Chapter Text
Fight or flight. Keith had fought or fled his entire life. Asshole classmates, creepy old men at rural Texan gas stations, enemy soldiers on the field; fight. The children’s home, the first simulator, the Garrison quarantine tent with Shiro and three strangers on his bike; flight.
But facing off against his own face twisted up in gleeful ire, tendons flexing around the handle of the knife, Keith was paralyzed. Frozen like a deer on the highway, brain severed from his body as it raced through a million different plans and carried out none of them. He was always impulsive, always reckless. Shoot first and think later. The other Keith knew that, was expecting him to run or fight back, maybe even hoping for it. But he could barely move, all his energy gone, wiped out by the tidal wave of the answer. It wasn't him. It was never going to be him.
Lab Keith inched closer, Keith inched back. A sudden, loud step forward that made him flinch. The other Keith laughed again.
‘Stand down.’
Pidge stood in front of him, staring down the copy - the copy? Who was the copy anymore? - bayard drawn and glowing green. Keith hadn’t even seen her move, too busy locked on himself, but he looked around the room at his team.
Hunk clutched the gauge in one hand and his chest in the other. Lance was still on the couch, head in his hands. Shiro tensed, staring between the Keiths, at Pidge in the middle, and both Alteans were watching with fists clenched at their sides.
‘Out of the way, Pidge,’ the other Keith spat, ‘You’re a scientist, so trust the evidence. This was your test, your idea in the first place.’
‘A girl can change her mind,’ she said coldly, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, ‘You’re not killing him. Drop your weapon.’
‘Pidge, don’t provoke him,’ Keith grabbed at her sleeve, tried to pull her back, ‘He’s not messing around.’
‘That’s the first smart thing you’ve said,’ the other one’s eyes flicked briefly back to him, ‘Get out of the way. You know who wins this fight.’
‘Exactly,’ the girl said, ‘You’d beat the hell out of me. Which is why you won’t,’ she nodded behind the other Keith at the rest of their teammates, slowly dragging themselves out of shock and hovering around them, fingers itching for their bayards, ‘So I am going to stand here, and you are not going to hurt either of us.’
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he hissed, ‘But we can’t let a clone run around the ship just because you feel sorry for him. Do you know how much he could destroy? How much he might have destroyed already?’
‘You’re not kids,’ Lance spoke for the first time. He stood up slowly, brows furrowed and hands hanging loosely at his sides. His eyes, a little glassy, were fixed on the other Keith, ‘You said that, didn’t you? Neither of you are kids.’
The other Keith faltered, ‘So what?’ His knife lowered an inch and Pidge crept forward. Keith shuffled on the spot, unsure what to do with his feet. Lance snapped his head around to Hunk.
‘Test me.’
His friend blinked rapidly, mouth twitching as he tried to understand, ‘What?’
‘Keith was gone for about six months, but the clone can’t be older than a year because that’s when he first got hit in Galra territory. He’s nine months older than me, dead in the middle of the age difference. So test me.’
‘Lance, what are you doing?’ The other Keith forgot about killing him, crossed the room and reached up to caress Lance’s jaw with his empty hand, ‘You said you were on my side, that you were sure.’ Keith tried not to feel that one.
‘I said I’d try,’ he shot back, ‘To be sure, I need this.’
‘That’s stupid,’ the other Keith snarled, grabbing his face harder, ‘Everyone else, I knew this would happen, I knew they’d fall for it. But I thought you were different, smarter. I thought you wanted me.’
‘I want the real Keith, my Keith,’ he said, prying himself free, ‘Whoever the fuck that is.’
‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ the clone asked, reaching back out for him, ‘I’m your Keith. I’m the one that’s good to you. I’m the one that loves you. He can’t, he won’t, doesn’t even know how. He-’ the clone pointed the knife back in Keith’s direction, ‘Just knows that this, us, is the only thing in his way and he wants to destroy it so he can take my place. It’s right there in black and white, Lance; he’s younger, he’s the fake. Don’t let him take me from you, don’t let him kill me because he will. And then he’ll throw you away, or leave you, or sell you all out to the Galra like he was made for.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ Lance looked at him, throat bobbing as he swallowed. His voice came out hoarse, rang out through the lounge, ‘The clone grew up twice.’
Keith’s heart beat for the first time in hours. Pidge stiffened in front of him, ‘Wait…’
‘Whenever the Galra got his DNA,’ Lance carried on, shaking his head, eyes glittering with tears a second away from falling as the other Keith reached for him, grabbed at his shirt, ‘Keith was already an adult - stop. Growing a full person from a sample with nineteen years of damage, the clone should have double that. The gauge works fine,’ he said, turning towards Pidge, towards Keith still lingering behind her. Their eyes met and Keith felt something inside him shatter, ‘But the theory’s wrong. Test me and see who I match.’
