Chapter Text
“There’s something about your brother that unnerves me. As much as he’s helped with helping Lance… I find it difficult to trust him,” Empress Allura confessed one early morning on the balcony overlooking the ocean. She tied a sash around her waist, keeping the low-cut of her robe together as she glimpsed over at Shiro out of the corner of her eye. She knew he was an early-riser—most people raised like soldiers were—but she never saw him awake at this hour herself. She never had a reason to until now.
He was dressed and nursing a tall mug of tea he made for himself. The teapot was still full, so Allura gestured wordlessly for him to pour her a cup.
“Keith and I are a lot alike whether you know it or not,” he said, and grinned at her as he reached for the teapot. “But you trust me well enough it seems—letting me pour your drink.”
“Sleep in my bed,” she muttered under her breath, looking away as Shiro laughed. She pinched a finger over her lip to keep from smiling with him. It seemed she picked up a lot of her mother’s habits—she never had a distinct husband, but she had plenty of lovers to fill books about them.
She cleared her throat and took to sitting beside Shiro on one of the cushions. “What makes you say that you two are similar at all?” she asked.
“We both have the same sense of humor,” he said, grinning again. “Our father couldn’t stand us when we were younger. Hence… one of the reasons he sent us into training younger than most children our age. I used to have a temper, but after my first battle I just… lost that edge.”
“Has Keith fought before?”
“In an actual war?” Shiro questioned, and Allura nodded. “Hm, well… not technically. He’s trained for it, and he showed a lot of promise—too much, even. As you know, our military values strategists and skilled fighters above all, and the individual at the top of the class generally never even sees battle. So Keith was an apprentice to a general before we came here.”
“So he’s a talented leader,” she finished, and Shiro gave an uncertain nod. “What makes you so hesitant about this.”
“He’s still rash,” Shiro told her. “If… Lance’s scar is anything to go by. If he’s given time, he has incredible potential. But our father is more familiar with the frontline. He doesn’t understand strategy—that’s what his generals are for. That’s what Keith is for.”
“But you are your father’s favorite,” she said, and the telling silence that followed was filled with the thought of whether or not Shiro was just as rash as he claimed he used to be.
Shiro glanced up at Allura from his mug before turning away and finishing off his tea. He set his mug down and asked if she’d prefer he stay or leave. Allura was content with watching the sunrise with him, and so she stayed quiet until the sky turned light blue.
“You may go now,” she told him, and so he rose and left. She leaned over to watch him from around the balcony doorframe. He does have excellent form, she commented as he bent over to pick up his coat. She blushed at the sight of her ruffled bed, and his ruffled hair, and promptly turned away to look at the clouds. Little did she know that Shiro was completely aware of Allura’s quiet fascination with him, and left the room with a smile on his face once he was past the scowling guards.
Seemed he and Keith had a habit of ruining their reputation with the Empress’ security.
. . .
“Lance—Lance, I have to—go to sleep,” Keith said between persistently ardent kisses outside of Lance’s bedroom door. The guards promptly opened the doors, as if to punctuate how little they wanted to watch this display.
“Aw, Keith…” Lance whined, fingers clinging to Keith’s sleeves as he tried desperately to pull Keith into the room.
“I have practice with—” he started, only to be silenced by Lance all but shoving his tongue into Keith’s mouth with bruising force. The attack was effective in pushing down Keith’s defenses, and in a matter of seconds, Lance had him over the threshold, moaning into Lance’s mouth as he gave into yet another wave of Lance’s violent affections.
It certainly wasn’t the first time that Keith was dragged onto Lance’s bed. Keith fell back and panted for the air Lance stole from his lungs, staring up wide-eyed at the demon that took over Lance’s nimble fingers. So… perhaps they were trying their best to avoid what Lance’s instincts meant, but it didn’t stop Keith from entertaining it once in a while when Lance couldn’t hold back, and Keith was pliant enough to agree to it.
Keith tipped his head back with a moan, pushing himself back onto the bed as Lance pulled his pants down. “Lance—seriously—I can’t tonight—” he insisted, but his raspy voice was desperate to make his excuses to Shiro instead along the lines of, “Sorry I didn’t show up to practice —Lance was just too convincing.”
“But—” Lance whined as Keith pushed himself up onto his elbows, and glanced behind Lance to where the guards were grudgingly keeping an eye on them. Lance looked back at them with a frown and said, “Do you really not want to…?”
His confidence shattered suddenly, and it sent Keith up onto his knees to pull Lance towards him and against his chest. “No! I do, I really, really do—it’s just… maybe when your sister’s privacy ban is over? And I really do have practice with Shiro tomorrow, and I can’t—I wouldn’t… I mean…”
“I guess,” Lance sighed, nuzzling his forehead into Keith’s neck. He breathed in deeply before he tensed in Keith’s lap and whispered, “Can you tell them to stop looking?”
Keith looked back at the guards, and yes, one of them had taken their usual post inside the room. Not only was the privacy ban still up, but so was Empress Allura’s unintentional cockblock. Keith glared at the guard and made a shooing motion.
