Archive of Our Own ^beta

“You’re always coming up with new ways to annoy me.”

“What if I spoke only in Spanish to you for, hmm, thirty six hours?”

Keith glared at Lance as he stuck his spoon of bland goo into his mouth. Lance sat across the table from him, his head tilted slightly to the right after having asked his question. He was still snuggled up in his blue pajamas. His feet were propped up on the dining table, showing off his blue lion slippers. Keith had kindly asked him to put them down, for he was eating, but Lance didn’t listen and scrolled through his phone. They were in the castle’s kitchen, alone in the middle of the night, as the team liked to leave them so often. The romance is sometimes too much for them to handle.

“Thirty six is a weird number,” Keith deadpanned.

“Forty four,” Lance changed quickly, leaning back in his chair.

“Even weirder, just make it forty eight.”

“You’ve pushed it to seventy two, Mullet.”

Keith stuck another spoonful of goo into his mouth, hoping it was enough to stop him from laughing. These random conversations always sprung up on them and ended in one of them dying of laughter. This one started by Keith waking up to Lance singing what he calls “his mom’s favorite Spanish tunes” in bed and Keith casually mentioning he wished he could witness a conversation in Spanish between Lance and his mom.

“You’re not gonna speak to me in Spanish for that long,” Keith said with a mouth full of food.

Lance glared at Keith over the top of his phone and crossed his arms, taking it as a challenge. His impish grin grew wider. “¿Eso es lo que tu piensas?”

Keith continued eating unbothered. He’d heard Lance speak Spanish plenty of times, from calling him cabrón to cariño within a matter of seconds (knowing what each meant after taking context clues into consideration). He’d sing Spanish lullabies over the phone, late into the night when Keith called from the Blade of Marmora because he had trouble sleeping. He infamously curses in Spanish whenever he pilots and maneuvers too harshly. And though Keith can’t understand the language, nothing is better than hearing Lance speak it.

But not for the amount he is proposing.

“¿Sabes que?” Lance took his feet off the table and straightened his back as his confidence soared to new peaks. The familiar fire in his eyes made the corner of Keith’s lips turn up. “Solo voy a hablarte en Español. Vamos a ver lo que pasa.”

Keith shook his head and chuckled. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“Mentiroso,” Lance joked.

“I’ve heard that one before,” Keith admitted, placing his spoon back into his empty bowl. “Don’t know if that’s a good word or not.”

“No es un buen palabra.”

Keith picked up his plate and walked to the sink behind Lance to put his dirty dish away. Those blue eyes followed his every movement, a playful smirk glued to his face. Coming up behind Lance, he softly patted the top of his head.

“No me importa, corazón,” Keith whispered, laughing at the sudden twist Lance’s body made to look deliriously at him. Keith may not be fluent, but he’d been around Lance enough to pick up words here and there.

“When did you learn Spanish, you punk!” Lance shrieked. His pitch was a bit higher due to surprise.

Keith made his way toward the door, happy having won their first competition of the day. “Told you you couldn’t speak to me in Spanish for that long.”

The last sound he heard was his boyfriend groaning in defeat.

******

“Keith?”

The flash of white light disappears back into the night as Keith opens his eyes. Some distance to his right sits Kosmo and his mother, Krolia, framed by the grey meteorites of the abyss. She looks at him questioningly, brow arched up and eyes peeking from below her lashes. The light from the flame shines only the right side of her face. Keith immediately avoids her glare, head spinning over the flashback just shown to the both of them.

“Who was that?” Krolia asks a little hesitantly.

Keith clenches his eyes shut. They haven’t been stuck in the abyss for long, but most of the flashbacks shown have been of Keith’s childhood, his school life, and home life. None have been from his time on the castle. None even from his time in Voltron. All have simply been early anecdotes the universe decided to show Keith and Krolia. It’s been an easy way to make conversation, and an even easier way to connect.

However, the sudden reminder of Lance—his welcoming blue eyes, lingering smile, the feeling of home —was unprecedented, and it left Keith frozen in place.

Keith leaving for the Blade of Marmora equated to the abrupt separation of him and Lance. It hadn’t been long since they started dating, but the several months of pining after each other and doing nothing about it meant the time they had now was worth everything. But the universe works in mysterious ways, and it pulled Keith in a direction away from Lance. The distance, though, was often combated by Keith himself hijacking a pod and finding his way onto the Castle of Lions when he was free. It kept him and Lance a little more sane in the war that’s been in their lives.

As his participation in the Blade of Marmora became more and more crucial, his surprise visits ended quickly, and communication with Lance happened less and less. There was never any time to call his boyfriend up and ask how his day was, or video chat him just to see his face.

Keith hasn’t seen Lance in months. He hasn’t spoken to Lance in months.

So the universe working in mysterious ways to remind Keith of Lance’s voice, appearance, essence, light, is some sort of bittersweet, fucked up thing to do. And to do it in front of his mom? Shameless.

What does he tell his mom? Did the flashback have romantic implications? Because Keith didn’t kiss him or anything, he just patted Lance’s head and laughed at his idiocy. Maybe Krolia knows Spanish. Maybe she knows that corazón can be romantic. Then again, she’s an alien, and she hasn’t been on earth for some eighteen years, and there is a high chance she never heard Spanish being spoken in the town Keith and his dad lived.

“A friend,” he breathes out nervously. “His name is Lance. He pilots the red lion.”

Krolia nods. Keith leans back on the cave’s wall they’ve taken up for the night, hoping this is where the conversation dies. For once, after finding his mother and reconnecting with her, he wants their conversation to die before he digs himself his grave. He isn’t ready to tell Krolia that much about him—his love life, his boyfriend, how he’s gay. That’s a bullet they can dodge for now.

“His blue lion slippers are cute,” she chips in playfully.

“He piloted the blue lion first,” Keith mentions. Memories rush back to him from the moment they left earth to the day Black took him in. “We found it as a team, but Blue took him in and swept us into earth.”

“How’d he get to Red?”

“She called him,” he says, wishing in the back of his head he was there the moment it happened, “after the black lion took me in.”

“You’re right hand man, huh?”

Keith smiles. It was then that Keith realized just how strong his feelings for Lance was. After the fight with Lotor, the stability Lance gave him was the only thing that kept him grounded. His recklessness was defeated with Lance beside him. It was then that the pining between them got unbearable and someone had to do something.

“Your father told me a lot of people in Texas speak Spanish,” she says as she scratches between Kosmo’s ears. “Did you pick it up?”

“No, no, not, like, fluently. I didn’t really pick it up in Texas, just got a lot of it from Lance.”

Krolia stares at him, eyes curious with wonder. She seems to try and pry out what he’s hiding simply with her eyes. Keith looks away, hoping it’s enough to make her stop. Learning Spanish from the guy who speaks it whenever he can isn’t something out of the blue, right? He only knows words here and there, not nearly enough to get him around in any Spanish-speaking country, but he’s smart enough to pick up the pieces and know what Lance is saying. It isn’t hard when you spend all your time with him.

“I’m going to sleep,” Krolia breaks through his thoughts, stretching her arms above her head. Kosmo follows behind as she moves into the cave they’ve decided to stay in for the night. “Wake me up later so I can keep watch please.”

Keith nods, watching his mother get comfortable and close her eyes. He takes an agonizingly deep breath, left staring at the sky for solace.

He always thinks about Lance. He has everyday for months, hoping nothing terribly drastic has happened to him. He tries his best to remember every feature of his beautiful face, the curve of his plump lips, the aqua of his eyes, the way his hand feels caressing his cheek. Sometimes it isn’t enough. He can’t bear the idea of going back to Lance and finding out things between them aren’t the same anymore.

Then again, that seems very likely.

There’s been no contact between them for months. Lance may have thought it was purely intentional, but that’s absolutely not the case. Every device that allows communication with him has been confiscated. Ever since the fight at Naxzela took place, he’s done everything to let Kolivan gift him at least a call to team Voltron, but after the “stunt” he pulled, he’s been under intense watch to not make any more emotional connections. It’s been complete torture.

Now he’s on some time-warped whale thing that’s resurfacing memories he and his mom are forced to talk about. It’s not a terrible thing to happen, considering how much they need to reconnect, but it’s been more agonizing than anything. These are memories that have been pushed to the back of their brains, some because it brings too much pain, and others because it’s been so long, they don’t remember it.

Little moments like the one the abyss decided to show now have slipped Keith’s mind by accident. Lance and him haven’t been together for too long—four months, if Keith’s Earth time is correct—but there’s a plethora of moments that come with living together. Perhaps it was now that they should return to him in vivid flashbacks, when he’s so far away from anything and everything.

How rude.

******

“I’ve got a lot of things to complain about,” Pidge started as she watched Lance and Keith train together on the sidelines, “because we’re in space not on our own volition, we have to fight some skinny eggplant with a white wig, we pilot robot cats, I’ve eaten goo for, like, a year, and I, the youngest, sometimes have to be the adult around here, but watching you two fight like this has to be one of the most exhausting things about living in this stupid castle.”

Keith brought his sword down on Lance, who blocked it with his shield just in time. Both of them had sweat rolling down their face and both their muscles probably ached, but this was a battle they’ve been trying to win each other at for days. Thing is, it had been going on for too long, and there were a couple reasons for that.

“I don’t know how to take that, Pidge,” Lance painfully said as he pushed back against Keith.

“Take it with multiple grains of salt,” she said. “Like, so many grains it’s falling out of your hands. We know what you’re doing.”

“And fighting like this isn’t going to help either of you,” Hunk said beside her, arms crossed. “For the love of all things good in this world, please stop pining for each other. You’ve been at this for months.”