‘Oh my god,’ Pidge muttered, ‘He’s right, shit, shit, you guys he’s right. The clone was made from an adult sample, he would be genetically forty. I missed it, I can’t believe I fucking missed it, they must have taken the full cell instead of enucleation - Hunk, do we have any spare kit?’
‘No,’ the other Keith snapped, drawing a second knife out of his belt. Keith kept that one under his mattress, ‘We did the test. You can’t just change it now, you’re making this up to keep him!’
Keith staggered on his feet, hardly able to speak, ‘Wait,’ he whispered, ‘So he’s older?’
‘Hey, don’t pass out on us,’ Pidge dropped her bayard and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. ‘I’ll explain it later. But you’re okay, Keith, you’re okay.’
‘This is bullshit,’ the clone hissed, changing his grip on the knives from forward to backhand, ‘You’ve lost your goddamn minds, you know it’s me, you’ve spent weeks with me. Why do you think he was avoiding you all? He knows what he is!’
‘Stand down,’ Shiro strode forward, ‘I won’t ask you twice. Hunk, get a sample from Lance.’ Hunk hurried behind him with a spare vial and a fresh needle. Lance took off his jacket, rolled up the sleeve of his shirt.
‘Come on, Shiro,’ the clone was sweating, having to grasp and shift the handles more. Keith tried to push away from Pidge but tripped, and she held him firmly upright. ‘You’ve known me since I was a kid, you still know me.’ He watched Hunk approach, slotted himself between the yellow paladin and Lance, brandishing his weapons. ‘I said no.’
Shiro inched forward, ‘And I said to stand down. It’s over.’
Keith pulled free of Pidge, stumbled towards him. Lab Keith moved one hand to aim at him, keeping the other on Hunk, ‘You can fuck off too. Ruined everything, everything. Should have fucking died on that ship.’
A low hum filled the room, the space between the other Keith and Lance lit up blue as Lance pressed his bayard, in rifle form, into the small of the clone’s back. ‘Keith, it’s finished. Drop your weapons, please.’
The clone’s eyes went wide, then shut, and both knives clattered to the floor, one skidding away to land a few inches before Keith’s feet. Slowly, the clone raised his hands behind his head, and turned around towards Lance.
‘Do it,’ he hissed, ‘Look me in the face, this face, and shoot me. Then live with it, always wondering, always asking yourself what if. Because you will. We can still be happy, Lance, I could make you happy.’
‘You lied to me,’ Lance said, voice cracking over it. The barrel of the gun began to tremble against the clone’s chest, ‘All of it, all of it. You promised it was you. Lied to me the whole time. I tried, god, I tried so fucking hard for you.’
Behind them, Hunk set the kit back on the table, watching the other Keith like a cat waiting to pounce. Keith looked over the clone, at the pouch strapped to his thigh, at the odd bulging at his hip. Four knives in his bedroom.
‘Not all of it,’ the clone shook his head, ‘I loved you from the moment I opened my eyes. Every second of my life, I’ve loved you. He can’t say that, he can never say that. Why does it matter who was here first? He forgot about you. He left you.’
Four. Keith couldn’t take him unarmed right now. Neither of them really knew how the gauge worked, or that Pidge’s thesis was wrong. All his reluctance before the test, his laughter when it ended, giddy like relief. Like shock. The clone hadn't brought four knives just to kill him. He’d meant to fight his way out.
‘Lance,’ he cried, ‘Get back!’
Four things happened at once. Keith lunged to swipe the dagger off the floor. The clone ducked out of Lance’s aim, drew the third knife from his belt, let it fly. Hunk bodyslammed into the clone’s back and both Keiths went down.
His chest hurt. Something felt stuck, like drinking too fast and sucking water down your windpipe, but his muscles were rigid and he couldn’t cough it up. One person was screaming, another calling out his name. Someone was breathing too loud, too fast. Everything was blurry and he couldn’t tell who was doing what, if any of them were him.
Bright, it was so bright. Keith hated these stupid space lights, too cold and too white and clinical as the dentist. When he tried to close his eyes against them, the red of his skin was brighter.
When he breathed the stuck thing closed in, squeezing the flesh around it. Sheer impact gave way to pain as the severed nerves sent shockwaves through his body. Hands pressed down hard on his chest and he cried out. It was hot, it was so hot, all the heat of all the suns melted down and poured into him and he burned. The yelling got louder, words running like drops down a window, one into the next. Someone slapped him and his eyes shot open.
‘Stay awake,’ they bent down to hiss in his ear, ‘You hear me? Stay the fuck awake you stupid, stubborn idiot. Or I’ll kill you myself.’
