Lance locks his eyes with Pidge, unhinges his jaw and shoves the cupcake into his mouth whole. The action sends his cheeks puffing out and there’s a smudge of pink icing on his lip, and Keith thinks: I am in love with you.

“You heathen!” Hunk cries, pulling the rest of the tray away from Lance. He points his nose in the air and pouts a little, miffed (fair enough; Hunk delicacies are meant to be enjoyed as nothing short of precious).

“He really did it,” Pidge breathes, then, hands slamming on the table, “why is your mouth so large!?”

Keith fists the hem of his shirt, feeling himself frown (surely love can’t ache like this. It can’t be meant to). His insides are being torn apart, smushed together into a mass of unnameable ache, sore and scrabbling against the inside of Keith’s ribs. Lance turns to say something to Pidge, garbled through his mouthful, and Keith’s chest squeezes a little tighter, and his shoulders hunch together, and he takes in a deep breath as quiet as he can manage through lungs filling with something akin to liquid gold.

“What?” Lance asks him, drawing Keith (blessedly, perfectly, though it only floods his chest faster) out of his internal catastrophe. Lance’s gaze is mirth-filled, his laughter only just leaving his features, smile soft and kind.

“Gross,” Keith says (gross but I’m in love with you, Lance, can’t you see it on my face? Can’t you see it in my eyes?), turning away.

Lance wipes his mouth with a napkin from Hunk, waving Keith off with a hand, “whatever. You guys are just jealous.”

“Lance, that cupcake was twice the size of your hand. Why can you do that?” Pidge gathers up her laptop and shifts a seat away. “Keith’s right: gross.”

“I made these with love. Not to be ravaged!” Hunk adds, “c’mon, Lance.”

“Sorry, buddy,” Lance shrugs, not looking the least bit apologetic as he reaches for another cupcake, “it was heavenly, as always.” He grins and bats his eyes a bit, and Hunk softens up, offering the tray to him again.

He offers the platter to Keith next, but when Keith looks at it blanky Hunk just sets one down in front of him.

The pastel pink frosting taunts Keith, like the hearts hanging around the lounges in the Garrison to ring in a Valentines Day devoid of Galra. He picks at the wrapper hesitantly, his appetite gone even when the scent of chocolate reaches his nose and he’s reminded, bizarrely, of his first birthday spent in the home, when someone had taken pity on the child who’d lost his father so suddenly (there had been a vanilla-frosted chocolate cupcake passed to Keith, and he’d squeezed his fist tight around it when the woman who’d given it to him had gone. Just to crush it. Just to see).

Hunk turns back to the kitchen counter, setting down the cupcakes, and Keith flinches a little when his shoulder meets the warm hand of the Yellow Paladin, comforting when he squeezes and lets go to sit at Keith’s side.

“You good?” Hunk asks softly, his smile unfailing.

“Yeah, sorry,” Keith swallows, looking back at the cupcake, “these look really good.”

“Thanks,” Hunk grins, “the secret ingredient is love.”

“Man, I could marry you just for your cooking, Hunk,” Lance says, halfway through ravaging his second desert. There’s icing on the corner of his mouth now, and it enrages (endears?) something fierce in Keith’s chest. He wants, absurdly, to wipe the smudge away with the pad of his thumb, to tidy up the disaster that is apparently the apple of his eye (apples rot, and much like apples, surely the mess of sludge in Keith’s ribcage will, too). “And your dashing good looks,” Lance tacks on, once he’s gotten through another bite.

“I’d like to think I have merit beyond those two things.”

“Oh you do,” Lance assures, “too long a list, buddy, we’d be here all day.”

“What’s in it for him?” Pidge asks, grinning devilishly when Lance turns to her and scoffs loudly, his hand flying to his chest.

“Excuse you!” he holds out a hand, finger-counting in that strange way he does, “I’m hilarious. Super handsome, incredibly modest. Really good at shooting which is objectively very hot of me. Need I go on?”

“What does good aim have to do with marriage?”

“Okay, four-eyes—”

Pidge chucks a balled up napkin at Lance, and it devolves into a play-wrestle on the floor, chairs knocked off their feet and the table rattling when the two of them roll into it. Lance yelps, “Hunk! Back me up here, man!”

“Kids,” Hunk sighs witheringly, sharing a knowing look with Keith.

He keeps quiet, though he’s sure he could come up with some sort of jibe, because he’s afraid that if he speaks flowers will come tumbling out of his throat and the whole world will know what he’s suddenly understanding.

The fight ends when Pidge sits triumphantly on Lance’s back and he deflates, weakly giving in. “Betrayed by both gremlin and fiancé. Unloved by all,” he whines, his theatrics jostling Pidge, though she remains unmoving.

(Loved by all, Keith doesn’t say, loved by me)

— 

Oftentimes, Keith hasn’t the slightest clue how he has come about the circumstances that have led him to those strange places he’s found himself in throughout his life. Exhibit A: becoming the leader of an ancient military force run partly on magic but deeper still on the relationships and bonds between himself and his teammates. Fighting an intergalactic war and getting the upper hand, only to nearly lose the people he loves more times than he will ever be comfortable with.

Exhibit B: stood outside a newly-reopened tattoo and piercing shop with Hunk cowering behind his shoulder and Lance trying (and failing) to drag them both in for matching earrings.

Pidge has already backed out; Colleen would kill her if she pierced her ears without her mother’s knowledge. Hunk is afraid of the needles, and Keith… well, Keith just likes to see Lance squirm (likes when Lance turns his puppy-eyes full-force on Keith and begs, calls him his best friend).

“Keith. My man. Come on.” Lance pleads, both his hands planted firmly on Keith’s shoulders, “we’d look so cool.”

“Won’t it hurt to put our helmets on? Or did you forget we have a job to do?”

“Who cares?” Lance sighs, leaning closer. His eyes are blown wide, and Keith’s being pulled to sea in them.

“Uh, I do?” Hunk pipes up, “no way.”

“Fine.” Lance glares at Hunk without an ounce of heat before he turns back to Keith, earnest. “Keith. C’mon. We’d look so cool.”

And Keith had been a goner the second they’d passed the parlour and Lance had pointed it out and brushed his shoulder against Keith’s with the action, and Keith had already given in before the words had even left Lance’s mouth (he’d be ashamed, if he knew how).

“I dunno…” Keith says, trying to sound nonchalant so that the rippling ache in his soul isn’t too obvious, “seems kinda dumb.”

“Okay, you know nothing.” Lance rounds Keith and pushes on his shoulders, toward the door, “you’re gonna look so cool, Keith, trust me.”

Keith grumbles something about responsibility, about Shiro being disappointed in them, but Lance brushes it off, “he loves us. We’re basically his kids, he can’t stay mad at us.”

He demands two helix piercings from the clerk, and Keith gets a hoop through his left ear before he’s even really sure how. Lance squirms when the piercing needle comes close, but when he grips the sleeve of Keith’s jacket and Keith laughs at him the ache simmers to a full-blown bullet hole, burning and searing his insides (shot clean through the chest by their sharpshooter, and Keith doesn’t even have the decency to find a modicum of regret anywhere).

Admittedly, they do look cool; there’s Lance with two studs in both his ears from sometime earlier on with his siblings, and the black cuff on his right ear, and there’s Keith with the matching earring on his left, and Lance squishes their faces close for a selfie and Keith feels his stubble (he hadn’t even known that Lance grew stubble. The asshole) against his cheek and he’s certain he’s fully red or frowning in the photo, but Lance runs off to show Hunk and Pidge, calling them the coolest pair in history.

And afterwards, when they’ve all settled at a picnic table with ice cream and a sunset and Pidge starts asking Hunk about theoreticals, Lance pokes Keith’s shoulder and smiles earnestly at him, tearing through every wall Keith has ever built (he wants, in that moment, nothing more than to have Lance know him. Wants to know Lance. To be intertwined like vines on a garden wall or roots buried deep in soil churned by years of growth and understanding). “Hey, thanks for humouring me. It was kinda dumb, so I won’t be offended if you take it out or anything.”

“Like you said,” Keith tries to be level, but how can he, when Lance’s gaze tears the breath from his lungs? “We look cool.”

And Keith will get all the piercings it takes to have Lance smile like that at him; eyes scrunched up and cheeks puffed, like Keith is the thing that makes him happiest.