At that moment, Keith lost his balance and fell back. Lance surged forward, straddling him down. Keith looked wide eyed at him, blood rushing to his head. His stupid crush is pinning him down with his knees and has the audacity to smirk at him. Lance stared back, then laughed. Keith hoped his blush wasn’t too obvious.

“You good?” he asked him, oddly happy yet concerned. Keith nodded in response. “I win!”

Keith brought his hands up to cover his face as Lance hollered his cheers. He lost at something he’s good at, but was also being straddled by his crush because of it. He wins some, he loses some.

“Only because I was distracted,” Keith moaned in defeat.

“Only because you didn’t want to hurt him!” Pidge yelled from the side. Keith craned his neck toward her to give her a death glare. She sticked her tongue out in return. She was painfully aware of how much Keith didn’t want to fight Lance in fear of hurting him. He’d complained about it to her the other day, when Lance decided to “battle him in combat.” It was why he was taking so long to attack him.

“In my defense,” Lance whispered, leaning down enough so Keith could hear him, “I didn’t want to hurt you either.”

Keith turned his head back towards him, arching one brow up. “You just slammed my head against the floor,” he whispered back.

“But you said you’re good.”

“Right.”

In his peripheral, Pidge and Hunk walked out the training room, leaving Lance and Keith alone. He’d come to learn he’d appreciate that gesture.

“So what do I win?” Lance asked, tilting his head to the side. He was expectant as always.

“The title of beating me in a match,” Keith huffed, wanting desperately to get out from under Lance. “What do you want?”

Lance beamed at him. “I’m kind of riding on this high of winning the oh-so-talented, strong, invincible Keith in a match, so I want you to grant me two wishes.”

“Two? Isn’t the norm three?”

“Would you like to grant me three wishes instead?”

Keith paused, thinking about it. “Depends.”

Lance lifted his pinky finger. “One, I want you to answer the next question as honestly as possible.”

Keith scoffed. “Is that a wish? Sounds more like a demand.”

“It’s a wish, mullet. How much do you like me?”

Keith freezed. He’d thought about a moment similar to this—one where he had to confess his feelings—but it wasn’t being straddled by Lance. He’d picture it in the middle of battle, a dying moment, or an a beautiful planet with a beach like the one Lance talked so much about, but never because of a bet. They both knew they had feelings for each other. It’s been quite obvious, considering the furious blushes displayed when together. They were just both incredibly stubborn and had nothing better to do than tiptoe around the situation.

“A lot,” he answered honestly. It wasn’t an answer he had to think about. Lance and him have a hard time lying to each other. Keith’s heart was beating a thousand miles per second, racing to get to the finish line. “And I have for way longer than we’ve been beating around the bush. I’ll save the romantics of it for another day.”

“The romantics of it.” Lance’s smile grew in that moment, teeth shining bright. He lifted another finger then. “Cool. Me too. Like, like you a lot. I’ll save the romantics of it for another day too. Anyways, wish number two, I’d love for you to go on a date with me.”

Keith couldn’t help but laugh breathlessly. All of this was so sudden and still everything he had ever dreamed of with this boy. “How would you do that? Did you find some secret room in the castle to take me too?”

“No,” Lance admitted, “but I have a really fast lion that likes you a lot, and she’s probably got a good idea of a date spot. I’ve talked to her about it.”

A fond smile stretched over Keith’s chapped lips. “I’ve talked to her about it too. I’d love to go on a date with you.”

Lance looked up at the ceiling as he ran his fingers through his hair. Keith would learn to love such a simple action. “Wow, this is going better than I thought it’d ever go.”

“You got one last wish,” Keith reminded him, deciding to fit in with the norm. He was secretly hoping for something more, because this was definitely going better than he’d expect it to go too.

Lance glanced down at him. His eyes scoured Keith’s face, taking in the soft smile and eyes painted on his skin. “Kiss me?” he shyly asked.

Keith laughed as he reached up, hands fiddling with the strands of Lance’s hair, and pulled him down for a chaste kiss.

******

Groaning, Keith angrily throws a rock into the river flowing by the grove of trees he’s in. He’s so tired, so upset, about these flashbacks. Rather than giving him relief, they’re mostly damaging him. He’s been coerced into talking about events he only wants to forget, forced into hearing the atrocities his mother has gone through, and now he’s missing Lance more than ever. His heart is telling him he may never look into those eyes, touch his cinnamon skin, kiss the softest lips known to mankind because he’s so far away. Keith doesn’t know where he is anymore. He doesn’t know how long it’s been, because time is different and faster here, and he doesn’t know how Lance is.

Voltron has never been remotely safe. Each day, each mission, they go out of their way to risk their lives for the universe. One too many times, it’s been too close to call. So what if in the time he’s been gone, something’s gone south?

Kosmo rubs up against his thigh. Keith softly scratches behind his ear, leaning against the trunk of a tree. He looks at Krolia a little to his left. She is sleeping calmly on a bed of leaves, which means she didn’t see the flashback. He thanks heaven, earth, and this forsaken abyss for that. It’s only been a few weeks since the last flashback with Lance, but this one gave away too much for him to be comfortable talking to Krolia about. He’s trying to see how much longer he can avoid the topic.

“My stubbornness gets the best of me too often, huh?” he asks Kosmo in a soft whisper. Kosmo lies down next to him, as if agreeing. “Do you get flashbacks too?”

Kosmo looks at him briefly, then puts his head down between his paws.

“Me too, pup,” he says. “Me too.”

A loud yawn jolts Kosmo awake, making him immediately get up and look towards the noise. Krolia stretches her arms above her head, scrunching her eyes together before opening them up. The glimmer of a moon strikes across her face and the trees around her.

“Did I miss anything?” she softly asks, sleep slowly dissipating from her voice.

“Just another flashback,” Keith answers nonchalantly. Krolia gives him a questioning look. “Of the castle,” he quickly covers up and the words spill out of his mouth. “Of castle life. Castle of Lions, Voltron, the team, food goo. More space stuff.”

Krolia walks on over to Keith, taking a seat next to him. For a minute, they listen to the clash of water against rocks and the chirps of the insects hiding among the leaves. They’ve gotten used to being on the back of a space whale, living precariously yet peaceful all at the same time. It’s an odd mix of wanting to find a way off this world because of relentless, fear-mongering creatures trying to kill them and needing to take every peaceful part of it with them. Despite the flashbacks and odd sense of time, this place has a few serendipitous spirits Keith wants to carry around with him.

“Was it very personal?”

Keith nods. Too personal for her to be awake for, anyways.

“I don’t know if this happens to you,” she says, leaning a little on her son’s shoulder, “but when I’m the only one awake, I get very clear flashbacks of life. As if it’s only meant for me to remember or know. But, when we’re both awake and a flashback comes our way, it’s to fill in a necessary gap. Like when it showed us your father and me, or those times you were in the Garrison. Perhaps it’s because we’re still getting to know each other and everything and anything needs to be explained, but I think the flashbacks we get together are just to reconnect us, and the flashbacks we get alone are meant for us alone. Maybe the universe has this planned out.”

Keith ponders. He tries to remember every flashback, the differences between the ones he gets alone and the ones shared with his mother, and test if her theory is right. A memory from his first day at the Garrison resurfaces, a flashback they both were witnesses to. He remembers having to fill in what the Garrison was to Krolia, how high of an honor it is to be accepted into the elite school, and exactly what it meant for him as a cadet.

The flashback of Keith and Lance together speaking Spanish resurfaces too. Every paladin of Voltron has been introduced to Krolia through flashbacks. He had to explain the argument Keith and Pidge had when she wanted to leave. He had to walk her through the events of the Weblum, and why Hunk was so queasy. He had to admit he stole Shiro’s bike. And of course, he had to tell his mother why he and the princess ran away together. His friendships with them aren’t anything too private—he can’t exactly hide he’s a paladin with that uniform.

However, his relationship with Lance is pretty within the bounds of privacy. They aren’t open about it, mostly because in uniform they must remain professional, but the only people who have seen them together is team Voltron. Even around them, they try to keep the PDA to a minimum. As much as they’d love to show each other off to the world, there’s bigger issues at hand. Whatever happens between them should stay between them, they agreed, including all the sweet moments together.

Kolivan knows about Lance. He hates that Keith has that sort of attachment, but there isn’t anything he can do about it. Kolivan doesn’t talk about it, nor does he ask, so it feels like he doesn’t even know they’re dating. Krolia is his mother, though. She’s the only person outside of Voltron that Keith’s gotten close to and it feels like she should know this. He should trust her enough to know this.

It’s whether he wants her to know that’s got him on edge.

“Have you ever gotten a flashback about me when I’m asleep?” Krolia asks him. She’s looking directly at him now.

His brain immediately pinpoints the flashback. It isn’t one connected to his friends or Lance or the Garrison. It’s one he thinks about a lot, that tends to push against his brain when Krolia does something he thinks is motherly. The one that left him in tears and made his heart clench so fiercely he thought he might die. Keith’s afraid to bring it up.

“I have,” he answers, turning to look back at her. She pouts then takes a hold of his hand.

“What was it?”

Keith takes a deep breath. Her purple eyes plead with his despite her calm voice.

“I was a baby,” he begins, “and you laid me down on the mattress in that beaten up excuse of a house we lived in. Dad wasn’t there, just you and me. The sky was turning to night outside the window. You tried sweeping my hair back, but my hands always grabbed your fingers before you could touch it. I laughed a lot and you were shushing me, begging me to go to sleep. Then you started singing. When the flashback happened, I couldn’t understand it. My guess is you were singing in Galran. Anyways, I just watched you sing in awe, and my eyes slowly began to shut. But you were crying, you were crying a lot and kept on singing.”

