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0.
Keith wakes to the sound of the ocean. The crashing of the waves is distant, but audible, and calming--more calming than he could ever imagine. Keith has seen dozens of oceans on alien planets; he has seen beaches with light pink sands and deep red waters, and beaches with ten foot tides and giant alien sea monsters, both of which could have swallowed him whole. But the beach on Earth--this beach, in Varadero--is his favorite. Serene and slow, shallow and cold, soft grains and sea salt breeze and funny little crabs that scuttle around before shifting beneath the surf.
This beach in Varadero is where he shed his musty leather jacket, the one recently gifted to him by Shiro, onto the plain dusty shore. It is where he stepped into the shallow water and forgot about being a paladin of Voltron, if only for the night. It is where Lance followed him into the ocean, with stars in his eyes and moonlight in his skin and comets dancing across his fingertips. Where Keith laid out his heart for Lance to pick apart and put back together again, with his eyes, with his words, with his mouth. This beach is the one with the freezing cold waters that Keith submerged himself in, the one with the sands that have engrained themselves into his jeans, the one with the moon that made Lance’s eyes shine like the North star in the dark.
Keith is still processing it--it being everything that had happened on that night. The conversation he had with Lance. The kisses they had shared. The confessions.
Just thinking about it is enough to make his pulse quicken and his heart leap into his throat.
He wipes the sleep out of his eyes, looks down, and is met with the sight of Lance--Lance, spread eagle and relaxed, with his eyes screwed shut and mouth wide open, face smushed into Keith’s chest. Lance, who gave Keith everything--his friendship, his support, his unwavering loyalty and love--and expected nothing in return. Lance, whose real name is Leandro, who has a huge family that never stops hugging and touching and laughing, and eyes that crinkle whenever he says Keith’s name, and a space in his heart created just for Keith.
Lance is incredible. Lance is beautiful. Lance is drooling all over the front of Keith’s shirt.
Keith can’t help it. He falls even further. The pounding of his overwhelmed heart eases as he looks at Lance’s face. Drooly Lance is the best Lance, he decides in that instant, because he is snuggly and warm and there is no trace of stress on his face. He looks so vulnerable, and Keith can’t help the swell of affection that rises within him, rises like the tides of his ocean.
Keith doesn’t know how long he lays there and watches Lance sleep in the early morning haze. Lance snores on occasion, and it is one of the cutest noises Keith has ever heard. He is kinda heavy where he lays on top of Keith, all dense sinewy muscles and big bones, broad freckled shoulders and long legs. But Keith never once feels like he’s suffocating under his weight. He would stay here forever, basking in the warmth of Lance’s body, if he could.
But he can’t. Lance eventually wakes, and it’s as slow as the rising sun, but just as bright. He yawns and stretches and smiles, kissing Keith on his eyelids with his terrible morning breath and dragging his fingertips across Keith’s hipbone, creating goosebumps on his skin.
Keith can’t help his want. He wants to wake up to this every day for as long as he lives.
He prays to every God he has ever come to know in his years of travelling the unknown expanses of the universe that he can. It’s selfish but he doesn’t care.
Because to have someone like Lance, all to himself, is to hold the sun in his hands.
“Take a good long look, Keith. You never know when we’ll be back,” Lance says as they stare out at the pale clear waters of the Varadero sea. Keith hums, squeezes Lance’s hand, thumb tracing patterns on his skin. Lance squeezes back. He always does.
Lance is wearing new clothes, ones that Keith has never seen him in; a blue sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up around his elbows, and ripped jeans cuffed at the ankles, and a pair of old scuffed up Chucks that are splattered with paint stains. His hair is still curly, blowing faintly in the seabreeze, and Keith loves it like this; loves to brush the curls away from Lance’s eyes and feel how soft they are between his fingers. Lance is all cool colors and soft hues, a symphony of softness fading into light. Keith can’t stop looking at him.
Keith shifts closer to Lance and slips an arm around his waist. Lance leans into the contact.
Keith can read it in his face; in the lines underneath his eyes and the downturn of his lips that the last thing Lance wants to do is leave. He doesn’t want to leave his family after just getting them back. He doesn’t want to leave this empty pastel beach town that he calls his home with sweet granizados and sand that stretches for miles. He doesn’t want to leave the clear blue oceans of Varadero.
“I don’t want to leave, either,” Keith says in the silence. Maybe part of him hopes that Lance will say forget it . Hopes that he’ll anchor the both of them to the hot Cuban sands; that he’ll strip and step into the water once again, and take Keith along, too, and they’ll forget all about the Garrison and the Galra and being saviors of the universe, and just exist together in this expanse of endless blue.
But Lance just laughs quietly and places his hand on Keith’s hip. “Yeah. But we have to. We promised we’d be back today. The team needs their fearless leader, y’know.” He pokes a finger at Keith’s chest.
Keith frowns at that. “They need you, too, Lance. Even more than me,” He says with the sincerity of all of his heart and soul, looking into Lance’s eyes and hoping that Lance knows just how much Keith means it. Just how much he meant the words he had said just a few nights ago, about Lance and the Black Lion and how worthy Lance was of everything in the galaxy that he thinks he doesn’t deserve.
Lance tuts and shakes his head, but he is smiling like he appreciates Keith’s efforts. He looks back out at the ocean, eyes misty with emotion. It pains Keith to see.
“Let’s just stay here,” Keith murmurs, pressing his forehead to Lance’s temple, dreaming of a world in which he can take Lance back into the open ocean, and hold him, and kiss him beneath the waves until they have to surface for breath.
Lance shakes his head instead, and lets out a laugh, louder this time. “You’re ridiculous.”
Keith pouts. “You’re incredibly handsome and I am in love. Can you blame me?” He says. Then, quieter, “Why wouldn’t I want to stay here with you?” Ever since Lance leaned forward with love-tinged lips and kissed the corner of Keith’s open mouth for the very first time, Keith had found it harder to not say exactly what’s on his mind.
