Chapter Text
When Lance was eleven, he learned how to perfectly execute a flip-turn.
In competitive swimming, it is one of the most essential and yet over-looked maneuvers: tucking your head, rolling your body with its pre-existing momentum so that you can use that force to push back at the wall, back at the water that's trying to buffer your speed. To the untrained eye, it's a blip in the program, something to gloss over in the heat of the relay. But a well-executed flip-turn will set up any decent swimmer for a good finish, will point them in the right direction. Even if that direction is technically the way they came.
Lance (who's gangly on land, but was made for the water) decided at an early age that any momentous event in his life was actually a flip-turn, an instance of kicking off in a new direction. And while there are many childhood instances that he once considered huge and soul-altering, adult-ish Lance currently only has three marked instances of a flip-turn:
One, when his best friend Martin died in that car accident, and Lance dropped all his training, all his coaches, and all his swim scholarships to learn to become a pilot, half-way across the world.
Two, when he climbed down from that roof to rescue a former-idol with a former-rival.
And three, kissing Keith.
And okay, Lance doesn't need to be told how pathetic it is that all of his flip-turns have somehow left him pointing at Keith, like he's a fucking recurring side-character in the epic story of Keith's life. Lance is his own person, thank you, and every decision he's made has been his own.
But still, he can't deny that sometimes a part of you is actually a part of someone else, too. And vice-versa.
"One of these days, kid," his mother said to him, once, "You're going to push someone too far. And either something terrible or wonderful is going to happen."
And Lance knows that she's right. He just doesn't know which it is, yet.
"Well, isn't this fun," Pidge deadpans over the mic from the green lion's cockpit.
The training session has been going as well as can be expected when two of Voltron's paladins aren't speaking to one another. Lance still hasn't talked to Keith about their big Bonding Moment three days ago (mainly because Lance has avoided Keith like the Andebulan Measels, which Coran says are both horrifying and highly contagious). And it's not because he doesn't want to hear what Keith has to say, it's... nope, that's it: Lance definitely does not want to hear what Keith has to say. With Lance's luck, it will most likely be accompanied by a glare or a fist. Or death by Red Lion heat-ray.
But Lance digresses; with two members of the team in such a state, forming Voltron hasn't just been difficult: it's been fucking impossible.
"Okay, that's it," Shiro says over the mic, in a tone that implies their Fate-appointed babysitter has had enough of their bullshit. "Pidge, Hunk: go back to the ship. Keith and Lance? You're with me." Alfor's beard.
Pidge and hunk chime in their affirmations, doing as instructed. Lance doesn't say anything as he pilots his lion after Shiro to the surface of the uninhabited planet they've claimed for the week, and neither does Keith; they both know what's coming.
Once all three of have landed and are standing outside on the planet's dusty, hot surface, Shiro pulls his helmet from his head and rests it on one hip. "What the hell is wrong with you two?" he asks, and his glare tells Lance that it isn't a rhetorical question. "Well?"
"It's his fault!" Keith blurts out, crossing his arms petulantly. The squealer.
"It is not!" Lance says, mimicking the posture. "Okay, so maybe it technically is! But I still don't deserve to be in trouble!"
"I don't care!" Shiro retorts. "I've given you both three days to sort this, and whatever it is, you're going to sort it. Now."
They both uncross their arms, because they know better than to provoke Shiro when he's using his Dad Voice.
"Two hours," Shiro continues, holding up two metal fingers. "That's when I'll come back to this spot. You both better have learned to like one another, by then."
And then they're alone, stuck together on a barren landscape (and Lance could technically escape in his lion, but Shiro would definitely put him in Time Out, and Lance is afraid to know how many laps and push-ups that would entail). He kicks grumpily at a huge, triangular rock that might have actually been a structure once, when alien peoples lived here.
"Would you at least look at me?" Keith says.
Lance peeks briefly back over his shoulder. "Oh, hello. I'm sorry, are you talking to me?" He crosses his arms again and leans back against Blue's flank. "Name's Lance. You may have forgotten, but we went to school together."
"Don't be an ass, it doesn't suit you."
"It suits you," Lance mutters, unsure if they're complimenting or insulting one another.
Keith walks up closer to him, kicking up clouds of dust and pulling off his helmet. He then reaches to tug off Lance's, and Lance lets him because it is pretty fucking hot out. Also, the close proximity to someone he kissed only three days ago has left him somewhat paralyzed.
"Okay, so I'm going to say something," Keith says, and his expression is open, intent on Lance in a way it never has been before, "And you're going to fucking listen, alright?"
Lance mimes pulling a zipper closed over his own lips before re-crossing his arms. Keith rolls his eyes but continues.
"When we were rescuing Shiro from those scientists? I know now that I hurt you, by not remembering who you were."
Lance's eyes flick to somewhere over Keith's left shoulder. "What was your first clue?"
"Well, Shiro helped enlighten me, a little."
Lance blinks. "Wait, what? Do you tell him everything that goes on between us?"
Keith's cheeks flush in a rare display of embarrassment. "Just shut-up for a minute, okay? This kind of stuff isn't exactly easy for me." He takes a deep breath. "So, I hurt you, and I know it's not the only time that I did it and it probably won't be the last. But you've let me down too."
"What?" Lance straightens up. "How?"
"By not letting me explain myself after you dropped that fucking bomb on me the other day!" Keith's face is starting to duke it out against his armor for vibrancy. Lance wonders if it can be seen from space. "You can't just kiss someone and then bail!"
There are suddenly several tiny, static-y exclamations of surprise from the helmets still held in Keith's grasp, and he tosses them away as if burned (though, as they sail several yards away, Lance can still hear a victorious "I knew it! I win the bet!" from Pidge). Eavesdropping traitors.
"I didn't want to hear what you had to say," Lance says, pulling Keith's attention away from glaring at their helmets. "That's why I ran."
"Maybe you would've liked what I had to say."
"I doubt it."
"You're such an idiot."
"See! This is me! Not liking what you have to say-!" But Lance doesn't get to say anything more, because suddenly Keith's mouth is on his, and his brain is forced to reject its previous understanding of reality in favor of a new one.
Because Keith kisses like he does everything else: carelessly, wildly, dangerously; he pushes Lance up against the metal of Blue's hull with a dull thunk, one hand going to Lance's hip and the other to his bicep. Lance lets him, lets Keith make him forget that he's supposed to be defensive and embarrassed in favor of tangling his gloved fingers in dark hair, of pushing his tongue past Keith's teeth and into that hot mouth he's thought about more times than he'll admit. When Lance takes Keith's lower lip between his teeth and bites down, the other paladin moans in such a way that makes Lance think he needs to get Keith to open up more often.
When they finally break away from one another, all panting breaths and outrageously sweaty helmet-hair, Keith adopts a slightly smug look.
"See? Told you you'd like it," he says.
And Lance means to say something snappy, but all that comes out is, "Woah."
Keith's answering grin is something Lance wouldn't be able to look away from if he was bleeding, starving, and Shiro was performing sensual salsa dances for Galra soldiers to the left of them. It's so bright that he might need sunglasses, for later instances.
He's really looking forward to later.
"You better fucking remember this bonding moment, asshole," Keith warns, body still pressed up against Lance's.
"Who are you, again? OUCH! That is not okay, Keith!"
Everything is okay.