‘He has one more,’ Keith tried to say. Something warm and wet came out instead. He frowned, tried again, but there was only more wet stuff. A face rose over his own, finally blocking the light until it framed his head like a beautiful crown, and Keith was happy.
‘We need to move-’
The last time he’d been stabbed, on his second mission with the Blade, it had hurt more. Maybe it was the last of the painkillers. Maybe it was the place in his body, snug and tight, cracking his sternum down the middle. Last time it had been in the gut and he was so scared that his stomach was ruptured, that all the acid would leak out and eat him bit by bit. Nobody came to meet him out of the medbay, he just crashed down in his cot and cried under the blanket. The clone scored a good hit. He could respect that, at least.
‘No, we need to keep pressure-’
Keith taught himself to throw knives when he was thirteen. It’s a pretty thirteen year old thing to learn. He’d never had the best aim, but if he was close enough he could land it. One time he’d talked about it in an adoption interview, telling the nice lady all about how he’d finally made the point stick between two slats of the backyard fence. The couple hadn’t asked for him again, and his social worker yelled at him for hours before banning him from the kitchen.
‘Ten thousand fucking years, sentient cat robots and psychic mice and holograms, but we don’t have a goddamn stretcher?’
It occurred to him, later than it should have, that he might be dying. All he could think about was the clone, whether he was dying too. If Keith was the only one who died, would the team let him stay? If he wasn’t, they’d go from two Keiths to none. That seemed drastic, but he’d left them with no Keiths before.
‘Someone help me cuff him-’
He was being lifted and the stuck thing burrowed deeper, a wriggling clump of maggots getting ready to feast. This time Keith was pretty sure he was the one screaming, but he couldn’t hear it over the roaring pulse in his ears. Whoever lifted him was running, each step moved the knife around in his chest, tore open another pit for the sun to flow into, boiling him away into nothing.
‘Where’s the cryo suit?’
‘We don’t have fucking time.’
More jostling. More pain. Shapes moving frantically around him when he managed to pry his eyes open. Too bright lights. A steady palm on his chest, and the knife was coming out, scraping against his raw flesh, cutting him open anew as he tried to jerk away. New hands of his head, smoothing back his hair, stroking his face. The heat wept away and the hole filled with ice, hissing his body into steam. Keith passed out.
He fell out of the pod and into something solid. Shiro’s hands came up to steady him by the shoulders, and Keith blinked his eyes open, jolting back as his memories dripped slowly in.
‘Easy, easy,’ Shiro murmured, ‘You’re alright, kiddo. Let’s sit down.’
Pidge was beside him, but nobody else was there. Keith was as glad as he was disappointed, scanning the room and seeing no sign of Lance, or Hunk, or either of the Alteans.
They walked over to a few chairs beside a table, Shiro hovering as Keith levered himself down, still reeling. All three of them were silent for a minute until Keith couldn’t take it anymore.
‘Thought you said no more pods.’
Despite himself, despite the unbearable heaviness of the air, Shiro chuckled, ‘Well, this was an exceptional case.’ The silence settled again, worse than before, ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, fingertips curling on the tabletop like they might dig into it. ‘I-’ He cleared his throat, ‘We… It should never have gotten to that point.’
Keith shook his head, staring blankly ahead of him, ‘Is it dead?’
Pidge answered this time, ‘No. Hunk managed to subdue him and we tried an interrogation, figure out who made him and why, but he wouldn’t talk. We’ve reached out to the Blade, Coran and Allura are talking to them now - because he had one of their uniforms, there’s clearly been a breach of their operations too - and they’ve asked permission to extract him and use their own techniques.’
He knew what those techniques were. Unless the Galra has tinkered with his pain tolerance, he didn’t rate the clone’s chances.
‘Fine,’ Keith said, ‘But if they decide to kill him, I call dibs.’ He pushed up from the table to his feet, then added as an afterthought, ‘Just make sure keep Agent Krolia away, if she’s back. Don’t let her see him.’
Shiro looked up at him, a little crease of puzzlement on his forehead, ‘Who’s Krolia?’
Keith swallowed, kept his eyes on the table, steadying himself, ‘She was my mission partner. And my mom.’ He sniffed an empty laugh, ‘Only reason I came back here in the first place, injured and not dead.’
‘Your mom?’
‘Keith-’
‘I’m tired,’ he said, ‘Can I just go to bed?’
‘You don’t want anything to eat first? Hunk’s in the kitchen, getting some dinner ready-’ Keith shook his head, and Pidge sighed, ‘Okay, okay. Bedtime it is.’
They walked without speaking to Keith’s room, his real room. He stopped at the door, filled with the paranoid fear that when it opened the clone would be standing inside, waiting for him, and this was all a sick joke. He kept his fears to himself as he typed in the access code and the door hissed open.
Somebody was inside, but it wasn’t the clone. Lance shot up, one of Keith’s pillows clutched tight in his hands. He dropped it like hot iron and stepped back.