Krolia squeezes his hand. He squeezes it back and offers a smile. When that flashback had passed, he looked to his sleeping mother and figured the ending to that scene. She must have left that night for the stars, like his dad told him. It was the last time she’d see her son, and she possibly thought ever. All she could offer was a lullaby and a dagger.

“It was in Galran,” she says, tears watering her eyes. “Did it sound familiar?”

Keith shakes his head. “Is it supposed to?”

Krolia chuckles, squeezing her son’s hand. “I thought your father would have sung it to you.”

“He didn’t really sing me to sleep. He’d tell me a lot of stories or we’d go sit on the roof to find constellations until I was tired enough to sleep.”

“Your father used to sing that lullaby to you when you were a baby, but it was in Korean. I didn’t understand it, but I fell in love with it and asked him for a translation in English. From there, I translated it to Galran, and sang it to you like that.”

“Really?”

Krolia smiles and nods. “I don’t remember the Korean lyrics, but I do remember the English and Galran ones.”

Keith’s heart aches a little. What he would do if he could have grown up with both his father and mother together, happily singing him lullabies in foreign languages. What he would do if his mother never had to leave him the way she did for his best interest. What he would do.

“Can I sing it to you again?” she asks him. She bites her lip and closes in on herself, loosening her grip on Keith’s hand. “Before you go off to bed. You’re a grown man now, and don’t need it to sleep, but I just…”

Her voice gradually gets softer. Keith senses her nervousness and decides to hold her other hand too, gently squeezing them both.

“Of course,” Keith answers with a smile. “I’d love that.”

Krolia clears her throat and sings her lullaby first in Galra, voice shaky and off pitch. Keith always thought the Galran language sounded strange. It isn’t like any language he’s heard on Earth. There’s far more consonant sounds than vowel sounds and seems very stressed. Whenever an argument in Galran broke out at the Blade of Marmora, Keith thought they’d be at each other’s throats within seconds because they sounded so intense. However, his mom sings the lullaby like it was in a romance language—fluid and elegant. As soon as she finishes, she starts all over in English.

“ When mama goes to the mudflats to pick oysters
Baby remains alone watching the house
To a lullaby the ocean sings
His arms as a pillow, baby falls asleep.
While baby is sleeping soundly
Seagull’s crying sound thobs her mind
Half empty oyster basket on her head,
Up the gravel road, Mama comes running home. ” 

Her singing conjures a unique sadness in Keith. The lullaby is nothing he grew up with—only a snippet of a flashback from his first months of life—but it reminds him of all the flashbacks they’ve been shown where they were a family. From the moment Krolia told his dad he was going to have a son to the moment the three walked into the only supermarket in town and were asked why Keith wasn’t purple. He wishes there were more moments like those, moments he could remember . He wishes this song was sung to him every night, language changing depending on the day of the week.

Krolia wipes a tear from Keith’s cheek. A laugh bubbles out of her as some tears falls down her cheeks too. She pulls him into a tight hug, gifting him a kiss to the top of his head. Keith softly cries on her shoulder.

******

Keith slammed the door behind him. He threw his bag on the floor and sat on the edge of his undone bed. His knuckles were bruised purple and the corner of his lips were stained with dried blood. The stark white Garrison room Keith had with little to no decoration made the place look desolate and void of life.

A moment after, his door creaked open and Shiro popped in. He had all brown hair then and his face showed no signs of a scar. Keith side eyed him, then reverted to angrily glaring at the floor. Shiro gently closed the door and leaned against it, arms crossed over his chest.

“Heard you were at Iverson’s office again,” he said, disappointment clear in his voice.

Keith didn’t respond. Shiro frowned and walked over to his bathroom, grabbing a wash towel and soaking it a bit in water. He walked back to Keith and passed him the towel. Keith took it from him and rubbed at his lips.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Shiro asked.

Again, he didn’t respond. Sometimes, Shiro’s brotherly attitude took time to get Keith to open up. Shiro had taken that as a signal and went to sit next to him. He looked at his hands. Keith put down the wash towel and pulled the sleeves of his jacket up to cover up the bruises.

“You’re fourteen, Keith,” Shiro sighed, trying to get Keith’s attention. “You have no reason to go throwing around punches at an elite school for space exploration.”

“Yes I do,” he bit back. He had every reason to go throwing around punches. His classmates liked to piss him off rather than leave him alone. There was always something they had to say about him. This time was no different.

Shiro contemplated, gazing at the ceiling. He seemed to be recounting every time Keith was sent to Iverson’s. Keith had punched a kid because he made fun of his dead parents. He had punched another kid for trying to sabotage his simulation score. Another time, he stole his teacher’s phone and made a few choice calls. Keith said it was because the teacher made fun of his low test grade in front of the whole class. And, talking about grades, he also managed to hack into the grading system and give him and Peter better grades on their midterm final.

“What was it this time?” he asked, playfully nudging his side. He was always one to get Keith to talk. He was the only one there for him anyways—no one else to talk to.

Keith’s heart was racing. He didn’t know the right way to go about what he was going to say, the right way to tell him something he’s so sure about, and yet hesitant. But he was angry about the words spat at him, so angry, and he had to get it off his chest.

“Peter called me weird,” Keith confessed. It wasn’t the whole story, but it was enough of a reason to get him by. “I punched him.”

Shiro softly chuckled, but Keith glared at him in response. Shiro stopped, smile turning into a firm line, and he took a deep breath.

“Nothing about you is ‘weird,’ Keith,” he reassured him. “Did he say you were weird because of your hair, or your skills or something."

“No, because I like boys.” Keith hunched forward, doing his best to hide himself. He did that a lot when he was younger, like setting up defenses against someone who could become his enemy in a split second.

Shiro stared at Keith. His expression was surprised, but it eventually turned into concern. He looked away, scouring the room as he thought about what to say. He exhaled, then put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “That’s not weird.”

“He said I’m the only one who likes boys. Of course it’s weird.”

“It’s not weird.”

“Yes it is.”

“Keith, how did he find out you like boys?”

Keith brought his knees up to his chest and tightly hugged them. “I told him I liked him,” he mumbled, “and he called me weird for liking boys.”

Pause.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Shiro asked.

“I just told you.”

“No, why didn’t you tell me you liked boys?”

Keith blinked. He didn’t know why. Was it something he had to tell? He lived so secluded from everything that he wasn’t sure what was normal or not.

“Did I have to?” he asked insecurely.

“No. No, of course not. It’s just...you tell me a lot of things, and I thought this would be one too.”

“I tell you weird things about me, like how I have a hard time reading sometimes, but am really good at aiming at projectiles. I didn’t know me liking boys was weird until now.”

“Keith, those things aren’t weird, it’s you. It doesn’t matter if it’s weird or normal. Liking boys is you. And, unfortunately, some people will think differently about that, but don’t let their words affect you. You aren’t alone.”

“Well, I don’t know any other boys who like boys,” Keith sassied, crossing his arms over his chest.

Shiro laughed loudly. He quickly covered his mouth to stifle it, but failed. He fell back on the bed, clutching his torso. Keith straightened up and looked deliriously at Shiro.

“Stop laughing!” Keith demanded, poking his thigh. “I’m serious!"

Shiro wiped a stray tear from his cheek and sat up. He roughly ruffled Keith’s hair, making the younger one swat at his hand.

“I think you should meet someone, Keith,” he announced. He stood up and opened the door, waiting patiently for Keith to follow. Reluctantly, he got up and exited.

The metallic halls of the Garrison dorms were empty. All the cadets were in class in the other buildings, which meant Keith was the only kid out. Still, he sheltered himself as he walked, sticking closeby to Shiro and stuffing his hands in his pant pockets.

“Where are we going?” Keith asked him. “I don’t want to go back to class.”

“No, you get the day off,” Shiro informed him, “which you shouldn’t be getting because you broke the rules, but whatever. We’re going to the cafeteria.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“That’s fine.” Shiro checked the watch sitting on his wrist. “I am, though, and so is the person you should meet.”

A right turn and in front of them were the sliding glass doors to the cafeteria. It was mostly empty, save for the few commanders and off-duty teachers lounging around. The cooks weren’t as busy as they usually were during lunch time for the cadets. The news played on a small television in the corner of the room. No one paid attention to it.

“Do you want chips or something?” Shiro asked, grabbing a tray from the beginning of buffet line. “I think they have those jalapeño ones you like.”

Keith glanced to the end of the line, where the chips stand stood. An array of colors could be seen, but his eyes latched onto the bright green ones all the way at the bottom. He ran over, snatching a bag of his favorite spicy chips. Just as he was getting up, he saw the wrapped chocolate chip cookies laid out before the cashier. He took one of those as well, and he asked the cafeteria lady for a sweet tea behind the counter.

“Thought you said you weren’t hungry,” Shiro teased as he reached him. His tray had a chicken salad drenched in ranch dressing with a piece of garlic bread on the side. Keith looked at his plate, then back at Shiro with an unimpressed look.

“Not hungry for salad,” Keith muttered. “Gross.”

Shiro rolled his eyes and paid for both of their meals. He led them off to the back corner of the cafeteria, where one man comfortably sat on a cushioned seat by a table. Keith walked closer to Shiro. Keith never liked meeting new people.

As they got closer, the man turned his head towards them. He had tan skin, light brown hair, and caramel eyes behind his glasses. He smiled at the sight of Shiro, then smiled a little brighter when he saw Keith. It made him nervous.

“Hey, Shiro,” he greeted, cleaning the table as best as he could with the sleeve of his jacket.