Keith was right; Shiro is a little disappointed, though he concurs with a sigh when Lance pushes him that it does look cool, and Veronica hides a smile behind her hand and Coran gives them something used on Altea to speed their healing and Keith can’t even be bothered when Krolia sends him a knowing look.

He falls asleep grinning when he’s seen Lance post the photo online, looking, just like he’d said, like the coolest pair in history.

—

“Try these,” Hunk slides a fresh tray of cookies in front of Keith, these ones dyed blue.

The colour would be off-putting, maybe, were it not for the smell of sweet sugar and cinnamon wafting up from them. He takes a small one from the corner and bites into the warm dough, grinning up at Hunk. “Even better than the last.”

“It’s missing something,” Hunk frets, turning back to the kitchen with a mitt to his face. “What d’you think?”

He looks at Keith earnestly, and he feels sort of bad that he literally cannot tell the difference between any of the cookies Hunk has whipped up. He only knows they’ve gotten, somehow, better than the last. He shrugs, “no idea. But at this rate all we’ll be eating for the next week is cookies. Take a break, Hunk.”

Hunk half-smiles, “thanks for humouring me, Keith. Two more batches and I’ll give it a rest.”

“Sounds good,” Keith finishes his cookie and turns back to his tablet, scrolling aimlessly through the ATLAS schematics and mission plans he’s already looked over about a hundred times.

But Hunk’s stressed about leaving, and this turns to him stress-baking, and if there’s anything Keith can do to try and be a good friend, it’d be staying up with him and testing out his desserts. Admittedly, the two of them are up a bit later than they should be considering the weight of tomorrow, but it’s all the same. They’ve fought battles more exhausted than from being short a few hours on sleep. Pidge had been with them at first, but she’d drifted off to work on something with Matt only an hour in. Keith didn’t mind when she went; Matt would at least force Pidge into bed before it was too late (the same way Lance had, in those days on the Castleship before things had begun to change so quickly).

Hunk is only just putting his second-to-last batch in the oven when the kitchen door slides open and in comes Lance, wearing a blue sweater that complements the warm brown of his skin and the blazing oceans in his eyes as he slumps into the chair across from Keith, folds his arms on the table and buries his face there. Keith almost feels self-conscious in his hoodie, as if underdressed for some sort of important meeting.

“Uh, you good, Lance?” Keith asks, his tablet forgotten (his heart twists a little bit. He’d encouraged Lance to be genuine on his date, resigned himself to it, but a part of Keith worries, illogically, that this might be his fault).

“Mmph,” Lance grumbles. Hunk sets a plate of cookies in front of Lance, patting him on the back. “How’d the date go, buddy?”

Lance springs up all at once, slamming his hands down onto the table and jostling the cookies. “Terrible! Actually, scratch that, it was perfect, and then I—” Lance goes rigid, eyes blown wide for a moment before he drops his face into his hand and groans. He resumes his position slumped over the table, deflating all at once. The ring in his ear catches the light, and Keith reaches up to touch at his own piercing, feeling the cool metal beneath his finger. It’s mostly healed up now, this little memory of a moment shared between him and Lance.

“Aw, man,” Hunk sighs, sliding into the chair next to Lance, “what happened?”

Lance tightens his arms around his head, grumbling something into the table. Hesitant, Keith reaches over and pokes a finger into Lance’s forearm, “whatever happened can’t have been that bad, Lance.”

Lance sighs and then props his chin onto his arms, the lines around his eyes looking more pronounced when he frowns. He trains his eyes on the wall somewhere behind Keith’s left shoulder, “I told her I love her.”

Keith freezes up (love?), and struggles to contain the explosion steadily building in his chest (love?). Kerosene pours into his lungs, and matches light in his throat, threatening to drop and burn Keith’s withering bronchi, to cut off his supply of air until all that he knows how to breathe is smoke (because Lance was never supposed to love Allura).

“And she… we… think I might have idolized her.” Lance rolls onto his side, blowing his fringe away from his eyes when he settles (for all that Keith loves Lance, hates to see him in pain, a part of him is quelled when he hears that his own heart will not be ground up with every look at a lovelorn Allura and Lance).

“Oh, buddy,” Hunk frowns, “are you okay?”

“I dunno,” Lance admits, “I don’t know what I expected.”

“Well, do you?” Keith asks, without thinking. He tacks on, feeling embarrassed when his words catch up to him, “love her?”

Lance looks over at Keith slowly, the frown still pulling at his lips sadly. “I… don’t know if I know what love is. I think she’s smart, and brave, and insanely talented, but… maybe I just don’t know how to see the bad in someone that perfect.”

“She’s as flawed as anyone,” Keith says softly, the blazing in his chest simmering to a settled little flame (he ignores the memory of Allura’s coldness when he’d found out his lineage, her sad eyes and disapproval of his very existence).

“Yeah,” Lance sighs, his gaze drifting to Hunk’s test cookies. He reaches out and takes one, nibbling on it with something forlorn.

“Well, hey!” Hunk says cheerily, “at least now you know! And I’m sure we’ll meet some cute aliens while we’re up there.” He looks a bit uneasy as he says it, glancing over at Keith as if to make sure it’s an okay preposition. Keith shrugs as if to say, I don’t care what he does (Keith does care. More than he’d like to admit. What he’d give to be Lance’s cute alien fixation (he scrunches his nose up at the thought of being a cute alien fixation)).

Lance gives up on his cookie, sighing again. “It’s different,” he says quietly, staring at the dessert in his hand like it holds all the answers to his rejection.

Hunk pats Lance’s shoulder again as he stands to check on his baking cookies, looking to Keith for assistance. He shoots Hunk a helpless look, woefully lost, but Hunk fixes him with something stern, a look demanding Keith be the leader he’s (resistantly) learned to be.

“Hey,” Keith starts up hesitantly, glancing Hunk’s way for help again (Hunk has turned his back on Keith to dote over his baking, the traitor), “you’re just as special. There’s bound to be someone who loves you like you deserve.” Keith dips his chin into the neck of his hoodie, trying, and failing, to keep the warmth from flooding to his cheeks. It’d been easier earlier today, when they’d sat atop Black, maybe because there was only the sunset to hear them, because maybe Black was reassuring Keith, or perhaps just because Keith could only take himself so seriously in the face of Lance with linked sausages around his neck like a feather boa. “And besides,” Lance looks up at Keith as if Keith might soothe all of his hurt, say the right words, and Keith has to look away, shrug and fiddle with his sleeves, “no one bounces back like you.”

Keith waits with bated breath for a moment, drawing his eyes slowly back over to Lance. He’s still looking so terribly dejected for a moment, but then he offers Keith another one of those soft smiles, looking like Keith is the friend he’s been striving so hard to be.

“Yeah, exactly!” Hunk throws in, sliding his final tray into the overworked oven, “I mean, you’ve definitely had some impressive turn-arounds.”

“It’s a talent,” Lance says, finally, finally, looking away from Keith to watch Hunk set his newest tray on the table. “These smell good.”

“Thank you,” Hunk preens, “Keith’s been helping me test them.”

“They’ve only gotten better,” Keith mumbles, still reeling from his own words (a confession as blatant as any, as blatant as Keith can be without outright saying it).

“I can imagine,” Lance throws a grin over at Keith without care (how can he not care, when that smile shatters through every careful boundary Keith has been building for years? How can he not care, when they’ve got matching piercings and Keith’s so helplessly head-over heels?), “I, for one, am always down to test out your cooking, buddy.”

Hunk lights up, seeming as assuaged as Keith by the colour seeming to return to Lance’s cheeks (his eyes are sad, still, and perhaps that will take longer to soothe, but they have time).

The two of them dutifully test out Hunk’s creations, offering their praise (Lance actually gives advice, privy as he is the nuances of Hunk’s baking). He blushes, pleased, and turns away to finish off his last batch.

Lance turns to Keith, looking less reassured than he had before but better than when he’d walked into the kitchen. He pauses, mouth poised to speak, and then he just gives another smile that Keith can only barely take the intensity of. 

He says, “thanks, Keith.”

And Keith can only offer a jerky nod in response, can only busy himself with his tablet as if called to it by something important.

A fool he is, to even pretend that anything could be more important to him than Lance.

—

The hangar is a mess of chaotic energy as Keith steps from the maw of Black. Nothing unexpected; the ATLAS crew has been remarkably adequate at caring for the Lions, at running diagnostics the way the paladins have shown them. Keith will come back later, he’s sure, just to be certain that Black isn’t running worse for wear.

