Chapter Text
(Eleven years before Lance disappears from the Garrison.)
It’s three o’clock in the morning, and he’s not quite sure why he’s doing this.
He clicks on another option on the quiz, blearily looking at the screen as he took in the question, then rereading it before looking down at the new set of options, before looking back at the question, making sure he was picking the right one before clicking on the picture with a guy without a top, clearly the best option as the others were girls in bikinis and another guy in his boxers. He sighed silently with relief that the next page that came up was the answers and not another question asking him “Who, out of the options below, are subjectively the hottest?” because he was beginning to get to the end of his string.
That… wasn’t the right phase…
Maybe Adam should have gone to bed after he finished telling Lance his bedtime story (the one about the bear visiting the stars, because if anyone had a dream to visit the stars bigger than Adam, then it was his little brother Lance), but he had to check his emails for school, and then the notifications for his social media account was bugging, and then one thing led to another, and here he was, at 3am, answering stupid questions about who was the hottest.
However, no matter the actions that had to lead him to his destination, he could not help looking at the screen with almost shock on his face, because there’s was no way that he was-
“Adam, what are you doing?” Adam looked over at his brother, smiling despite his tiredness at the way that Lance stared at him from his own bed, his bright brown eyes curiously scanning his older brother and the screen that lit up the entirety of their room. Adam took in a deep breath, thanking the stars above for only having to share a room with little Lancey, and not the twins who would have been able to read his screen and then repeated it to their family in the morning. Who knows what would have happened, it would have caused chaos, the house would fall apart, the family would kick him out.
He didn’t want to lose his family, he couldn’t afford to, where would he go?
“Nothing Lancey, just finishing off some work,” Adam answered quietly, not wanting to wake anyone else up with his noise, but by the time that Adam had replied to his youngest brother, he had fallen asleep while looking out of the window, looking at the stars that reflected onto the calm sea so beautifully that it looked like someone could just reach out and grab it.
Impulsively, Adam reached for his sandals and grabbed a jacket, closing his laptop and the screen that would have made his father scream and Mama faint, and quietly left the room, sneaking one last look at Lance before shutting the door.
It was pathetically easy to sneak out of the house.
Maybe it was because it was they lived in a neighborhood where the Sanchez name was beyond feared, or because everyone could sleep through the end of the world if they wanted to, but he was able to leave through the front door with little obstacles or problems. Maybe next time he’ll make it harder for himself, sneak out a second story window just for the thrill of it.
It was a short walk to the beach front, barely five minutes, but Adam ran, sprinting down what would have been a busy and loud road as fast as he could, enjoying the feeling of his lungs burning and the wind whipping through his hair.
It took him less than a minute to get to the beach.
He took his sandals off ass soon as the pavement turned into sand, and he tiptoed quietly to the edge of the water, trying to not leave any evidence of his visit, despite the knowledge that the tide would wash it away the minute he leaves.
Despite the speed in which the water hits the shore, the sea is quiet, and the ocean is silent. Only the noise of the water softly caressing the sand and the small rock pools greeted Adam’s ears, and it was calming yet infuriating at the same time. He could feel the smell of the salty water ebbed into his clothing as he took a step forward, a barefoot beginning to sink into the cold ocean’s grasp. He only stopped walking once he realized the water almost hit his knees, and he congratulated himself for only wearing shorts to bed that night as the current pushed and pulled against his tanned legs. He didn’t have his glasses on, he needed a new prescription but had yet to tell Mama about it, didn’t want to trouble her by it, but still he looked towards the horizon, or where the horizon would be, for the stars bounced off of the water’s surface better than a mirror, and the new moon only helped with the illusion that Adam was in fact in space, floating and taking in its natural beauty rather than a small beach in an unknown part of Earth, far away from any stars that he wanted to touch.
He stays there until the first rays hit and remind him, tell him, to go home, to go rest, that the new day is here, and it is a beautiful new day, and he will be armed with the revelations that he had learned, and he will be ready to face everyone like he always has to be.