“Hey, I brought someone you should meet,” Shiro said. He sat across from him and Keith scooched in next to Shiro. Keith twisted the cap off his sweet tea and opened his jalapeño chips.

Adam grinned at Shiro. Keith eyed the two of them suspiciously. Keith had never seen this guy before in his life, not even around school grounds.

“This is Keith,” Shiro introduced, “and Keith, this is Adam.”

“Nice to meet you, Keith,” Adam said. He stuck out his hand, gifting him a warm smile.

Hesitantly, Keith outstretched his own hand and shook Adam’s. He glanced at Shiro, who was also weirdly smiling.

“Why are you smiling?” Keith asked the two of them.

“I’ve wanted you to meet Adam for some time now,” Shiro answered, smile only growing more as he looked at Adam.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Keith,” Adam said. Keith nodded, not knowing how else to respond to that. “I’m happy we finally get to meet each other.”

“Okay.” Keith paused. “Why?”

Shiro extended his hand over the table, palm open towards the ceiling. Adam smiled even more—how are these two smiling so much—and reached to grab Shiro’s hand, intertwining their fingers together. Keith watched the gleaming rings on both their fingers. His eyes grew the size of saucers.

He wasn’t alone. He knew someone all along.

“Adam is my fiancé.”

******

Keith eyes widen the second the flashback is over. He’s still on the hill he was walking up with Krolia, only he’s stopped in his tracks. He’s tense all over, suit suddenly pricking against his skin. His heart thumps in his chest like the beat of a drum and all he can think is this is bad, this is bad, this is really, really bad.

He hesitantly looks over his shoulder to his mother. She, too, stands still, orange glaze of the sun warming over her purple skin. Her eyes aren’t wide like Keith’s, but they’re laced with something like sympathy as she looks over her son.

They both had figured the abyss was showing certain flashbacks based on what needed to be explained between them. Whether they found it the right time or not didn’t matter—this was not in their hands. Whatever each was holding back from each other would be figured out eventually.

The universe decided now was Keith’s time to stop avoiding this conversation and outed him to his mom.

Sort of. Fourteen-year-old Keith did it for him.

“Well?” she asks, laughing a little. “Are you just going to stand there, or shall we reach the top?”

Keith furrows his brows. He hasn’t come out to a lot of people, but that definitely isn’t the response he gets. Usually a “cool” (Hunk), “me too” (Shiro), “I don’t know what that means” (Allura), “no, really?” (Pidge, sarcastically), or “thank God” (Lance).

What usually happens when they’ve both experienced a flashback is they sit down and talk about it. They get it out of the way while it’s still fresh in their mind. So what about this situation is different?

After a year of avoiding this topic, of praying anything that would out him not show itself, he’s being told to ignore it for a little bit. Keith believes this is something that needs explaining, no matter how obvious the message in the flashback. And all his mother wants to do is keep on walking?

Rather than argue, he nods his head and walks up the hill. Kosmo trails behind him, sniffing the ground. The pinnacle isn’t far—just a few more steps. Hopefully it’s enough to calm his nerves. His mother told him she climbed it when she was out to check on their surroundings, and the view was outstanding. And Keith, well, Keith is a simple man. He really loves about four things: his friends/family, Lance, Kosmo, and gorgeous views.

Once they near the top, Krolia runs in front of him with a grin plastered on her face.

“Whoever reaches the top first gets to sleep first!” she toys, now light years ahead of her son. Keith laughs but intends to catch up, wanting to win the prize though she’ll give it to him if he asks anyways.

Krolia reaches the top a second before Keith does. He hunches over and rests his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Her Galra blood and decades in the Blade of Marmora have kept her in utmost shape. Though Keith is physically capable most of the time, he doesn’t have the endurance his mom has. Krolia places a hand on his back to balance herself.

“Look up,” she says tenderly. “You’ll miss the view.”

Keith stands up straight, looking over the massive expanse of the world they’re in. The blue sky melts with the orange hues of the sunset in the distance. Forest green leaves fill the land below, tiny pockets between the branches revealing the blue rivers which flow around. A winged creature caws and flies in the distance. Wind softly tousles Keith’s hair against the nape of his neck, and maybe, maybe, this is as pretty as the whole universe gets. Better than all the planets he’s visited, the stars he’s crossed, and the desert back on Earth. If only a certain someone was with him now.

“It’s beautiful,” he says wistfully, smiling at his mother. She grabs his hand and leads him to the edge, where they sit with their legs hanging. Kosmo lies down next to him and rests his snout on Keith’s thigh. There’s been many instances where they come upon a scenery like no other and take a break from all their tracking. It’s an appreciation of nature that runs in Keith’s blood, directly from both of his parents.

They’re silent for some time. Krolia seems to be taking in the scenery, but Keith is internally freaking out. Does he bring up the flashback? Does he wait for her to mention it? Does it really need any explaining, or was it clear enough? No, he needs to at least tell her about Adam. He doesn’t even remember telling her the only real friend he had before the Voltron mess was Shiro. They’ve been out here for a year and a half now, and there’s still so much he hasn’t told her. He’s so afraid to tell her about his father, about his boyfriend, about his endless races against death.

Krolia reaches out to Keith and gently holds the side of his face. Her thumb soothes out his scrunched eyebrows. “You’re thinking too much,” she mentions. “Is it because of the flashback?”

Keith doesn’t answer. He looks down below him and hugs his torso instead, trying to close himself in like he did back then. Krolia removes her hand from his face and sighs.

“I remember when I was on Earth,” she begins a brand new story, “you’re father said, ‘Only a hundred and six people live in this town. They won’t say nothin’ ‘bout your purple skin. And if they do, no one will believe ‘em’” She mocked his voice so well, it strung a chord in Keith’s memories. “The closest neighbors were some miles aways, and it took ten minutes to drive to the supermarket in that wonky truck of his.

“We had gone to the supermarket to get some food and fuel up on gas when we ran into Natalie Garcia. She was the daughter of your father’s neighbor. I was in line to buy our groceries and your father was outside with the truck. The place was empty and only a couple people were working. I saw her getting close with one of the female employees—caressing her hair, holding her hand, yadda-yadda—but thought little of it. I didn’t care. I paid and left, then told your father what I saw. He was surprised. Told me no one did ‘that’ around here. The population was so small that anything ‘weird’ would be blown out of proportion, as I learned the hard way. It was best we kept quiet about the whole thing. I felt uncomfortable, not because of the situation or keeping a secret, but because it was considered ‘weird.’ Girls with girls? ‘Weird?’ Galra don’t care. Like whoever, be with whoever you want. Gender and sexuality is subjective.”

Krolia gently nudges Keith’s shoulder with her own. He glances, still nervous but less distant. A soft smile rises on her lips.

“So, if you wanna talk about it, I’m all ears,” she wraps up. “I know that on Earth, there are people who aren’t accepting, but Galrans have always been. Don’t worry about me.”

Keith takes a deep breath. Of course he wants to talk about it. Of course he worries about his mother. Of course, of course, of course he’s feared this all along, but it’s time he got this off his chest.

“His name was Peter,” Keith begins, looking out into the hues of green leaves blotted below. “He was very loud and obviously hated me, but he was also super smart and really good at math. His curly black hair always caught my attention, and every time he smiled, his silver tooth would glisten in the light. I thought his eyes were pretty too. Very blue. If I met him now, I definitely wouldn’t like him, but back then I really did. He was just different, and cute, and my first and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was in all my classes and was always on my mind.

“I was too scared to try and become his friend, and I guess that’s why we became enemies and he became friends with James. James was an asshole, but that’s a story for another time. Anyways, one day, Peter and I were teamed up to work on a project and it was going well. It didn’t feel like he hated my guts and it made me red in the cheeks and all. Somewhere between all of that, he started talking about his crush on Bethany, and I got kind of jealous. I told him I liked him on a whim and it all down spiraled. He called me weird and started making fun of me and I punched him.

“Then the whole flashback happened, Shiro introduced me to Adam, and I realized I wasn’t the only boy who liked boys, which was pretty cool, but I still kept to myself. No one at the Garrison was flamboyantly out. Peter switched schools after that incident, so no one else knew I was gay.”

“Peter’s probably gay now,” Krolia mutters under her breath.

Keith snorts and rolls his eyes. “Probably. Don’t care enough anyways. He was my first real crush and heartbreak. But Shiro was there for me, and eventually Adam too. They always knew what to say when it got too difficult, like they were used to it now and had to pass down their advice. They made me feel normal, because being gay made me feel weird, and it shouldn’t have. I talked to them about all my stupid crushes or the homophobic stuff I’d hear down the hall and just console me over it. I owe them a lot.”

A gush of wind sweeps by them. The sky becomes increasingly pink and orange, painting streaks into the blue of day. Keith clenches his fists, then smooths his thumb over his fingers. It’s easy to talk about the loneliness of the past now, but it doesn’t change the fact that the pain of it still runs through his veins.

“There was no one else?” Krolia asks.

Keith shakes his head. “No one really wanted to be my friend. So good thing I stole Shiro’s bike that day. And now I have enough people.” Lance comes to mind, a monument dedicated to listening to all of Keith’s troubles and easing his very existence.

Krolia suddenly grasps his hands in hers. Her palms are frozen and shaky. Tears are welling up in her eyes, ready to cascade. Her bottom lip quivers and Keith can only stare at her in oblivion.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, broken and forlorn.

Keith blinks. “What?”