He only makes it about three steps towards the doors when a bout of yells arise somewhere to his right, and when he turns towards Red, it’s just in time to watch Lance crumple to his knees and onto his side, only part way out of the cockpit. Panic spikes electric and sharp somewhere in Keith’s stomach and he takes off sprinting, shouldering past the crew in his way. They part for him, like he’s Moses leading the Israelites to safety, like a Red Sea avoiding a storm, and he’s there before the medic team is, dropping into a kneel and reaching for Lance, fingers to his pulse.

“What happened?” he asks, trying to keep the frantic edge out of his voice as he searches desperately for Lance’s pulse. He finds it, and as his fingers settle beneath Lance’s jaw, blue eyes blink open slowly and look up at Keith.

“Oh, hey, man,” Lance smiles a little bit, though pain creases the corners of his mouth, the edges of his calm. “I might’ve gotten a little grazed out there.”

Keith’s eyes shoot down to Lance’s abdomen, where, sure enough, there’s a wound gaping long across Lance’s stomach. He rewinds to the moment, tries to remember when Lance had taken the hit, but his memory is confined only to the horde of sentries he’d been stuck within. Surely one of the others had to have taken notice, right? “Why didn’t you say anything?” Keith rasps out, trying to fit his hand across the expanse of the wound, to stop the blood steadily soaking through to his palm. He keeps his other hand poised firmly at Lance’s pulse, the beat of it the only thing keeping Keith from— well, God knows what he’d do if that pulse stopped.

“Things to do… people to save…” Lance waves his hand dismissively, drunkenly, and is only stopped when a medic takes it from the air to pull his glove off and hook a heartbeat monitor to his finger.

“You idiot,” Keith hisses, pressing both hands to the wound once the steady beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor has quelled him.

“Things are kinda blurry,” Lance says, eyes dipping heavier with each blink. He holds them open for one long moment, drowning Keith in the ocean, “hey, Keith, you’re cool.”

The beeping on the monitor slows, beats coming farther between, and Keith feels his fingers start to shake. “Keep your eyes open,” Keith demands, only a little embarrassed at how rough his voice goes, “don’t—”

“We have to get him on the stretcher,” a medic is pulling Keith’s hands away, trying to get something onto Lance that’ll surely do wonders in comparison to Keith’s hands, “give us room.”

Keith doesn’t dare go far, only shifting far enough away to keep Lance’s head on his knees, just far enough to see Hunk and Pidge break through the throng of crew and to keep his fingers nestled tightly to Lance’s slowing pulse. “Open your eyes,” Keith says, a hand curling in Lance’s hair, “open your fucking eyes, Lance.”

He doesn’t, and Keith can only listen to Lance’s pulse, feel it against his fingers, until he’s pushed to Hunk and away from the medics, until Lance is rushed off for treatment. “He’s gonna be okay,” Hunk says, frantic, over and over until it ebbs into the steadily fading sound of Lance’s heart rate, until all Keith can imagine is that line going flat and his own heart being crushed beneath it, as if it had never even beat in the first place.

He’s tearing from Hunk’s grip before he can be crushed beneath the weight of his own fear, rushing off to follow Lance’s limp body until he’s stood behind the doors to the room they’ve got Lance in. The monitor beeps through the door, and it’s the only thing that keeps Keith from pushing through the guards positioned there (seemingly specifically to keep Keith back). Allura brushes past, offering a tense smile and a squeeze to the shoulder. She gets in no problem; none the matter. It’s better if she’s in there anyway; magic has always worked in these sorts of situations.

It soothes Keith until he hears the line go flat, and then he rams against the door, feeling Pidge at his back. They break into the room together, and Keith freezes in place.

There’s blood all over Lance’s middle, his suit ripped open to reveal the actual intensity of the wound. The medics are working as fast as they can, and Allura’s got her hand poised over Lance’s face, eyes squeezed shut.

“Get them out of here.” a nurse—doctor, maybe—demands, “let us work.”

Keith is grabbed round his arms and pulled away. He can’t even be bothered to fight it; not when Lance is lying battered and bleeding and dead on the table before him. He sees a defibrillator come out and he jerks once, gives a final attempt to pull away, and then Allura’s palm starts to glow blue, and with it Lance.

Keith is thrown to the guards at the door just in time to catch Allura’s magic start to heal the wound over. He can't hear the heart monitor over the ringing in his own ears.

—

Keith’s intentions had been to hide. Firmly and fully, so that Lance—or anyone, for that matter—wouldn’t find him.

So he’d tucked himself away at the base of Black, knowing that while Lance might know where to find him, it would be transparent that Keith isn’t looking to be found.

Still, these sorts of resolutions have never been Keith’s strong suit (not when it comes to Lance), and it doesn’t take long for Lance to come find him, already looking fully back-to-normal.

He strolls up to Keith, his hands in his pockets as if nothing bad had ever happened, and comes to a stop a foot away, looking the picture of ease. “Well, hel- lo, team leader.”

Keith ignores Lance outside of a nod, trying to hide the tense lines of his shoulders as he busies himself in rewiring a damaged component he’d pulled from Black’s cargo hold. It’s nothing vital and nothing that Black can’t heal herself, but the sooner it’s fixed the less possible it is for it to cause problems in the midst of something important (he might have hid away on the training deck, had it not been such an obvious place to disappear to).

“What’re you working on?” Lance asks slowly, bending at his middle to get a closer look. His head comes close enough for his hair to brush Keith’s, and he hunches over tighter, trying his best to put the distance he so desperately needs between them.

Keith shrugs, “just some damaged wiring.”

“Looks riveting,” Lance says flatly, straightening up again. He scuffs the toe of his boot against the floor before he withdraws his hands from his pockets and stretches his arms high above his head. Keith watches the action through his fringe, wonders if it’s intentional, to have Lance’s shirt ride up to expose the fully-healed scarring on his stomach, as if to prove that he's alive and that he survived it.

He drops his arms to his side, and then plants himself firmly on the floor next to Keith, their knees a breath away. “You’re avoiding me,” Lance starts, “and you benched me on the last two missions.”

“I didn’t bench you,” Keith argues, though he refuses to look up again, “you were out there.”

“You took basically every one of my targets, and then shoved me and Red out of the way. Twice.”

“Guess I wasn’t paying attention,” Keith shrugs, careful with lining his screwdriver up. He’s fixed the compartment to the best of his ability; it’s ready to be tested.

“Yeah,” Lance says, dropping his chin in hand, elbow on knee, “must not’ve been. Real convincing, Keith.”

Keith doesn’t dignify this with a response. He just screws the compartment shut and then sets it down on the floor before he reaches for the next piece, scrubbing it with a rag so that he can get a better look at it.

“I didn’t die, man. I’m fine.”

Keith grits his teeth, focussing all of his frustration on cleaning the part in his hands (fine is not bleeding out in the hangar. Fine is not flatlining. Fine is not surviving by the grace of literal magic) .

“Why won’t you look at me, Keith?”

Keith does look; he whips his head up forcefully, and then levels a look so horribly worn out at Lance (one that yells it; one that makes it impossibly obvious that Keith is in love with Lance. So hopelessly and helplessly and there won’t ever be a moment again where Keith can breathe like he ought to in the presence of something so damning). “You weren’t fine,” Keith says lowly, trying his hardest to keep the rough edge out of his voice, “you don’t know what that was like, watching you— you died. You bled out in my arms and there wasn’t a thing I could do.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” Lance says, and to his credit, he does look broken up about it, sapphire eyes gone torn and apologetic, “but I’m here. I’m alive.”

Keith considers this, feeling his lip twist in something unspoken and something hard to swallow, and then he turns back to his rejected part, the grease working into the ridges of his fingers from holding it so tightly. Sure, Lance is fine, with Allura’s otherworldly abilities at their disposal and an entire team hell-bent on keeping a fifth of the universe’s official military force alive. He mumbles, “this time.”

“What the hell, Keith,” Lance huffs, though he doesn’t sound any less upset, “that’s what we signed up for. This is war. You think I like seeing you guys in the line of fire? What about when you fucked off to the Blade? What about when you didn’t have a magic robot lion protecting you?”

Keith squeezes the sharp edges of the component in his hand, feeling his throat go tight. “That was different,” he grits out.

“Why, huh?” Lance’s hand reaches Keith’s shoulder and he pushes, trying to get Keith to face him again, “because it’s you? Because you’re better than me? You’re the same as the rest of us!”