“It’s just…” Lance started quietly as he wrapped his arms around Keith’s neck. “I just wish… I’ve wanted to do this for weeks…”
“I know .” Gods, did he know. They never got very far, but the span between Lance’s passionate attacks were starting to merge into a day or two apart. The frequency was flattering, if it wasn’t so startling.
“I wish we could just… have a night to ourselves,” Lance whispered, and pulled back a little to see Keith’s face properly. His long, elvish ears were flattened back in distress. “I just… don’t know how… I’ve tried talking Allura out of the guard situation, but she won’t budge,” he said quietly.
Keith blinked at him, and then at their current situation—the guards. Is Lance asking me to break his sister’s rules? he asked himself, and it was promptly followed by the question, Is it worth it?
Yes, most definitely.
“I’ll come up with something,” Keith promised. Lance asked for confirmation, looking so incredibly hopeful that the cuteness nearly made Keith’s heart stop. “Of course. Now I actually really have to go, so I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay,” Lance agreed, and closed his eyes to the kiss Keith left on his lips. Keith laid Lance back against the pillows, and brushed Lance’s hair back from his forehead to press his lips to the soft spot between his tensed brows. Lance relaxed then, letting the pillows and the blankets hold him close when Keith was no longer there.
Keith secured his pants again and left the room. His brother knew just how much Lance’s guards hated Keith, but Keith couldn’t be bothered to follow Shiro’s warnings. “Don’t give them a reason to dislike you,” he had said, but the moment the guards glared at him, he glared right back, and went as far as sticking his tongue out at them.
Keith turned the corner, thinking, Serves them right for being rude to me.
He collapsed on his bed the moment he walked in through the door, and succumbed to sleep so that at dawn, he awoke like the model student he was. Just because he was no longer on his father’s training regimen didn’t mean Shiro would let him start slacking.
But… Shiro wasn’t there when he showed up for practice.
They didn’t have access to the guards’ quarters, so they made do with combat that didn’t require weapons or targets. Mostly, it involved vigorous cardio workouts, and then strength and combat training. The field of grass they usually met on was empty when Keith showed up, though, and stayed that way for another half hour before he heard Shiro’s panting breaths from behind him.
“Sorry I’m late—I got held up with something,” he said, and reached down to help Keith up to his feet. Keith barely spared a glance at Shiro before he was poking at a purple spot on Shiro’s neck.
Shiro batted Keith’s hand away, shouting, “Ey! Watch it—”
“What, did fall and hit your neck on a branch—”
“We’re done with this—I’m already late as it is—”
“Did you miss your mouth and jab your neck with your toothbrush—”
“Keith!” Shiro cried, and deflected another attack from Keith trying to poke at his neck. Shiro tackled him and they ended up tripping and slipping down the grassy hill where Shiro tried shouting above Keith, who was yelling, “Did you run into a light fixture and stab your neck with it?!” All Shiro could say in response to that was, “I hate you—so much right now!”
After their childish antics were over, they took a lap around the palace and the surrounding grounds. They passed the guards’ and servants’ wings along the way, and the followed the path that could be seen from Lance’s balcony. Keith looked up at the railing, and waved the moment he spotted Lance standing out there waiting for him to pass. Lance leaned against the railing and waved back in return, and Keith couldn’t help but notice that each day he jogged by, it seemed like a little bit more of Lance’s skin was showing behind that silky blue robe…
Keith couldn’t entirely understand why now he was so hung up on Lance. He was convinced that there was something in Lance’s nymph blood that made Keith’s hormones go crazy, but no library book could confirm it, and Thace had left long ago and had yet to respond back to Keith’s awkwardly-worded letters. He didn’t trust Lance’s original doctor as much as he did Thace, and Lance insisted it was because Thace was Galran too.
They used sticks as fake practice swords after strength training. Keith’s muscles were warm beneath his skin from the workout, and drawn taunt from the exertion of fighting off Shiro’s advances. Sweat glazed his skin, and tasted like salt against his lips when he stepped back for a break. He brushed the back of his wrist against his forehead, panting as he tossed the sword aside in favor of tying his hair back.
“What do you want to try next?” Shiro asked, taking the hint that their crude version of fencing was over.
Keith laughed. “What, suddenly I get a say in what we do?”
Shiro rolled his eyes and said, “Yes. What do you want to do? This isn’t exactly for me, you know.”
Keith frowned at him. It would have been so easy to just… give up on his training. Living in the Empress’ palace was a vacation, which meant that they didn’t need to keep this up. But… on the off chance that things went south, or that Empress Allura allowed their return home, Keith needed to be in top shape to continue his apprenticeship and aid in returning their home country to its former state. And Shiro… Shiro would no longer be on the field. He served his time and now had to deal with the consequences of being an heir to their father’s throne.
Keith thought about Lance, who could have been in the same exact position as him. As they went back to training, Keith tried to picture Lance as a general, but that image just didn’t stick around long. It didn’t suit Lance, and it didn’t suit his relationship to Allura. Allura was adamant on spoiling Lance rotten, and making sure he had everything he could ever want. It was a surprise to just about everyone Keith knew now that Lance was as humble as he was. It would have been so easy for Lance to give in and demand more, but… somehow he was content with what he had.