‘Sorry,’ he said, hunching in on himself, ‘I thought that you’d, I dunno. They said you were gonna eat first.’
‘Wasn’t hungry,’ Keith replied, staring at him, the obvious question hanging unasked. Lance answered anyway.
‘I was just, um, changing the sheets. Not that they were dirty or anything,’ He twisted his face up, cringed, and stammed, ‘Jesus Christ- not like that, I just, I just meant that I didn’t… I didn’t think you’d want to sleep here when he’d been sleeping here, you know. So I changed them, so it’s fresh. There’s new towels in the bathroom too, if you want a shower. Clean. Same with your clothes.’
Keith hadn’t even considered that, but now that he did, he was grateful. Like they could just wash it all away. The castle replicated enough copies of his Earth clothes before he left so he’d still been wearing them, but it would be nice to have the originals back. No traces of the clone's skin in his room, no smell of him. He’d never gotten close enough to see if they smelled the same. Both options were bad. ‘Thanks.’
Lance nodded and slipped past Pidge without another word. ‘Okay,’ Shiro turned to him, ‘You get yourself clean, take a nap. Head down to the kitchen when you wake up and we can sort some food. I’ll handle the Blade, he’ll be gone by tomorrow.’
When he left. Pidge taking another second to linger before following him out, Keith stood in his room, looking around. The new sheets were tucked in tight like a hotel, all the creases smoothed out. One set of his clothes were folded atop the dresser, his red jacket hanging from a peg on the wall. He’d never decorated much, and the rest of the room was sparse. The only other thing he caught was three knives lying neatly on a shelf next to his bayard. Three.
He drifted over, ran his fingers down the handles. One was a short, utilitarian dagger, the second was a slightly fancier, thinner blade he’d picked up from the space mall, and the third was a serrated hunting knife from Earth. His mother’s luxite blade was still locked up, so that left the one he’d been stabbed with. Keith liked that blade. It’d been a gift from one of Voltron’s many allies, a beautiful straight edge, metal swirling like damascus steel. The ambassador said it was cut from a meteorite. Even if it was a little harder to hold now, he still wanted it back. It was still his.
Keith showered, scrubbed all the cryo gunk and sweat and dried blood off his skin, and collapsed into bed, crisp fabric smooth against his skin. He wasn’t sure how long he slept for, but when he woke up again his stomach was furious and howling. Walking down the halls, the familiar path from his room to the kitchen, Keith tried to steel himself for the aftermath. The strange, melancholy quiet left in the clone’s wake.
All the others were gathered around the dining table, whatever they were talking about falling to the wayside when the door opened and Keith went through it. They greeted him with some weak enthusiasm, he acknowledged it wordlessly, and looked around the table. The only open seat was his old one, next to Lance. He slipped into it without looking at anyone, and Shiro handed him a bowl of goo. Allura started talking about a trade dispute between two coalition members, and Keith let the conversation wash over him, steadfastly refusing to look any of them in the face.
They’d run the extra tests in the end, on all the other paladins. His results lined up pretty close with Lance and Hunk, which both proved his status as the real Keith and answered his question about Galra lifespans. It didn’t upset him to learn he hadn’t inherited that. Living to eighty already sounded impossible, he wasn’t sure how he’d deal with twice that.
Day by day, he returned to his team. Ate with them, trained with them, saying even less than before. The trade dispute had snowballed into a full blown diplomatic incident, so the castle was on its way to sort them out. In their downtime, the other paladins tried to reach out. Pidge asked for his help on a project, Hunk asked him if he thought a certain plant would be edible, Coran drafted him into more chores than ever, chatting idly all the while. Shiro discussed training regimens with him, Allura wanted his Blade expertise on battle tactics. There was only one exception.
Lance was avoiding him. Not openly, not obviously. When they were with the others, Lance was the same as always, cracking odd jokes and sliding back into his old cocky bravado. But he never looked at Keith for very long, and he never asked to talk. Keith understood. Even if he’d been the one to figure out the gauge, he hadn’t wanted to. Keith saw it on his face when he held his gun to the clone, saw it every time he tried to sleep. He hadn’t wanted to be right.
Kolivan came for the clone himself, but Keith didn’t see him. The others thought it was best for him to avoid the clone, and Keith didn’t care enough to protest. When he was finally gone, Keith thought he should feel more. He settled into a new routine in Voltron, catching up on missions he’d missed and intelligence he hadn’t been allowed to know, making plans for their next strikes against the Galra after all their existing plans were de facto compromised.
But he kept training at night. His access was restored after a few group sessions, but the gladiator was locked at level four unless someone else was with him. Each night he crept onto the deck and fought until the itching in his stomach was too tired to reach out its claws, and Keith could finally sleep.