It was as pathetically easy to sneak into the house as it was to sneak out.
The sunlit his way to his bedroom as he avoided the loudest of the floorboards, and he’s able to rub his sandy feet on a carpet. He’s able to walk past Abuelo’s room, Mama and Papa’s room, the twin’s room without an incident, and he opened the door to his room as quietly as he could…
Lance was sitting on his bed, looking at his laptop with a confused look on his face.
“Hey Adam, what does ‘gay’ mean?” Adam’s insides fell out of his stomach and down into the depths of Hell where they probably belonged, while ice crept up his spine to the back of his back, ready to whisper cruel words into his ear with the promises of punishment and sins.
“It’s a bad word,” he managed to spit out as he went over to the laptop and excited the page that boldly proclaimed: ‘Your result is: Gay! :)))’, before going into his history and clearing his history, the ice traveling down his arms and to the bottoms of his fingertips.
“Oh,” Lance muttered, before smiling brightly, almost bright enough for the ice to melt into water, but not quite, “Can we have breakfast now? Please?”
Adam sighed as he nodded, causing Lance to shout and run off to the kitchen and wait for Adam to join him so they could make something together.
Today was going to be a long day.
He shouldn’t have checked those emails.
(A couple of months before Lance returns from space.)
(But–look around, look around, the
revolution's happening in New York (New York)
Angelica! Work!
It's bad enough daddy wants to go to war.
People shouting in the square.
It's bad enough there'll be violence on our shore.
New ideas in the air.
Look around, look around!
When the Galra come to Earth, when they finally arrive at their doorstep, Adam is in his uniform and he is ready to lead. He hated the idea that he was leading people who had just left their teens into this battle, but all he could think when this line of thought came into mind in the middle of the night, was the fact that Lance was out there, Lance and Keith and Katie and Hunk and even Shiro (Shiro!) were out there fighting the big guns, all by themselves.
When he thought about the ships that he helped to design and the plans that he helped put into place, alongside the help of Commander Iverson and Professor Holt and many, many another personal from the Garrison, he thought about what everyone else was up to. They only got one load of messages from them, one general one that everyone was allowed to see, the one that looked like a promotional video, like propaganda for the rest of the universe to see and hope again.
There was one that only the higher-ups were allowed to look at. The higher ups and Adam, because Adam seemed to be the only person who had a close enough connection to each person on Voltron to be able to confirm that it was them. It was a whole group with them, with the missing trio and Keith in the background (it was a surprise to the rest of the Garrison that Keith was there but it did not surprise Adam in the slightest, not when Shiro was sitting next to him, even if there was some distance between them that he didn’t recognize, but Keith had gone missing and then so did Lance and those two were somehow inseparable) sitting next to Shiro, Shiro with a haircut that Adam didn’t like and a missing arm and a scar on his nose that made him look hot and a look in his eyes that scared him so much. There was also Matt there, smiling and waving, seemingly having grown taller and hair longer during his time of capture.
There had been some people that he didn’t recognize. Aliens. A woman with long white hair and pink markings underneath her multicolored eyes. A gentleman stood just behind her, orange hair and the same markings underneath his eyes but blue. There were some really big ones, the blade they were introduced later on in the video, big and purple and furry and wearing the same uniform as Keith. (Was Keith like them to? It wouldn’t surprise him.) They’re the same race as the aliens that they would be fighting, Galran.
The video explained what had happened, what Lance and his group had found in the desert, what it all led to. What the war was about, what they should prepare for.
All Adam could think about during the video was that they shouldn’t have to be the ones to do it. Not Shiro, who already went through so much before leaving Earth, and didn’t deserve the things that Adam put him through and the rest of the world put him through. Not those kids, who didn’t come to the Garrison to fight a war but to discover and learn and grow (and find their family, whoever they may be). Not his Lance, not the Lance who woke Adam up specifically because he made the best pancakes, who sung the best in the family, who cried when Adam ran away and who chased after Adam and followed him and his dreams to find his brother.
