Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I'm so sorry," Coran said solemnly.

Lance couldn't believe it. His older sister who had always been there for him was gone. He just nodded and shut the door. He slowly slid down the back of his front door, placed his head between his knees, and just cried. He was overcome with grief. He cried for hours on end not knowing what to do. That was the tough thing about being a paladin of Voltron. You aren't allowed to have time to grieve. You were just supposed to shut it off. 

Since this was one of the rare times that the ship was getting repairs done, they were just floating in space and Lance didn't have anything to do to distract him from his grief. 

Lance cried for hours on end before the tears stopped coming. He slowly stood up from where he was sitting and made his way to his bed. He just fell onto his side with his arm dangling off his bed when his hand touched something soft. When he brought it into his view he realized that this was Veronica's stuffed manta ray. Mantas rays were her favorite. When Lance remembered how Veronica had given the stuffie to Lance before he left for the Garrison made him start crying all over again. 

Lance must've fallen asleep because he awoke to the sound of knocking on his door and the feeling of tears staining his face. 

"Lance? Are you ok? Hunk made some meal that's pretty good if you want to come to join us." A muffled voice said. 

Lance sniffled. "N-no I'm good, I'll just stay here if that's ok." He was struggling to keep his voice from breaking. Lance couldn't tell who was at the door but he was hoping that it wasn't one of his fellow paladins who would see him as weak for crying. 

"I'm gonna come in, is that ok? You don't sound too good and I just wanna make sure everything is ok-" The person said. Lance still couldn't tell who it was but based on the way that it was said he assumed it was Shiro. 

"Y-You don't have to do that it's ok, I'm alright" Lance stammered. He did not want Shiro to see him like this. 

However, it was too late. They had already opened the door. "Holy shi- Lance what happened?" The person who could now be identified as Keith asked. 

Lance just pulled the blankets over his head and started crying all over again. Keith, confused as to what was going on but not wanting to leave his friend's side just sat down hoping to give him comfort. After a few minutes of Keith just sitting next to Lance, Lance sat up wrapped up in blankets. He tried to explain what happened but he couldn't talk without breaking into sobs so he waited for himself to stop crying. Once he was at a point where his voice wasn't breaking anymore he started to explain what happened

"When I woke up Coran told me that he got the news that my older sister who was battling cancer lost her fight, and since then I can't stop thinking about the fact that I wasn't there for her in her last moments. She meant so much to me and now she's gone. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I didn't even say bye to her. The last words I said to her before leaving for the Garrison were 'I guess I'll see you later loser' while sticking my tongue out at her." He held the manta ray close to his stomach now. "The only thing of hers I have is this stuffie that she gave me before I left. It's even worse knowing that I'm going to miss her funeral and can't pay my respects and apologize for not being there. I just hope she wasn't in any pain. She was so sweet, truly one of the greatest people I've ever met, and I've met a lot of great people.". Lance finished. 

Lance was suddenly overcome with tears again. He turned to Keith and just started crying into his shoulder. As shocked as Keith was, he just moved closer to Lance to give him more support. Keith just rubbed his hand on Lance's back to try and bring comfort to Lance, but to no avail. Since Keith never really had a family, he was never exposed to the feeling of grief. He wasn't sure what to do with the fact that his formerly enemy-turned-friend was sobbing into his shoulder. He wanted to say something to try and help Lance but was afraid he would mess it all up again. All he could think about was the time his father passed away.

"When I was around 11, my dad passed away while firefighting. He was the only family that I ever had, and when I learned he had died, I didn't know how to cope with it. I sorta just shoved it down and that's when I started acting out at the Garrison. It was the only way to let it out y'know?" Keith said trying to empathize with his fellow paladin.

Lance nodded. He slowly sat up and moved closer to Keith. 

"Thanks for coming to check on me, it means a lot," Lance said quietly.

Not knowing what else to say or do, Keith just pulled Lance into a hug and wrapped his arm tightly around the trembling boy. Lance was taken aback for a moment before returning the hug. They sat there for a few minutes but were interrupted by Shiro who was concerned that something had happened to Keith as well. Shiro first poked his head in and saw that the pair had embraced each other ducked his head out, and proceeded to drop a spoon. 