On one of these nights, he rounded the corner and straight into Lance.
‘Shit, sorry,’ the other boy barely stopped himself from tripping, ‘I- I didn’t know you’d be out here.’
‘Training,’ Keith said, frowning at Lance. He was still in his day clothes, in the middle of the night. ‘Why aren’t you asleep?’
Lance kissed his teeth, ‘Great question,’ he joked, scratching lightly at his hair, ‘Are you… You busy right now? Training, I know, but if you, like, have a minute.’
Keith tensed. Maybe this was when Lance let him down easy. It couldn’t be worse than the limbo. Then he at least could try to move on. ‘I have time.’
‘Oh,’ he blinked, clearly not expecting an acceptance, ‘Cool, cool. Well, I know a spot that I don’t think the others have found. Was just heading over there, if you want to come?’
He let Lance lead the way, in the opposite direction from the training deck. They turned a familiar hall, and Keith was afraid for a moment that Lance was bringing him to the observation deck. He didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to sit with Lance anywhere that Lance had sat with the clone. Not where he’d kissed him. But Lance walked straight past it, down another corridor, and the pressure in his throat subsided.
Eventually, they turned into a double-doored arch, opening up to a room similar to the main projection space, but taller. Lance nodded to the window seat, inviting Keith to sit, and busied himself at the console by the wall. Kieth took his place as Lance typed something in, and holograms of space filled the room.
‘We have a window if you wanna stargaze,’ Keith tried to lighten the mood, ‘Is this necessary?’
‘These are Earth stars, smartass,’ he replied, crossing the room and sitting beside Keith, enough space between them that they weren’t touching, ‘Look,’ he pointed up at a space in the projection, traced a few lines across the hologram, ‘Big dipper. Check just to the side, you see it? The three little ones, then all around-’
‘Orion,’ Keith nodded, ‘I remember. You come here a lot?’
Lance shrugged, ‘Sometimes. When I can’t sleep, I guess.’
They sat and watched the projected stars without speaking. Again, that quiet. The kind that swept into his pores and threaded between skin and fat. The kind that made him itch so hard he snuck into the training deck in the middle of the night. Keith couldn’t bear it. Whatever it did to him, it was better than wondering.
‘Do you miss him?’
He saw Lance’s head turn in the peripheral, gaping at him, throat working around words he hadn't pushed out. Then he looked away, and found them.
‘I hate him, hate him for what he did to you. To me too, I guess. But I… I guess I miss what I thought he was. Miss the fucking dream he sold me,’ he propped his elbows on his knees and sank his head into his hands, ‘Keith I, I know that sorry isn’t enough. I know. Not for what I did, for how fucking stupid I was.’
‘You didn’t know.’ As much as he wanted to blame Lance, to lash out and be angry, Keith didn’t have it in him. He wanted to believe he would’ve done better, if their roles were revered. But he can’t.
‘I should have. You were right, I should know you better than that. Or else how can I say that I-’ he stopped himself, swallowed. ‘And sometimes, these little fucking glimpses, I almost did. But I just… I wanted it too bad.’
Keith’s throat caught, but he didn’t interrupt. One of Lance’s feet started tapping fast and frantic against the floor, ‘You don’t know how many times I imagined it. When you were gone it was all I could think about - what if you came back? What if you felt it too? So when he came and said all this shit, all I could think was that I finally had everything I wanted. And I wouldn’t let it slip away from me.’
‘Was it?’ Keith asked, voice scratching against his insides, ‘Everything you wanted?’
Lance shut his eyes, shook his head, ‘Almost, until you showed up. Then,’ he shook his head harder, ‘Then I should have fucking known. I should have realized that everything was perfect, everything was exactly what I wanted to hear, until it came to you. Then he just… I don’t know. Switched. It was weird. But I wanted it to be true so bad I just, just made all these excuses for him in my head. Anything to keep it. He said that was the difference between you two, that he felt it and you didn’t, that the Galra must have left that out to keep single loyalty, but I was fucking kidding myself. Thinking what I wanted to think.’
Keith nodded, looked at him, then back at the stars, ‘When I told you,’ he spoke quietly, ‘After the observation deck. Did you go back to him?’
‘No,’ Lance said sharply, ‘No. Jesus, I must have stood outside your door for hours, just listening to you throw up, half on my way to copying. Did you hear me knock?’
He shook his head and Lance pushed his own out of his grasp, leant back with his palms on the floor behind him, ‘I was going in all these circles, round and round and round. Started looking back, replaying it all, and I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. Checked his debrief,’ he snorted, ‘And you were right on that too. Vague as hell. Then when I finally tracked you down again, spoke to you, saw you… Saw it right there on your face, and I knew I’d lost it all. Like an idiot, hook line and sinker. So I don’t miss him. But yeah, I guess I miss what I thought I had.’