There were other things that Professor Holt brought back with him, other videos, each made by one of the ‘Paladins’ as they’re named in space, aimed for their families.
Adam gets three, much to everyone’s confusion. They were expecting that he got one, he guessed, from Shiro, and he does get one from Shiro, a Shiro who understands where Adam came from in the argument now, and Shiro who hoped that Adam understood where Shiro came from. It was a Shiro who stood by what he said, stood by his past actions, who was brave enough to say he was wrong but not sorry, who was brave enough to say he still loved him but he wasn’t sure if it would work in the same way that it did back then.
Adam found that, after all these years and after everything that had happened, he was willing to try again.
He gets one from Lance, which surprises the higher-ups, who notice that the Red Paladin made two videos, one for his mother and sister and one for Adam (not his brother, but Adam Sanchez, written in a neat script on the disk). The higher ups ask for their relationship. Adam said that they grew up in the same neighborhood. They nodded and went on their way.
It doesn’t surprise him that that gets one from Lance, but it does surprise him in what he had to say. Because, apart from the usual thing about their family and the rambling about the adventures that Adam had prepared himself for, Adam also got a list of important information about the people at the Garrison, as well as how the Galra acted and their strategies, ones that people overlooked during the meeting about what to tell the Garrison. Lance told Adam the people who he could trust, the students who were good at what they could do and which ones were more useless than the junk of leftover metal hidden in every engineering lab.
It was very helpful when Iverson asked him to put together the team.
What surprised him the most was when Keith sent him one, too.
On deeper thought, it wasn’t like Keith had anything to send back home anyway. He didn’t have any birth family here, nor was Shiro here to send anything, since Shiro was the only reason he stayed at the Garrison as long as he did, as well as the reason as to why he left.
Adam wasn’t ready to see Keith being emotional. Even on his rewatches he can't help but feel slightly overwhelmed at the amount of emotion that Keith was able to put through, how he felt over it. It took a couple of time to realize that the tape wasn’t actually meant for him specifically, but much rather the idea of venting in the first place. It wasn’t until he decided to leave the recording on after it, after the screen when black, that he heard the conversation that was still being recorded.
“That was so stupid Lance! What was the point of that at all?!”
“Well, Allura said that everyone should send a recording back to Earth, and it’s a good way to de-stress.”
“Who am I supposed to send it back to Lance? I don’t have a family back on Earth, and Shiro is out here with us!”
“C’mon Keith, I can think of one person on Earth who’s wondering what you’re doing right now.”
“Really? Who?”
“Adam.”
“Adam?”
“He tore himself apart when you up and left, trying to find you.”
“I… Don’t think it would be appropriate. He only cared about me because he was dating Shiro.”
“He cared about you a lot, probably as much as he cared about me, which is pretty impressive, since I’m his brother, and his favourite one to boot.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Should I retake it, if I’m sending it to Adam?”
“Do you want to?”
“Not really. Will he find what I said weird though? Maybe I should…”
“Nah, he’s used to my meltdowns, and you know what they’re like.”
The recording cut off there, but it was enough. Enough for Adam to stop what he was doing and sit back, thinking about what he had just heard, before going back to listen to it again, listening to the venerability to Keith’s voice, the softness of Lance’s.
When the Galra attacked them for the first time, Adam wondered how Lance and Keith were able to do it. Fight them to the death, so far away from home, fight so hard that moments, as he had heard in the recording, were hard to come by so when they came they fought to keep them.
When Iverson and the rest of the higher-ups told him to choose a team of select students who would become the Garrison’s alpha group, they gave him a list of files. Some were vets, some were seasoned pilots, some had graduated years ago and were still fighting to make a name for themselves. Adam didn’t feel the slightest big bad as he completely disregarded the files and looked at the list of people that Lance talked about, some of those who were still learning and some of those who just graduated. He looked at their performance, their grades, their records, their families, their friends within the facility.
When he gave Iverson five thin files of five students, all in their final year at the Garrison before they graduated, Iverson frowned heavily at the list.