“Hey,” Keith started, blocking an upward swing Shiro directed towards him, “I was wondering… if you’ve seen the Empress around at all?”
Shiro hesitated, raising an eyebrow at Keith before shaking his head, “No… not really. Why?”
“Just wondering. I need to ask her about lifting Lance’s security. Lance tried the other day and it didn’t go so well,” he explained. “I’m hoping to maybe… get on her good side? I don’t know. It’s unlikely but it’s the only thing I can think of right now…”
“Why do you need to lift the security?” he asked, and Keith gave him a flat look and went in to jab Shiro’s side. Shiro dodged him, but ended up with a hit to his opposite arm.
Keith twisted his fencing stick and switched hands with a shrug. “Lance is… really starting to get upset by it. Like, the whole jealousy-thing is still going on and it’s almost like he can’t relax whenever we’re together because the guards are always on top of us. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah, that makes sense. What about you, though?’
“What do you mean?”
Shiro leant back and pushed his hair out of his eyes. He combed it back and gestured vaguely with his hands as he explained, “I mean, I know this whole security thing is annoying to Lance, but… they are supervising you guys. And I just want to make sure you’re completely comfortable with Lance before you get rid of that barrier.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Keith said, scowling. “Of course I’m comfortable with Lance!”
Shiro lifted his hands in surrender, and Keith turned away, clenching his teeth together, and balling up his fists around his fencing stick. “What makes you think that I wouldn’t?” he asked, turning slightly to squint at Shiro.
“I mean, from everything Thace told me about nymphs, it sounds like Lance could be a bit impudent to his partners. I just want to make sure he isn’t pressuring you into anything you aren’t ready for,” Shiro explained, and donned an innocent smile so that glaring made Keith feel guilty. Shiro was just trying to look out for him.
“Lance isn’t like most nymphs,” Keith insisted. “We’re on the same page. You don’t have to worry about me, Shiro. Besides, I’m sure I can handle myself around him. I have so far.”
Shiro watched Keith as he kicked at the grass and spun his stick around to the side, slicing it through the air like a whip. “You’ve been with Lance for a month, Keith. That isn’t enough time to—Ey!”
Keith swung his stick towards Shiro’s neck, and when Shiro was taken off guard, Keith poked at the bruise again. “We’ve only been here for maybe three months. Who’d you get so close to?” he asked cheekily, and Shiro turned red and forced Keith back with a swing of his own fencing stick. Keith backed away laughing, and Shiro grumbled to himself about how much of a mistake it was to follow the Empress’ lead.
That didn’t exactly stop him the next time she sent a servant to him, requesting that he meet her in her room that night. He knew it was dangerous to get close to her, but he didn’t mind the company, and she didn’t seem to mind him as much as he thought she did. That second night they spent together, she wrapped her arms around him and held him to her chest like the nurturer she was. He circled his finger against the soft skin of her lower back, and tipped his head up to look at her.
“What is it?” she asked in a whisper.
“I was just… thinking about something Keith told me,” he said, and just like any other time they talked about Lance’s current love interest, Allura’s interest piqued. “Lance came to him asking about removing the guard supervision. I think he plans on talking to you about it.”
“Lance went to him about this?” she questioned, frowning at him.
“From what Keith said, yes, that seems to be the case. It sounded like Lance is starting to get paranoid from… you know, from his… instincts.” She leant back against the pillows and turned away, drawing her eyebrows together as she thought about this. “I didn’t—I don’t meant to intrude on the matter. It’s just been on my mind since Keith told me.”
“When did he tell you this?” she demanded, but Shiro barely opened his mouth before Allura was pushing herself off the bed and fetching her elaborate silk coverup. The fabric floated off the ground as she stormed for the doors, and left Shiro sitting half-naked on the bed, beside himself with confusion.
Allura’s chambers weren’t all that far from Lance’s, but the walk was long enough for her to pass several servants who leapt in surprise at seeing their Empress up and about at such an hour. Her guards were just as startled, and the few that followed her had to set out at a jog to keep up.
That night, though, happened to be several days after Keith’s talk with Shiro, and after Shiro unknowingly, but successfully, convinced Keith that Allura would see no reason on this matter. She was too adamant on keeping Lance on a tight leash. Both she and Shiro were convinced that Keith wasn’t seriously considering spending the rest of his life with Lance. After that practice, Lance was already waiting for him at the palace doors, and clung to Keith’s arm for the remainder of the day. The day after was much the same, except the moment they saw Hunk and Pidge in the halls, Lance was practically clawing up into Keith’s arms like a cat, hissing at them to go away.
As much as Keith loved the affection, he knew that this wasn’t the Lance he fell for a month ago. He was convinced that Lance didn’t want to be this way, especially after the situation with Hunk and Pidge. They were Lance’s best friends, and it seemed like Lance’s love for Keith was tearing them apart.
“I can’t stay the night tonight,” Keith told Lance at the far end of the corridor that would lead to Lance’s bedroom door. If they got any closer, Lance would destroy any and all of Keith’s self-control.