As soon as Keith and Lance had heard the spoon drop they quickly separated from each other and sat in each other silence before Lance posed a question. "It's okay if we don't talk about what happened tonight right? Like we can still go to each other if one of us wants to talk about something but we don't need to bring this up around the others?".

"That's exactly what I had in mind," Keith replied. "Consider it a bonding moment." With that Keith slowly stood up and walked out of Lance's room. 

Chapter Text

"KEITH GET YOUR SHIT OFF MY BED!" Lance yelled.

"What? It needed a bit of decorating." Keith sneered dropping another one of his gloves onto Lance's bed.

Pidge and Hunk looked at each other with dread realizing what was about to happen.

"I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DROP-" Lance was cut off by his counselor.

"Woah guys is everything okay?" Shiro, the counselor of Purple Cabin poked his head into the doorway.

"KEITH KEEPS DROPPING HIS SHIT ONTO MY BED" Lance screamed furiously.

"Okay. First of all, language. Second of all, Keith please stop causing drama we go home tomorrow. Please try to have one day without the constant bickering." Shiro sighed and closed his eyes while ducking back out of the doorway.

Almost as if as planned, the four sighed in sync. Pidge and Hunk returned to packing while Lance was throwing all of the articles of clothing that Keith had dropped onto his bed at his face. Keith just laughed while putting them back into his duffel bag.

---

It was the last campfire of the camp and neither Keith nor Lance wanted to deal with all the sappiness that would go with it.

"Hey have either of you seen Keith?" Hunk asked worriedly, "Im starting to think he got lost in the woods, or maybe he choked on a piece of pasta from tonight-".

"Hunk I'm sure he's fine," Pidge said reassuringly. "If you're that worried send Lance out to look for him. I'm sure he doesn't wanna be here anyway, and Lance knows Keith the best.".

"Lance would you? I just wanna know he's okay." Hunk said with a tone of concern in his voice.

"Sure," grumbled Lance. "I'll see you guys back at the cabin.".

As much as Lance hated Keith, he had to admit that he knew him pretty well. Where he goes when he doesn't want to be found, the way he smirks whenever he knows he's getting to Lance, the way his hair curls around his ears, the way his eyes gleam when the sun hits them- fuck. He knows he shouldn't think like that but it's just so hard not to.

Lance slowly approached the treehouse that Keith was known to go to when he didn't wanna be where the group was supposed to be. He had never actually been inside it, just seen it a few times before.

"I don't know if you're up there Mullet, but Hunk and Pidge wanted me to go look for you so I'm here now.". Lance announced his presence. With no response, Lance figured he'd climb up there and take a peak around because Mullet Boy was probably ignoring him. Lance started to climb up the ladder when he heard a sigh from above.

"Ha, so you are up there." He said directed at Keith. 

Once Lance reached the top, his jaw dropped. As dingy as the place looked from the outside, it reflected none of the insides whatsoever. It was surprisingly really nice. With sage green beanbags, shelves that lined the walls with books, and even a cot. Lance could see why Keith liked to spend his time here.

"Did you come up here to talk to me or are you just gonna look around?" Keith said with a hint of bitterness in his voice.

"Oh, yeah Hunk, Pidge, and I all went to the campfire, and when you didn't show Hunk got worried that you either choked on a piece of pasta from tonight or got lost in the woods." Lance didn't know why he was rambling so much but he knew nothing bad could happen because camp ends tomorrow. 

Lance continued, "And Pidge was like, 'Yeah Lance you should go look for him you don't wanna be here and you know him the best. So then I started walking over,".

Keith was starting to get nervous, why was this guy talking so much?

 "And I was thinking about what Pidge said, I mean yeah I guess spending 6 weeks straight with a guy will end up in you knowing each other pretty well. But then I wondered, 'Do I know him the best, or is that just me noticing certain things that other people don't?'. I'm sorry, I know I'm rambling for some reason I just feel like telling you everything that's on my mind right now.". Lance knew he was rambling but for some reason, he couldn't stop talking.

Keith was nervous but Lance was still talking.

"Anyways, I started thinking about the fact that we spent the entire summer arguing, and how if we didn't we could've been really good friends. Why were we even arguing in the first place? I've had a crush on you since the first day on camp so I don't know why I wanted to hate you." Lance noticed Keith's jaw drop but continued. "I kinda regret arguing all the time, I mean it-" Keith cut him off.