“I’m sorry for not being there. For not being your mother, for not walking you through those tough times in your life. You had to grow up all alone and it’s my fault, it’s all my fault because I had to leave for this stupid war in order to protect you and yet nothing shielded you from harm. Yet you’re here fighting the war I wanted to protect you from. You must’ve been so angry at me and I’m so sorry, Keith.”

“It’s not your fault, Mom.” Guilt grips his body. He didn’t mean for her to react like this. There’s nothing for her to be sorry about. “It’s no one’s fault, it’s just how it happened. I-I wasn’t alone, I had Shiro.”

“But you didn’t have me. Or your father.”

Keith’s mind halts. He never told her about his father’s death. It was another subject he was too afraid to touch upon—another part that could make or break them. His father is a sensitive topic, one that closes up his throat and brings tears to his eyes. To this day, Keith doesn’t know how deep his mother’s love for his dad ran. He didn’t really know how deep his father’s love for Krolia ran either. Keith remembered how often his dad would look up at the night sky, littered with specs of starlight and either smile, frown, or remain still. He was thinking of her, but he’ll never know what each reaction meant.

“It was my flashback yesterday. You were asleep,” she whispers. It’s soft and wavering—she’s afraid too. “I saw you kneeling in front of his grave.”

Krolia breaks down. She hunches forward. Her hands let go of Keith’s and immediately come up to press against her crying eyes. Sobs pierce through the silence and shakes Keith. His arms embrace her tightly. He has no words to say. She hasn’t mourned. Maybe she was hoping that at the end of all this, she’d come back to visit Earth and something— someone —would be waiting for her. That their love transcended the barrier that is space and time.

Keith mourned alone back then. Though the whole town came to the funeral, no one was very close to his dad. They kept themselves separate. No one cried but him. “Those town folk don’t like different,” his father had told him in his thick, Southern accent, “and we don’t hang around people that don’t like different.”

Krolia straightens up and wipes at her eyes. Her bottom lip still quivers.

“How?” she voice hitches. She’s hesitant, hunching her shoulders forward to shield herself like her son.

“Fire,” he answers. “You know how he was always tryna save the day. It got the better of him.”

It’s taken years for Keith to understand why his father did what he did. Why he ran back into that building to save some stranger, knowing it was going to collapse and the chances of him making it out alive were slim to none. He had a son back home to take care of. He was going to leave him alone if he didn’t make it out. Did he think about that? Did he think about his Keith, six years old with a wish to see the stars?

Of course he did. Of course his father thought of him. He loved Keith and everything he did was for him. Running into that building to save one life was not only for the good of humanity, but to be an example set for Keith. That life is always worth saving and some risks have to be taken, but the prize in the end is worth more than the diamond riches hidden in the earth. He wanted Keith to have a father that was a hero.

Krolia nods. The silence they sit in is comfortable, like the nights he’d sit on the roof with his dad and search for constellations. The remaining warmth of sunlight keeps the two of them looking towards the horizon, waiting for the sun to rest.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, pained and agonizingly.

“I was afraid. Dad’s...Dad’s hard to talk about. I don’t talk about him a lot. There was never anyone I had to break the news to either—people in town were the only ones who knew him, and they were at his funeral. I’d just tell people I was an orphan so I didn’t have to explain anything. Then we met, and it slipped my mind until we got here and the flashbacks started. You two were so happy and I was scared the news would, I don’t know, ruin the magic of it all. But I shouldn’t have kept it from you for so long. I’m sorry.”

“I really loved your dad,” she states, voice calm and recovered. “I really loved him, and I still do. He took me in, listened to my absurdities, and still managed to believe me. He fought tooth and nail for me. When the neighbors saw me, they completely freaked and turned on him. But your father stood by my side and made our presence clear. I remember people’s reaction to my pregnancy. They were so weirdly intrigued and worried about the outcome. Your father had no filter though. He let loose when those words were thrown around. Quite the protective spirit.” She takes a quick peek at Keith, then goes back to observing the sky. “I know I said your father thought keeping the Garcia situation secret would be best because the town would find it ‘weird,’ but I assure you he didn’t. He did it to protect her. He didn’t spread the news because he wanted her to be happy, and if she knew we saw them, she’d be overly conscious about it, worried about what we thought or if we could keep a secret. That shouldn’t be on her mind. He’d do the same for you, you know? He’d be so proud of you, Keith. So proud.”

That’s when it clicked. Keith’s father kept him away from the town because they berated him before he was even born. They didn’t want a half-alien child running through their streets. It was an intolerant town. His father did it to protect him.

Keith always wondered how his father would feel about him being gay. He was never given the chance to know his father. It’s hard to know anybody at the age of six. He was still being told fairytales and sweet white lies to get him through the day. No one knew his dad well enough to let Keith know what he’d think about him now until this moment. Dad would still protect him. He was still his son. And Dad would love Lance, would love his infectious laugh and happiness. Krolia would too, he knows, but he’s still afraid to tell her. He’d be afraid to tell his father too.

“I know,” he agrees.

“I’m glad he raised you as best as he could. My only wish is that he could have done so for longer.”

Keith smiles at his mother. “Me too.”

******

The Castle doors slid open before Keith. The ship was on power saving mode. Baby blue lights gleamed the hallways as guidance. The main hull was empty and dark but offered the homely, bittersweet view of space—the space he was ready to die for today.

His steps were soft and cautious, afraid they’d echo loudly and wake the rest of the team. He was headed to Lance’s room; the safest place in the grand expanse of the universe to Keith. He was anxious to see his boyfriend. Lance could have fallen if it weren’t for Lotor’s quick save. Of course it wasn’t his first time in the face of death, but Keith knew how much it scared him.

He paused in front of Lance’s door, clenching and unclenching his sweating palms. Keith wasn’t there just to see Lance. There were things to be discussed and he wasn’t sure if there would be time to do so later. Keith hadn’t seen him in some weeks. After a fight like Naxzela, all either of them want to do is cuddle in bed and hold each other because they’re alive. So, naturally, he was nervous to talk to him about this. Keith couldn’t disregard the situation and skip over to his sugar-coating of life. He was afraid of the consequences. Keith wasn’t ready. Keith was never ready.

After several deep breaths, he quietly knocked on the door. It took a few seconds for it to open up and show Lance in an overly large white shirt and grey sweats. The bags under his eyes were a stark contrast against his cinnamon skin, absent of the shine from his normal face wash, and his blue eyes looked much like the ocean at dawn. Keith’s heart sank at the sight. Today was rougher than before. Today Voltron was too close. Lance was too close.

Once he registered that it was Keith in front of him, however, he straightened up and managed to smile.

“Keith,” Lance whispered with all the love and tiredness dripping from his voice.

He sluggishly threw his arms around Keith, hugging tightly like he might slip away. Keith wrapped his arms around his waist with just as much force. His hands clinged to the worn out fabric of his white shirt. Lance was still alive after Naxzela. Lance was in his arms after Naxzela.

“I’m okay,” Lance muttered into his hair. He sensed Keith’s desperation, his fear and nerves at his fingertips, as he always did. “You’re okay. We’re okay.”

They were fine.

Lance pulled away and put his hands on his shoulders. He rubbed the rough material of the Blade of Marmora suit, brows stitched with concern.

“Why’d you come in your suit?” Lance asked. “You don’t like to wear it here.”

Keith smiled, bringing his hand to cup the side of Lance’s cheek. “I’ll explain in a bit,” he assured. He kissed Lance with every bit of fervor in his soul yet gently holding him like a prized possession. He missed him too much for it to be quick and short.

Lance, however, smiled too much into it and started laughing, ruining the whole mood. Keith glared at him momentarily, but Lance gifted him a peck on the forehead and dragged him to his bed. Keith sat on the edge while Lance dug through his drawers of clothes.

“Are you staying the night?” Lance asked him.

“I shouldn’t,” he replied, “but I think I will.” Kolivan was upset about the rash decision he made at Naxzela, saying the ‘stunt’ was too closely tied with his emotions rather than the cause, and decided to minimize his communication with Team Voltron for some time. Keith shouldn’t be on the Castle of Lions.

“Well then, rebel, you’re going to change.”

“I don’t need to do that right now.”

“I think you do.”

“I don’t.”

“You may look fucking delicious in that suit, babe, but we both know we hate what it means with a passion.”

“I’ll change later.”

“It doesn’t take long to change, Keith.”

“Lance.”

“Sweats or no?”

“Lance.”

“I don’t think I have any clean shirts soooo…”

“Lance.”

“Shirtless?”

“Lance!”

Lance paused, clutching a pair or sweatpants in his hand. Keith’s voice was piercing and sharp. He blinked, acknowledging the concerning tone in Keith’s voice, and put the pants away.

“We-We need to talk, Lance.” Keith’s voice shook like an earthquake. His foot tapped against the floor to calm his nerves. He had to tell him. He trusted him enough to tell him.

“Okay.” Lance gulped. He sulked over to the bed and sat next to Keith. He stared at Keith’s intertwined hands and hesitantly took one into his own. He softly smiled at his boyfriend, that smile that turned Keith’s world upside-down and made every situation a little more bearable.

Keith took a deep breath.

“Today at Naxzela I felt really, um, hopeless. I was just watching from outside, trying to find some way to break down the barrier or stop the bomb from exploding. I was getting update after update about how bad Voltron’s situation was. Everyone was convinced you weren’t going to make it out, and you did in the end, but I...I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Lance squeezed his hand. “I am. A lot was on my mind, but we made it out and I’m safe. I’ve done this before. We’ve done this before. You don’t have to worry about me so much.”

“But it’s always life or death, and I know it scares you. You’ve told me before. You have a family to go home to. Varadero Beach is waiting for you, and for it to all disappear because of the Galra—it doesn’t sit well with me. It can become as normal as possible but it still doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid of it. This was the closest Voltron’s been to death. Weren’t you scared?”

