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The first time Lance had seen the heart line on his palm turn black he had tried to hide it. He kept his sleeves pulled down at mealtime and kept to himself during the few moments of free time they had between missions. No one noticed at first. The deep black line just served as an ugly reminder of his poor luck. He fell in love with the one person he knew for a fact didn’t feel the same way about him.
And then he slipped up. It had been in an argument with Keith over something stupid, as usual. Shiro stepped between the two of them but his body posture made it all too clear who he agreed with on the matter. Lance felt something in him snap and he threw his arms out in frustration—his palm exposed before he realized it. Even still, Hunk was the only one to notice.
He cornered Lance in his room later that night, his big brown eyes filled with a pained sympathy Lance didn’t want. Hunk cleared his throat as he stood in the doorway and looked over at the bed Lance had curled up onto.
“It’s black,” Lance broke the silence first. He stared at his knees as his arms circled tightly around his legs. He felt the mark burn faintly against his skin and he pulled his legs closer to his chest.
“Lance,” Hunk hesitated, one arm raised as if to reach out. Lance remained firmly on the bed and Hunk stayed in the doorway. “How…how long has it been black?”
“Two weeks,” Lance muttered. He sighed and rested his head against his knees. Even to him, his voice sounded hollow and distant.
Hunk made a noise from the doorway, an aborted attempt to say something. He stepped farther into Lance’s room. He knew Hunk had questions, he could hear them left unsaid in his voice.
“It’s Keith,” Lance didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. He knew Hunk’s expression would only serve to make this worse.
Back at the Garrison they had been in the same class. Lance’s first mistake was to sit behind the boy wonder. His eyes were perpetually drawn to the curl of Keith's fingers around his pen, his somewhat slanted penmanship a combination of cursive and print. On occasion he would tap the end of his pen against his lower lip, eyes lidded and gaze faraway.
The first time Lance heard him outright confront their instructor he realized the guy not only had a nice voice to match his fine face, but also he was fiercely tied to his beliefs on morality. The class discussion on the use of rescue vessels veered into a debate over the efficacy of search and rescue missions in potentially hostile environments. For the first time, Lance saw a flicker of raw passion underneath Keith’s mulleted exterior.
It didn’t help that Keith was also the top of the class and always maintained the highest score on the flight simulators and exams. His crew consisted of some of the best students in the Garrison, and he had an actual fan base. Approaching someone like that was nearly impossible.
Lance wrote him a letter. He knew it was cliché, but he put his feelings down as best as he could. His handwriting wasn’t as neat—the lines slightly leaned downwards on the page inelegant and unsure. Lance sealed it and attached a single red carnation because he was a sucker for subtle romantic gestures and whether Keith knew flower language or not, Lance thought it was clever.
He wasn’t the first to confess. He had seen letters, gifts, and flowers practically showered on the dark-haired ace pilot. Keith had rejected every confession, thrown away every gift. Whatever his reasons, his seemingly stone-cold behavior only spurred more unwanted attention and cemented his image as some kind of rebel bad boy. Lance scoffed at the rumors because no bad boy could have a mullet.
Lance wasn’t sure why he thought his letter would have been any different, but it still hurt to see Keith pick it up and almost mechanically deposit it in the trash. He hadn’t even opened the envelope. Lance practically knocked his chair over when he pushed out of his seat and bolted from the room despite the shouts from his instructor. He felt stupid and hopeless when he actually cried that night, his hand clasped over his mouth to stifle the sound.
It hadn’t really come as a surprise when his heart line turned a deep red against his palm. After all, he spent day in and day out surrounded by the same people, Keith included. He learned more and more about his team—his closest friends—as they bonded. Lance put his life on the line and complete faith in his comrades. But being vulnerable and open like that had consequences. When he fell for Keith, he fell hard.
Lance picked up on the subtle inflections in Keith’s voice when he was angry, or worried, or on the rare occasions he would tease him. Lance started to forget why he even initiated his self-imposed rivalry in the first place, at least until his insecurities would bubble up inside of him at night in bed, thoughts that reminded him he had already been rejected once before.
His heart line was the same deep red color as the carnation he had taped to an envelope with shaking hands. It came as no surprise when the line darkened until it became an inky black. That was when it started to burn.
Hunk was still in his room. Lance snapped back to the present moment as he felt a warm hand squeeze his shoulder. He was glad his face was buried against his knees as his tears fell down his cheeks and stained the fabric of jeans. Hunk removed his hand slowly and turned to leave Lance alone.
For the most part, Lance had been successful in avoiding Keith. Any time he was near the other paladin he felt the dark line along his palm burn with a searing ache that was almost too much to bear. He had just left the dining hall when he literally ran into the one person he had been avoiding.
“Ah, sorry I—”Lance mumbled, an apology on his lips as he looked over at whomever he had just crashed into. Lance felt his stomach drop as Keith looked up at him.