Keith throws the component down and gives into Lance’s shove, his hand flying up to grab Lance’s wrist tightly. “I’m not better, Lance, and I’m not the same.”

“Then you’re worth just as much!” Lance argues, his free hand pulling Keith’s grip loose, “you’re worth just as much to me, you stupid fucking idiot!”

“You don’t get it!” Keith grabs the hand holding his wrist, trying to free himself from Lance’s surprising strength (he’d expected weakness, expected Lance to be still recovering. A weak grip reminiscent of the limp hand dripping with blood off the edge of the examination table).

“Yeah, I don’t! What the— what the hell, Keith!?”

Keith squeezes hard enough to bruise; that’s fine, because he’s fairly certain that come nightfall he’ll be sporting a matching set of welts on his own wrist from Lance. “It’s different!” he repeats, struggling to phrase what he means (he’s on the verge of yelling it, of shouting it into Lance’s face and hoping the words stick, hoping that Lance gets it).

“Why?!” Lance heaves, shaking Keith’s wrist for emphasis.

“Because—” Keith has to grind his teeth together to stop the words from spilling; to stop himself from letting that burning bronze in his throat from pouring out and all over the place, leaving a mess that’ll never come out, no matter how hard he scrubs.

Keith releases Lance’s arm, going limp in his hand, and then slumps back (it was never worth feeling these things. He’d known it the moment he’d gotten the ring in his ear and the moment he’d watched Lance crumble over the kitchen table. He’s known it since he first let the something wriggle free, when Lance had pressed his fingers to Keith’s shoulder and assured him that he wasn’t alone, that he would stick at his side).

“…Because?” Lance prompts, gone softer. He still sounds irritated, to say the least, but he’s looking at Keith with the earnest eyes of a friend ready to listen and it all but crumples Keith’s resolve beneath its weight. His grip goes from bruising to kind, and his thumb seems to run apologetically along the inside of Keith’s wrist, against his erratic pulse.

“‘Cause…” Keith turns back to his abandoned part, letting his hair fall into his eyes. He reaches for the piece, feeling an awful lot the same, lost in the tides of those nebula-encompassing oceans excused for eyes. He says it softly, whispers it out, almost, “‘cause you matter.”

“Hey, Keith,” and Keith can feel Lance frowning, can feel him misinterpreting the words, “you matter, too. C’mon, you know that.”

Keith shrugs, accepting the comfort all the same. If Lance doesn’t get Keith’s meaning, then so be it. Keith will make peace with that.

It’s none the matter, because Lance pauses on it anyway, like he always has, and perhaps like he always will when it comes to Keith. “Maybe that’s not what you meant.”

Keith ignores the comment and dutifully returns to working on the component in his hands, tightening it up and cleaning it so finely it shines back at him. His arm aches for Lance’s touch when he’s pulled away, even though his wrist is sore and aching with the imprint of those fingers.

When Keith is done, he reaches for the next piece in need of maintenance, looking it over with more focus than might be strictly necessary (he can’t risk wavering, can’t risk Lance seeing even a sliver more of the conflict turning in Keith’s ribcage). He holds it a moment longer than he ought to, running his thumb over the edges as if they might help him reconcile this vibrant Lance with the one that had called Keith cool, of all things, as if they were the words most important on his deathbed. Perhaps if a piece so worn and broken can be cleaned and fixed…

Lance holds out a hand in Keith’s peripheral, brown wrist gone red, smiling easily enough when Keith meets his eyes again. Keith passes it over wordlessly, watching Lance look it over. “Looks good,” he says softly, setting it down. He reaches for Keith’s wired part next, unscrewing it and checking the contents.

“What’re you doing?” Keith asks, voice softer than he’d anticipated.

Lance shrugs, still looking like his double-checking doesn’t matter all that much, “just thought a second set of eyes might help— hey, like here.” he points to an undone wire, then deftly reconnects and secures it.

“Oh,” Keith says dumbly, watching Lance finish his look-over before he shuts the wires back, “thanks.”

“Anytime,” Lance murmurs, focussed on his work.

Keith frowns as he reaches for the next part, taking the screwdriver when Lance hands it back.

—

“Hey, hey, Keith, are you okay?”

Lance’s face comes slowly into focus, breaking through Keith’s haze. He reaches up and grabs the neck of Lance’s armour, feeling the tremor in his fingers when he does so. 

“What the fuck,” he breathes, frantically searching the scene. Demolished sentries, and no trace of the three druids left behind. A pile of robotic carnage.

“I think— you— hey, just look at me. I’m here, we’re good.” Lance’s palms are warm beneath his gloves when he holds Keith’s face in them, turning it carefully to scan for— something. 

“What happened?”

“You went Galra!” Hunk cries, jogging up, “you can do that?”

Keith startles, but Lance keeps him firmly in place, though his hands are still gentle. “Not now, Hunk!” Lance scolds, a scowl folding his lips in a so-familiar way that it stabs something violent in Keith’s chest. 

He turns back to Keith, giving a nervous smile that only twists the knife, “I think you went a little Galra there, buddy.”

Lance withdraws his hands from Keith’s face, rocking back onto his heels. He takes Keith’s hands in his own and hoists them both back up to their feet. “C’mon, mullet, we gotta go.”

Keith holds Lance’s hands in place before he can pull away, looking off to the side before he meets Lance’s eyes. He says, grip tightening for a second, “did I hurt anyone?”

He remembers it; most of it. Getting a little too violent with his actions. It gets a little blurry at parts where he moved too quickly for his own ability, been a little bit too strong.

“What?” Lance’s brow furrows, “what, hey, Keith—”

“Lance. Did I hurt anyone?”

Lance turns Keith’s hands in his own, pressing his thumbs into Keith’s palms when he leans closer to make certain that the only thing in Keith’s line of sight are those blue, blue eyes. “No. Keith. You’d never. Okay?”

“I—”

“Okay, Keith? I know you. You’d never.”

And with so much conviction in that face, with so much trust and belief and faith, how can Keith argue? He nods, then gives into that strangely gripping urge to press the crown of his head to Lance’s helmet for a brief moment. “Thank you. Okay, let’s move.”

—

“Would that even be okay?” Lance is asking, looking earnest when he meets Hunk’s eyes.

From what Keith can remember, Hunk was never great at comforting Lance. There’d been a turning point, somewhere, but he doesn’t know when. Perhaps after Garfle Warfle Snick, when Lance’s personality failed to front the lasting effects of Bob boiling beneath his surface. Perhaps that was when Hunk caught onto just how to-heart Lance takes the words levelled his way.

“Yes,” Hunk assures, “you’re just being honest. And I think you should tell her. And h—”

“Oh, quiznak,” Lance notices Keith and clams up in the same breath, his hand slapping over Hunk’s mouth.

“Sorry, is this a bad time?” Keith turns half-back toward the door, his thumb coming up to point at it, “I can come back later.”

“Actually,” Hunk stands, pulling Lance’s hand from his face with an unimpressed brow raised, “we were just finishing up.” He gives Lance a look that Keith can’t quite decipher, but there’s some sort of warning in it, and then he makes to leave, patting Keith on the shoulder as he goes.

“O… ‘kay…” Keith turns to Lance with confusion, but doesn’t dawdle long before he settles onto the couch next to him.

“Hey, Keith,” Lance greets, still looking uneasy, “what’s up?”

“Just… schematics. I wanted to get your input.” Keith holds out his tablet to Lance, showing him their latest look at Haggar’s Sinclaire remodels.

“You— oh, okay.”

“What? You don’t have to if you don’t want to—”

“No! No, no,” Lance laughs nervously, his eyes falling to the tablet, “just… am I really the best person to ask on this? I mean, the rest of the team is bound to have better input on this.”

“Well, you’re my right hand.” Keith shrugs, hoping it isn’t too obvious, that the way he looks away doesn’t betray him completely, “you’re good at strategy. I’m not great at leading, but… Like you said; we’re a good team.”

“You’re still hung up on that, huh?” Lance laughs properly, bumping his shoulder to Keith’s, “But hey, no. I mean, yeah, you were terrible—”

“Thank you, Lance.”

“—at first. But now? No one I’d rather be backing up. Black Paladin suits you.” Lance settles close, still with their shoulders touching. He jogs his leg next to Keith’s, and the movement brushes their knees close.