Keith can see the blush crawling up Lance’s neck as he turns around in Keith’s arms. He’s shining, rosey from the flush of his skin and colored gold by the rays of the morning sun. “You can’t just say stuff like that, Keith!” He exclaims, eyes wide. His irises are the prettiest shade Keith has ever seen, a light melted brown that glints in the sunshine and sometimes shifts into dark blue hues. His eyelashes are so long that they cast shadows on his skin.
Keith quirks a brow, staring at the freckle on the tip of Lance’s nose. “Why not?”
“Because then I’ll feel obligated to make out with your stupid cute face, and then we’ll never leave,” Lance pouts. His lips are full. Keith burns with the need to kiss him again.
“Strangely, I don’t have any problem with that.” Keith says, and Lance laughs, and pushes him away before pulling him back in, freckled arms moving in time with the tides.
They say their temporary goodbyes to Lance’s family before they leave, which gives Keith the opportunity to thank Lance’s parents, a task he views as both incredibly humbling and overwhelmingly terrifying.
It’s not that Keith is scared of Lance’s parents. It’s just that he has been staying at their house for over three days, and they’ve been nothing but the most gracious hosts, but he is currently just starting what is looking to be a long-term relationship with their youngest son, and he isn’t quite sure what the hell he’s doing. (They had talked of marriage and adopting alien babies the other night, so. It is looking to be pretty serious. Not that Keith minds.)
He approaches Lance’s Papa first, a remarkably tall man who looms over Keith, which maybe definitely intimidates him. But there is so much warmth in his eyes and face as he offers Keith a smile that Keith can feel his fear melting away before he even opens his mouth. Lance’s Papa claps him on the back and it reminds Keith of his own father, so much so that he can’t help but lean into the contact and cherish its familiarity.
“Thank you for letting me stay with you,” Keith says, and Lance’s Papa just waves the thanks away before pulling Keith in for a hug. Lance’s family hugs a lot. Keith is beginning to understand why Lance is the way he is--why he’s so warm and touchy-feely and radiant all the time. It started here, in this cramped house in Varadero with this beautiful, loving family. Keith can’t believe that he’s getting the chance to experience it all firsthand.
Where Lance’s Papa is silent and stoic, Lance’s Mama is bright and loud, and Keith can see where her own personality might have been passed down to Lance, shining in between the cracks of Lance’s grins and laughs and touches. When Lance’s Mama pulls away from the long hug she gives Keith, there is something knowing in her eyes.
(Her eyes are the same color as Lance’s, maybe even a little bit darker, with flecks of gold that shine when the light hits them in a certain way. Lance definitely gets his beauty from his Mama, too.)
She says, “Take good care of Leandro for me, okay?” Keith nods, and smiles, and hugs her one last time. “And come visit us soon, Keith. We’d love to have you again.”
Keith pushes down the lump in his throat, and doesn’t meet her eyes when he pulls away.
Lance’s siblings crowd around Keith next, not including Veronica, who is planning on going back to the Garrison with Lance and Keith, and doesn’t need to say goodbye. Luis and Marco and Raquel all stare at him with different emotions on their faces, ranging from happiness to sadness to anywhere in between. Keith gives up on trying to decipher them.
“It’s been great meeting you, Keith,” Marco says with a soft smile.
“Make sure our baby brother doesn’t get into any trouble, yeah?” Luis winks.
“If you hurt Leandro, I’ll hunt you down, leader of Voltron or not.” Raquel says pleasantly.
Then they all hug Keith at the same time and depart with a sense of finality, moving toward Lance to say their final goodbyes. Keith definitely has whiplash.
Lance has his last goodbye with his whole family, and Keith can see him holding back his tears instead of letting them flow freely down his face, because he knows that it’s not forever this time. They crowd around him and pull him into one big hug, Lance in the center, and as Keith watches he can’t help but think that this is where Lance belongs: in the center of a loving family who appreciates him, smiling and laughing and shining like the sun that he is.
Flying leisurely over desert plains, Keith puts on his helmet and opens his comm chanel. “Hailing the Galaxy Garrison. This is Keith, pilot of the Black Lion of Voltron.”
Bursts of static pop in his helmet, and then--“Good to hear your voice again, little brother,” Shiro is saying, a video feed popping up to match his words. Shiro stands in the main control room of the Garrison, wearing a new, highly decorated Senior Officer Garrison uniform; this one is colored black instead of the usual gaudy orange. He smiles into the screen, and Keith can’t help but smile back. Even though he would never admit it to his face, Keith had missed Shiro during their week-long vacation.
“We’re on our way back now, Shiro,” Keith says. There is a pause, and Shiro stares blankly at Keith. Keith briefly wonders if there is a lag in the video feed, or if the connection is choppy.
“We?” Shiro questions, and oh, shit, Keith had forgotten to tell him that he had gone to Varadero to visit Lance, and that he had stayed there for over half of his vacation time, and that him and Lance had developed a… thing, while he was there.
Before Keith can even say anything, even form a half-assed lie, Lance’s face is popping up beside Shiro’s in his own video feed. Perfect timing, as usual. His helmet is on and his grin is lopsided. Veronica, who stands behind his chair, waves at the screen.
“Hey, Shiro!” Lance says. “You’re looking better than ever, man!”
Keith can see the exact moment Shiro puts two and two together--it’s the way his mouth goes from a normal smile to a shit-eating grin, and his eyes flit from Lance’s face over to Keith with a smug glint. Nevermind. Keith definitely did not miss him at all.
“Hey, Lance,” Shiro says. “I didn’t realize you and Keith--”
“We’ll be at the Garrison in a couple of doboshes. See you then,” Keith quickly cuts Shiro off and then cuts the video feed before any real damage can be done.
“Ah,” Lance says sagely. “You didn’t tell him yet.”