Keith thought back to the reading room, back to Lance’s fingers against his skin, Lance’s eyes on him. His lips pressed quick and chaste to Keith’s hair. Back to the observation deck, watching Lance kiss the wrong Keith first. ‘But that’s me,’ he said quietly, ‘You thought he was me. And I’m right here but you don’t even look at me now, not since he’s gone.’
Lance turned bodily towards him, dropping a knee to scoot closer, just shy of touching. He was so close Keith could make out the faint smattering of freckles across his nose, even in the half-light of the hologram. ‘Keith-’ The last drop of poison dripped down his throat.
‘...Do you wish it was him?’
‘No,’ he said instantly, shaking his head and holding Keith’s eye, ‘No. Never. Is that what you’ve been thinking?’
Keith looked away, wrapped his arms around himself, ‘I don’t know what to think. But he got there first.’
‘Only as insurance,’ Lance scoffed, ‘Which was the dumbest part. I couldn’t do that, no matter how bad he played me. And you got stabbed for it, and I- we nearly lost you all over again.’ He gripped onto the ledge of the window seat and leaned forward.
‘You figured it out though,’ Keith said, ‘Would’ve actually lost me if you hadn’t.’
‘Stop. I don’t want to think about that.’ Lance shook his head, letting the quiet linger for a moment. ‘I’m… I won’t ask you for anything. I don’t expect anything and if you want me to fuck off, I’ll fuck off as much as I can. But I want you to know - no, you deserve to know - that it was meant for you. Everything, it was meant to be yours and I… I really wish it had been.’
Keith folded in on himself, pressing his forehead to his knees to disguise the full body wave that wracked through him. He couldn’t hold it in anymore. All the pain, the jealousy, the terror of the last few weeks flooded out.
‘I wish it had been too,’ he rasped, half his voice muffled where he hid his face, ‘I- I still love you. But maybe he was right, and I don’t know how. He got there first and I’m just scared, I’m fucking terrified, that I’ll always be one step behind.’
Lance pulled him up into his arms and Keith went easily, burying his face in Lance’s neck and clinging to his shirt as the other boy rubbed circles on his back, ‘That’s not true, Keith, it’s not. I swear; on my mother, on my whole family, it’s not true.’
‘I didn’t remember you. I left because it was easier than facing you.’ Keith hiccuped into Lance’s skin.
‘Are you leaving again?’
Keith stopped. He hadn’t really thought about the Blade since waking up out of the pod. It didn't take long to decide.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Then don’t. Stay,’ Lance tucked his chin atop Keith’s head, ‘Stay with us, with your family. With me.’
‘But what if he was better?’
‘He’s not. You’re the one I fell for, you’re the one I want. And I’ll be sorry until the day I die that he got the first kiss. But you can have every other one I’ve got. Christ, Keith, you can have the rest of my fucking life if you want it. It’s all yours, it’s you. It’s you.’
Keith hung onto Lance like driftwood, and he shifted his legs until Keith was sitting between them, leaning back against the window. ‘It might not be easy.’
‘No shit,’ Lance snorted, running his fingers through Keith’s hair, ‘When has it ever been?’ That got a chuckle out of him, and he could feel the warmth of Lance’s smile radiating down, ‘I don’t love you because it’s easy, Keith, I love you because you’re worth unease. Worth it a thousand times over.’
He let that sit. Pidge had recognized him through his isolation. Lance was here, arms open and asking for all the ugly parts the clone had tried to paint over. Hunk put himself in danger to take down the clone. Shiro tried his hardest to let him train and keep him healthy, despite Keith making it as difficult as possible.
‘No pressure or anything,’ Lance tried to laugh, ‘Maybe that was a little, y’know. Strong. Sorry.’
‘No,’ Keith shook his head against Lance’s chest, ‘I like it. I just… I’m still scared.’
‘That’s okay,’ Lance rubbed up and down his back, and Keith slid his arms between Lance’s waist and the wall, ‘I don’t mind waiting. You know where to find me.’
Caution and fear and insecurity jumbled together inside him. But with every slide of Lance’ palm down his back, every deep breath beneath his head, it sank a little. Not fighting nor fleeing, not even freezing. Keith let himself float in the sound of Lance’s voice as he started talking about nothing, in the comfort of his arms, and in the steady thud of his heart.
Not much changed after that, at least not all at once. He was still a little quiet, but slowly getting louder. He’d make a slight remark at breakfast, or tease Pidge a bit more during training. The dazed grins he got in response made Keith light up, the sheer excitement from his team to see him come back to them, and it got easier.
The call came a few days later. Kolivan, stony faced, on the comms screen in the bridge.
