Chapter Text
With his gorgeous eyes and his reckless grins, Lance really should’ve seen it coming. Keith Kogane was too easy to fall for.
But sometimes, you don’t realize you’re falling until you land, until you can feel the ground under your feet and know in the pit of your stomach - this is home.
—
The first time Lance bumps into him, he doesn’t take notice of his lingering eyes or dusted-pink cheeks. He’s too wrapped up in a rather energetic conversation with Hunk. It isn’t until he hears the sound of books hitting the ground that he turns, ready to apologize and lend a hand.
He sees black on black and atrocious looking fingerless gloves, and bites back a laugh - until his eyes reach his face. Whoever this kid is, he’s new - and gorgeous. They make eye contact for a short, inexplicably weighty second, and Lance allows his heart to think - perhaps -
But something in the mystery boy’s expression shifts, and he’s gathering his books himself, turning swiftly and stalking away. The air settles and Lance can breathe again.
(It doesn’t relieve him nearly as much as it should.)
“Huh. Touchy guy. You know him?” Hunk hovers a few feet ahead of Lance, waiting for his friend to unfreeze.
Lance shakes himself out of it and catches up to Hunk. “Nah. Probably no one important.”
—
Lance hears about the new kid climbing the ranks a week later. “He came out of nowhere,” he hears a girl in his calculus class whisper to her friend. “Keith Kogane. Must be some kind of prodigy.”
Some part of Lance reaches out and grabs onto that name, stores it, keeps it tucked somewhere inside his heart. No one important.
—
Lance watches Keith’s name climb the list of ranks, and he plunges himself into his schoolwork more than ever before.
Lance has always been a good student - he and his family had sacrificed too much to waste the opportunity of an education at the Garrison. But now, there’s some kind of spark in him, an urge to match Keith - to be able to look him in the eye on a level playing field.
Equal, his head whispers. Worthy, his heart insists.
—
“It’s garbage!” Lance slams his tray down on the lunch table and takes a seat, ignoring Pidge’s raised eyebrows. “This guy shows up out of nowhere and works his way to the top in two weeks? I’ve been working myself into the astral plane and I’m stuck in the same place. This is rigged.”
Hunk bites his lip and puts his hand on Lance’s shoulder. “You’re top of your class, Lance.” He reminds him softly.
“Yeah, king of the cargo pilots,” Lance spits out. Not enough. Not yet.
He spots Keith darting out of the lunchroom, apple clutched tightly in his hand. “Look at him. Too high and mighty to bother eating with the rest of us. Who is this guy anyway?”
Hunk’s hand drops from his shoulder. He can sense his disappointment in the same way he senses Pidge’s careful gaze locked onto him. “What?” he snaps.
There’s a stretch of silence before Pidge speaks up, shrugging simply. “Nothing, Lance. You’ve gotta figure this one out yourself.”
—
He sees Keith in the halls sometimes, in-between classes, and the strange, fleeting expression he gives Lance only fans the flames that seem to be growing inside him.
He’s going to make sure that one day, Keith won’t be able to take those eyes away from him.
—
Lance sees, rather than hears about, Keith leaving the Garrison.
He watches a red motorcycle disappear into a hazy horizon through his window, and wonders at the fog that seems to settle over and blur his emotions.
Wonders at why, even as he speeds further and further away from Lance, Keith’s presence remains.
—
Keith’s name may be absent from the ranking list, but when Lance looks up at his own name, listed for the first time under the fighter pilots section, he can see it hanging there like a shadow.
He’s finally where he wants to be - so why does he feel so unsatisfied?
—
Seeing Keith again is like being blindfolded and doused with a bucket of ice water.
Something that had been put to rest inside Lance the day he watched that motorcycle zoom away rears its head and he is suddenly more alive than he’s been in months. He ignores Hunk’s yelp, blinds himself to everything but that stupid haircut, and feels his legs propelling him forward, towards danger, towards risk, towards him.
(Maybe that’s when some small part of himself begins to realize that he might be in trouble.)
—
The problem with realizing you have a crush on your rival is that...you have a crush on your rival.
Lance has no clue how to deal with this revelation, especially when Keith is giving him this look, like he’s just a fly buzzing around his head. Especially when Keith doesn’t even spare him that much, just walking past him without a second glance.
Look at me, he whispers, poking at Keith’s sore spots. Look at me, he urges, batting his eyes at Allura. Look at me, look at me, look...
Keith doesn’t look.
—
“You know, psychology has a name for this kind of behavior,” Hunk says one day. He’s crossing his arms while he watches Lance engage in his latest hobby - glaring at Keith from a distance. “It’s called reaction formation, and it actually signals a serious inability to accept one’s true feelings.”