“I’m working on it,” Keith grits out. “Besides, I wasn’t sure if you even wanted to tell everyone about us yet.”
Lance looks at Keith incredulously through the video feed. “Of course I wanna tell everyone about us! I snatched the hottest guy in the galaxy as my boyfriend, why wouldn’t I want everyone to know about it?”
Keith scoffs, trying to ignore the rising blush on his face. “First of all, I’m the one who has the hottest boyfriend in the galaxy, so--”
“Oh, are we gonna have this argument again, Mullet?”
“Again? How many times have you two fought about this?” Veronica chimes in. “You’ve only been dating for, like, four days.”
They both resolutely ignore her, and continue to bicker for the entire ride back to the Garrison.
When they touch down at the Garrison in their respective lions, the team is waiting for them, waving at Black and Red from their collective spot on the tarmac.
Keith descends down Black’s ramp into the desert air at the same time that Lance does from Red, and he watches as Pidge immediately launches herself at Lance for a hug. Hunk walks over and embraces them both, and it’s just the three of them again, just like it was all those years ago when they first appeared in front of Keith during his rescue mission to save Shiro; a little ragtag band of misfit teenagers who were way too smart for their own good.
Shiro approaches Keith, and Keith can’t help but notice how much better he looks, just over the span of a week. He is incredibly smiley, and is standing up straighter, and he no longer looks as exhausted as he did during the years they spent in space. Keith knows he’s happier now; he’s back on Earth, and Adam is with him, and his family is here--his found family, the one he put together with nothing but his bare hands, flesh and prosthetic, in the depths of alien galaxies.
Shiro claps Keith on the back and pulls him into a hug. The old Keith from before, before the war and Voltron and Shiro’s disappearance, would have pushed Shiro away. Now he melts into the embrace.
It’s only been a week since he’s last seen these people, and before then he had been with them for two years straight.
Despite that, hugging Shiro and then the rest of the team as tightly as he can, feels a bit like coming home.
1.
“Hey, Lance. Keith,” Rizavi says, waving at the both of them as she approaches and shooting them a grin. “I’ve been assigned to show you to your rooms.”
Lance raises a brow, smile playing out on his face. “Shouldn’t that responsibility be reserved for cadets and not, I don’t know... One of the MFE pilots that helped to save the world?”
Rizavi shrugs. “I volunteered! Uh, plus, I heard that Veronica might be with you?”
“Sorry, Rizavi, but you just missed her. She left a couple of minutes ago to find you,” Lance says.
Rizavi groans. “Of course she did. Whatever, I’ll just catch her later. Come on.”
Rizavi leads them through hallways Keith has never seen before, up a couple of flights of staircases to a corridor with large dorm rooms.
“Here are your rooms,” Rizavi says, gesturing to two adjacent dorms in the empty hallway. “You’ll find your new uniforms inside. Let me know if you need anything!”
She gives them another short wave, then quickly departs from the hall to go find Veronica. Lance and Keith are left alone in the removed Garrison hall, away from all of the usual bustle and activity typical of the main corridors of the building.
“O-kay,” Lance says, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Which room should we take?”
“We?” Keith asks, raising a brow.
Lance frowns. “I mean, yeah? Uh. Unless you don’t want to share?” Lance pauses, sounding unsure of himself. “Which is fine, I respect your boundaries, man, but I guess I just figured that, y’know, since we--”
“Lance, don’t be ridiculous, of course I’m gonna share a room with you.” Keith says offhandedly, walking into the closest one. “Who else would you drool all over in your sleep?” He teases over his shoulder, and he can’t help the soft smile that spreads across his face.
“Oh,” Lance says, still in the hallway. Then, with a huff, “You’re a cruel man, Kogane.”
Keith laughs and throws his bag on the bed. The room is pretty standard, with all of the usual Garrison-style flair: blank walls and no furniture, all steely and cold. There is a bed pushed up in the corner, and a desk next to a window looking out on the desert plains, and a closet on the other side of the room. He sees a Garrison uniform hanging up, the top half colored blue. So they were all getting customized Garrison uniforms like Shiro’s. This one must be Lance’s.
Keith plops down on the bed and looks at Lance expectantly through the open doorway, waiting for him to come in. Lance rolls his eyes, pretending to be annoyed as he stands there for a few moments with arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face.
Keith pouts and makes grabby hands. Lance sighs and gives in. He walks into the room, closing the door behind him before he’s coming over and leaning into Keith’s space. Keith grins and grabs Lance’s belt loops, tugging him in closer until he’s standing in the space in between Keith’s legs, his hands on Keith’s shoulders.
Lance looks down into his eyes. “You really need to get your hair out of your face,” He says after a moment’s pause.
“How come?” Keith asks, only kind of paying attention, mostly creating constellations out of the freckles and moles that dot Lance’s cheeks. There are so many of them. The soft lighting of the Garrison dorm is right above Lance’s head, making him look like an angel.
“Because I can’t see your whole face right now, and that’s a travesty, honestly,” Lance says, humor in his voice as he brings a hand up and brushes Keith’s bangs away from his heated cheeks. It’s reminiscent of that night, the night in the ocean where Lance had reached out and brushed Keith’s hair away from his eyes just like this, except right now there are no moonlit skies and no stardew water and no uncertainty in their eyes as they look at one another. Keith leans into the touch.
“Wow,” Lance breathes as he takes in the sight of Keith’s face. He stares, silent for a few seconds. “You really need to pluck your eyebrows, man.”
“I hate you,” Keith replies instantly, half-heartedly pushing Lance away. Lance laughs, high and loud. Then he leans down and kisses the space in between Keith’s eyebrows. Keith’s stomach flutters. He wonders if he will ever get used to this; to the feelings he gets that accompany Lance’s kisses and Lance’s touches and Lance’s presence in general.