“Of course I was. I don’t want to die, Keith, but we’ve done this time and time again.”

“But what if it’s the last time?”

Lance’s grip tightened. He scooched in closer to him and searched his purple eyes. “What are you trying say?”

Keith purses his lips. “The Blade has a philosophy. It’s not ‘victory or death,’ but it can fall into that...extremity. It’s more along the lines of ‘sacrifice or nothing.’ So many lives are sacrificed in this job. I’ve seen too many happen before my own eyes, Lance, and I’ve tried to fight the philosophy. I’ve tried to do what Voltron stands for but this war is bigger than me. Voltron is the only thing that can stop it and-and sometimes that philosophy makes perfect sense—”

“Keith you’re shaking.”

Keith looked down at his hand, shaking against his thigh. His lips tightened into a line and he felt like throwing up, like getting up and leaving and never having to talk about the next part, about what he came here to address. Lance took his shaking hand, brought both of them up to his lips, and kissed them. He soothed out his rough knuckles with his thumb.

“It’s okay,” he comforted. The tiniest smile—the one Lance showed when Keith woke up from nightmares or when he was oddly quiet—displayed itself, and it broke Keith.

“I almost killed myself today,” Keith blurted. He looked up into Lance’s eyes, which were wide with shock. He instantly looked away and blabbered on. “When I figured you weren’t going to make it out, that there was no way anyone could get to you, I made the decision to fly myself into the barrier and save Voltron.” A choked sound came out of his mouth and tears began to form in his eyes. “Because Voltron is the only thing that can save the universe, and I am nothing but some half-human-half-alien guy stuck in space trying to make sure it does that. If I didn’t sacrifice then nothing would happen.”

Suddenly Keith’s pushed into Lance’s warm chest. His familiar arms were wrapped around his form, clenching at the material of his suit like cat nails stuck in fabric. Keith bursted into tears, unable to keep his emotions hidden.

“I didn’t think about anything else,” he continued, “just the mission, only the mission, and if you didn’t survive, then no one survived, and if I could change that by taking my life for the best of the universe, then it’s okay, right? Because there was nothing on earth for me to go back to. Then Lotor just—he ended it all and I pulled back and I realized what I was going to do and I freaked out, Lance, I freaked out. I didn’t even give it a second thought, I just went for it. Then I thought about you, and I don’t know, maybe I was always thinking about you, and how I didn’t want to be without you, but I wanted you to live and go back home to your family, and for Pidge to find her dad and Shiro to go back to Adam and Hunk to visit Samoa again and if that meant I had to die then I-I—”

“I’m here,” Lance whispered, lifting Keith’s chin up to see him eye-to-eye. His fingers rubbed away the fallen tears on his cheek. Keith sniffled. Lance had tears in his eyes too, and his bottom lip quivered. “I’m here and you’re here—we’re all here. And we all love you. I love you. Okay?”

Keith nodded. Lance swooped down to kiss him again, hands tangled in his black hair while Keith pulled at the collar of his shirt. It was a needy kiss, a “we made it out alive” kiss and yet it held everything Keith needed in that moment. Comfort, support, Lance—Lance most of all.

“Get out of this suit, yeah?” Lance cracked as he pulled away. “Please?”

“Yeah,” Keith said. He got off the bed and dug through Lance’s clothes until he found something fitting, then disappeared into the bathroom.

Once the door shut, Lance took a deep breath. He stared at the ceiling, desperately trying to get his tears to roll back behind his eyes.

“He needs you,” he murmured to himself. “He needs you right now.”

He ran his hand through his tousled hair and got into bed, laying against the wall. Keith came out in a black t-shirt and the same sweatpants Lance picked out. Keith slid in right next to Lance and cuddled against his form. Lance reached out to play with the soft wavy strands of hair that fell over Keith’s forehead.

“Why’d you come in your suit?” Lance asked.

His lips formed into a thin line. “The Blade has me under tight supervision,” he reluctantly answered. “The little ‘stunt’ I pulled wasn’t very liked by Kolivan, and now he wants me to have limited contact with the team. I had to sneak out.” He frowned. “I don’t know when that means I’ll see you again. We don’t see each other enough as it is, but this means less of it.”

Lance hummed and leaned towards him for another kiss. It was soft and light, enough to send his message of sympathy directly through Keith.

“I’m really good at waiting,” Lance said with a grin. “Just don’t stay away too long. Promise?”

Keith smiled. “Promise.”

******

“Fuck” is the first word that comes to mind. 

When the flashback ends, Keith opens his eyes to his mother’s intense glare. The purple of dawn unfurls behind her as the river beside them reflects on the side of her face. Her brows are pinched together and she’s reading her son, reading his nonchalant expression but noticing the way the ends of his lips turn down.

He stayed away too long.

Guilt claws at his back. He’s been in the abyss for roughly two years now, and doesn’t know the time difference between here and space. Has it been longer out there? Keith didn’t have contact with Lance for at least two months after the events at Naxzela plus all of this time. He’s kept him waiting.

He didn’t keep his promise.

His mother’s glare softens, forehead wrinkling as she surges forward to embrace Keith. He falls limp against her, chin poking her shoulder and a few stray tears dripping down his face. Her palms rub his back gently. Kosmos walks circles around the two, dragging his tail along their calves. Keith doesn’t sob or choke up or even sniffle—just cries. Keith feels lifeless.

He’s always believed the distance was his fault. Keith’s the one who left for the Blade of Marmora. Keith’s the one who constantly broke the rules just to see Lance. Keith’s the one who is too emotionally connected to everything, and Keith’s the one who thought dying for the cause was the right thing to do. And it all backfired on him. And he misses Lance more than ever before, more than the first flashback those years ago, more than the time spent apart, more than the planets and stars and comets between Earth and here, more than Lance will ever know.

What if Lance stopped waiting?

He could think Keith stopped feeling the same way. Would he? He could talk to Kolivan, ask about Keith if he really wanted to. But no, Kolivan doesn’t even know where he is. Kolivan might even withhold information from him. He just knows he went on a mission with Krolia, they haven’t returned, and they’re probably dead. Keith’s probably dead, he may have told Lance.

He isn’t dead.

“‘A friend,’ huh?” Krolia attempts to cheer him up. “Just your right hand man, just the pilot of the blue lion, just the pilot of the red lion, just the guy you picked up Spanish from...”

Krolia pulls away, holding him at arm’s length. Keith’s head hangs low, so she lifts up his chin to look at her son.

“Just your boyfriend, huh?”

Keith nods and wipes the tears off his face with the back of his hand. He’s a little embarrassed underneath the pile of heartache. That flashback was the worst one yet, and for plenty of reasons: he kisses Lance, his mom saw that, he cries the most he ever has, and his suicide mission is brought up. Naxzela is brought up, and for fuck’s sake, the universe couldn’t just keep the revealing of his suicide mission and his boyfriend separate, could it? It couldn’t show, say, the anniversary date Keith took Lance on after he hijacked a Galra escape pod and took him to a forest planet, or when Lance had to comb all the sticky goo out of Keith’s mullet after a food fight he initiated with Allura. It just had to show a time of desperation, an angst-ridden moment among the hundreds that followed their near-death experiences.

“It’s okay sweetheart,” she coos and pinches his cheek. Keith leans away from her hand and watches her smile a bit. “I’m going to be honest, I didn’t think he’d be your boyfriend.”

Keith chuckles. “Me either.”

“You two argued so much in the flashbacks.”

“We did,” he agrees, reminiscing on the flashback where they got stuck in the elevator on the way to the pool. “We did, but Lance just…Lance is different.”

Krolia smiles and throws an arm around his shoulder, queuing them to walk along the river bank. Kosmo runs ahead. “How so?”

Keith glances at his mother. She took note of his pain and is trying to lighten the mood. She’s finding the easy, safe topics to talk about and giving Keith a place to express himself. To let it all out. This flashback ended poorly—Krolia knew right away he didn’t keep his promise, and he’s upset about it. The only way to make it better is to have Keith talk about Lance in his favorite ways. His cheeks warm.

“You know when you really like someone so much you try to find things to hate about them?” Keith asks his mom. She bursts out in laughter and nods. “I did that with him. He caught my eye back at the Garrison, but I was so into Peter I never paid him any attention. Then I left and Voltron happened and we always bickered, and for so long I wondered why, why, why I bickered back. Why I even bothered.

“The thing was: we were light years away from Earth’s sun and still Lance’s smile was the brightest thing in the universe. Everytime we bickered, he’d smirk or grin or laugh and my heart would set itself on fire. I let him win because I wanted to see the sun’s rival. And the way he made me feel bothered me so much, Mom, so much that I just continued to act like I didn’t care. Like I didn’t care about his plans or strategies when in reality they were better than anything Allura or Shiro could come up with. Like I didn’t want to hear him talk when in reality I wanted him to tell me his obnoxious stories for hours. I kept everything bottled up until Shiro disappeared and I had to take over and I didn’t know how. I wasn’t ready to. I wanted Lance to have Black. He wanted her too and he was the perfect fit. He was a leader too often overshadowed, with a mind whose gears were turning faster than they were made for, and an understanding of the team I could never comprehend no matter how hard I tried. Lance deserved Black, and yet she chose me.

“I thought he’d hate me or something. He’d titled us as rivals for so long that I figured he really believed that, and me as the black paladin was just another feat against him. I was afraid I’d do a bad job, and more so, afraid I hurt Lance. Instead he accepted me as the leader and taught me all the ropes as the red paladin—in my lion—and gave me the confidence I needed. He made me believe in myself and in my eighteen years of life, I had never done that before.