"Hold on, let me get this straight, YOU MEAN TO TELL ME, THAT YOU HAVE HAD A CRUSH ON ME SINCE THE FIRST DAY OF CAMP? AND YOU ARE JUST NOW TELLING ME THIS AFTER 6 WEEKS? AND ON THE LAST DAY OF CAMP NO LESS?" Keith was practically screaming. "Lance. I have been in love with you since I first saw you. So when I found out you were in the same cabin I was in, I was so excited. I just didn't know how to talk to you without freaking out so I just stuck to insults. So when you returned the insults, I automatically assumed that you didn't like me. Ugh, I wish I found out you liked me earlier so we could've been better friends than just arguing all the time."

Once Keith had finished his speech, Lance remembered why he was here in the first place.

"Oh uh, the entire reason I was supposed to look for you was to bring you to the cabin," Lance said awkwardly. "We should probably go before it gets too late and they send a search party for us haha." With that, Lance quickly climbed down the ladder and walked to the cabin. He hadn't meant for that to go the way it did. It was supposed to be a nice simple 'Hey Keith we gotta go to the back to the cabin' and then leave. Lance had messed it up so badly. He was just glad that camp ended tomorrow. 

---

Pidge and Hunk were already at the cabin and scared half to death when Lance opened the door. 

"GAHHH!" Hunk screamed.

"Relax, it's just me and mullet." Said Lance with not nearly as much energy as always.

"Something wrong? You seem way off." Pidge asked concerned. 

"Just tired." Lance faked a yawn hoping it would throw Hunk and Pidge off his scent.

Keith opened the door to the cabin and the room fell silent.

"Oh hey, Keith! We were just saying Lance looks tired, doesn't he look tired?" Hunk was trying to fill the silence.

"I guess he does, his eyes aren't full of energy like they usually are." replied Keith.

With that, Lance just faceplanted into his bed. He started to think about why he was being so awkward around Keith. It wasn't as if Keith didn't feel the same way, Keith had told Lance that the feeling was mutual, Lance for some reason just decided no matter what Keith said, Keith would never like Lance. 

It was at that moment that Lance realized he had to finish packing up. He stood up and walked to the closet where all of their clothes were stored when he realized that Pidge and Hunk had left the cabin and it was only Keith and Lance in the cabin.

"Hey," Keith sat on top of his bed. "Are you acting weird because of what we talked about earlier?" 

"I don't know. I just don't know what else to do because I never thought it was possible that you liked me. I just- I don't know.". Lance opened the door to the closet and started to take all of his clothes off their hangers. 

Lance glanced at the clock on the wall. "Twelve hours ago we were both screaming at each other, just because that's what Keith and Lance do. Now, we're barely talking to each other. I'm in love with you, I've been in love with you, and I'll still be in love with you tomorrow. I'm sorry I said this on the last day of camp. I know how hard I've made everything.". Lance had gathered all his belongings from the closet and walked over to his duffel bag folding them to create maximum space. 

At this point, Keith was crying. "Lance it doesn't just end tomorrow. I've never met someone who gave me butterflies. Yes, I am 17 and I have had crushes. But I've never felt the same about any of them the way I feel about you. I am in love with you. I don't want it to end tomorrow."

Lance continued to pack. "I just don't know what to do. We're in the middle of buttfuck nowhere and I'm going back to Burkett, Texas-"

"Shut the fuck up. No way" Keith interrupted

"Why what's wrong?" Lance asked thinking Keith was mad at him.

"I live in Coleman Texas." Keith still couldn't believe how lucky he was.

"Yeah, but Texas is Texas. That could be on the other side of the fucking state." Lance was skeptical

"It's a 20-minute drive dumbass" Keith retorted.

"HOLY SHIT. I COULD SEE YOU AGAIN." Lance shouted with excitement.

In all of the excitement, Keith jumped down from his bunk to celebrate with Lance. Lance went in for a hug while Keith just stood there not knowing how to react.

"I can't believe that I live 20 minutes from you. Sorry, I'm just so happy that I get to go home tomorrow knowing that I'm going to be able to see you again!" Lance said while buried against Keith's shoulder.