“This would be highly unconventional. Why them?” Adam smirked.
“If Kogane and McClain were able to get along to the point that they fight in a war in alien warships, then getting these five students to fly alien ships that we’ve created will be one of the strongest things that the Garrison will ever be able to produce.”
Adam hated the fact that he picked adults that were still kids, but he knew that they hated being reminded of their age and lack of experience. Adam hated the fact that to make all of this work and to make sure Earth was safe, he had trained them to do what was almost the unthinkable in the mind of a normal civilian.
But Shiro had to do more on less. But Keith was going to break at the rate that he was going. But Lance was still out there, and if Lance, the person who wanted to spend all of his living time with his family, was still away from Earth fighting a war, then this was needed.
If they were still defending the universe, then Adam would sure do his best to make sure there was an Earth for them to get back to.
(You want a revolution? I want a revelation
So listen to my declaration
We hold these truths to be self-evident
that all men are created equal
Look around, Look around
At how lucky we are to be alive right now!)
(Four years after Adam realized how much of a gay idiot he was.)
It’s four o’clock in the afternoon and he can’t believe he was doing this.
Adam couldn’t believe that he was sitting in this fancy restaurant, he couldn’t believe that Shiro was smiling across from him with that cute smile, couldn’t believe that he was a date, with a guy, with someone that he could see himself living the rest of his life with, even though it was ridiculously too early to say that aloud.
“You’re still overthinking this,” Shiro scolded him, but lightly, as a joke. It broke the tension that Adam let himself build up, and he let out a shakily laugh at Shiro’s word. He couldn’t believe that he was doing this, that Shiro actually looked him the eyes and said that they were going on a date (they were dating!).
It was almost enough to take his mind.
“So… Let’s get to know each other, shall we?” Shiro asked, cocking his eyebrows and a smile on his face, and Adam let out a proper laugh this time. They’ve known each other for years, having been roommates at the garrison ever since they started and even been assigned as co-pilots for a year. Adam doubted that there was anyone in the world who knew him more than Shiro did.
“Oh, what did you want to know?” Adam asked with laughter still in his voice, his soul feeling ridiculously light and giving him the impression that there was the chance that he would go to Haven after all. There was a glint in Shiro’s eyes that told Adam to be wary of his next words
“Well, I was wondering what you were doing at school, and what plans you had for the future,” Shiro started before he started snorting with laughter, scrunching his face up in the cutest way that makes Adam want to have a nose bleed like in anime.
(He couldn’t believe that he was dating him now.)
“You’re hopeless,” Adam sighed, taking a sip of his rink, before smiling, “However, in the future, I hope to live three-bedroom house with a hot husband, three, maybe even four kids, and not have to worry,” he stated, though not elaborating on what he didn’t worry about.
They didn’t need to talk about that, not here anyway.
“Romantic,” Shiro commented, and there was a light blush on his cheeks, and Adam could picture other ways to make him look like that. “I want to go to space.”
There was a three-second pause before they started to giggle again, causing a middle-aged couple to glare at them before going back to their own, much quieter conversations.
Their food comes and then they start eating, throwing a comment on how nice the food was and talking about old memories of their time at the garrison, how Shiro had set fire to too many meals before Adam intervened and how many girls had a crush on Adam, the number always being much higher than he thought it was.
All too soon, the alarm on Adam’s phone goes off, and the atmosphere changes yet again, going from the light and airy to heavy and weary.
“It’s going to be okay,” Shiro comforted, placing his right hand on Adam’s left on the table, rubbing small circles on the back of his hands. “It’s only one more summer, and then you never have to see them ever again if you don’t want to.”
“I’m still worried though,” Adam muttered, his throat feeling particularly tight and his chest defiantly heavier than it was four seconds ago. “Because I’ll be leaving Lance there, and I told you that last time I saw him he was crushing on a boy at his school and what if Papa finds out and-”
“And you already said that Veronica’s going to be there for him, and he’s getting to the age that he knows what he’s allowed to say to some people isn’t the same to other people,” Shiro explained quietly, soothingly. “You’re allowed to be selfish Adam, you’re allowed to say ‘no’, even if it’s to people you do care about because you are important too. Got that?” Adam nodded his head, his eyes feeling suddenly sore.