“Oh. Thank you, Lance,” says Keith, softer, now.

“You’re gonna have to hold my hand through this, though.” And Keith’s heart might skip a beat at the words, and his fingers might be curling into the fabric of the seat on the side away from Lance (there’s no room between them for the action). “I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

“Here…”

They go over the plans dutifully, and Lance gets focussed which—Keith would be a fool to call that anything short of breathtaking, the way Lance’s jaw sets and he gets a jaded look in his eyes. Seriousness has never been Lance’s strong suit, but it’s almost heart-stopping to see his face devoid of playfulness. Hot, Keith’s mind supplies unhelpfully, and he has to push the thought away before his cheeks burst into flames.

Lance offers insight, but it all comes down to the two of them being once more at odds; there’s seemingly no surefire strategy or obvious kill-switch. They just have to continue relying on the skill they’ve picked up this far. And so they fall quiet, side-by-side and at a loss.

“So,” Lance asks conversationally. Exhaustion lines the single word, and Keith considers that perhaps Lance has been feigning cheer for the sake of morale, “what’s new with you?”

“Nothing,” Keith says, “nothing ever happens outside of Voltron.”

“Yeah, I know, but— like, the other day, I was in the cafeteria with Veronica, and Acxa sees her and then just bolts. And I’m like, ‘okay, that was weird,’ and then I turn to Veronica and—when I say this woman has never blushed over anything, I mean anything, including— well, that’s besides the point—”

“You think the two of them are—”

“I don’t think, Keith, I know. This is my sister we’re talking about. And Shiro? I bet you haven’t noticed his new beau.” Lance grins, turning in his seat so he’s facing Keith with his entire body. The movement shifts him away, and Keith would long for the warmth to come back, if Lance’s knee didn’t fold atop the seat and come to touch against Keith’s thigh.

“What.” Keith’s face goes flat, masking his almost childish delight at Lance’s easy touches, “no way.”

“Yes way. You know Curtis? On the bridge? There’s definitely something going on there.”

“I really feel like you’re pulling this out of your ass.” Keith informs Lance, trying his damndest to keep his eyes on Lance’s without sinking, without drowning in the cerulean of galaxies.

“The only thing I’m pulling out of my ass is cold. Hard. Fact.” Lance assures, and his fist bumps Keith’s shoulder. “You haven’t noticed? The training together, all the time, like, he doesn’t train with you that much! Or us, y’know, his team? With whom he charges into battle with? And Curtis is always spotting him on the bench press making goo-goo eyes like, ‘hey, Shiro, why don’t you bench me next?’”

“I really hate this conversation.”

“Think about it, Keith,” Lance leans close, close enough that Keith can smell the standardized soap on him, and something warmer beneath it, as if he’s been in the kitchen while Hunk bakes.

Keith does think about it; pushes the all-encompassing running line of Lance, Lance, Lance out of his mind to consider Shiro as of late. And when he does, his eyes widen. “Oh my God.”

“See?” Lance exclaims, grabbing Keith by his shoulders, “and then, the other day, I’m just walking over to go say hi to Colleen, and who’s in there asking about flowers? Curtis. And who’s smiling all dopey three hours later?”

“Shiro,” Keith breathes, like it’s some sort of shock (it is a shock. Keith hadn’t anticipated Shiro allowing himself love. Not like this. Perhaps not ever).

“Bingo!” Lance snaps his fingers into a gun. He leans close, “we’re getting a new step-dad.”

“Ew. Why do you have to say it like that?”

“Space Dad,” Lance says solemnly, holding out one hand. He holds up his other, “ATLAS bridge boy,” then draws them both together, clasping his hands, “step- Space Dad.”

“Please stop,” Keith says flatly, and oh, how he never wants Lance to stop. How he never wants to not hear slightly-gross jokes about his surrogate brother, about their little family knitted together in their own corner of the universe. How he never wants Lance to stop because if he stopped perhaps Keith would never smile so big, even when he tries to smother it with a frown.

“Wanna go interrogate Curtis?” Lance suggests, “give him the ol’ Razzle Dazzle?”

“Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?” Keith asks, dubious.

“No, like— a scary Razzle Dazzle. He seems nice, though, I’d feel bad if we intimidated him. Okay. Good cop,” Lance points to himself, “bad cop.” he presses his finger to Keith’s chest, just where his manubrium connects to the body of his ribs.

“Let’s leave Shiro’s new boyfriend alone,” Keith says softly, trying not to sound so worn by Lance’s finger on his shirt, on his chest, digging straight into Keith’s ribs and stirring his insides as if he’s been thrown in a collapsing star.

“What, you don’t wanna be bad cop? As much as I’d like the mantle, I can appreciate when a guy’s broodiness outdoes mine. And yours does. You’re the brooding king.”

“No— Lance.” Keith gives him a look, one that pretends to be annoyed, one that Lance will be able to see the mirth beneath because if anyone can read Keith it’s Lance, “maybe later? I don’t wanna… get in between that. I want Shiro to be happy.”

Lance glances down at his finger, then withdraws it slowly. “Yeah, you’re right.” He smiles when he meets Keith’s eyes again, and settles back at his side, falling silent. After a moment, he asks, “are you happy?”

Keith tilts his head toward Lance, though his eyes stay on the wall across them. Lance fidgets and he brushes his arm to Ketih’s again, and it forces something warm and affectionate to blossom in Keith’s chest; the gift of a friend. The casual touches he never thought he’d get from anyone. As if he is worth being near.

After a moment, Keith nods, “yeah, Lance, I’m happy.”

—

“Shiro,” Keith says cautiously, keeping his gaze on his practice sword. He polishes it dutifully; it’s not something he has to do, per se, but the methodic motions of it bring him some sort of comfort. “What’s it like to be in love?”

When Keith looks over, there’s a look of surprise on Shiro’s face before he turns pensive, raising his eyes to the ceiling as he thinks. After a moment, he says, “I think it’s… having a place where you belong. Not having to pretend to be someone you’re not. It’s just comfortable. And something you want to work for, even when it gets hard.”

Keith nods, mulling this over for a moment.

“…Why do you ask?”

Keith keeps his hand working across the blade of his sword, polishing it until it gleams. “I think—” his breath hitches, and he has to swallow the sudden lump in his throat.

Keith’s been calling it love this whole time. Because what else might it be? Something so big that his chest feels like it might burst when he thinks too hard about it, a feeling that makes him smile even when it aches, that strange comfort that washes over him and steadies his heartbeat when Lance is near, even when it stutters for the same reason. That roaring pain when Keith thought he’d lost Lance, and that searing relief when he realized he hadn’t. Their idle conversation. Lance’s palms on Keith’s cheeks, gentle and kind as he searched for injury, infection, pain. The, I know you.

The ease that had settled in Keith’s bones even when he was getting a needle through his ear. The fact that he’d gone along with it just because Lance had wanted him to.

Shiro’s eyes go to Keith’s earring and he smiles something soft. “Hang on to it, Keith,” he says, “it’s always worth seeing where it goes.”

“It’s not going to go anywhere,” Keith disagrees. He feels Lance’s finger on his chest, his hands on his face.

“It’s Lance, isn’t it?”

Keith keeps his eyes trained on his sword. He murmurs, not even having it in himself to be embarrassed, “that obvious, huh?”

“Nah,” Shiro assures, getting to his feet, “I just know you too well.”

“Not like it makes a difference,” Keith takes Shiro’s outstretched hand and stands.

“Hang onto it,” Shiro insists, leveling something almost serious at Keith, “certain things are worth waiting for.”

He blurts, “like Curtis?”

Shiro blinks, then erupts into laughter. He recovers quickly, holding his middle and wiping at tears, but a smile so wide and happy settles on his face that Keith feels his own lips quirk up. “Yeah, Keith,” Shiro nods, setting his hand on Keith’s shoulder, “like Curtis. Like Lance.”

—

Keith forgets, for all those long days on the ATLAS, that Voltron is more than just an end-all be-all surefire weapon for keeping the universe in one piece. Because, on the ATLAS, that’s all they do; fight Haggar’s mechs, eat and train and run over plans, and Keith forgets those little rescue missions and diplomatic side-turns that took up the time in between those big fights.

And there’s not much of them left; the coalition in shambles, though rebuilding shaky foundations, and what’s left of the universe has been at the hands of what’s left of the Empire for close to four years. But still, every so often, there’s Coran coming to them with the itinerary for a quick diplomatic stop, or to answer a distress signal.