Lance’s expression collapsed, and Keith could see that he was on the brink of tears. Keith pulled him in for a hug, and Lance tried to pull away out of frustration, but Keith held on tight and whispered, “Tomorrow night, okay? I’ll come get you.”
Lance’s breathing hitched, and he held on tight to Keith’s shirt. “Promise?”
“Yeah, I promise.”
So when Allura came storming down Lance’s corridor, and pushed through Lance’s bedroom door, she approached an empty bed. Keith and Lance were already gone through the window—they could be anywhere.
Allura whirled on the guards, shouting, “Where is he?!” but all the guards were just as surprised as she was. They all shook their heads, and their incompetence had Allura’s face turning red, fists clenched as she yelled, “FIND HIM!”
While all the guards scattered, and word spread like wildfire, Keith took Lance by the hand up the stairs of the far wing. The stairwell curved along the pillar of marble bricks, and the moonlight reflected in shimmery spirals beneath their feet with each step. All was quiet at this time of night, and any sleepiness they might have felt was banished by the adrenaline of breaking the rules. Leaving through the window was only part of the struggle—it involved a lot of hesitance on Lance’s part, but eventually he trusted Keith to catch him. It was a messy landing, and they might have fallen, but all their limbs were intact considering they were now approaching the greenhouse doors.
“Okay, you can open your eyes,” Keith said as he pulled the fabric off of Lance’s head. Lance blinked his blue eyes open, and released a shaky breath of excitement as he realized just where, exactly, they were going. “After I dropped you off last night, I asked Hunk if he knew of any good hiding spots,” he said, voice quiet as they walked between the tables of plants, and the deep inlets in the ground where entire trees were planted.
“The observatory?” Lance asked, and laughed when Keith nodded. “No kidding! I love the observatory. You can see everything from up there.”
“He gave a few other suggestions… but… this one seemed like the best spot,” he confessed, and guided the way to the makeshift wooden ladder that would take them up to the observatory. Lance glanced up at the opening, and realized that beyond the moonlight, there was a faint orange glow flickering up there. It wasn’t until Keith guided him up that he was able to see the full extent of Keith’s planning.
The observatory was small to begin with, and with the telescope packed away in its heavy wooden box, Keith had made room for a cushioned bed made solely of down feather comforters stolen from various rooms in the palace. A tablecloth was tossed over the telescope case, and on top of it sat a bottle of wine along with a pair of glasses and one gentle candle that cast a glow across the entire room.
Lance slowly emerged from the ladder, and pushed himself onto the blankets as Keith reached down and pulled the ladder up section-by-section. As he did so, he talked absently about how difficult it was to sneak everything up here without the gardeners looking. “I was surprised no one came up here when I was setting everything up but—”
He looked over at Lance then, and stopped at the sight of moonlit tears dripping from Lance’s eyelashes. “You… did this all for me?” he asked, voice shaking as Keith crawled over and brushed the tears away with his thumbs.
“Of course. Lance, I really, really like you,” Keith insisted, shaking his head as he laughed, “and I think it’s really kind of shitty of your sister to decide how I feel.”
Lance laughed with him, nuzzling their foreheads together. Keith couldn’t be sure how long they spent staring into each others’ eyes, but eventually, they were kissing, and they were falling back against the cloud of blankets Keith made under the moonlight.
After the calm passed, Lance made hasty work of pulling their clothes free around the same time Allura hunted Pidge down. She knew Pidge was close to Lance—that was one of the many things Allura employed her for—so she was the first answer to the question, “Who would know where Lance is?” Unfortunately, Pidge was just as surprised to hear that Lance was missing as everyone else was.
“Have you… checked on Keith?” she offered, and Allura confirmed that she had sent a guard there to check on him. He was missing, too. “Hunk?”
“No, I—” she started, and realized that yes, Hunk was another one of Lance’s close friends. If Lance had planned anything behind her back, he might have trusted Hunk with the information. “Gods, you’re right! Thank you, Pidge,” she cried, turned to send one of her guards off to bring Hunk to her.
The moment her back was turned, Pidge released a nervous, shaky sigh. Why were all of her friends such idiots? Did they want to get themselves killed?
She chased after the guard Allura sent, and made hasty excuses, saying that she’d make sure that Hunk was taken care of, as he was a friend of Lance’s. The last thing Allura would want was to ruin her relationship with Lance by having the guards do something rash, like break Hunk’s arm (It had happened once before, and Pidge was convinced that some days Hunk felt more like a hostage than an actual friend because of that experience).
The moment the guard broke into Hunk’s room, Pidge was butting in and shushing Hunk from screaming in alarm. “Don’t worry! It’s just me.”
“Pidge! I’m not decent!” Hunk shrieked, but the guard was flinging the blankets off anyways and revealing the fact that Hunk was in nothing but his underwear. “Ladies are present!” he hissed at the guard, and kicked viciously when the guard tried to drag him out of the bed.
“The Empress asked for you,” the guard said, and Hunk turned to Pidge’s guilty expression. “Get dressed,” he demanded, shoving the nearest clothing item at Hunk to put on.