Lance rambled on for a few minutes before he realized. "Wait. Where are Pidge and Hunk? I need to get their phone numbers so I can stay in touch with them too." 

"They went to the mess hall. Wanted to see if there was anything for them to take as a souvenir." Keith answered. That was a lie. Keith had just told them to get out and away from the cabin for about 30 minutes. They should be back any minute now.

A minute after Lance had questioned their whereabouts The pair had walked through the door to the cabin. Pidge strolled through the door first with a smug look on her face. Hunk followed through the door trembling behind Pidge with his head lowered.

"PIDGE!! WHAT DID YOU DO TO HUNK?" Lance screamed after looking at the cowering figure that was Hunk.

"Hunk?  Him? Oh, we just went for a walk in the woods," Pidge said slyly.

"It was not just a walk in the woods." Hunk said weakly.

"Anyways I'm going to bed, G'night guys see you in the morning." Pidge scrambled up onto her bunk and fell asleep.

"I think I'll go to bed too," Hunk said weakly as he plopped onto his bed.

Keith and Lance just looked at each other before Keith climbed up to his bunk and Lance laid down on his bed as the night faded away.

---

Shiro was knocking on the cabin door aggressively, "WAKE UP IT'S 8:30 YOU HAVE TO LEAVE IN AN HOUR!"

The entire cabin groaned. 

"DON'T MAKE ME COME IN THERE AND DRAG YOU ALL OUT OF BED." 

They all quickly got up. "We're going, we're going..." Pidge grumbled.

---

30 minutes later the group had all their bags, all their belongings, all packed together and piled together in a corner within the mess hall. 

"I can't believe this is the last time we'll ever be eating breakfast together. No more watery eggs every morning. What a shame." Hunk said bitterly.

Lance and Pidged snickered while Keith stayed silent. 

"What you don't like how these dogshit eggs taste?" Lance retorted.

"No. They taste like watered-down napkins. Ugh, they're disgusting." Hunk shuddered.

Once breakfast was over they all said their goodbyes and parted ways. Lance exchanged numbers with Pidge and Hunk, gave them both a hug, and then watched them leave. He then turned to Keith, hugged him, and whispered something in his ear that made Keith go red, grabbed his bags then left. 

Keith couldn't wait to see Lance again.

Chapter Text

On a rare occasion when it was a slow day at the castle, Lance decided to take Red out for a little ride. 

“Hey Coran? I’m gonna take Red out for a little ride. That sound ok?” The blue paladin said, knowing that he would go out regardless.

“Sounds good, just make sure to have your radio on in case the castle falls under attack” Responded the altean man. 

Lance nodded, not caring if Coran noticed or not. Lance walked to the hangar slowly, wearing his usual clothes, but bringing the armor with him just in case.

---

Once Lance had reached the hangar, he thought of Keith. Seeing Red always reminded him of the former red paladin. Lance hadn’t heard from Keith in a couple of weeks and was missing him a little extra today. He couldn’t decide if he missed Keith as a friend, someone to squabble with, as something more, or if he missed Keith at all. Lance drew a large breath as he sat in Red’s chair.

“Ready?” Lance knew it was silly, but he always talked to the lions whenever he was in one. For him, saying things aloud was better than keeping it in the “thought bubble” as Shiro called it. Sometimes it took a little bit of Lance sitting in Red’s chair before she started, but that was not the case today. As soon as Lance sat down Red roared to life and started to go.

“WOOOOOO” Lance screamed, even though he had gone through this motion a million times, it would never get old. Lance loved the feeling of taking off in one of the lions, and with Red being faster than Blue, it brought all the more thrill. 

“Where to today? Hmm, oh right! I have nowhere to be, and I can fly as fast as I can where I please!” The boy exclaimed, the freedom of being able to go anywhere in the lions was incomparable to any other feeling Lance had ever felt before, the butterflies in his stomach were unparalleled.

As Lance was cruising through space, he had a vision of alligators. The vision was very random considering the fact that Lance was terrified of alligators and had never come face-to-face with one before. To shake the horrific things he had just seen, Lance thought of something else. 