That had been Voltron’s job at first; answering distress signals. Every and all, even when their first try at fulfilling their duty as paladins ended in Lance’s lion being stolen and Keith leaping through an asteroid field to retrieve it. He recalls that fondly, even though, when he’d unchained Lance from his tree, Lance had looked grateful for all of a moment before he made a joke about Keith’s helmet hair.

And it’s Allura who brings their next mission to Keith, the two of them one-on-one for the first time in phoebs in an abandoned kitchen.

“Hello, Keith,” she greets, offering a demure smile. She takes the seat at Keith’s side, then slides her tablet over to him, “hiding from the crew?”

“Kitchens are the only places that are ever empty,” he smiles back easily enough; he’d be lying if he said he didn’t have a deep-seated love for the princess. “What’s this?”

“Just a stop at a passing planet. Almost a show of arms,” she smiles mischievously, “I know how you love those.”

“Is it necessary?” Keith asks, grimacing and earning a laugh from Allura.

“It’s a peaceful planet. It’ll be almost like a vacation. Just for a quintent or two.” Allura sets her fingers on the edge of the table, studying her nails. Painted blue, perhaps courtesy of Lance or Romelle.

“What’s wrong?” Keith asks, abandoning his own tablet in favour of turning to the princess. She meets his eyes after a moment, her own gone almost forlorn.

“We haven’t spoken for a while,” she replies, “how have you been, Keith?”

Keith smiles a little more, then shrugs. “Fine. I want this all to be over, though. It’s never-ending.”

“To put it lightly.”

“How about you, Allura?”

Allura keeps her gaze to Keith’s a moment longer before she looks away, back to her fingers. “I have a terrible feeling about this all, Keith. As if there’s something… unexpected at the end of the line.”

“Maybe there will be,” Keith says softly, “but there’s no use worrying about it right now. We have to focus on getting to the end, first.”

“Though I know you are right… I can’t help worrying.” Allura sighs, then shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Keith, it wasn’t my intention to— well, normally I’d go to Lance for consolation. You’ve already so much on your shoulders.”

“Always time for a friend,” Keith assures, hesitating before he sets his hand on Allura’s shoulder. She smiles, warm, then leans close to hug Keith, her arms tight around his middle.

When she pulls away she tucks her hair behind her ear and looks off to the side, nonchalant. “Actually… about Lance.”

She looks almost hesitant, and it sends warning bells ringing in Keith’s head. “…What about him?”

“You two have grown awfully close.” She smiles, almost sadly. She smiles, and Keith narrows his eyes.

“He’s my right hand.” Keith dismisses. He pauses, then adds, “and like you said, a good listener.”

“Yes, he’s certainly… he’s a heart of gold, doesn’t he?” Allura goes soft, sounding tired.

Keith feels his brow furrow at the sudden change in tone. He nods, “he does.”

“I just wanted to say… I… I hurt him, Keith,” Allura holds up a hand to stop Keith when he starts to speak and shakes her head. “I led him on. And I agreed to go on a date when—… I know he’s managing just fine, now. And we’ve refound our footing as friends. But I think… It was always different between him and I.” She looks directly at Keith, gaze piercing as she watches him, waiting for the words to settle. “Learn from my mistake. Please keep caring for him the way he deserves.”

“What— I don’t—”

“Don’t read into it, Keith,” Allura smiles a little as she stands and grabs her tablet. Her hand finds his shoulder, “you’ll see what I mean. He’s not one to keep quiet. I’ll see you at the debrief.”

And she goes.

She goes as if she hasn’t dropped the heaviest double-entendre, meaning everything and nothing, vague and obvious and perhaps if Keith were a stronger person he might have let himself believe that little suggestion in Allura’s words.

He swallows, hearing his throat click with the action.

—

Lance smiles at Keith from across the table, his face illuminated orange from the screen projected before them, and Keith takes in a breath as imperceptibly as he can before his own smile breaks free, feeling comfort settle into every ventricle of his heart.

—

“This is dumb,” Lance complains, “don’t we have more important things to be doing?”

“You’re the one that used to live for this stuff,” Pidge grumbles, pulling a branch out her hair.

Lance shoves her, and she pushes back, and the two of them only still when Keith whips around and levels a stern look their way. “I don’t feel right being here, either,” he says, low, “but we’ve got a job to do.”

“Sorry, Keith,” Lance says sheepishly, his hand going up to rub at the nape of his neck. Keith, ever so weak, feels his features soften with the apology.

“It’s fine,” he assuages, “just keep it together for a few more vargas.”

Keith turns, and Pidge whispers something to Lance that Keith doesn’t catch that ends in Lance squawking and when Keith looks back, Lance has Pidge in a headlock, his hand on her mouth and looking as if he’s been caught. “Seriously?” Keith asks, and he turns away, once and for all, falling back into step with Allura.

“Seems they only ever listened to Shiro,” Allura laughs politely, “he was always getting between Lance and you.”

Allura’s words from only days ago echo in Keith’s head and he looks away. “Times have certainly changed,” she adds, and when Keith meets her gaze again she’s smiling.

Such a soft thing, to recall those early days.

They make their way into the city without much incident following Pidge and Lance’s squabbling; the two of them settle down and end up pouring over information on their mission on Pidge’s vambrace. So much like siblings, with their petty fights and quick resolutions, so much like Lance with Veronica.

They come upon the castle soon enough; the guides that had met them at their lions had asked politely that the castle only be travelled to on foot. Keith had grown suspicious, but Allura had bowed and they’d all followed suit before falling into step.

Now, their guides, blue-skinned and almost shimmering when they turn to face Allura and Keith with their all-black eyes, raise their arms from their sides, shifting the dark fabric of their robes. “Paladins,” they say in unison, “the palace of Perra.” They reach for the broad leaves of the trees, pulling them back at once and exposing the grandiose courtyard of a crystalline castle, spires reaching high and with sprawling stairs leading from the, frankly, overkill doors and into the palace grounds. A pathway made of stone—sparkling far too much in the sun to be marble—beckons the paladins, and Allura makes a tentative gesture, nodding in Keith’s peripheral to signal that they’re free to go on ahead.

Their guides hang back, so Lance breaks their formation, stepping away from between Hunk and Pidge to stick himself between Keith and Allura. “Is this thing made of diamond?”

“You shouldn’t break form, Lance,” Allura chides, though she nods, “and yes, it is made of diamond.”

“Holy shit,” he breathes, “man, I want my house to be made of diamond.”

“It’s a thing of status,” Allura clarifies, “please, Lance, the formation.”

Lance raises his hands in surrender and backs off, “alright, ‘m goin’.” Keith glances back, unable to help it when he smiles a little. Lance doesn’t notice; he just sets his hand on Hunk’s shoulder and leans close, “what say you, Hunk? The two of us bro-ing it up in our very own diamond house? Pidge,” he throws his free arm around Pidge’s shoulders, “you can come too.”

“That’s a fire hazard,” Hunk points out, “and really hot. It’s impractical, really. I bet the Queen doesn’t even—”

“Okay, hear me out, here,” Lance counters, and Keith turns back, feeling that while they ought to stay professional, Lance has never been one to not amuse Keith, “paladin clubhouse. Diamond paladin clubhouse.”

“What are you? Five?” Pidge asks.

“We can discuss a diamond clubhouse later,” Allura says softly, her face held in a regal smile as they begin their ascent up the stairs. Keith can see the Queen, her skin so shimmery and pale it might as well be transparent, her robes gold and ornate. “Please remain professional.”

“You know me,” Lance assures, his own voice gone soft, too. Keith senses Lance straighten up, “always professional.”

Allura heads their group when they reach the landing, offering her hand and bowing low, the Queen taking it and raising it to her forehead when she raises to her full height again.

“Princess Allura,” she says, and Keith might be imagining the way her voice echoes around them, “it is my honour, acting Queen Kria of Perra, to welcome you into my humble palace.”

“We thank you most graciously,” Allura returns, her hands folding in front of her. “I would like to introduce to you the paladins of Voltron.” Allura gestures to them in turn, “of the Black Lion, Keith. Of the Red, Lance. Pidge of the Green, and Hunk of the Yellow. I, myself, pilot the Blue lion. They hail from planet Earth, and I from the lost Altea. We are most grateful that you have considered joining the coalition.”

