrassed. But the red glow of his cheeks only served to soften his face, and sweeten his small smile, and suddenly, Lance couldn’t look away for the life of him. 

Lance swallowed, his mouth twitching upwards. “Say ‘soy Keith, y Lance es el mejor paladín.”  

Keith looked Lance in the eyes and repeated, “Soy Keith, y Lance es el mejor paladín.” 

Lance nodded faintly, then licked his lips. “Lance es tan guapo.” 

“Lance es tan guapo.” 

Lance’s heart pounded in his ears as he stared into the deep universe of Keith’s eyes, the vast galaxy he could float in forever maybe. Maybe it was the lightness of the alcohol, or maybe it was the feeling in his chest that expanded and made him weightless. Maybe. 

Keith’s gaze was steady on Lance’s, his face close, his hand still on his arm. Keith was an unwavering presence beside Lance, and it felt like, for the first time, he might have found something other than his family to keep fighting for. 

Lance looked at the hooded eyelids that shielded Keith’s dark eyes, looking at how Keith’s hair fell over his forehead, right between those very eyes and framing his face. He looked at the bow of his lips, and the faint smile that hid right in the corner of his mouth, waiting for Lance’s next phrase.  

Keith was beautiful, he was so beautiful, and he was right there, right beside Lance, his gloved hand burning the tan of Lance’s skin, fraying his nerves. Lance took a chance, his mind thinking of one thing, and one thing only. He took a deep breath. “Bésame.” 

It came out as just above a whisper, something fragile hanging between them which they balanced out, something they treaded lightly around, had been for a few weeks, Lance suspected. The room was heavily silent for a while. He could feel it like cement blocks on his chest. Lance held his breath as Keith stared back, Keith’s lips tugging slightly to a frown.  

“What does that mean?” Keith whispered back. 

Lance’s fingers were already in Keith’s hair before he could think it through, but his eyes never left Keith’s. His eyes were black now, pupils dilated by want or alcohol, so, so dark against the stark of light in Lance’s room. Lance brought his other hand to Keith’s cheek, his thumb trailing his skin there, under his eyelids, and over his brow. He couldn’t resist. And Keith didn’t pull away. 

Lance raised his head slightly and tugged Keith’s face downward at the same time. Keith’s eyes were huge, big and indecipherable as he waited. Lance’s hand in Keith’s hair now found its way to the other cheek, his thumb trailing Keith’s cheekbone. Keith’s eyelids drooped at the motion. 

“Let me show you,” Lance whispered. 

And then, ever so slowly, Lance inched Keith’s face down unto his own, their lips settling against each other’s in a slow and tender kiss. 

It was exhilarating. Keith tasted of salt and alcohol, but Lance couldn’t name a sweeter taste at that moment. His limbs disappeared from him as his only awareness was Keith’s mouth on his, time slipping by as an unimportant construct. He was nowhere that wasn’t Keith’s mouth, and his head spun, with either the intoxication of the kiss or the intoxication of the beverage. 

It didn’t matter anyway. What mattered was that Keith’s mouth moved against his, long and slow. Lance couldn’t say how long he had wanted it. He didn’t think he knew until that moment. Didn’t think he could admit that to himself if he had been sober. Thank god for alien alcohol. 

The kiss ended as it started, gently and lovely. Lance’s hands framing Keith’s face, he brushed one of them against Keith’s bangs, moving them out of his eyes. Keith’s pupils were blown, Lance didn’t think he had ever seen Keith’s eyes so dark and lively. He could still taste him on his lips, salt and alcohol. He wanted to taste him again, and again and never stop because it was invigorating and left him breathless and it might be his new favorite thing to do. 

He leaned in to kiss Keith again, but then something changed. The air between them became heavier until it dropped and broke, and Keith pulled back before Lance’s lips could touch his. It was only a little, but it was enough for Lance to get the memo. 

Lance dropped his hands from Keith’s face, trying not to show on his face how the panic was climbing up his throat with an unforgiving ferocity.  

Keith’s hand was no longer on his arm, but instead it was used to pull the blankets from under Lance to cover him. “Get some rest,” Keith said, their Spanish forgotten and abandoned. It felt like a faded sticker that blended in with the wall until it was invisible; out of sight, out of mind. 

Lance didn’t think he could actually sleep considering so much had happened in that minute or two. And he especially couldn’t stop thinking of Keith’s face as he turned around to walk out of the door. Melancholic and mourning. It didn’t make any sense to Lance. He also couldn’t get the hang of sleep when the saltwater formed on the edges of his eyes, or when his pillow got too wet to sleep comfortingly on or when Lance’s sobs filled the room too loudly. 

The moment that had passed between them was a burning memory on the inside of Lance’s eyelids, but the mourning of losing his new family, his new home, was an unforgiving tirade in his chest that crashed against his head and spilled from his eyes in a horrible hurricane. Lance’s sobs started sounding like crashing waves. And then they sounded like raindrops. And then there was no sound at all, for Lance was drowning in his grief for what could’ve been. 

*** 

The first time Lance saw Keith it was during trial admissions for the Garrison Junior class. They were put to test the flight simulations each, only a rutty band of twelve-year-olds, the snot hardly wiped from their noses before it was filled with the stale air of the used simulator. 

Five kids got to try the simulators at a time, training in formation and basic flight take-off and landing. Lance had a flesh wound on his knee from crashing his bike. It was covered by the Garrison pant suit, but he couldn’t stop scratching at it. 

They called a kid named Keith Kogane first before they called Lance’s name. The sleeves of his uniform hung over the knuckles of his pale hand, and his pants looked like they would slide down his spindly form were it not for the uniform belt. At the time he looked like a stick who would easily fall and break by the push of a finger. 

But, boy oh boy, when he flew, he flew like no wind could knock him down. Lance learned quickly that he could never catch up with him, he would never be able to resist the hurricane that followed Keith’s steps. He would get close (in the form of handshakes, of races, of kisses) but he would never reach. 

My name’s Lance. You fly like a madman.  

Uh, the name’s Lance?  

Bésame.

He would never reach.

***

Lance and Keith weren’t so cool lately.