“You know Allura, Alfor's daughter. The guy that was the OG red paladin?” Lance was talking to nobody again. “She’s cool. I like her a lot. I used to have this huge crush on her, and occasionally I still feel like I do, but she’s got this thing going on with Lotor, and I probably wouldn’t be good enough for her anyway, not that I care. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not like I would have time for a relationship anyway. I’m too busy saving the universe these days. Heck, I think this is the first time you and I have gone out just by ourselves huh?” It was true. The entire time that Keith had been gone and Lance had taken over Red, the crew had not had a single day off. 

The pair had been out flying for a while when suddenly the red lion stopped. 

Lance, perplexed, asked “Uh Red? What’s going on?”

The lion roared, and without Lance’s command, took off in a direction that was not where they had been going, or back toward the castle.

“WOAH WHAT'S GOING ON WHERE ARE YOU GOING” Lance was screaming in fear at this point. He tried grabbing hold of the controls, but could not steer the lion from its path. Lance had turned around, facing the back of the chair, hugging himself, preparing for the worst.

This is probably just Coran. He thought to himself. Just showing me why I should bring my armor, shit I should put that on. It was in desperate times that Lance kept his thoughts inside the thought bubble. Lance quickly put on his paladin armor, which was still blue even after taking over the red lion.

“RED WHAT IS GOING ON WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME” Lance yelled. He knew that Red was unpredictable, but didn’t know that she could take off like this randomly. Lance made a mental note to ask Keith if Red had ever done this while he was still the red paladin when the two saw each other again. Lance also noticed that Red was going faster than ever, and made the assumption that something was going on and he had missed it.

“Did I miss something over the radio?” Lance said, panic lining his voice. He could only hope that everyone was ok.

After about 3 doboshes of the high-speed flying, Red had slowed to her normal speed and Lance could finally take in what was happening.

“Oh. My. Quiznack.” He said with his mouth hanging open.

Lance recognized it immediately. It was the galra base that Keith had gone to on one of the Blade of Marmora missions. 

Then it clicked. His heart sank. Lance remembered that if Keith were ever in a dangerous situation without help, Red would get to wherever Keith was and rescue him.  

“Keith’s in danger. I’m going in.” Lance said with a determined look on his face, understanding what the lion wanted him to do.

The planet that the base was on was beautiful. It was full of luscious green grass, trees that were growing full with plenty of leaves vines, and flowers, and little ponds everywhere filled to the brim with lily pads and fallen tree flowers

The paladin, wearing the blue armor but wielding the red bayard cautiously approached the base, searching for an entrance. It was eerie. The base was in perfect condition, and from what Lance could hear there wasn’t any fighting, which worried Lance even more. The possibilities of what happened to Keith were endless. 

After about 10 doboshes of searching for an entrance, Lance found a door propped open by the arm of a fallen galran droid. 

Ok. Lance also kept his thoughts in his brain when he was on a mission. This is more like it. As terrible as it sounded, this gave Lance an inkling of what could be going on.

While continuing to prop the door open with a rock, Lance picked up the arm and chucked it down the long hallway and quickly ducked along the backside of the pillars on the wall getting out of view of anything that came into the main corridor and waited for the sounds of anything.

Within seconds footsteps were coming down the hallway perpendicular to the main corridor. Lance took a deep breath and waited as the sounds of the footsteps got closer and closer. In one fluid motion, he spun out into the hallway, transformed, and aimed his bayard.

“KEITH?!” Lance was glad he hadn’t adopted the other boys' ‘kill now think later’ mindset. “What are you doing? I could've killed you!”

“That doesn’t matter right now Lance,” The other boy said bitterly. “You are in danger, you have to leave right now. I don’t know why you came here or how you got here but you need to leave.”

“A- I got here by flying in the RED LION THAT HAPPENS TO HAVE A CONNECTION WITH YOU and B- I think you’re in trouble. So let me help you. It could be like a damsel in distress type of thing.” Lance was not leaving without making sure Keith was safe. He cared way too much about the former paladin to leave him when he was in danger.

“No Lance, you don’t get it you need-“ Keith started.

“No. Don’t tell me that” Lance was not letting Keith push him away. “Red brought me here for a reason. I need to make sure that you are safe. For Red, not me, because I don’t care.” Lance cared. “So fill me in on what the plan is and then we can go our separate ways.” Lance saw Keith take a deep breath. He knew that Keith probably wasn’t going to tell him anything but figured it was worth a shot.