“It is my pleasure to meet you all, and to commence negotiations into the coalition of the universe’s protector.” Kria turns her all-blue eyes on Keith, looking him up and down. Something strange plays in her gaze, and she says, “I sense… Galra, on this one.”

He tenses up all at once, expecting to be cast from Perra as nothing more than an Empire soldier. So what if he’s human? It isn’t like, in times of peril, Keith doesn’t have the capacity to turn Galra. It had frightened Hunk, he’s certain, even though he’d come across fascinated. What’s to say that if someone gets in Keith’s way he won’t take on his Galra side and tear them apart like an animal?

Keith feels a hand at his elbow, fleeting, and the touch brings him back to himself. He squares his shoulders, shifts his stance. It will take more than a Queen to displace Keith from the position he has earned.

“Ah, well, yes. Keith is part Galra. But he was raised as a human.” Allura’s face remains complacent, but she looks to the Queen carefully, “all the same, Keith has been with Voltron since its resurrection. We have had many Galra allies, and without them, we may never have displaced Zarkon, nor Lotor.”

“Do not mistake my intention,” Kria laughs, the sound low and almost soothing, “I take no issue with genealogy. After all, our blood does not determine our actions. I had a half-sister who was of mixed descent herself.”

“I see,” Allura’s eyes soften, but Keith sees her shoulders stay tense.

“Please, princess, if you will,” Kria turns, and Allura falls into step, leaving Lance to take up the space at Keith’s right, his face gone steely.

“You okay?” he asks, side-eyeing Keith for all of a second before they’re welcomed into the castle.

Keith realizes it had been Lance’s hand at his arm, steadying Keith, grounding him, because who else would it have been? Who else has fingers in that terribly unique shape, with that particular warmth and gentleness? Keith nods once, jerky, feeling his ribs want to burst with the flowers twisting roots around them.

—

Keith is just throwing his helmet to the floor when there’s a knock on his door. He doesn’t hesitate, can’t hesitate, leader of Voltron as he is; mission first. “Come in.”

The door slides open, and in some twisted sort of echo of the past, there’s Lance, his eyes downcast for a moment before he steps into the room and looks up at Keith. The door slides shut, and for a long moment, they both stay silent.

“What’s up?” Keith asks, “you should get some sleep.”

Lance shrugs a shoulder, still in his armour. “I just wanted to check up on you.”

Keith’s gaze drifts away, and he bends down to pick up his helmet before he brushes past Lance to set it on his desk. “I’m fine.”

“No, because— because what the Queen said wasn’t—”

“She didn’t mean anything by it,” Keith’s shoulders tense, and he keeps his back to Lance, even though it’s a sure thing that Lance picks up on it.

“Keith. Look, man,” Lance sets his hand on Keith’s shoulder and maneuvers him around by the point, Keith going almost embarrassingly pliant beneath Lance’s coaxing. “It doesn’t matter what she meant by it. I could see you shutting down.”

“I wasn’t shutting down,” Keith argues, though it comes out soft (Lance? Noticing Keith shutting down? Does he really pay attention that acutely?). “This seems to be bugging you more than me.”

“Yeah, it is,” Lance agrees, so easily that Keith is taken aback. “And I know you don’t think it’s a big deal, but it is. To me.”

Keith feels his brow knit, and he asks, aghast, “why?”

“Because you’re my friend!” Lance exclaims, throwing his hands out between them, palms up, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “And because I never asked if you were okay before!”

“Before?”

“When you— when you went Galra, or whatever it was. I should’ve, and I didn’t, and I’m sorry.” Lance flexes his hands, as if just remembering where they are, and then tucks them against his sides, eyes sliding to Keith’s helmet. “I’m sorry, Keith.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Keith almost laughs (how absurd—that Lance is sorry for missing what Keith resolved on his own anyway? For not asking when Keith has always been one to manage just fine by himself?), “it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Lance breathes, “but it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t matter to me, Keith.”

“It changes everything,” Keith disagrees, “I can’t control it, Lance. What if I—” he cuts himself off, then casts his gaze to the floor.

And there’s Lance, pushing into Keith’s space and setting his hands on Keith’s shoulders, bowing his head to get into Keith’s eyeline, and oh, he never stood a chance like this. “You’re not going to hurt any of us.” he argues, sounding sure for the both of them, “you’d never hurt us.”

“I could hurt you,” Keith murmurs, and if it comes out a little broken, so be it. He can’t be expected to be at his best when he’s got the ocean dripping clean into his soul, raging and angry and lulling him all the same.

“You wouldn’t ever hurt me,” Lance argues, certain, both his palms slapping gently to Keith’s cheeks. Lance coaxes Keith’s head up, forcing their eyes to meet. “You’d never.”

“How do you know that?” Keith asks, searching for the answer in Lance’s face, scouring every inch for an ounce of doubt and coming back with nothing but assurance, steadfast and trusting. “How can you say that?”

Lance sucks in a breath, his face going torn up, broken-hearted, maybe, “because— Because, Keith!”

“...Because what?” Keith wonders softly, drawing back just far enough to give Lance space when he looks away and half-bites his lip between his teeth, his brow drawn tighter than Keith has seen in ages.

He sighs, his gaze meeting Keith’s again, “because, Keith. Because I know you. Because— because, even when I was being an ass to you, you saved me from that airlock.”

Keith’s eyes widen; he’d forgotten that’d ever happened.

“Because when— when a sentry got too close you did the most badass shit and cut the barrel of its gun off because you knew I wasn’t good at hand-to-hand. Because— I could list reasons all day, Keith.” Lance looks to Keith earnestly, his hands going back to Keith’s shoulders, “because I know you. And I know that you’d never hurt us. Me. Even if you turn Galra or— and if you lost control you know I’d do everything in my power to get you back.”

Keith blanks, blinks at Lance like he’s said something unfathomable (because he has. Because Keith didn’t know he could be cared about so fiercely, known so deeply). “What?”

“I don’t know how to dice it, Keith,” Lance leans back on his heels, “you could hurt me and everyone I love and I’d still do everything in my power to get you back because I’d know that wasn’t you.”

Fear festers in Keith’s chest. He was never meant to be cared about that deeply. He was never meant to have that much faith bestowed upon him. He breathes, “don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” Lance asserts, unrelenting, “you’re never going to hurt the people you love. I know that as fact, and nothing you say or think about yourself is going to change that.”

Love?

“You really believe that?” Keith asks, feeling his face go softer, still just as conflicted but with something warm beneath it all.

Love.

“I do.” Lance nods, solemn, almost, “with every fibre of my being.”

And what’s Keith supposed to say to that that isn’t I love you or I would burn worlds for you and bottle stars, I would search every inch of this universe to find the thing that makes you happiest, just to see you smile at me?

Lance adds, his eyes dropping to Keith’s collar before they meet Keith’s again with the intensity of thunderstorms and morning dew, “I mean it, Keith.”

Keith’s eyes prickle (this undying faith, so bright and warm and unmatched, perhaps as insistent as Keith’s own), and he balls his hands at his sides for all of a moment before he takes a hesitant step forward.

Lance doesn’t move at first, trying to decipher what Keith means, and then he laughs, arms going round Keith’s neck to hug him. “You can just hug me, y’know? Or ask,” Lance says, his voice in Keith’s air playing something like a symphony’s worth of melodies.

“I know,” Keith assures, his own arms going tight around Lance’s waist, “thank you, Lance.”

“Hey, anytime. I’ve got you.”

—

“I have something to tell you,” Lance says, sidling up to Keith, “after this mission.”

“What if we die?” Pidge interrupts, breezing right on past to catch up to Allura.

“We’re not gonna die,” Keith calls witheringly after her, “this is more or less routine.”

“More or less,” Hunk echoes, “aren’t they all?”

“Not loving this attitude,” Lance interjects.

“Hope has fueled us thus far. We’ve been through worse with less experience,” Allura says over her shoulder, linking her arm in Pidge’s, “and Lance is right. The attitude could stand to be improved.”

Hunk bounds ahead to show Pidge something on his vambrace, and Keith looks to Lance, watching him pull his helmet on. It sticks his fringe to his forehead in a way that Keith has grown more than accustomed to, but it does something particularly funny to his heart today.

“Why not tell me now?” he asks, soft enough that the team ahead of them can’t catch it.

“Eh, not worth it.” Lance shrugs, “gotta have a clear mind for battle.”

“Oh, is that so,” Keith grins a little, “Pidge has recorded instances of you getting sidetracked.”