“C’mon,” Shiro started, standing up from his chair, and helping Adam from his, “You have a plane to catch and I want lots of photos with you in them this year, not just ones of the stars and the seas, okay?”
Adam couldn’t believe this was happening, he couldn’t believe that he was dating this man, who was beautiful and funny and knew what to say when he needed it the most. Shiro was almost too good to be true.
“Okay.”
(Two years before his first date with Shiro)
They meet in the second week of Adam’s second year of attending the Garrison.
He remembered it was the second week of the school year for one reason, and one reason only.
“Adam Sanchez; please report to the principle’s office.”
It was the earliest in the year he had ever had to report to the office, and it had confused him at the time because he had been certain that no teacher had discovered the stash of ‘illegal foods’ (because junk food was really that bad in their eyes) that was hidden at the bottom of his suitcase, carefully packed with Lance’s help.
So he quietly moved from his seat, gaining only a nod from his professor as he left the room, and each step closer to the office meant another dose of anxiety added to the growing pile deep in his stomach. He hated the fact that it didn’t take long to get to his destination, but he knocked on the door nonetheless, the sound of knuckles on wood echoing down the empty corridor.
“Come in!”
Adam swallowed deeply as he opened the door slowly, making sure it was only wide enough for him to poke his head around to see who was in the office. Instead of seeing just one, or maybe a couple, of professors, he was confused to see the principle and a student, dressed in the same horrible shade of orange as he was. He fully opened the door in slight confusion when the student turned around to meet him in the eye.
(Then you look back at me and suddenly I'm
Helpless!
Look into your eyes, (Oh, look at those eyes, )
And the sky's the limit (Oh!)
I'm helpless, (I know)
Down for the count
And I'm drownin' in ‘em.)
“Ah Sanchez, this is Takashi Shirogane. He’s transferring here. He’s going to be shadowing your timetable until his gets settled in, why don’t you show him around” the principal said in a way that was an order and not a question as Shiro stood up, and Adam felt his mouth go dry, because he thought that no one would be able to pull off the uniform in the way that Takashi was seemingly able to do.
It seemed like today was the day that Adam was blessed by angels or devils.
(How disgusting. Look at you. You’re going to be going to go to Hell for these thoughts.)
The new student followed him out of the door, and there was a slightly awkward silence that followed the pair until Adam managed to walk past something that he was able to point out, and then the new kid was able to ask a question about the timetable, about the building’s layout, about what teachers to go to when he’s got problems and what teachers to avoid in general, and it wasn’t long for Adam to calm his anxiety and enjoy what was happening at the moment, something that he realized he didn’t do nearly enough.
(Maybe Hell will be worth it if he can make him feel like this?)
“One more thing,” Adam turned around to look at him, smiling when his eyes met his, “I’m really sorry, but I didn’t catch your name,” Adam smiled.
“Oh, sorry, I’m Adam Sanchez.”
“Well, I’m Shirogane Takashi, but please just call me Shiro!”
They shook hands with smiles painted on their faces, and they knew that this would just be the start.
(My life is gon' be fine cuz Eliza's in it.
I look into your eyes, and the sky's the limit I'm (Helpless!)
Down for the count
and I'm drownin' in ‘em)
(Four years since Adam ran away from home)
It’s only six o’clock in the morning when Adam was suddenly awoken by Shiro’s horrible, terrible, not good at all ringtone.
Of course, Shiro sleeps through it, because of course, he does. Adam sat up to wake Shiro up, but when he looked over at his face, he couldn’t bring himself to, not when he looked so peaceful and cute.
The things he did for him.
Reaching over, Adam took the phone from Shiro’s stand, and answered it, hoping that he doesn’t sound too tired, frowning at the name that popped up on the screen.