Lance fixes Hunk with a flat look. “Okay, Freud. Thanks for that session.”
Hunk shakes his head. “Anytime,” he huffs softly. It’s the last time he tries to intervene.
—
Lance was 5 when he jumped in a river to save a drowning kitten. He didn’t know how to swim.
When he was 8, he took the blame for shattering a precious vase away from his younger sisters without batting an eye.
At age 15, Lance gave up studying the stars to take on a job and help the family. He didn’t let himself truly dream again until a certain dark eyed fighter pilot traipsed into his life.
The point is, Lance has always been needlessly self sacrificing. It doesn’t come from insecurity or a desire for attention - it’s just an instinctual need to give all that he can. And more so, Lance would do anything for his family.
So, when he sees the Galran soldier taking aim at Keith, he doesn’t see a choice, not really. He just does what he can do best - protect. The gash in his arm doesn’t shake his aim as he takes down the rest of the soldiers.
The adrenaline coursing through his veins keeps the pain at bay. It blocks him from seeing Keith’s hard expression or feeling the coming storm as he sprints back to Blue.
—
When he sees Keith after the mission, he’s looking at the bandage on Lance’s arm. He steps forward, but whatever butterflies appear in Lance’s stomach die at his teammate’s stormy expression. "The problem," Keith growls, "is that you could've died. It was reckless."
Something in Lance feels like it is standing on its last leg, a sliver of control being rapidly burned to ashes. He’s teetering on the edge of an abyss, looking forward. He barely registers his own voice sneering, “That’s rich, coming from you.”
Keith is touching him, snapping at him, pushing him too far in the wrong direction. Most of the words don’t process in his mind - he is too busy clinging to the tightrope he’s trapped on.
Lance hears the words “duty” and “family” and the last of his control is engulfed in flames. He feels his hands shaking at his sides, wants to grab Keith by the shoulders and shake him, wants to scream, “YOU’RE my family, too.” He reaches for Keith’s jacket, tries to pull him closer, reassure him, kiss him - but it’s too late.
He feels tears burning at the back of his eyes. He feels the air, hot and heavy, pressing on his neck and cheeks. He feels a wave inside himself that has been building for months, promising destruction. He feels all this, and he pushes back. “So don't talk about my family when you don't even know what it's like to have one."
The wave crashes on the shore, and everything shatters amidst the grains of sand, too small to be picked up again. He reaches out, but his fingers graze an empty space. Keith is gone.
He pulls his outstretched hand to his chest and sits down.
—
Sometimes, you don’t know you’re falling until you land, until you hear something buried deep inside yourself crack at the impact.
Sometimes, you don’t know you’re falling until it’s too late.
—
The thing is, his whole life, Lance didn’t know what he was looking for. He spent his nights staring at the stars, searching for some sign of his destiny written in the constellations.
“Pah! Destiny?” His older sister would click her tongue. “Don’t talk like that, Lance. You make your own path in this world, understand? No one else.”
But Lance didn’t know where he wanted to go. So, he saved up to follow the stars to the Garrison, lived happily, found something he cared about - yet, the aimlessness lingered.
When Keith showed up, Lance found a renewed sense of purpose. He had a goal, and he put all his effort into achieving it. He thought he was at last fulfilling his destiny - Lance McClain, world’s best pilot.
The thing is, Lance didn’t see what he was really chasing - not even when he ran after him on that night in the desert, not even when he followed him to new galaxies, not even when he charged into a bullet for him.
Not until he lost him.
—
“Are you okay?"
Lance looks up at the sound of Keith’s weary voice. He remembers the last time they really spoke, and thinks ‘Not really’. But, then he sees Keith’s hesitant smile last week over dinner, hears his warm “nice shot, buddy” over the comm link on a recent mission. He watches the red paladin sit down next to him and something in his stomach unfurls. And he hopes.
The two paladins sit in companionable silence, shoulders brushing. They look at each other eye to eye, warrior to warrior, boy to boy - and they understand.
"We did it.” Lance says, and he is immediately overwhelmed with the peace of finally speaking his mind. “We are a good team."
Keith’s responding smile, Lance thinks, is like spring - budding life, morning dew, and melted snow soaking unkempt lawns. It‘s slow healing and a fresh start.
Lance grabs on tight to this fragile, new bond with both hands and lets himself dream.
—
When Lance sees Keith the next morning, he smiles.
He thinks: they are in uncharted space, light years away from anything they know.
He thinks: space starts to look less beautiful when you find yourself stranded without a return date.
He thinks: with each day it grows harder to understand what once drew him to the stars, but with Keith in the room, he remembers.
He looks at Keith, eye to eye, and he thinks: this is home.