“Yeah,” Lance says, scandalized, “from, like, three years ago.”

“I distinctly recall last week, when you started up about chickens in—”

“This conversation is over,” Lance interrupts, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. He slaps the back of his hand on Keith’s chestplate, “let’s get this over with, team leader.”

—

Keith watches Lance make his way down Red’s maw from Black’s, his helmet coming off in a fluid motion. He shoves his hair back with a hand, tipping his head back briefly before he lowers it, scanning across the bay. The whole ordeal sends Keith’s heart into overdrive, and he almost has to look away. He doesn’t, simply because Lance is unforgivingly magnetizing when it comes to Keith.

When Lance spots Keith, his face lights up and he bounds over, jogging up with a grin that Keith never thought himself deserving of. “Hey!” he greets brightly, “another win under Voltron’s belt!”

“All thanks to you,” Keith smiles easily enough, even though it undoes him to see Lance like this, battle-worn and soft, and looking at Keith as if he’s the best leader of all time, “nice work with the sword.”

“Psh, nah. Nothing compared to what you used to do.”

“You’re right,” Keith keeps right on walking past Lance, satisfied when he falls into step, “it was better.”

Lance bumps his arm to Keith’s, looking almost bashful when Keith smiles at him.

“So, what did you want to tell me?”

“Oh— um, ha-ha, about that.” Lance looks away nervously, and Keith’s reminded, bizarrely, of when he’d asked Allura out.

He bounces the tips of both index fingers together, almost dropping his helmet in the process and catching it before it gets too far, and Keith laughs at him. “It can’t be that bad, Lance, c’mon.”

“It’s— I’m trying, Keith, don’t laugh at me!” Lance cries, slapping a hand to his eyes. He drags it down the length of his face, peering at Keith over it.

He stops, grabbing Keith by the elbow, and pulling him into a corridor specifically not on the way to the debrief. The pause in an alcove, Lance leaning back against the wall, his eyes on the floor. “I was… I was wondering, if you, Keith Kogane, super epic leader of Voltron and—”

“C’mon, Lance, we have to get to the debrief.”

“I’m! I’m getting to it, hang on.” Lance flexes his jaw, keeps his gaze trained on the floor before he looks up, something intense burning in his ocean eyes. “You wanna… catch dinner or something? Like— as a date? I mean, obviously right now our only choice is whatever we get at the dining hall, but I meant— maybe we could find a place somewhere to stop? Or— Keith?”

Keith stares at Lance as if he’s proposed blowing up the ATLAS.

“You can say no,” Lance says softly, “I won’t—”

“No!” Keith exclaims, then backtracks, his heart beating clean out of his chest, “wait, no, I mean— you’re— you’re serious?”

Lance looks at Keith with something earnest, “yeah, ‘course I am. I… I like you, man, everyone’s noticed. Your mom’s noticed. Pretty sure she gave me the shovel talk.”

“The— the what?”

“Like, ‘I’ll kill you if you hurt my son.’ Very mama bear. Never gonna cross you, lemme tell you that.”

Keith pauses, processing this. He can’t even meet Lance’s eyes when he asks, “how long?”

“Uh, like…” he cringes, as if embarrassed, “since the first time I saw you at the Garrison? But then you left, so I… I don’t think it ever went away. I didn’t want to say anything before, but it’s… I’m in too deep here. Can’t keep quiet.” Lance shrugs, then touches his fingers to Keith’s shoulder, gently, “so… what d’you think?”

“I think… I think I’m in love with you,” Keith confesses, shutting his eyes and immediately regretting the words. “Shit, sorry—”

“Thank God.” Lance laughs, drawing Keith’s gaze and tipping back against the wall to cover his face with both hands. “And here I was, thinking I’d come on too strong if I just outright said it. Figures you’d have the balls for it.”

“I don’t— you… you love me?” Keith tries not to let himself undone (how can he stay whole when the thing he’s wanted has apparently been in front of him this entire time? Feeling the same and—), almost choking over the admission.

“Yeah, Keith,” Lance meets Keith’s gaze with something gentle, “I’m in love with you. I have been for a long time.”

And there’s a moment where nothing happens, and then Lance reaches out, his hand tentative when it touches the curve of Keith’s jaw, tipping his head a little closer. “Would you mind if I… can I—”

Keith may be dense at the best of times, but here he picks up on it, steps closer into Lance’s space until there’s not a breath between them, hesitant when he hovers (because this can’t be real. It’s a dream, or a nightmare, or some sick practical joke on Keith because—), and then Lance kisses him.

Chaste and gentle and with something unsure before he draws back just far enough to tip his forehead to Keith’s, his breathing slow and steady. “That was okay?” Lance asks, “you’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” Keith nods, feeling a grin spread across his face, “more than okay.”

“Can I do it again?”

And this time Keith presses his lips to Lance’s, not caring so much that he’s going to show up late to the debrief looking disheveled and with Lance in tow.

Lance twines their hands together between them and pulls away first, his laughter spilling like something to be revered. “So that’s a yes?”

“Yes, Lance.” Keith says, unable to help his smile, “clearly, that is a yes.”

Lance laughs again, “good. Hey, Keith?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

And perhaps that’s the thing that sets Keith’s soul ablaze, the thing that finally cracks him under months of trying to keep the words at bay, of dancing around it and pretending it doesn’t exist. “I love you, too.”

—

“When’d you know?” Lance asks, squeezing Keith’s hand in his own.

“When you shoved that cupcake in your mouth.”

“That’s what did it for you?!” Lance cries, “holy shit, Kogane, are you just gonna fall in love with every idiot?”

“Nope,” Keith smiles, content to run his thumb over the back of Lance’s hand, “I already got my idiot. Only one I want.”

“That was both romantic and insulting. Nice one, babe.” Lance grins back, and the pet name almost takes Keith to his knees.

“What about you?” he asks, bumping his shoulder to Lance’s and trying desperately not to dwell too long on the word.

Lance hums thoughtfully. “I just liked you, at first,” he starts, “but I think I started feeling it somewhere around after Shiro disappeared. I didn’t know what it was, but…”

Keith nods; looking back, that was when he’d also gone careening into love territory, unknowing what the feeling was until he was in too deep to claw his way out.

“But then, y’know. I didn’t think about it that hard. I barely knew I was even into guys. And with Allura, it was just… trying to fill the spot you were supposed to take when you left. That wasn’t love. But I think I knew when I was bleeding out. And you were there, and I wanted to say it so bad, but I couldn’t help thinking, I can’t just tell a guy I love him and die. And when I came to, you hugged me and I just… I got sad, because that’s all I wanted.” Lance pauses, stalling their leisurely pace down the halls of the ATLAS.

Their relationship is no secret, not from the team or the people closest to them, but there’s something more private about the night, when Keith can pretend it’s just the two of them, weeks into what he can already feel will be his home for the rest of his life.

“And then you were all pissy and I was like, no way. No sir, no man will ignore me almost post-mortem.”

“I was ‘pissy’ because you almost died. Did die.” Keith argues, suppressing the memory as best he can.

“I know,” Lance nods, and there’s a soft quality to it, almost apologetic, when he picks up their walk again. Lance doesn’t apologize; he can’t ask for forgiveness when death faces them at every turn. It wouldn’t be fair to. “But then you just let me back in, despite everything that’s happened to you, and I knew for sure.”

“I can’t imagine a life without you,” Keith explains, “together—” he raises their joined hands for a moment, “—or not.”

“Me neither, Keith,” Lance agrees, coming to a slow stop at a window.

There’s nothing to see that they haven’t seen already out there. Just an endless void filled with blots of stars and no match for the constellations in Lance’s gaze.

Lance sets his arm over Keith’s shoulders, pulling him close to his side and tipping their heads together. “All these stars,” he says, “all these stars and people and the whole time it was you.”

Keith doesn’t know what to say to that, not in any measure, not in a way that isn’t choked up, so he reaches up for Lance’s hand over his shoulder and revels in it when Lance holds his hand tight. “Wouldn’t want it any other way,” Keith manages after a moment, “it’s you.”

“It’s you,” Lance repeats.

“I love you,” Keith says tentatively, feeling the weight of it settle in his chest. He’s said it a million different times, in a million different ways, and still stumbles over the words when he tries to be blatant with it. It’s overwhelming, and so deeply aching and like nothing he’d even consider trading for the world.

Lance seems to fold closer, “I love you, too.”