“That’s when I started truly falling for him I think. When he gave me pats on the back or smiled at me without having won an argument or anything, just because he felt the need to smile at me. For the first time ever I wanted so badly to hate him, to find one thing that would tear that crush to the ground but I never found it. And I liked him from afar until somehow, between all of my messes, Lance started liking me back too, and it was painfully obvious. He’d get angry around me, but for no reason. I’d catch him glancing at me and he’d immediately shy away. One time I smirked at him and he pulled at his hair and told me to eat shit. I asked him if he could do a face mask for me and his hands were so shaky holding my cheek that he just gave me the bottle and said I should do it myself. It was funny, but we chased each other for so long that we ran out on time to be together.”

Krolia hums in accordance. “You have regrets,” she concludes.

“Of course I have regrets!” he responds too loudly. There’s still so much to do, so much to say, that Keith hasn’t gotten around to. To this day, Keith hasn’t spilled all his true feelings to Lance. There was no gigantic confession, just a lousy wish-granting bet that brought them together. He said “I like you a lot” and “I’ll tell you the romantics of it another day.” Keith never got to the romantics of it—no, not when he leaves the team and has to sneak out to see his boyfriend. Not when his long-distance relationship consists of being stuck in space fighting a war. Not when the words are always at the tip of his tongue but his voice gets caught in his throat like a fish caught on a hook.

Lance has always been better with words. He got to the romantics of it. One month into their relationship and he was as eloquent as a songbird, like if Shakespeare was Cuban and rewrote Sonnet 18 in modern-day English. Keith was showered in his admiration, to the point where he wondered if Lance somehow got a hold of the internet and studied romantic metaphors for three hours a day. He says “I love you” with such ease. Keith feels the same, has felt the same since those first months in the Castle, and yet he failed to return it the same way, was always too nervous about showing too much emotion and decided he’d tell him another day. Another day turned into another week, then another month, and now another year.

The words should have been easy to say. They should have tumbled over each other in fear and urgency because the next day could have been their last and Lance wouldn’t know how Keith felt. So, Keith has spent all his time away thinking of the right words for when he gets back to him.

If he gets back to him.

“I miss him a lot,” he whispers, eyes cast to the riverbank below his shoes. His heart clenches in his chest. “I think about him a lot too. Everyday out here I have.”

“You’re unbelievably good at keeping secrets,” Krolia snickers. “I’ve been here for two years with you and never once did I think your day dreaming was over Lance, your boyfriend. ”

Keith grins at her and she smothers his face with her hand. She rolls her eyes. He feels her stare at him, something he can only now consider motherly. He’s tempted to look back at her, read her face and see if maybe he can figure out what she’s trying to find. Keith catches her doing this quite a lot. It bothered him at first, but now he understands—he does the same with Lance. Krolia’s just doing a casual check-up on her son out of love.

“You love him?” she asks.

“Yes,” he answers without second thought. In the past, when asked, he’d flush over those three words. He never even had the courage to say them to Lance because he was afraid it was too soon. A couple years away and now he needs to say them, needs to tell Lance. “I just haven’t told him I do.”

“Woah woah woah woah,” Krolia chants, marching in front of Keith and blocking him. She holds her hands out to stop him. “You almost killed yourself for him and you haven’t told him you love him?”

“I didn’t—I didn’t almost kill myself for him ,” Keith grunts through gritted teeth. “I did it for Voltron .”

Krolia crossed her arms over her chest and deadpanned, “Right, because a robot is so much more important than the love of your life.”

“The love of my life pilots that robot.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to risk your life for it!”

“We’re in the Blade of Marmora, Mom!” Keith’s voice booms loud and shaky. His heartbeat thumpers in his ears. “That’s what we do! ”

“Yes, when there’s nothing left to love,” she reasons, placing her hands on his shoulders to steady him. “We die for the cause because the ones we love have already died, or are under servitude to the Galra Empire—whatever it may be. But when there’s someone you’d rather see live than die, you’d do anything for them, wouldn’t you?”

When Keith had told Lance about his mission, he referred to Voltron as “you.” You, as a pilot of Voltron. You, as a defender of the universe. You, as an entity of the friends Keith’s made. You, as his boyfriend, as his love, as him home, as his life. He was always thinking about them.

“I did the same for you. I gave up a life with you to make sure you were safe from the war. I’m sure that made you angry and upset sometimes, but in the moment, it was my best choice. Perhaps what you did made Lance a little angry and upset. It makes me angry and upset. But we do crazy things for the ones we love. You don’t love Voltron, Keith, you love the people who make Voltron. You love Lance.”

Krolia smiles at him, warm and encouraging, and ruffles Keith’s hair. He swats at her hand, like he usually does. Mom has taught him a lot. She's taught him compassion, forgiveness, home, and family. She gave him what he was missing, what his dad was never able to, and more than once her clear conscience dug Keith out from his grave.

“We’ll get off this thing,” she promises, “and you’ll see him again. I’ll make sure of it.”

Keith nods. Happiness swells his heart—he’s been so hopeless about ever seeing Lance again, but now that his mom is on his side, he’s optimistic about his chances. With his mom next to him, anything’s possible.

“And I’ll slap the shit out of Kolivan,” she adds infuriatingly. “He’ll have to hear from me about keeping my son away from his boyfriend.” Krolia dramatically crosses her arms and walks away. Keith’s laugh echoes behind.

******

Keith never thought he’d see the Castle of Lions again.

The feeling is kind of like when he met Krolia for the first time. He wasn’t expecting it to still be there, after all the forks in the roads that led him astray, and a bigger part of Keith believed it no longer existed, but now it’s here in front of him and he’s filled with an enormous sense of longing. What’s been missing from his life for ages is finally in front of him.

Heart pounding against his ribcage, he rushes toward the ship.

Keith sees three figures waiting in the launch bay. He immediately recognizes them as Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge. No Lance or Allura. They’re in armor and are looking a little oddly at the ship he’s in. They aren’t expecting him, and rather than pull out their weapons on him, they stare in confusion. He can’t help but smile. He’s missed them—the way they made him laugh, their presence making the emptiness of space a little more bearable, the feeling of family.

The doors of his ship open and Keith jumps down. The Castle hasn’t changed much. The lights are still stupidly bright, there are less ships in the bay, and for some reason, there’s a Galra ship to Keith’s right. He waves a hand at his friends, who widely gape at him.

Pidge is constantly rubbing her eyes behind the lenses of her glasses, blinking harder each time she looks at Keith. Hunk’s brows knit together, observing him up and down. Shiro, however, stares firmly at him, like his eyes will pop out his head if he looks any harder.

“Hey,” Keith voice creaks.

Pidge and Hunk burst into screams, causing Shiro to wince. Pidge keeps slapping Hunk’s arm, frantically looking between her teammates and Keith. Hunk points a sharp finger at Keith and walks forward, poking him in the chest and looking him in the eyes. Keith tries a smile at him and Hunk throws his arms in the air.

“Pidge get over here,” he commands. She scatters over to him, standing right next to Keith and continuously whispering “what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.”

“He’s taller!” Hunk declares, looking deliriously back at Shiro then Keith. “You’ve been gone for, like, seven months, how the hell did you grow a whole six inches!”

“I’m at his torso,” Pidge deliriously says under her breath, dramatically dragging her cheeks down with the palms of her hands. “I’m at his torso. What the fuck. I was at his shoulders last time. What the fuck.” She grabs his arm and pulls him down. Keith watches her avert her gaze to his arms, which she squishes again. “And you got muscles? What the fuck? Keith, what the fuck?”

“He’s a clone!” Hunk gasps. “A really, really badly done clone!”

“Drop the routine, or location of the fountain of growth. How the fuck did you do this Keith? Keith what the fuck? What did the Blade have you do? Pull-ups for twenty four hours? What the fuck what the FUCK—”

“Leave him alone, paladins,” Shiro’s strong voice breaks through. He strides up to them, expression softer than before. It’s relaxed and familial, but something about it doesn’t seem entirely…. there. “How are you, Keith?”

“Um,” he pauses. How is he? Exhausted, angry, and yet simultaneously loved and desperate to see Lance. Where is Lance? Why isn’t he here? Is he okay? Is he hurt? Dead? Alive? Can he please see Lance? He wants to see Lance. “Bad.”

“What?” all three say in unison.

“News,” Keith recovers. “I have bad news.”

He fills them in on the past two years in about fifteen seconds, then advises them about Romelle and Lotor for the next three minutes. An entire world of Alteans exist under the rule of Lotor and has gone unnoticed for a millenia. His intentions, however, may be malicious, and the alliance with him has to come to an end.

“Allura’s with him,” Shiro tells Keith, eyes cast down to the floor. “They were headed to Oriande.”

“She’s also with him ,” Pidge adds. “ With him with him. Goo-goo eyes and all. That woman is smitten with the skinny eggplant owning a wig.”

Just as he’s about to cleverly respond, the whir of a rifle loading up echoes in the launch bay. The paladins look behind them and Keith looks straight into the eyes of its holder.

It takes time for Lance to recognize Keith, but no time at all for Keith to recognize Lance. From behind his bayard, he hasn’t changed one bit—the hard lock on his target, lips tightened into a fine line, grounded in a perfect stance, ready to fire to protect the ones closest to him. His paladin uniform suits him all the same, and his hair is still a ruffled mess of charming curls.