“No, you don’t,” Lance teases lightly. Keith grumbles but pulls Lance back in anyways, pulls him down and kisses the corner of his mouth gently because he’s hooked on the feeling that it gives him. Lance smiles into it, and steps closer, threading his fingers into Keith’s hair.
Keith wraps his arms around Lance’s waist and angles his head properly so that when Lance kisses him again, all he can feel is the softness of his lips and the warmth of his breath, and eventually the wetness of his tongue as the kiss deepens. Keith can taste the spearmint gum Lance had been chewing earlier, and smell the green apple body wash Lance has been using ever since they returned to Earth, and feel the pads of Lance’s fingers as they rake over Keith’s scalp and tug on the roots of his hair.
And then the door suddenly whooses open, and both Keith and Lance are quickly pulling away from each other with kiss-slicked lips and looking up to see Coran standing frozen in the doorway, eyes wide and mouth open in surprise.
Lance and Keith freeze. Keith’s arms are still wrapped around Lance’s waist, Lance’s hands still buried in the Keith’s hair. They are standing in much too intimate a position for any of what they are currently doing to be considered platonic. They don’t move away, they just stand there, in shock at the sudden interruption. Coran seems speechless as well, and ultimately unaware of how to proceed.
He was probably coming to say hello, since he wasn’t able to make it to the landing pad to greet them earlier in the day when they had first arrived. He had been trying to do something nice, and here Lance and Keith were, caught in the middle of a heated makeout session.
Silence ensues for what feels like forever. Keith’s face has never felt more on fire. He feels like he should break this trance, say something--something like “this isn’t what it looks like,” or, “I totally wasn’t just swapping spit with Lance”. But it is exactly what it looks like, and they were, in fact, just exchanging spit, which really is kinda gross, when Keith really thinks about it.
Finally, Coran moves. He takes one step back, then another, slowly inching out of the doorway as he says, in his usual chipper tone of voice, “Well. It’s good to see you both again. Lance. Keith.” He nods at them. “I’m glad you two have finally sorted things out!” And then he is turning around and walking right back the fuck out, as if he hadn’t just completely blindsided the both of them.
“Oh my God,” Lance says in the following silence. “We just got caught making out by our pseudo alien space-uncle. We probably traumatized him. Oh my God.”
And Keith can’t help it: he laughs.
Lance stares at him in disbelief. “Come on man, this is serious! What if he tells the mice? You know that they can’t keep a secret!”
Keith laughs even harder. Lance stares for a moment, then joins in.
They laugh together for a short while, and Keith pulls Lance onto the bed with him, flipping him onto his back and assaulting his face and neck with kisses, and Lance is still giggling, the laughter bubbling up from his lungs and floating into the open air of the Garrison dorm room.
Keith can’t think of a more beautiful sound.
2.
It's a week into Lance and Keith's collective return to the Garrison, and Keith is tired, and stressed, and anxious, and he is feeling all of the things that come with being the leader of Voltron. If there is one thing that Keith wants, it's a break. He knows that Lance is feeling all of these things, too, although he does his best to hide it, because that's just who Lance is; Lance suffers silently because he does not want to cause anyone any trouble, and there is something so heartachingly beautiful but painfully human about this attitude that Keith can't bear to think about it for too long.
So one day, after an incredibly long and dreadfully boring Garrison meeting led by Iverson, Keith snatches Lance's hand and pulls him away from everyone else. He wordlessly leads him up a couple of flights of stairs and down vaguely familiar halls, and they end up on the Garrison rooftop, just as the sun begins to set in the late evening sky.
"This is romantic," Lance remarks with a grin as they sit side-by-side together, feet dangling over the edge of the rooftop. The sun begins to fall in the sky, and Keith winds an arm around Lance’s back, and his hand clutches at Lance’s hip. His other hand holds Lance’s, and their fingers intertwine. Lance is so unbearably warm and soft like this, posture relaxed and expression calm as he melts into the heat of Keith’s body.
Keith doesn't know how long they sit there. It feels like their own little eternity, up here in the quiet beauty of Earth's desert, removed from all of the people and the stress and the responsibilities that await them below. Of course, their eternity doesn't last.
“Lance? Keith?” A voice calls out from behind them. They both stiffen. Keith recognizes the accent, the gentle cadence of her voice. He squeezes Lance’s hand and shifts so that he can see her.
Allura. Standing by the entrance of the rooftop, she watches them both with something in her face that Keith can’t decipher. As she comes closer, Keith realizes that it’s something soft, something warm. She says, “I’m… Terribly sorry to interrupt. I was hoping that I could watch Earth’s sunset this evening, but if you both are occupied here, then--”
“Hey, no, you don’t have to go. Come, sit with us.” Lance says, sitting up and making room for Allura to sit between them. Keith privately mourns the loss of contact, but smiles reassuringly at Allura.
She looks unsure. Her eyes flick from Lance to Keith for a few moments, working something out in her head. Then she comes over and plops down, letting her feet dangle off of the edge of the building, following Lance and Keith’s example. A comfortable silence follows as they watch the sun steadily descend in the orange sky.
“I,” She begins suddenly. “I had no idea that you two were--that you two…”
Lance snorts and places a hand on her shoulder. “We had no idea either, Princess. We only just started dating, like, two weeks ago.”
Keith nods in agreement. Allura relaxes.
“I’m glad,” She says. “You are good for each other. I have always dreaded the day in which each of the paladins would be taken away from Voltron by a significant other, because it meant that I would lose a fellow teammate and friend. I am glad to know that this will not be the case with you two.”
Keith gives her a smile. “Looks like you’re pretty much stuck with the two of us, Princess.”
She lets out a soft laugh. "Yes, it would appear so."
Another comfortable silence lapses. Allura kicks her legs out and watches the thin clouds move lazily across the sky.
“You know,” Lance starts cautiously. “You’re allowed to fall in love, too, Allura. To start a relationship, if you want to.”