‘It broke,’ he opened, ‘I’ve attached the related intelligence on a file to you now. Close to our hypothesis; a surveillance drone sent to sabotage the Voltron efforts by supplanting the Black Paladin, but no sleeper tech. We’re investigating the leak of Blade operations, but this is what we have that concerns yourselves.’
‘Our thanks, Kolivan,’ Allura said briskly, ‘Is there anything else you require?’
Kolivan’s blank yellow eyes flicked over to Keith, ‘Shirogane has informed us that Kogane requested termination rights. We’re ready when he is.’
The others looked nervously at Keith, but he did not look back, ‘I’ll be there,’ he said, ‘Home base?’
‘You know the one. I’ll send co-ordinates, and we’ll be expecting you.’
His image cut out.
That night, Lance took him aside.
‘Are you sure you wanna do this?’ He asked, ‘It might, like, mess with you. Technically killing yourself.’
Keith shrugged, ‘Someone has to,’ he answered, ‘And it’s better if I do it. I don’t think I’ll believe it otherwise.’
Lance pursed his lips, but nodded, ‘Okay. You want us to come?’
He considered it for a moment. It would be nice to have Lance there, as one last fuck-you to the clone if nothing else. ‘You can,’ he said eventually, ‘But maybe wait outside. I don’t want it to mess with you either.’
They left the next day, flying in Black to the co-ordinates to the Blade of Marmora admiral ship. Lance’shand rested on Keith’s shoulder for the entire ride, a steady weight that grounded him as he flew, trying hard to think of anything other than what he was flying towards.
Blade members, some he recognised and some he didn’t, shot him curious, wayward glances as Kolivan met them in the loading dock and walked them through the ship to the prisoner cells.
‘Is Agent Krolia still away?’ Keith dared to ask as they turned down a spartan, cramped hallway. Kolivan nodded.
‘She hasn’t been informed of the matter. I will update her when she returns, and grant her leave to see you if you wish.’ He said curtly, clenching his jaw before adding, ‘It was a kind idea though, keeping her separate. Krolia is a good agent, a professional. But everyone has a limit.’
‘...You knew?’
‘Only one member of the Blade that has visited Earth,’ Kolivan answered with a hint of irritation, ‘Only one member of the Blade that is half-Earthling. Yes, I knew.’
The leader of the Galran resistance stopped outside a nondescript door like any other, gesturing sharply at it without speaking. Keith swallowed as Lance pressed something in his hands, cool and heavy when his fingers closed around it.
‘I’ll be right here,’ he whispered low in Keith’s ear, ‘Do what you need to do.’
Keith nodded once at him, once back at Kolivan, and he punched in the access code to the door, letting Keith slip in, and closed it behind him.
The clone was cuffed at both wrists and ankles to a metal chair in the center of an otherwise empty room. His unwashed hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, one eye was swollen black and his bottom lip was busted. When Keith looked down at his hands, three fingernails had been pulled out, leaving bloody red scabs in their place, and his breathing was haggard.
Keith looked him in the face and he looked back, the ghost of a bitter smile playing at his bruised mouth.
‘You. Shouldn’t be surprised,’ he shook his head bitterly, ‘Was it your idea or theirs?’
‘Mine.’ Keith answered, lifting the object in his right hand, ‘Figured it was only fair.’
The clone raised an eyebrow, ‘Since when do we use guns?’ Keith flicked the safety off.
‘Quicker. Relatively painless,’ he looked down at the smooth metal of the pistol, ‘More than you would have given me.’
It was silent for a moment, before the clone asked, ‘Is he here?’
‘Don’t ask about him.’
‘Shut me up if you hate it so much,’ he hissed, before sinking back against his chair, ‘You think I was faking it.’
‘Because you manipulated him.’
‘I wanted to live,’ he said plainly, ‘We were good until you showed up, all of it was good. You were never supposed to come back from the Blade. I would have been even better then.’
‘Too bad.’
‘Everyone could have been happy. I could have earned it, earned them. Tried harder than you ever did.’
His fingers tightened around the gun, ‘You would have gotten everyone killed.’
‘Maybe’, he nodded slowly, ‘But you might too, black paladin, and you can’t blame me for that. I never asked them to make me. Never asked to be your fucking shadow.’ Keith raised the gun, stepped until it pressed against the clone’s forehead, ‘I gave it to you,’ he said, leaning forward to push his skull against the barrel, ‘Everything you get now, you’ve get because of me. I know you more than they do, more than he does. You would have choked on wanting it for the rest of your life.’
Keith looked down into his own face, bloody and bruised and hopeless. Underneath the pool of fiery hatred and resentment, something else bubbled. The clone was just a symptom of the disease, not the virus. He flexed his hands around the gun, placed the top of his pointer against the trigger.