Hunk stared at the man with wide eyes before hurriedly dressing himself and chasing after the guard to keep up the pace. Pidge ran after him, and fell in step with him as Hunk demanded what was going on. Pidge searched around the pockets of her dress and produced her trusty notepad. A lead pencil was stuck in the binding of it, and so she wrote down the dilemma.
“Do you know where they could be? The Empress is going to ask you,” she wrote at the end, and pointed to it urgently so Hunk could see what the matter was.
Hunk glanced at the guard, who was walking ahead of them, eyes forward. Hunk knew exactly what the answers were, and if it meant saving Lance and Keith from certain grounding… then he’d have to help Pidge find them first.
He wrote down a short list of the spots he gave Keith. Pidge took the pad of paper back and read through it before nodding. “Thank you,” she mouthed to him, and he silently wished her luck as she ran off to check the first of the five spots Hunk gave her.
Pidge ran from one end of the palace to the other, passing guards along the way that were barging into each and every room in search of Keith and Lance. She grimaced at the sound of startled residents who had been sleeping in their beds before the guards broke in. She hoped that none of the guards reached the spots Hunk gave her yet—she was familiar with them because she used to find Hunk and Lance hiding away in them whenever they decided to give Allura mini heart attacks from running off without their guards. Thankfully, though, all of them turned up empty the higher she got in the palace.
The last on the list was the observatory.
Please be here, she begged, shoving through the greenhouse doors and making her way through the maze of tables and separate, misty rooms.
She looked up through the glass ceiling at the small observatory dome. At this time of night, it would be all pitch black, but now… there was a faint glow of a candle up there. She couldn’t help but release a sigh of relief at the sight, reassured that the idiots were up there.
By the time Pidge approached the spot where the ladder used to be, Lance was content and curled up beside Keith after everything, and after finishing a glass of wine. He had never felt exhaustion like he did now, where it clung to every part of his being and weighing him down, like he was sinking into a pool of precious dreams and memories. Every night he spent without Keith was riddled with hallucinations of him, keeping him awake with mindless conversations that Lance would forget the moment he found the real Keith the next morning. Every night was spent in anticipation, waiting to see Keith again, wondering what Keith was doing, hoping that tomorrow would be the day Keith would stay the night with him at last.
Keith finished off his glass and set Lance’s aside with his own. Lance stirred away and smiled sleepily up at Keith. “Hey,” Keith said, laughing quietly under his breath as Lance mumbled his greetings back. “Tired?”
Lance nodded, and hesitated to yawn before saying, “I haven’t been sleeping much at all, really.”
“Really? Did you get medicine for it?” Keith asked, and Lance shook his head. “Why?”
“Because you were always there,” he said quietly, closing his eyes against Keith’s bare chest. Keith was used to Lance talking about his imaginary episodes, but… Lance rarely ever talked about his mind’s version of Keith. At least, not to Keith himself.
He remembered what Thace said about Lance’s instincts “backfiring.”
“Did I stop you from getting sleep medicine?” he asked, and Lance shook his head. “What was I doing there?”
“We would just… talk all night and I don’t really know what of, but… then I would blink and you would be gone and it’d be morning again,” Lance said. “I like talking to you…”
Keith was quiet for a moment as he held Lance close. He kissed Lance’s hair and said, “I like talking to you too.”
Just as he was about to settle in for an hour or two of sleep, he heard footsteps faintly down below. He tensed, waiting for them to pass, but they stopped immediately beside the ladder opening.
A harsh, “Psst!” was hissed up at them, and Keith sighed in relief when he realized that it was just Pidge. He quietly removed Lance’s arms from around him and dressed before walking over to see what Pidge wanted, and how the hell she found them.
“Hey assholes—the entire palace is looking for you guys!” she hissed.
Keith’s eyes went wide, and looked over at where Lance was fast asleep on the blankets that covered his modesty. “How do you know?” he asked, voice hushed.
“Allura went to check on Lance and he wasn’t there—you aren’t where you’re supposed to be, so put two-and-two together… Viola!” Pidge said, gesturing madly at Keith, and the fact that Lance was likely out of sight. “Hunk told me where you guys might be, but he was on his way to Allura so the guards’ll be looking here in no time.”
“Shit,” Keith hissed, and quickly backtracked to say, “Thank you for the warning, Pidge—I’ve got it taken care of.”
“You better,” she muttered, walking off with her arms crossed.
Keith packed away the wine and glasses, bundled up in the table cloth. He nudged Lance awake and helped him dress so that they could pack up all the blankets and shove them down the ladder once it was back in place. When they both hopped down to the ground, Keith caught Lance and steadied him with a smile. Lance tipped into him tiredly, and quietly kissed Keith’s jawline.
“How are you feeling?” Keith asked in a whisper. Lance only smiled. “Good?”
“Perfect,” Lance corrected, ending in a yawn. “I’m so tired, though…”
“Let’s get you back to your room,” Keith said, bundling the blankets into his arms as Lance took the wine bag. Together, they headed for the far back exit, and disappeared outside as soon as they found the closest door to the outside gardens. They hid the blankets and the wine behind a collection of bushes, and hid there together until the lantern light from the guards passed. They ran to the spot beneath Lance’s balcony, and just as Lance was about to ask how the hell they were supposed to get up there, Keith was already jumping up onto the nearest windowsill, and climbing up the framing. He leapt up to the next floor, swinging his leg up onto the sill before lunging for Lance’s railing.