“I’m not even doing anything that dangerous,” Keith said with an almost puzzled look on his face. It was true, Keith had been in a lot more perilous situations than this. “But whatever, I’m just doing a checkup on this old base. The Galra had used it a lot in the past, for what I don’t know, but Kolivan sent me here just to see if there was any activity.”

Lance was perplexed. “Then why did Red whisk me halfway across the galaxy? It doesn’t make sense. There has to be something bigger happening that we just aren’t seeing.”

“I think I would know if there was something here. I’ve only been here 3 quintants.” Keith responded. 

“Yikes. But at least you have someone to talk to now!” Lance smiled cheekily while Keith rolled his eyes. “Wait. Why have you been here for 3 days? Does that mean you haven’t eaten or drank anything in those 3 days? Ay mijó, let me take you back to the castle. No puedo creer que hayas estado aquí tanto tiempo sin nada.” Lance had shifted into what his family had called his “overprotective Cuban mom mode” and was not planning on leaving without Keith and making sure he was taken care of. 

“A- I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying, B- I can’t leave, what if Kolivan gets mad?”

“Yeah well, I will deal with Kolivan. My main priority now is making sure that you’re taken care of, so whether you like it or not I’m going to be leaving here with you.” 

“Yeah, that’s not going to be happening. Goodbye, Lance.” Keith huffed and started, walking back into the base. 

“I thought you would say that 3… 2… 1…” Lance counted down with a mischievous grin on his face.

At the end of Lances' countdown, Keith tripped over a stray stick, fell, and as he was falling a net made of the vines from the trees with rocks on the end fell covering the boy. Normally Keith would’ve escaped easily, but was too fatigued to do so. Lance quickly grabbed Keith, threw the boy over his shoulder, and started to head toward where the red lion was.

“That was surprisingly easy, when that played out in my head you cut through the net and ran away from me.” Lance chuckled. Lance was trying to keep their spirits high, but he was worried about Keith. He needed to get Keith back to the castle as soon as possible. 

It took about 5 minutes to get back to the red lion since he knew where he was going. Keith was still not a fan of being taken back to the castle. 

“Lance. I will be ok. Look around, I’m sure I could drink some of that water,” He said as he lifted his foot in the general direction of one of the ponds nearby. “And I’m 70% sure that I could eat one of those flowers.”

“You could not drink from that pond. It would be very unwise to do so. Because the water is sitting, and isn’t constantly moving, it could be full of parasites and bacteria. Now if that body of water was a stream-” Keith cut Lance off.

“Parasites and Bacteria? Ok Lance.” 

“Ok dropout. You should be lucky that I got here when I did, you could’ve gotten seriously sick if you tried drinking pond water.”

“Shut-up. If you’re going to take me back to the castle do so quietly please. Don’t make this worse than it already is” 

Lance smiled. He missed the back and forth banter between the two.

---

It took a lot of convincing for Lance to get Keith into the lion and sit while Lance flew. 

“The team is going to be so excited to see you. I didn’t even tell them that I was going out for a ride, I only told Coran. Imagine if Hunk is looking around going for me, but what he doesn’t know is that I’m going to come back with you! Imagine how happy everyone is going to be, they’re going to be like ‘oh wow Lance you’re so cool you brought Keith back to us.’ and I'm gonna be all like ‘yeah it was pretty badass, but Keith needs to rest and eat some food.’ I can't wait.” He was so excited to get back.

“Lance you know I can’t stay for long right? After I ‘eat, drink, and rest’,” Keith said that last bit with air quotes. “Once Kolivan finds out and gets mad at me for ditching my station, for which you will be taking the hit for, he’s going to want me back with the Blade on more missions.”

“Well yeah, that's kind of what I figured.” He said with less enthusiasm. Lance missed having Keith around, and was sure that the team missed him as well. “But you’ll come back soon, right?”

Keith scoffed. “Like you’d care.”

“Well obviously I don’t,” Lance cared. Lance cared a lot. “The team cares though.”

“Sure they do.” Keith said with an eyeroll.

It was silent for a good while, and Lance was starting to wonder if Keith had fallen asleep. He looked back, and sure enough Keith was asleep against the walls of the cockpit. 

“Soon enough we’ll be back and you can sleep on your bed.” Lance said with a soft smile on his face as the pair continued to the castle.