He wanted to stay up late listening to PIdge ramble about her newest project. He wanted SHiro to teach him to chop wooden blocks like he’d promised since Keith was fifteen. He wanted to find new plants for Hunk to propagate, and taste test what he made with them. He wanted to hear Allura talk about Altea, hear Coran talk about the old paladins. He wanted to win the war and come home and build a place where it was warm.
He wanted to collapse back against Lance’s chest and stay there forever. He wanted to stop wasting time wanting and learn how to have it. Keith always wanted too much, more than he was allowed, until now. Now, it was all right there for the taking.
‘You’re right,’ he said, looking down into the clone’s eyes, ‘Thank you.’
The clone’s eyes widened and Keith pulled the trigger.
Wet, gooey brain matter exploded out and painted the wall pink, sharded through with shattered bone. The clone’s limp body jolted back, tipping his chair over and onto the floor. Dark red blood pooled around the back of his gaping head. His face was fixed in the split second of surprise, staring blankly at the fluorescent lights. Keith bent down over him, pulled his greasy bangs over the new hole in his forehead, and closed his eyes.
He wondered what he was supposed to feel, looking at his own dead body. Probably more than this. All he felt now was equal parts sorrow and relief, both muted by numbness. It was over, and the war carried on. Shiro was going to drag him to so much therapy if they ever made it home. Keith knelt over the clone for a minute longer, then rose to his feet and opened the door.
The flight back to the castle was quiet. Lance didn’t ask any questions, and Keith was grateful. It was the same with the rest of the team, all treading carefully around the stampede of elephants between them. Keith had the clone’s blood, his own blood, soaked into the knees of his suit, splattered across his hands, a drop or two on his face. Lance led him by the hand to the larger, communal bathrooms near the pool and ran hot water into the large porcelain tub off to the right. As the bath filled up he came back to Keith, wordlessly sliding off the panels of armor on his chest and limbs.
‘Trying to get me out of my pants already?’
Lance flinched, hands jerking back from Keith like it burnt, ‘I- I can go,’ he said. Keith grabbed at his wrist.
‘I’m sorry. Bad joke,’ he pulled Lance back to him, ‘M’not as funny as you.’
That got him to smile again, puff out his chest a little, ‘It’s a very exclusive club, samurai. Now go on, let’s get you cleaned up.’
He handed Keith a towel to cover himself as he slipped off his undersuit alone, while Lance fussed over oils and liquids to pour in the bath. When he sank into the water it was silky and fragrant, just hot enough to make his skin prickle, the copious bubbles from Lance’s chemistry covered his skin below the water line, and Lance perched at the tub’s edge, dunking a cloth and beckoning for him.
‘You wanna talk about it?’ he asked softly, wiping the cloth across Keith’s face. Keith watched his face as he worked, set in concentration as he washed away all the blood, all the grime, all the pain of the last few weeks.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he answered, ‘It’s… weird.’
Lance barked out a short laugh, ‘Yeah. Weird is one word for it. But it’s over now.’ Keith bit his lip.
‘They still have my DNA,’ he said, ‘It might happen again.’
‘It won’t,’ Lance said, dunking the cloth again and wringing it out.
‘You can't be sure.’
‘But I am,’ he answered firmly, ‘A new clone will only remember as much as that one did. This, right now? This is just ours. And they can’t use it against you.’
Keith blinked up at him. At the boy who threw his heart out and waited patiently for Keith to catch it. The boy who took him to shoot his clone in the head and ran him a bath, washing the blood away, washing the pain away. Who knew he was impulsive and stubborn and flighty and loved him anyway, even if it was hard. And he was sick of running.
‘I want the rest.’
‘Mm?’
‘The rest,’ he clarified, losing his nerve by the second, ‘You told me, you said… You said I could have it. Everything else, the rest, if I wanted. The rest of your life. The rest of mine. I want it.’
Water dripped from the cloth as Lance squeezed it tight, knuckles going bloodless with the force of his grip, ‘Are you sure?’
Keith lifted his hand out of the water and pulled Lance towards him. He squeaked when their lips met, dropping the rag in the water with a splat, and Keith grinned against his mouth. But he caught on quick, damp hands curling into Keith’s hair, digging into his bare shoulder. It was warm, soft lips pressing slowly together, tentative, a little nervous.
He pulled Lance closer until the other boy had to steady a hand on the tub to stop himself falling in. He pulled Lance closer as if it’d mean they were never apart again. No more running. No more waiting, wanting in silence. Lance had offered him everything and he was going to take it, he was going to give it back and float forever
Keith pulled back first with one last peck at the side of Lance’s mouth, then another, until he was finally sated. For now.
Lance looked at him with wide eyes and reddened lips, fingers sliding down his arm, lacing through his own. And he wanted to see that look on Lance’s face, slightly dazed, slightly awed, for the rest of his life. The rest of everything.
‘I’m sure.’