Lance’s jaw was on the ground when Keith stuck the landing, hidden behind the balcony curtains. “Do you have any rope?” Keith asked as quietly as he could.
“I—um, I don’t… know?” Lance stammered, still struck by how fluidly Keith scaled the wall. “Use one of the curtains!”
Keith checked to see if the room was clear, and it seemed like all of the guards were elsewhere, looking for Lance. The doors were all open, though, so Keith made quick work of tearing one of the curtains off of the pole. He knotted the end so that Lance could stand on it while Keith did all the heavy work of reeling him up.
Lance grabbed for the railing, and Keith’s arms as he wrapped them around Lance, securing him tight to safety. Lance went limp in Keith’s arms as he allowed himself to be hefted over the railing. “Careful—watch your feet,” Keith warned, and so he took Lance underneath the knees, and around the back, and carried him bridal-style off the balcony.
Lance giggled as he Keith spun him around before placing him on the bed where he awoke with vigor earlier that night to meet Keith at the balcony. Keith tucked the blankets up, and felt his chest seize up with such delight when Lance said, cheeks pink, “Goodnight—I love you.”
Keith kissed him one last time and said, “Get some sleep—real sleep this time.”
“I will.”
“Don’t let me convince you otherwise.”
“Okay, I won’t let you.”
“Good. Goodnight, Lance,” Keith said, grinning ear-to-ear as he jogged back to the railing and vaulted himself over it.
. . .
The early, early that morning, one of the guards found Lance fast asleep in his bed, and so the search was called off. Keith, however, was roused from his sleep by the angrily disappointed face of his brother. Keith feigned innocence, though, and continued to do so even when he accompanied him to the throne room where Empress Allura sat, glaring at everyone who entered. She drummed her sharp nails on the arm of her chair, and stared Keith down as he walked the distance from the door to the first stair to her throne.
Pidge was standing beside her, arms clasped behind her back, and she was giving Keith another one of her warning glares. As if I’d rat her out, he thought to himself, and turned his chin up as Empress Allura spoke.
“Are you aware that last night, Lance went missing?” she asked.
Keith blinked his wide, owlish eyes and shook his head. “Not at all—When Shiro told me I had… I heard nothing of it before. But it seems he’s back though, right?”
He watched her jaw tense, and hoped to the gods that she wouldn’t see through him. The timing was almost too perfect the previous night—Keith nearly got caught by the guards running to his room. The Empress had several guards waiting outside of his room for him, and so he took a different route. He stuck to the garden Pidge toured with Keith and Shiro when they first came. It felt like the entire palace staff was awake now, and it took ages of slinking about for him to find a spot on one of the benches, and sit with a calm, neutral expression until one of the servants came up to him and asked what he was doing.
“I haven’t been sleeping great, and so I take late night walks to tire myself out,” he lied, merging a touch of Lance’s confession with it. Unlike Lance, Keith had been sleeping great. The bed he had here was heavenly compared to the one he was stuck to back in his home country.
“I am well aware of that—I’ve already spoken to the servant who found you,” Empress Allura all but hissed. Her hands clenched on the armrests as she pushed herself up, staring Keith down from the apex of the throne room floor. “You expect me to—”
Her attention lifts to the door as it opens, and hurried steps race across the marble to where Keith and Shiro stood. Keith looked back, and was alarmed to find Lance there, standing no more than a few feet from them.
“What’s going on here?” Lance demanded. “I woke up and my guards informed me that you all thought I went missing?”
“That is what happened,” Allura said, marching down the steps. Keith took a subconscious step back, until he was standing between Lance and Shiro. “Where were you? I came to your room and you were gone.”
“I was in the bathroom,” Lance said, enunciating it slowly as if the concept was too difficult for Allura to grasp. He lifted an eyebrow at his sister, who narrowed her eyes. “When I came out no one was around and I went to sleep. End of story.”
Allura’s eyes were cold as the steely color they gave off. She hissed in a sharp undertone, “Let’s assume that you’re telling me the truth. Then what’s this I hear about asking for the guards’ supervision to be lifted?”
Lance groaned, rolling his eyes to where Keith tensed and looked at Shiro, who, like the good soldier he was, remained as impassive as stone. “I know I asked you about it before but it doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t care,” Lance said.
Keith turned to him then in surprise, and it didn’t exactly take a leap and a jump to come to the conclusion that their worries were set aside for the moment. If Lance was truly feeling the need to protect Keith from the guards’ wandering eyes, then he’d be fighting Allura on the matter right now.
Keith glanced at Allura, whose anger was replaced with astonishment. “You… don’t mind the guards then?” she asked. She glimpsed over at Keith, who tried his best to look innocent, but most likely failed.
“Well, not anymore—”
“What about your… paranoia?” she asked.
Lance turned pink, hands balled up at his sides. The look of betrayal on his face had Keith’s gut twisting in guilt. “Who told you about that?! You know I don’t like talking about it!” he whined.