Keith? Who the hell was Keith?
“Hello?”
“You’re not Shiro.”
The person on the other side sounded young, really young, and it was then that Adam realized who it was. Keith Akira Kogane: that young kid that Shiro was supposed to be mentoring. Shiro was always going on about how cool the kid was, how talented he was, how he was going to be able to get into the Garrison on a scholarship for sure. Adam never actually met the kid, he was always busy when Shiro went to meet up with him.
“You would be correct. I’m Adam, his boyfriend.” Adam replied, and his heart skipped when he called himself Shiro’s boyfriend because even after four years of dating, he could never get over the fact that he was dating Shiro, never get over the fact that Shiro was his boyfriend, and that Adam was Shiro’s boyfriend.
“Oh. Is Shiro there?”
“Yeah, but he’s asleep, and unfortunately, he’s too cute to wake up,” Adam sighed down the phone, “Can I take a message?”
“He said that I can call at any time.”
Adam frowned at the words, before getting out of the bed (the floor was cold, ugh), leaving Shiro to his peace and quiet. Lucky bastard. “I’m sure he did,” Adam muttered before going into the kitchen, setting up the coffee machine. He wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep now. “So, what’s up?” he asked as he got his mug ready.
“I don’t.. I’ll call back later. It isn’t important.”
Adam sighed again. Kids were awful.
“It must be important enough to call at 6 o’clock in the morning,” Adam said offhandedly, filling up his cup with coffee. “Look, I can’t say that my advice will be the same, or even as good as Shiro’s, but let’s make this phone call worth it, yeah?” There was silence down the phone again, before the kid started to speak again.
“My foster dad said last night that I would go to hell for being gay. That’s not right, is it?”
Adam almost dropped his mug onto the floor at the words, and he did put it back on the counter. He was quiet for a moment, two moments, before replying.
“No, it’s not. Being gay isn’t a sin, and it is not a crime, not in this country at least and you’re too young to be going to any other country on your own,” Adam replied. “You shouldn’t retaliate to their words though, don’t let them know that their words have affected you. That includes things like punching them. Violence doesn’t solve anything.”
Because he's listening to Shiro go on and on and on about this kid, how good this kid was when it came to physics and mechanics, how instinctive his driving was (and boy did he get a grilling out of that from Adam). But he also talked about the first time they met (Adam would never let it go that Shiro had his car stolen from him by a kid of all people), and he talked about how he was between homes, how violent he could get when someone pushed him.
He knew everything about this kid, even if the kid didn’t know it.
“That’s horrible advice.”
“It’s better than Shiro’s,” Adam pointed out, “‘Patience yields focus’. Focus doesn’t solve anything if you do nothing about the problem.” The boy on the other end of the phone hummed, before hanging up on him, not even saying goodbye, causing Adam to sigh. If he had done that to his family, well, he’ll never know.
“Who was that?” Adam turned around to smile at Shiro, putting Shiro’s phone on the counter and picking up his coffee.
“Keith.” he sighed, “He’s quite the character, isn’t he?” Shiro frowned but nodded nonetheless.
“What did he want?” Shiro asked, picking up his phone, scrolling through his notifications, before putting it back where Adam put it.
“Some advice. Apparently, being told not to punch a homophobic foster parent is ‘bad advice’.” Adam replied, and Shiro nodded with a small smile on his phase, something that always happened when Keith came into the conversation, like a proud father.
(Adam hadn’t put much thought into the idea of having kids when he was older, only teaching and inspiring teenagers, as it was hard to do so when you’re gay. But, if children make Shiro look like that, well, maybe its something he should think about more.)
“Yeah, that sounds like him.” He replied, before smiling and putting his arms underneath Adam’s, hugging his midsection, putting his head on his shoulder, and Adam could feel the smile that he was emitting. “We’re up pretty early this morning… Come back to bed?”
“Of course,” Adam replied with a smile of his own, coy in his voice, and followed his boyfriend out of the room, leaving his coffee to cool and go cold on the kitchen counter.