Allura looks out into the pink-orange sunset as the last of the humor falls from her face. “I,” She begins. She sounds uncertain, and Keith hates the way these emotions coat her words, because he can feel himself in them. Keith can feel his own uncertainty and guilt in the start of every unsteady sentence about love and happiness and light that comes out of Allura's mouth. “I am unsure of whether or not I would like to pursue another romance after what has recently transpired with… Lotor.”
Keith nods solemnly. He can see Lance scowl at the mention of Lotor's name.
“Besides,” Allura continues. “I plan on leaving to join the Altean colony that Lotor has left behind, if only for a little while. There will be no time for romance if I am to lead an entire colony of people.”
Lance scoffs. “C’mon, Allura, you know that’s not true. If me and Keith can pull this off, then why shouldn't you be able to?"
Allura twists a lock of hair between her fingers, eyes downcast and small smile playing at her face. The gesture is oddly shy and endearingly human. “Hypothetically, if I were to… To take someone as a romantic partner…” She begins, drawing in a deep breath. “Romelle has been an amazing friend and companion, and if I were to be with anyone, then... I can see myself letting our relationship become something more, if it were to evolve that way. But that is only if she should want to, of course.”
Keith looks at Lance, shares a knowing smile with him. Then he turns to look back at the sunset.
“You deserve something like that with her,” Lance says softly. And Keith couldn't agree more.
Allura is soft and kind and one of the most beautiful people Keith has ever seen, and there is no doubt in his mind that she deserves a love that is just as soft and kind and beautiful. Allura is deeply complex and endlessly understanding and unbelievably passionate about what she believes in. Allura accepted Keith as a close friend and comrade, even after she learned of his Galra heritage and had every right to turn him away.
Keith will never stop being amazed by her. He will never stop admiring her and striving to be everything that she so effortlessly is.
For now, he doesn't tell her so. Keith doesn't know if he will be able to vocalize just how much he appreciates her, and just how much he wishes that she will get the happiness that she deserves.
But he hopes to be able to do so one day.
The sun kisses the horizon, finally, and the fading light paints everything in a hazy pink. Allura reaches out and grabs Lance's hand, and then Keith's.
Keith gives her hand a small squeeze.
3.
One day, without any warning, Pidge and Hunk burst into Lance and Keith’s room unannounced. They are in the middle of a heated argument about some piece of Altean tech, Pidge screeching about modulating or something along those lines while Hunk furiously shakes his head. They immediately stop in their tracks when their eyes fall on Keith and Lance, words dying in their mouths as they take in the sight in front of them.
Lance is in the middle of a nap, laying on the bed with his head resting in Keith’s lap. Keith is sitting up straight, back propped against the wall. He has been going over reports and outlines that Coran had given him regarding the reconstruction of the Castle of Lions, but to be honest, his eyes have been tracing the same paragraph for what feels like forever. His eyelids droop and he lets out a yawn before meeting Pidge and Hunk’s wide eyes.
Pidge and Hunk continue to stare. They must have been searching for Lance, because they always go to Lance to settle whatever argument about tech they’re having. They probably assumed that this was his room. Keith realizes, a little belatedly, that neither he nor Lance had told Pidge and Hunk about their relationship, or about their shared room situation, or about anything in general.
“Hey,” Keith says to them quietly. His hand is buried in Lance’s curls; has been since before Pidge and Hunk even got there. There’s no point in trying to hide it. “You guys always barge into rooms without knocking?”
“Uh,” Hunk whispers eloquently. Him and Pidge continue to stare in disbelief.
“What Hunk means to say is, What the fuck?” Pidge bursts out in a dramatic whisper-shout, eyes rapidly flicking back and forth between Keith and Lance and the hand Keith has buried in Lance’s hair.
Keith maintains a poker face, determined to mess with them, just this once, because it has been a while since he has been able to have fun with them, and he misses that. “What are you talking about?” He says, completely straight-faced and deadpan.
“Uh?” Hunk says, a question this time, gesturing wildly at Lance sleeping peacefully in Keith’s lap, his face buried in Keith’s stomach.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Keith says slowly, running a hand through the short curls at the nape of Lance’s neck.
“C’mon, dude, stop messing around!” Hunk whisper-yells. “What is this?”
“Yeah, Keith. No offense, but we had no idea that you and Lance even…” Pidge pauses, unable to put a name on the thing she was seeing between Lance and Keith. “We thought he was still hung up on Allura.”
And that whole sentence makes Keith uncomfortable--not the prospect of Lance still possibly liking Allura, but the way that Pidge went about saying it: so off-handed and flippant about Lance’s feelings, almost as if they didn’t matter to her.
Keith hums thoughtfully, restraining himself from just going the fuck off on Pidge. For all of her brains, Keith thinks that she could really stand to learn how to treat her friends better. “Maybe if you had been more involved in his life, he would have told you.” He says, tone carefully neutral.
Pidge looks taken aback, and she thinks about that for a moment. A flash of something crosses her face. It looks like shame. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” She mumbles, which is no small feat, because Pidge absolutely hates admitting when people other than herself are right. “I didn’t realize how far apart we’ve grown lately.”
Hunk stares at the back of Lance’s head sadly and nods in agreement. In the following moments, Lance’s steady breaths are the only noise in the room.
“I visited him, in Varadero,” Keith says suddenly in the quiet, and both their heads whip up in surprise.
“That’s where you were?” Pidge asks incredulously.
“Yeah,” Keith says, looking down at Lance’s peaceful face. “Lance invited me at the beginning of the week. I went on the fourth day and spent the rest of our break there.”
Hunk looks like he’s about to combust. “So… When did you two…Y’know… How..?”
Keith snorts. “We skinny-dipped in the ocean in the middle of the night and I confessed to him in the moonlight. Then he kissed me.”
Pidge and Hunk eyes bulge out of their sockets. They seem to be trying to determine whether or not Keith is telling the truth, or if he’s still messing with them, because really, it sounds like a made up story--Keith and Lance, soft and lovesick, wading in a starlit ocean and exchanging passionate confessions of complete and utter infatuation for one another. Keith almost wants to laugh.