“I’d like to know if you’re feeling self-conscious about—!” Allura started, and stopped at the look Lance gave her. She pinched her fingers against the bridge of her nose. “When I spoke to Hunk earlier, he… may have mentioned the fact that you’ve been acting more or less like a spoilt child who doesn’t want to share.”
“So what if I don’t want to share Keith?” Lance cried, voice squeaking. His hand went subconsciously to Keith’s, and Keith took it and gave it a tight, reassuring squeeze. Lance came back to himself in the next moment with a sigh. “I admit… I was being unreasonable, but I’m okay now. And I know the guards are just there for my safety and… I shouldn’t have been acting like… a spoilt child,” he all but spat the words at her, furious about being called out like this.
Allura didn’t seem phased, though, and merely said, “So you’re okay that I have the guards with you for one more week?”
Lance looked up from the floor, eyes wide. “What? I mean, yeah, yes, that’s fine,” he stammered, flustered at the thought. Just one more week of semi-captivity. He could stand that.
“You gave me quite a scare, Lance,” she said sternly, glaring at him as he nodded and promised not to worry her again. She lifted her arms up, and Lance leant into them, letting her envelope him into a hug.
As they reconciled, Keith turned to Shiro with his arms crossed. He lifted an accusatory eyebrow, and Shiro pursed his lips, looking away from Keith’s barely-concealed fury. Keith mouthed, “You told her?” once Shiro glanced at him again. Shiro responded with an indifferent shrug.
Allura released Lance from her grasp. He was barely out of arm’s reach when she pegged Keith with another withering stare.
“If I find that you’ve lied to me in any way, I will not hesitate,” she hissed at him. She stopped Lance’s attempt to argue with a swift, “No matter the consequences.”
She turned and walked towards the back of the throne room. Pidge followed after her with wide, shocked eyes. Lance, Keith, and Shiro stared after her before Lance forcefully took Keith by the hand and dragged him off.
“Let’s get out of here,” he muttered under his breath. Keith stumbled after him, and didn’t bother looking back at his brother as he stood in the growing chasm between Keith and Empress Allura.
Every part of this contributed to the increasing doubt growing deep within Shiro’s chest. Nothing about his life had ever been simple, and now…
And now Lance was seeing butterflies. He was breathing in the ocean air and seeing sunlight in the dark. He saw the glow on Hunk’s cheeks like glitter and sparkles, like freckles of starlight on his dark brown skin. He hugged the warmth of his best friend as he cried, “I’m sorry I abandoned you! I was so mean!”
His tears dripped onto Hunk’s shoulder, and they rooted there and sprouted into leaves that tickled Hunk’s ears as he said, “It’s okay, I figured something was up. I’m glad you’re back to normal, though.”
Lance laughed and sniffed, pushing away the tears so he could smile and look Hunk in the eyes. “I guess I should apologize for the fact that you had to deal with Allura,” Lance said quietly, guiltily.
Hunk whistled low and said, “Yeah, that was… that wasn’t fun. But you know what? Whatever happened was for the best, because you’re you again and that’s all that matters. Did you apologize to Pidge yet?”
Lance turned away groaning, and would have continued sulking about how much he didn’t want to apologize more and more to Pidge, but he was suddenly distracted by the fact that Keith looked just as beautiful as he did the previous night in the observatory. His milky white skin shimmered with stardust, and created a halo that the butterflies flocked to. He was off wandering the corridor that faced the ocean breeze, and the looked just as Lance thought it impolite for him to keep staring.
He turned away, his sharp ears turning red.
“I’ll apologize to Pidge later…” Lance murmured, and glanced back at Hunk with a giddy grin. “Can we hang out sometime tomorrow?” he asked hopefully, clutching his hands together in anticipation.
And of course Hunk didn’t let him down. They agreed to a picnic the following afternoon—just the two of them. Shortly after, Hunk had to leave to visit his parents, and so Lance followed him off of the stone ledge they sat on. He waved Hunk off with a childish, “Goodbye! Love you!” which Hunk responded with by saluting him and laughing, “Love you too, buddy!”
Lance threw his head back laughing, and turned to find Keith, but realized promptly that Keith was nowhere in sight.
Lance was used to the brief moment of panic when he was out of Keith’s sight. It was just habit now, especially after realizing that every moment he spent without Keith, his mind was occupied by hallucinations of him. But… after a deep breath, Lance was relieved to find that he was alone, and that the world existed of one Keith, and no other.
He started down the corridor, following the fluttering purple wings of the butterflies as they glistened in the sunlight, and ducked behind the pillars and around the ivy vines that sprouted out the windows, and began to spiral around the columns. Lance turned his eyes up to where the leaves were crawling over his head, and following him in a flourish of violet morning glory blossoms. He realized quickly that they were leading the way, and they were directing him towards one of the stone ledges between the columns where Keith was sitting along the edge, feet dangling just above the garden bushes.
Lance reached over and wrapped his arms around Keith’s torso. “You look beautiful,” he whispered, kissing the soft curve of Keith’s neck.
“I’m just sitting here,” Keith laughed. “What more do you want from me?”
