Chapter Text
Lance has dimples when he smiles.
It's the first thing Keith notices about him at the Garrison, followed closely by 'oh no he's hot'. But yes. Lance has dimples. They're asymmetrical, sitting crooked on the apples of his cheeks - not at all like the ones you see in the movies.
But Keith thinks they make him look real. Glowing with life and light and warmth, Lance seems ethereal at times, like an angel. Those dimples...they ground Keith, remind him that Lance is flesh and bone and soft muscles and rich, brown skin.
And, yeah, Keith might have a bit of a problem.
Because Lance is obnoxious. He's a bonehead, he's stubborn, he's arrogant, and he can't keep his mouth shut. But when he flashes that lopsided grin, it's like something wonderful and intangible and magic and Keith is drawn like an unsuspecting moth to a blinding, endless light.
So, it starts like this: it starts with two boys, looking up at the chasm of space above their heads. It starts with racing hearts and words sharp as elbows. For Lance, maybe it starts with snide comments . But for Keith? For Keith, it all starts with those dimples in his teammate's smile, and that something - that inexplicable something - that seemed to thrum behind his bared teeth.
----
Keith definitely has a problem. Because...because he sees Lance after months, in a tent, with his brother, and Lance...is not smiling. He's glaring.
He's glaring at Keith. And taunting, and teasing - pulling at these tentative cords of their odd relationship in all the wrong ways.
And Keith feels his defense mechanisms revving like a motorcycle, and he tells Lance he doesn't remember him. Because, like a motorcycle, his brain is half for show and half for functionality. Some part of him withers at the oh-so-brief flash of hurt in Lance's eyes. Yes, he remembers, Lance is a whole lot more than a pretty face. The boy's emotions project through a megaphone at all times. And right now? Lance is blasting out hatred.
If this boy is the summer, he's not just the sunlight - he's the heat, he's rising tempers and high tensions.
And, to heck with it, Keith decides he doesn't care how cute the guy's dimples are - he's done. So he shoves out the pictures of those smiles and he glares back.
----
Later, when Lance flashes a grin at Allura for the first time, peering at her through short, thick lashes, Keith has to gnash his teeth together to keep from screaming at how fake it looks. When Lance smiles at Allura, it isn't raw; it's practiced, a peacock smile with feathers to impress.
(The worst part, he thinks to himself later as a pair of blue eyes drifts back into his mind, is that Lance looks beautiful anyway).
----
It had been an easy enough mission. An isolated Galra ship carrying a few prisoners. Not too many soldiers on deck. It looked simple enough - so simple that Shiro only sends Lance and Keith, set on building a better bond between the two paladins.
It looked simple enough, until the alarms went off and two large ships uncloaked themselves behind the tiny spacecraft.
Until the squadron of Galra soldiers ran into the room, where Lance and Keith were still struggling to free all the prisoners.
Until Lance's promise to cover Keith and the prisoners morphed from strategy to literal action.
Keith hears a blaster fire, and a feeling in his gut compels him to turn. He watches Lance jump to intercept the shot, and his heart barrels into his throat, warbling the cry that rips through the air. He sees red bloom on Lance's arm, in his vision...on the floor. Lance has taken down the last of the squadron, though more soldiers are undoubtedly on their way.
Keith gnashes his teeth as they board their lions and zoom off.
----
"I don't see the problem." Lance is furrowing his brows like he always does in his stubborn moods. "We rescued the prisoners, took care of the ships, and got out alive."
Keith's gaze flicks to the bandage wrapped around Lance's forearm. He takes a step forward and pushes away the wispy thoughts that always apparate when he's in close proximity with the blue paladin. "The problem," he growls, "is that you could've died. It was reckless."
"That's rich, coming from you." Lance sneers. His features are pulled tight, and he's growing snippy. Keith can practically see the frayed end of the dynamite fuse smoldering with the beginnings of a fire.
He feels anger, unrestrained, relentless, irrational, surge in his stomach, and before he knows it, he's shoving Lance. "Don't act so blasé about this. You have a duty to fulfill as blue paladin. You have a duty to Voltron. You have a duty to your family-"
He feels slender hands grabbing his jacket and shoving him back, hard. Lance's eyes are flinty when he looks at Keith. "Don't you talk about my family-"
"-I'll stop when you stop putting your life in-"
"-like you know about them." Lance cuts him off. At the blue paladin's uncharacteristically serious voice, Keith tries to reel his temper back in. Some part of his mind is screaming that his concern isn't manifesting in the way it should. "I spend every second on this ship thinking about them, missing them, loving them. I'm doing this for them. So don't talk about my family when you don't even know what it's like to have one."
Keith stills at the words. Lance's hard expression cracks, and Keith thinks he might say something, but he doesn't give him the chance. Keith ignores the regret in Lance's eyes and the warmth in his skin and the bloodstains on his bandage and walks out of the room.
----
The problem is, the castle isn't like the Garrison. Keith can't train alone all the time, not if the paladins are going to get any better at operating as one. He can't just feign ignorance or sit far away from Lance during lunch or look through him like he's invisible.
Everything is so close proximity.
Honestly? It's hard to build walls between professional and personal life when your teammates are risking their lives for you day after day as you do the same for them.
And let's be honest here; Lance has never been easy to ignore. Something about him pulls Keith in - he takes the bait for argument time after time, finds himself drawn to their verbal spars as he craves some kind of interaction. Lance is boisterous, he's demanding, he's arrogant, he's - vivacious, loving, brave, and heck, Keith has a major problem.
But, no. Keith has drawn the line. He needs to stop toeing it and take a step back into the safe zone before something pushes him over.
He can see it in Lance's eyes - this frustration, as though Keith's very existence drives him up the walls. Any efforts at...at friendship would doubtless be unwanted.
----
"Are you okay?" He hears the words come out before he registers that he spoke them, but he can't bring himself to care. Lance looks tired and in pain, but he seems to be holding up well considering the earlier near-death experience.
Keith settles in next to him and waits for the inevitable snide comment about how he was "just fine, in more ways than one", but when nothing comes, he looks up and feels his stomach tumble over itself for a fraction of a second.
Lance is smiling. "We did it. We are a good team."
And Keith feels his lips tugging up in earnest, because there it is. That love and light...painted across Lance's features like he's a work of art. But it's all gentler somehow. The light isn't blinding, nor the love overpowering. There is a firmness to the feeling that is all resolve and no aggression.
They grin at each other for a few more precious seconds, two boys bearing the universe on their shoulders, and see stars all around themselves.
And when Keith catches Lance's eye the next morning, the blue paladin is smiling at him like not even the world could hold him back.