“Also, I’m pretty sure Lance proposed. He talked about possibly adopting some alien babies. I’ll have to follow up on that,” Keith adds thoughtfully. Pidge chokes. Hunk buries his face in his hands.
Keith laughs. The sound is loud enough to wake Lance up. He stirs in Keith’s lap, eyes blinking open blearily as he wipes his mouth. There’s drool at the corner of his lips again. Keith leans down and leaves a kiss on the middle of his forehead.
“Babe?” Lance says sleepily. Keith melts.
Pidge shakes her head. “Nope. No way. This has to be a dream. Never in my entire life did I ever think I would hear the word ‘Babe’ come out of Lance’s mouth, in direct reference to Keith. Keith, of all people!” She exclaims.
Lance groans and sits up, stretching his arms. “Pidge, please, it’s too early for this.”
“It’s four in the afternoon! ” Pidge yells, eyes wide and arms thrown out dramatically.
Hunk walks over to the bed and, before Keith can ever react, wraps both Keith and Lance up in a giant hug, lifting them up so that their feet dangle off of the ground. Lance splutters, unaware of what the fuck is currently happening; Keith hugs Hunk back after a moment, because he’d never pass up an opportunity to hug Hunk, if he was being honest.
“I’m happy for you guys,” Hunk says, voice wavering with emotion. “You know you’re like my brothers, right?”
“Yes, Hunk,” Lance says exasperatedly.
“And that I would do anything for you?” His voice sounds teary.
“Yeah, buddy,” Lance says.
“And that I’m glad you’re happy?” His arms are so strong and currently squeezing the life out of both Keith and Lance. Lance wheezes. Keith grins and pats Hunk’s back.
Pidge watches from the doorway. Then she propels herself at the three of them and worms her way into the hug. “I’m happy for you guys, too,” She murmurs. Keith can feel her hugging Lance extra tight, and the last of the tension between them melts away.
And suddenly it’s just the four of them again, just like it was all that time ago on that warm desert night when Shiro had fallen from the sky and they had converged on his location like moths drawn to a flame. For the last year or so, with the lion switch and Keith leaving for the Blades, it had felt like the chasm between the four of them had been growing steadily. Keith has missed them achingly.
There is a knock at the door before Allura is walking in. She is in the middle of a sentence, saying, “Lance, Keith, I had a question about--” Before stopping abruptly at the sight of all of them squished together in one massive tangle of limbs. They all simultaneously open their arms to her, and she grins wide at them before walking over and joining their hug pile.
Scratch that. Keith missed the five of them. He grins at Allura and squeezes her hand. She smiles back.
Keith’s arm is wrapped around Lance’s waist, and his hand rests in Allura’s. Hunk is still clutching at him. Pidge is somewhere in the middle, most likely suffocating. Keith has never felt more complete.
4.
“So,” Shiro says, in a drawl-y kind of way that Keith immediately recognizes as a red flag. The word ‘So,’ said in that manner by Shiro usually indicates that he is about to initiate one of the most embarrassing and uncomfortable conversations Keith will ever have the unfortunate luck of experiencing. Keith quickly evaluates all of his options, scans the room for possible exits and ways to escape before he has to be tortured with whatever interrogation Shiro is about to put him through.
“Keith, stop trying to find your way out of this conversation. We’re either gonna have it now, or have it later.” His voice is laced with fond exasperation, in the way that only older brothers who have dealt with little-shit siblings such as Keith for the majority of their lives can maintain.
Keith huffs and slumps back in his chair, arms crossed defensively. “You’re gonna ask me about Lance.”
“Of course I’m gonna ask you about Lance, kiddo.” Shiro says offhandedly, sifting through various files and reports on the table. His arm glints silver in the soft lighting of the Garrison lounge. His uniform is unbuttoned and his sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. A polished ring sits on the fourth finger of his left hand. He looks so at ease here, posture relaxed and no trace of tension in his body. It’s been a long time since Keith has seen him like this. “First of all, I’m really glad that you’re happy, Keith.”
Keith blushes furiously and does not acknowledge Shiro’s statement with a response.
Shiro continues nonetheless. “You deserve someone like Lance in your life. He makes you smile more than anybody I’ve seen. Besides me, of course. But I’m your brother, so that’s a given.”
Keith groans and proceeds to look anywhere but Shiro’s face. “How did you even know?” He grumbles.
Shiro looks up. “What, that you and Lance finally pulled your heads out of your asses and got together?”
Keith rolls his eyes at Shiro’s bluntness but nods.
“Well, for starters, I’ve always known that you like Lance. I have the advantage of being your gay older brother, which means that I can read all of your signals, Keith. Also, Lance came out to me a couple of months ago, when we were on our way back to Earth. And then, after we return and get a break, you guys come back to the Garrison at the same time, coming from the same place? That was definitely suspicious.”
There is a brief silence. Shiro seems to be thinking about something.
“Also, I walked in on you guys making out the other day but you didn’t see me so I didn’t say anything.” Shiro adds as an afterthought.
Keith groans even louder and sinks further in his chair, face in his hands to hide his furious blush.
“It was kind of gross. You guys are like my kids, I don’t want to see that,” Shiro wrinkles his nose. Keith is going to have an aneurysm.
“Can you please stop, I think you’ve made your point.” Keith says shortly.
Shiro smiles, small and pure and genuine, and puts the files he is holding down. “I meant what I said earlier, Keith. You two deserve each other.”
Keith meets his eyes and offers a tentative smile. “You think so?”
“I know so,” Shiro confirms. “Just remember to be careful, and to take things slow. Communication is very important. Always make sure you’re on the same page, and please, for the love of God, do not go on a mission to Kerberos. You’ll disappear for three years and return with a missing arm, white hair, and a horde of wild teenagers who you kinda sort of adopted.”
