Chapter Text
Keith had returned to team Voltron at last, and Lance felt a feeling of…happiness? No, Lance should be feeling things such as that to his sworn enemy. As long as Lance could remember, him and Keith had always been neck and neck at the Garrison, why no was he feeling this? Lance simply tried to push these feelings to the deepest corners of his mind.
He couldn’t get the thought out of his mind for the rest of that day. The thought of Keith walking out of that Altean ship stuck in his head for longer than he had expected. The way Keith immediately dismissed his arrival and went straight to explaining things, it made Lance want to linger further on him. Lance had never experienced feelings like this about any girl, or even Allura who he had sworn to ask her out some time. It sure was strange, to think about a boy that way.
Lance wished he could transfer his mind to Keiths just to see what he was thinking. What was a mysterious leader like him thinking about anyway? The more Lance thought about it in the moment, the more he wanted to talk to Keith and ask him about it, but Keith was tough to talk to when it wasn’t battle strategy plans. Let alone Lance ask him or talk to him in any personal matter, that would just be awkward!
Lance was forcefully pushed out of his thoughts about Keith when all of the paladins were called to their Lions for a distress signal nearby. Lance rushed to the red lion, noticing Keith running beside him.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Lance yelled at Keith through breaths as he sprinted.
“Going to my lion.” Keith muttered without glancing at him.
“Oh.” Lance figured that since Shiro was here to pilot the black lion, Allura had the blue lion, and Hunk and Pidge had remained at their lions, there was an extra Paladin. Lance thought back to the moment before Keith had left volton when he had brought up the idea of him leaving voltron. Lance suddenly felt strange feelings of grief just thinking about it. Why was he feeling sad? He should be focusing on the mission! Was Lance really a non essential part of the voltron team? Everyone had their thing, their niche, but Lance. Sure he was the sharpshooter, but not at all times could he fill that position to the fullest. Lance stopped these creeping feelings from taking over his brain as he jumped back to the present.
Keith reached the lion's entrance first and hopped into the seat just before Lance. “Hey why can’t I pilot?!” Lance glared at Keith with irritation.
“Because it’s my lion.” Keith spat bluntly, grabbing onto the handles and starting the thrusters up to launch out.
“Well…yeah, but it was mine for a while cuz you weren’t here!” Lance argued with him as he held onto the back of the seat near Keith's head. Lance resisted the strange urge to place his hands on top of Keiths head, why? Why in the world would he ever even think about that during a time like this?!
The castle of lions prepared to make a wormhole jump in order to reach their destination. from Corans view, he could now see the magenta, purple, and blue ombre of colors swirling, cased around by purple rings and some sort of letters. The castle stared nearing towards and was sucked through, traveling at speeds faster than lights.
“It doesn’t matter right now, just be quiet.” Keith said somewhat coldly without even looking his way as the lion burst out the castle and followed the other lions. Lance scoffed as he stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest with defiance. This wasn’t fair, now Lance felt even more useless than he was. Again Lance thought about his conversation about leaving voltron with Keith. Lance wished he could do something, be useful and a part of the team, but there was nothing he could do besides be tossed and turned by the sudden movements of the battle in the cockpit of the red lion with Keith at the helm. At the helm of the lion that Lance should be piloting!
Lance couldn’t focus on that right now, there wasn’t room for feelings in the middle of a crossfire exchange with a sudden galran ship that had appeared. Lance sat back, occasionally shouting things such as: “Watch out!” or “On your left!” things an unimportant person would say.
The rest of the team in no matter of time had cleared the ship and blown it to bits, saving whoever had called the distress signal. The person or thing in question was relieved of worry by Allura through communications and sent on their way. There was another sudden signal of distress even farther out than previously.
“Jeez, signals back to back?” Pidge sighed through her helmet as the whole crew turned to wait for Coran to start up another wormhole jump.
“Okay, Keith, why'd you let one of the fighter ships hit you? That was so reckless!” Lance yelled at Keith back in the cockpit of the red lion. Lance clearly thought Keith was some sort of slow to not shoot it down first.
“I haven’t piloted in a while okay?” Keith spat back as he sped towards the opening wormhole along the other lions.
“Well then clearly…you should let me!” Lance jumped up and tried to take the controls out of Keith’s grip, making the lion spin awkward ways mid wormhole jump. Lance pulled hard and the lion spun out of control and to a different way the rest of the group was heading, somehow sending them a different way, the telladuv had never been very good at producing good jumps seeing as it was in fact 10,000 years old.
“Lance, what the hell?!” Keith wiped around to glare at him as they spun around with a whirl of blinding purple and blue lights of the wormhole flashing across the glass. Lance, not being in a seat, nearly flew across the room at the sudden jolts. As the flashing lights finally cleared and settled as stark white stars in the pitch black space, it kept moving? The upcoming arrival of a small blue planet came into focus, and the red lion was hurtling straight to it.
The red lion was sent flying towards the atmosphere and it began to pick up speed, ricashading against a sharp rock, causing Lance to completely fly across the cockpit and slam against the wall. Keith’s head crashed against the controls, now damaging them as well as him. This catastrophic crash causing both of them to be unconscious on a strange planet far away from any help.