“Oh, now you’re speaking to me,” Keith arched an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. Lance could hear the hurt barely masked by his accusatory tone.
Lance swallowed the lump in his throat. His palm hurt so bad he had to clench his fists. Unfortunately, Keith took the action as a sign of aggression and his eyes hardened almost instantly.
“Listen, I know you don’t like me but we’re still a team. If you’ve got a problem with me just spit it out, Lance. Stop avoiding me.”
“What problem?” Lance laughed, the sound of it too forced. “You’re imagining things, Keithy boy,” Lance shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to move before Keith stepped in front of him and blocked his path.
“You’re doing it right now!” Keith shouted, his voice echoed against the long empty hallway and Lance winced.
“I’m not avoiding you,” Lance protested. He quickly racked his brain for a lie. “I’m just not in the mood to talk, alright? I’m tired.” He knew it was a weak excuse but he pushed past Keith anyway before he could say anything stupid or blurt out his feelings. Even though he knew his time was running out, even though he knew Keith would reject him again, Lance didn’t want to hear it.
When he made it to his room that night his heart line only stretched halfway across his palm, the black ink darker than before. Lance clenched his fingers over his palm and exhaled.
“Talk to him,” Hunk leaned over Lance’s seat at breakfast the next morning. His eyes were wide and full of desperation. He didn’t bother to keep his voice down.
“What’s the point, Hunk? I already did the whole confession thing, maybe you remember? He threw it in the trash,” Lance gave him a withering look, his words laced with vitriol. It made his friend recoil, but Lance didn’t have the energy to feel guilty.
“He didn’t even read it—he didn’t know it was from you, Lance. Buddy, please,” Hunk sighed and his shoulders slumped in a way that reminded Lance of a scolded puppy. “You’re running out of time. Your line is already—”
“I know that!” Lance let his spoon drop into his bowl and he pushed his chair back with as much force as he could muster. Hunk stumbled to the side and Lance gripped the table until his knuckles turned white.
“You think I want to be remembered as the loser that died of a broken heart? What a lame way for a Paladin of Voltron to go out. Maybe I’ll get lucky and I won’t die. Maybe I’ll just wind up as one of the Umbra—”
He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Hunk looked as if he had been slapped. Lance knew it had been a low blow, he knew that it was a sensitive issue. The first time he had seen an Umbra was when he met Hunk’s older sister. She was pretty, only a year older than them but while she had the same brown eyes as her brother they held no warmth. Her smiles were sharp, her words even sharper. When Hunk's mother had a seizure, she had calmly picked up the phone and called for an ambulance. When they arrived, she was on the couch with a book. She didn’t even make the trip to visit her in the hospital.
Umbra were individuals that lost their heart lines and some would say their ability to feel love at all. The name was chosen because those afflicted changed so much some called them afterimages or shadows of their former selves. They were physically the same person, but ultimately nothing but the darkest versions of themselves.
It was true that the unlucky few that came down with the disease and suffered unrequited love became different afterwards. There were countless theories about the disease, why it only affected certain people, why some simply died and others became Umbra. The hard truth of it was that no one really had the answers.
Lance wasn’t surprised when Hunk turned and left the dining hall without another word. He was being selfish, he knew. Hunk was worried about him, and Lance knew that if he died from this his friends would grieve. And if he didn’t die, well he wasn’t even sure he would be himself anymore.
His heart line had diminished to practically nothing when he forced himself to stand in front of Keith’s door. The burn on his palm was excruciating. When Keith allowed the door to open, Lance gave him a shaky smile.
“Lance?” Keith noticed something was wrong immediately and any possible anger fizzled out in an instant. His eyes were full of unbridled concern. “Are you okay?”
Lance stepped inside the room and held out his hand, palm upwards. Keith turned his attention downwards and confusion slowly gave way to surprise.
“You know, maybe carnations weren’t powerful enough to convey how I felt,” Lance laughed, but it sounded wrong to his ears.
“Lance…is this…” Keith took Lance’s hand into his own as he looked closely at the last trace of black on the palm. Keith’s hands were warm, and Lance wanted so badly to lace their fingers together. He wanted to press a kiss to the back of Keith’s hand, to feel those fingers in his hair. Lance’s hands shook, the last trace of his heart line burning so bad he thought his skin would blister.
Lance pulled his hand free and placed them on either side of Keith’s face before he leaned in and kissed him.
There was one blissful moment of their lips slotted together, warm and tender and perfect before Keith pulled back.
“Lance, I…I don’t…” Keith looked open and vulnerable in a way that Lance had never seen before.
He knew the rejection would come. He had braced for it.
“I know,” Lance managed a soft smile despite the tears that stained his cheeks. A strange numbness started to spread through him and he probably should have been frightened, but he wasn’t. It felt like he watched himself from a distance, aware but disconnected. The rejection should have hurt.
For the first time in ages, his palm stopped burning.