Keith laughs out loud. “I didn’t come here for a lecture, Takashi,” He says Shiro’s name in the most mocking voice he can muster up.
“That’s good, Akira, because you need to go through all of these reports,” Shiro says, shoving a stack of papers under Keith’s face.
Keith pushes Shiro out of his chair.
5.
Krolia, to say the least, notices the change in Keith.
She has been incredibly busy following the defeat of the Galra on Earth, running the Blade of Marmora with Kolivan and continuing their mission, so her visits to Earth are few and far in between. But when she does show up for a brief visit with nothing but the armor on her back, she makes sure to spend as much time with Keith as possible. They talk about everything and nothing, sharing splintered words and stories in both English and Galran.
One morning, Krolia wordlessly appears at Keith’s door with the keys to two Garrison hoverbikes and leads him down to the hangar. Keith doesn’t ask how she procured said keys, and he doesn’t ask where they are going. He has the sneaking suspicion that he knows already, anyway.
They get on the bikes, and rev them up, and then they are off, chasing the horizon and trailing behind dust and sand in the exhaust. It takes a while, but they eventually arrive. The sun is high in the mid-afternoon sky as its rays beat down on the roof of the old shack.
It looks exactly how Keith left it, all those years ago; dilapidated but steady on its solid foundations, the only safe place Keith had known on Earth. He has missed it--missed the days where it was just him and his bike and the faint thrumming of an unknown energy that pulsed in his bloodstream and called him to come looking for its source; when it was steaming days spent sweating in front of a fan, plotting out his next trek into the desert, and recircuiting the wires of his bike to make it run faster; when it was sleepless nights filled with restless dreams of a place out in space, a place better than Earth.
Keith dismounts his bike and approaches the shack. Old memories overtake his senses. He thinks of bringing an unconscious Shiro here, of explaining his theory of the alien energy he had picked up on in the desert to a group of three other motley crew kids, of leaving for the last time and never looking back. He opens the door.
He had never had any reason to lock it, and for the whole two years he was gone the shack remained untouched. As he enters, Krolia not far behind, he looks around, takes everything in. There is a fine layer of dust covering almost everything. The bookshelf is still full of musty books and photo albums from Keith’s past. The sheets on Keith’s bed remain in disarray.
Krolia steps in behind him and shuts the door. She looks around. Keith can see in her eyes that she senses his father here; feels his quintessence in the photo albums and the books, in the clothes of his that Keith kept locked tight in a trunk beneath the bed.
Krolia walks over to the wall and stares at a framed photograph of Keith’s dad. He is in his firefighter uniform, giving a small smile to the camera and holding his helmet in his arms. He looks happy. Keith has a sneaking suspicion that Krolia was the one who had taken the picture.
“Do you,” Keith begins. “Do you want to keep that?”
Krolia turns to look at him. Her eyes are unreadable. “Would that… Be okay? I have nothing to remember him by.”
“Of course,” Keith says. Then, “I have tons of pictures of dad, if you want to look at them.”
Which is how they end up taking down photo albums and pulling out shoeboxes filled with old pictures, ones of Keith’s dad and Keith as a baby and the both of them together, laughing and smiling. Krolia picks apart the pictures she loves most and sets them aside. She asks Keith to explain certain pictures of himself, and he does. He gives the backstories of picture after picture, and Krolia listens with unwavering and undivided attention.
Krolia picks up one photo and her search stops. She looks at it for a long time. Keith pretends not to notice when she draws in a shuddering breath.
The hand holding the picture falls, and Keith can see that it’s a photo of Keith’s dad--one of the ones where he is laughing out loud, eyes screwed shut and head thrown back.
“The blue boy. Lance,” Krolia says suddenly, “He makes you laugh.”
Keith whips his head up in surprise. He can’t even bring himself to deny the blatant truth that Krolia had picked up on--that Lance makes him laugh, laugh so hard that his side hurts and his eyes tear up and no more sound comes out of his mouth. Makes him laugh, just like how his dad is laughing in that picture. Keith bites at his lip. It bleeds.
“Yeah,” He says eventually, voice hoarse as he puts down the photo album he holds in his own hands, the one that documents his own life up until the passing of his dad. The pictures stop when he reaches the age of ten.
“He reminds me of your father.” Krolia says.
Keith doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t. He stares at the picture in Krolia’s hand.
Krolia continues anyway. “I first met your father because I had crash landed my Galra fighter in a desert not far from his house, here on Earth. I was exhausted, and broken, and bloody, and I wanted to give up this mission. I wanted to die a hero’s death and be honored by the rebels and Blades alike as a hero who gave her life for the cause. But he came to me and saved my life, nursed me back to health and bonded with me. He helped me to find the Blue Lion, and helped me to protect it. He understood my situation.”
Keith’s blood roars in his ears.
“He understood that I had to leave.”
Keith’s heart wrenches in his chest.
“Keith,” Krolia says. “Look at me.”
Keith does; he turns around and looks. Krolia’s face is still as impassive and emotionless as ever. Keith is suddenly taken back to the quantum abyss, when him and Krolia had to take a two year detour together on the back of a cosmic space whale. He thinks about all of the conversations they had, of Krolia teaching him about the Galra language and customs and traditions. On one hazy day, she had said that Galra culture perpetuates the idea that showing emotions was a sign of vulnerability. And so Krolia never smiles or frowns or laughs or cries. But her eyes, in this moment… Her eyes flare and glow and mist over, betraying her emotions anyway.
Keith wonders if the other Galra would consider Krolia to be weak because of this. Keith thinks that she is the strongest person he has ever met.