“Nothing—you just look perfect all of the time,” Lance said, and leant back so that he could maneuver up onto the ledge beside him. Keith tucked his chin against his shoulder, watching Lance through half-lidded eyes.
“Yeah, well, all of the time it feels like you deserve my title more than I do,” he said at last, and grinned cheekily as Lance tipped his head in confusion. “Most Beautiful Man Alive…” Keith finished, and laughed when Lance nudged him, ears turning pink all over again.
They leant against one another and watched the ocean down below, and where it merged with the sky far off on the nonexistent horizon. Keith put his arm around Lance and sighed, saying, “I want to go to the ocean again. I want to collect sea shells and sea glass.”
“Then we’ll go to the ocean and collect sea shells and sea glass.”
“Yes… but I don’t want to do it here,” Keith confessed. He pressed his cheek to Lance’s hair and frowned. “I know it’s ridiculous and… your sister treats us well considering Shiro and I are both hostages for my father’s loyalty or whatever… but sometimes I get stir crazy being in the same place all the time.”
Lance murmured his agreement. He couldn’t remember the last time he went out to the city. It wasn’t easy for him to walk around in public, and there was no way Allura would allow it. Despite how successful her reign had been, there were still enemies everywhere, around every corner. As children, Coran instilled this fear in Allura, who instilled it in Lance, and so she was adamant that he never leave, and he was content to stay safe on the palace grounds.
“Your ocean is so beautiful… I wonder what other shores look like,” Keith confessed.
“You really think it’s beautiful?” Lance asked, and somehow the question felt personal to him. Perhaps it was the childish theory he and his sister concocted that made him associate his ocean to his heritage.
“Yeah, of course I do,” Keith said, and promptly backtracked. “Well, I mean, I’m not sure how much my opinion counts because this is the first ocean I have ever seen…”
Lance fell quiet, his thoughts pulling memories to the forefront. Allura used to take him on her journeys overseas to visit the far off lands that swore their allegiance to her. At least, she used to, until the horrific assassination attempt that led her to ban Lance from ever traveling with her again. “I could never risk your life over foolish extremists,” she would tell him whenever he begged and whined to come with her.
But before anything happened, Lance was well-traveled and familiar with every coast that Allura conquered bordering their ocean. He could see the rocky white shorelines now, with monstrous cliffs and archways across the ocean… He could see Keith standing in the teal water, hair slicked back and damp from swimming…
“You would love the Arusian coast,” he concluded. “All of the sand is pure white, and the cliffs are beautiful.”
“You’ve been to Arus?” Keith asked, and so Lance explained the trip he once took across the sea, years after Arus was sheltered by Allura’s rule. Allura was there for political business with Coran, and so Lance was left to his own devices, escorted by one of the ambassador’s sons… who… Well, Lance left those details out of the story he shared with Keith. Yet another instance where Lance’s nymphal instincts got in the way of rational thought.
“I’d love to go to Arus with you. You could be my tour guide,” Keith said, settling back against stone pillar so that Lance could lean back against his chest, resting between Keith’s legs.
Lance laughed nervously, realizing that he would make an awful tour guide considering he couldn’t remember a lick of where they’d been or how they’d gotten there when he was back in Arus. He was too busy falling head-over-heels for his own tour guide.
“Do you think we’ll ever be able to travel together?” Keith asked, the sunlight dappling through the imaginary leaves over their heads. A flower bloomed beside Keith’s head as Lance tipped his head back against Keith’s shoulder. “Would your sister allow that?”
“I don’t think so,” Lance confessed. “I wish we could, though.”
Keith smiled and leant to either side to look up and down the corridor. Afterwards, he whispered, “What do you think the chances are that we could sneak out and travel the globe without Allura noticing?”
Lance shouted in surprise and dissolved into giggles, and couldn’t respond for a solid minute before gasping out, “What? We couldn’t—!”
“Think about it! I bet we could—we’d just have to… really plan it out,” Keith said, and lifted a hand up to his mouth to nibble on his thumbnail. The sunlight shimmered on his skin like light reflecting on water. “I mean, would you want to? Hypothetically speaking?”
“Um… Yeah, is that even a question?” Lance laughed. “But my sister would lose her mind if I went missing again. You remember how she was when we… you know…”
“Well, it wouldn’t be now, it’s just… be far in the future,” Keith said. “I’d take the risk.”
“I wouldn’t want to take the risk for you. In case you forgot, Allura’s threatened to hang you a handful of times and I wouldn’t put it past her to do so if we up and left like that,” Lance said, and attempted to count the number of threats she made on his fingers.
“Tell you what—I’ll think on it, and get back to you, okay? Make a list of places you want to go to.”
“Okay, but it’ll be a list of places I want you to see. Because that’s more important, you uncultured child,” Lance said, and took Keith’s hand from where he had it pressed to his teeth. Lance kissed it and laid it over his heart.
“Okay, that sounds good to me.”
So the following day, when Hunk and Lance went off on their picnic, Keith found himself in the library staring at the maps of the world. For now, it was just a fantasy, but someday he hoped it wouldn’t have to be anymore.