Keith’s mind is spinning. His breathing hitches and in that quick second he realizes he’s terrified. Not because of the gun pointed at him, but because each doubtful thought from the Quantum Abyss resurfaces. Seven months have passed for Lance, but his feelings could have easily shifted. It’s been seven months without communication, seven months without knowing what Keith was up to. They’ve never been apart for seven months.

But Keith knows what it’s like to go two years without Lance. Things change. Keith’s changed.

How he feels about Lance, however, hasn’t. It’s only grown with each day apart, with each risk taken and fear weighted on his shoulders. Distance makes the heart grow wary, but with Lance here, it seems to revert back to the first time his eyes landed on him—rushed, nervous, and all the same full of affection.

Slowly, Lance puts down his rifle. His face goes through a range of emotions—confusion, disbeliefment, shock—until it finally settles on matching the soft, tender smile Keith wears.

“I wanna see this,” Hunk whispers.

“No you don’t,” Shiro mumbles.

Shiro grabs Pidge and Hunk and drags them out of the launch bay. The younger ones give a thumbs up to Lance before they leave the room. Lance’s smile only grows the longer they stare at one another from such a long distance, and even Keith feels a laugh bubble up. What’s in front of him has only been seen to him in detached flashbacks, has had to been shared with a mother he’d barely gotten to know, has never been just for him.

Today it is. Today the earth’s sky caught in Lance’s eyes gleam at Keith, his melodic laugh rings through his ears, his heart beats a minute faster the longer he smiles at him. Keith’s feet are speeding up to a jog.

“Keith!” Lance cheers. He drops his bayard to the side and runs up to meet him. “You’re back!”

Within seconds, Keith has his arms wrapped around Lance, snuggling his face into the crook of his neck. His hair smells like the shampoo he picked up from the last planet they visited together, organic and sweet. His hands grab at his shoulders, grasping for anything to keep him grounded. Keith’s missed this, even needed this proximity to feel like himself again. Lance laughs into Keith’s raven hair, tangling his slim fingers between the thick strands.

“Are you taller?” he asks, trying to pull away with little success. Keith keeps a strong hold on him. He doesn’t want to let go. He’s waited so long for this, so long to see more than just a distant memory. “You seem taller to me, and that’s kinda unfair.”

Keith just nods against him. He lifts his head up to rest his forehead against Lance’s. He loses himself in his eyes and cups his boyfriend’s cheeks. “I’ve missed you.”

Before Lance can say anything, Keith dips down to meet his lips. Keith is filled with urgency—desperation and need melted together—and Lance quickly meets him the same. He pushes Keith closer to him, making sure not a single inch of space is left between them, and his hands pull a little tighter at his hair. Keith tries to be gentle, but he’s overwhelmed with how real this all is. That he gets to do this again and again and again and—

“Keith?” Lance gasps against his lips, taking deep breaths. His hands slide down to Keith’s neck. “Are you okay?”

Keith’s brain short circuits for a while there. Is he okay? Yes and no. He’s been on some space whale thing for two years with his only connection to the real world being his very alien mother, his very alien teleporting dog, and the very deadly alien creatures coming for their lives. He’s been given glimpses of the past for two years, each one opening doors to rooms with no floors or rooms with no ceiling. He’s been coerced into talking, been on the run, been on an emotional rollercoaster without seatbelts. Now he’s very suddenly standing on familiar ground in front of who he’s learned to call home and feared would be gone by the time he came back.

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” Keith confesses, barely above a whisper. “Not after I broke my promise, or if the Galra got to you, or something went wrong and I-I—”

“I’m here,” Lance says, rubbing his thumb against Keith’s cheek, “and you’re here. We’re all here.”

Those words have been heard before, in the dim lighting of Lance’s room on a night where Keith might have lost it all. A night similar to this, where Keith comes back home to the one he could have lost in that split second of two years or seven months, and is reminded of how unsure life would be if home wasn’t where he left it.

“I would like to have a word with that braided asshole leader of yours,” Lance adds, furrowing his brows together and frowning. Keith cracks a smile. “He’s, like, Satan in space for not letting you reach me. You could have called me and said you had another growth spurt and trained like a wrestler or something in those seven months.”

Keith heavily sighs. “Two years.”

“Hm?”

“I couldn’t—I haven’t seen you in two years, Lance.”

That makes Lance pull away a little farther. He holds him at arm’s distance and examines Keith. Perhaps he’s sees the dark bags hovering below his eyes. Perhaps he sees the new scars over his skin or the defined lines on his forehead hidden by his fringe. Perhaps he sees right through Keith and catches his longing, his new extreme fear of loss, his bottled up feelings the past two years has tightly screwed the lid on, his need to be near the ones he loves, his need to be with Lance.

“I kept you waiting, didn’t I? I broke my promise?” His voice cracks at the end and his bottom lip trembles.

“No,” Lance assures as he surges forward to hug Keith. “God, no, Keith, no. I’d wait a million light years to be with you.” He kisses Keith’s cheek, lingering there for a few seconds. “My room, yeah? Let’s take these stupid suits off.”

Taking Keith’s hand in his, Lance leads him to his room down the hallways he knows like the back of his hand. Blue lights still glint off the metallic walls and their shoes still echo the same tang they did before.

Lance hasn’t changed his room. The floor is mostly clean, save for the pile in the corner of a building collection of things from new planets, and the stray pair of pants next to the bathroom door. There’s more photos pinned to the wall, most notably ones with a Galra soldier. His bed hasn’t been made and—

“Is that my shirt?” Keith points to a plain red tee hanging off the end of Lance’s bed. There’s still that wet stain from the weird Altean drink at the hem of the shirt, which is entirely Lance’s fault. He shouldn’t have made him laugh so hard.

“I sleep in it sometimes,” Lance shyly answers, picking it up and handing it to Keith. “Well, all the time. It smells like you.”

His heart clenches in his chest. Butterflies flutter in his stomach. “Does it?”

Just as Keith is about to sniff it, Lance snatches it back from him. “I washed it last night and now it smells like me.”

Keith snatches it back from him and slyly grins at Lance. “I think I’ll wear it then.”

Lance rolls his eyes and starts to take off the armor padding from his paladin suit. Keith works on taking the top off of his suit, then throws his (now Lance’s) red shirt over.

After changing into comfortable clothes, Keith cuddles into Lance’s side on his small bed. Despite now being taller than his boyfriend, Keith still finds draping himself under Lance’s arm to be a cure to all foul things in the world. His head rests on Lance’s chest, listening to his steady heart hum against his ear. They lie there in silence, Keith trying to remember all the words he knew he wanted to say, and Lance patiently waiting for them.

“I met my mom,” Keith says, twisting so his chin pokes against Lance and he can look up towards him.

Lance’s jaw drops. “Keith, that’s great!”

Keith smiles for a second, but it soon turns into a harsh line. He averts his eyes away from Lance. “I don’t think I met her the right way though. It all felt forced.”

“Forced?”

“Have you heard of the quantum abyss?”

“I mean...probably.”

“Well, it’s fucked, and that’s where I’ve been for your seven months. Kolivan sent me on some mission with Krolia, who turns out to be my mom, and then we get stuck in the quantum abyss, where time moves way faster than here. I was there for two years until, well, today I guess.” He says it like it’s not big deal, but it is.

Lance chuckles, moving Keith’s hair away from his forehead. “That’s why you’re taller and grizzled? Because you did life a lil’ faster?”

Keith manages to laugh, playfully hitting Lance. Lance instinctively grabs his hand and brings it up to his lips to kiss it. The sweet gesture reminds Keith that Lance is listening, always, and knows he’s only beginning to get to his point.

“Lance, the last time we were here in your room, I...I told you I was going to do something stupid. I wish I could forget it, but the abyss had a way of making sure I didn’t. Every so often, I’d experience very vivid flashbacks. Some from my childhood, or the Garrison, or with the team, and even with you. And it showed me the last time, which made me realize how much I feel about you has gone unsaid. If I had gone through with it, you’d never know. Two years without you somehow conjured up all the words because I was afraid that when I came back, you wouldn’t feel the same way, or you wouldn’t even be here at all, and I’d be too late.”

Lance squeezes Keith’s hand. Keith brings his hand to his lips instead and kisses them, then goes to cup Lance’s face and look him in the blue eyes against his cinnamon skin.

“I love you,” he finally admits, fast and confident, “and you’re so important to me. You brought light into my life, tore down that shack I lived in and made yourself my home, kept me laughing through the worst case scenarios, understood me better than anyone else has, and somehow still fell back in love with me. You say it with such ease, and I’ve always been jealous of it because I’ve wanted to say it for months and was too scared to. Everyone who has loved me left me one way or another, and I think I felt that if I said it, I’d lose you too. But I failed to see that if I didn’t say it, I could lose you and you’d never know, and that fucked me up more than I’d like to admit. I’ve done this before— we’ve done this before. Jumped around our feelings and all. I don’t want to do it again, ever again. It’s a waste of time. So no more of that from me. I love you Lance.”

Lance’s toothy grin immensely grows, and a few tears at the edge of his eyes glisten, but he nonetheless drags Keith into a kiss. The desperation and need has toned down. It’s all gentle and fond, making up for the long time gap in their lives. Lance can’t stop smiling throughout it, making Keith groan and Lance only laugh.

“Just kiss me normally, damn it,” Keith whines. Lance pulls Keith down one last time, kissing him like they have all the time in the universe and not even a fleet of Galra ships could break them apart.

“I love you Keith.”

Their kisses turn slow and lazy, not wanting to stop but also getting increasingly tired. Keith leaves one last kiss on the edge of Lance’s lips before he rests his head back on his boyfriend’s chest, eyes fluttering shut. Lance will be there for real when Keith wakes up this time.