“I left because I had a duty. Because the Galra empire was growing exponentially, like a parasite or a disease, and I needed to stop it. I was one of the only people that could. And so I protected the Blue Lion, and left when it became clear that the Blade needed me. But you… You have spent years fighting the empire. You have rid this planet and many more of the Galra. You have helped form the Voltron Coalition and have given hope to many people. You have done your time in the Blade and saved countless lives. You have made a difference, Akira. ”
Keith is crying now, soundlessly; letting the sobs tear through his body but not letting them be heard, because he can’t interrupt Krolia now. Not when she was saying all of this.
“You’re already a hero, Akira. So it’s okay for you to stay. To want to stay here with your friends, with your brother. With Lance. It’s okay.”
Keith has never heard Krolia speak so freely; never heard he speak so much at once, with so much conviction and vulnerability. He can hear the regret in her voice, how she had wished that she had never left Earth, how she had wished she had never left him. How she wishes that Keith would not make the same mistakes.
Keith surges forward and hugs his mother. And it’s not the first time he has hugged Krolia, but the other times had been so stiff and forced; this time is the first time it has felt so genuine and sincere. She tenses up at first, then melts into his embrace. Her hand comes up and smoothes over his hair, and it feels so natural and right, like she has been doing it for years; like she isn’t a rebel alien leader who had been absent for the majority of Keith’s life, but a mother whose only job is to love her son.
Keith had always wondered if it was possible to miss someone that he had never even met before. Now that he has finally got his mother back, he knows that it’s true. During all of those years in between the death of his father and the discovery of his mother, the ache in his heart had gone unnamed.
1.
Lance has a wide array of nicknames that he throws casually into his conversations with Keith, and they’re ridiculous and over the top and too gooey for Keith to even process. But when nobody is watching, Keith soaks in them, replays the way Lance lets the names roll off of his tongue, and tucks the words into the holes in his heart. They make him feel complete.
Lance whispers, “Good morning, Starlight,” When Keith wakes up in the early hours of the day, barely conscious and face smushed into Lance’s broad chest. Keith grumbles out something unintelligible and buries his face even further into the expanse of Lance’s warm skin.
Lance calls out, “Hey there, Cherry Blossom,” As he walks into the room and spots Keith sitting next to Shiro, stressing out over Garrison files. Shiro pretends to gag, even though him and Adam are guilty of the exact same PDA crimes. Keith kicks him underneath the table, and angles his face up so that Lance can place a lingering kiss on the apple of his cheek.
Lance calls him Buttercup, and Sweetheart, and Angel Eyes, and all of these pet-names that Keith has never heard before; pet-names that he should hate because nobody should be able to label him as such. Nobody should be able to call him Baby, or Honey Bee, or Mi Cielito in perfect Spanish, because Keith has never been any of those things to anybody. And yet here Lance is, casually using these words to describe Keith.
Keith retaliates.
It’s just one word. One nickname, rolling off of Keith’s tongue slow and sweet like honey. It should feel clunky in his mouth, as foreign to him as his the sharp Galran Krolia taught him or the few phrases of Japanese he picked up from his dad before he passed--the ones that Shiro sometimes uses with him as well. But it doesn’t.
Keith is in one of the Garrison’s many lounges with the rest of the team, and it feels like they’re back in the Castle, because they’re all together again. Hunk is on the floor, fiddling with a small device in his hand. Keith thinks its a communications device that he uses to contact Shay, but he’s not sure. Pidge lays down on the couch, engrossed in her tablet as data and figures flash across the screen. Allura and Romelle chat quietly about the Altean colony that they will soon go see, and Allura weaves together small braids in Romelle’s sun bleached hair. Keith catches her eye and sends her a look. Allura blushes furiously but doesn’t say anything.
Coran is writing furiously on a small tablet, and Keith thinks he is taking notes on various aspects of Earth culture that he has learned about so far, judging from his mutterings. Shiro is sitting next to Keith, waiting impatiently for Adam to finish teaching his last class of the day so that they can see each other once more. Keith pretends like he’s not doing the same thing with Lance.
Lance, the only person missing from their group, is currently in the middle of a video call to home. He is talking to his parents in the Spanish that he only uses with them, and telling them of his adventures and the long, boring Garrison meetings he is forced to attend and when he thinks he can come back to visit before they have to leave for space again.
When Lance walks in, video call finished up and smile on his face, Keith momentarily forgets about everyone else in the room. All he can focus on are Lance’s dimples and Lance’s curls and the blue-brown glint of Lance’s eyes. Keith is so soft for him. Soft for the way that Lance manages to glow even under the Garrison’s fluorescents, the way that Lance walks into a room and immediately grabs everyone's attention, the way that Lance smiles and casts a beautiful light on anything he comes into contact with.
“Hey, darlin’,” Keith says, the first pet-name he has ever used slipping out as he greets Lance, a slight imitation of his father’s heavy accent apparent in his voice. Lance stops in his tracks, and a blush begins to dust his face as he processes the name that Keith just called him.
Keith feels his own face flushing not long after. Pidge gags. Allura and Romelle smile. Shiro raises an eyebrow. Hunk clutches at his heart. Coran keeps on muttering to himself. All feels right in the world.
It feels even more right when Lance launches himself at Keith and tackles him onto his side. peppering Keith’s face with feather-light kisses and blowing raspberries into the sensitive skin of Keith’s neck. Keith can’t stop laughing; he’s honest to God wheezing as Lance continues his relentless assault. He can’t even bring himself to care that he’s laughing this hard in front of everyone else, that Lance is kissing him this much in front of everybody else, so uncaring in his display of love.
"Can you two stop being so in love in front of the rest of us?" A voice tinged with annoyance calls. Keith thinks it's Pidge but honestly he doesn't really care enough to actually check.
"Darlin'," Lance repeats, breathing the word across Keith's skin with a soft smile. "You should call me that more often."
And Keith thinks, Of course. He thinks, How could I not? He thinks, I would steal all of the stars in the sky for you if you just simply asked me to.
But he just says, "Okay," And places a lingering kiss on the corner of Lance's mouth.
He knows that Lance gets the message.