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It was supposed to be an ordinary mission. Nothing was supposed to go wrong. Of course, they never really had the greatest luck in the universe, and there was always a chance of being killed every time they went on a mission, but Lance really didn’t think that death was going to come so quickly.
He wasn’t dead yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. The whole team knew it.
Voltron had never failed them before, but for the first time, their massive size was their greatest downfall. They were surrounded by countless ships that were preventing them from moving; it was all they could do to stay together to prevent being overwhelmed on the spot. Their bonds with their lions and with each other were stronger than ever, but they were barely staying in the air at this point.
He probably should have been more scared of his impending death but… he was more filled with regret and remorse for all that would never be.
He wanted to go home. He missed his older siblings and his little nieces and nephews. He wanted to hug his mom. Dios mío, he wanted to see his mom. As he watched the giant ion cannon lining up with the immobile Voltron, his dreams of home were replaced with worry. He was worried about Blue and the other Lions. Sure, if—no, when this beam took them out, the Lions would be disabled for an indeterminate period of time, but eventually, their space magic would kick in and they would heal themselves. Their Paladins though… Lance bit down on his cheek to keep those thoughts reigned in as much as possible. He loved this team. They’d become his family. And Keith... Lance felt his eyes burning from tears that he refused to let fall. But now he was thinking about Keith and how much he would give just to spend another day with him. He’d never been so in love with anyone in his entire life, and now they were going to die, millions of light years away from their home planet.
At least they were going to die together.
He felt a strange burning in the back of his mind, one that he couldn’t quite figure out. The feelings were hot, which meant they could only be coming from the Red Paladin, but they were…conflicted? He felt Keith’s fiery love for him pouring out, which sent his tears spilling out silently down his cheeks. There was anger, so much anger coming from Keith. Anger toward the Galra and toward himself for not being able to do more. Lance tried to send a feeling back to reassure Keith that it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t anybody’s fault. He didn’t trust his voice to say the things he was feeling aloud.
That’s when Keith’s emotions started to twist and change, his desperation suddenly replaced by renewed motivation, his need to protect, and just a hint of fear—a different kind than he had felt moments before.
Before Lance could even try to process what was causing Keith to lash out emotionally, Keith was speaking into the comms, his voice steady and low. Lance wished he hadn’t spoken. Keith’s words were wrong. How could he not see that? What was Keith thinking? Did he not know that nobody wanted him to do this?
Lance could feel Keith redirecting his thoughts toward the task at hand. The self-ordered mission that would be his last.
Lance was screaming at Keith, the words leaving his tongue long before his brain could choose what to say in this moment because what do you say to someone who is going to sacrifice their life for yours? How do you convince them you aren’t worth it? How do you prove your love and that you cannot have these feelings without the other person there? How do you sit and watch as the best thing to ever happen to you lets a small flare of his own terror slip through his mental walls? You know he’s scared. Why is he doing it then? No. No, he can’t do this.
Keith! No. You can’t do this. Keith, no, I know what you are thinking but you can’t. You can’t leave me. Not like this. We lost and we are all going to lose together. We cannot just lose you. I cannot just lose you. Dammit, Keith, I know you can hear me! Why aren’t you answering? Keith, please! Babe, please don’t do this. Please don’t go. Keith! No! You don’t get to pick and choose who gets to die and who gets to survive. You don’t get to leave me alone. Remember? Remember how we promised to never leave? Dammit, Keith! DON’T BREAK YOUR PROMISE, YOU HEAR ME?? PLEASE! PLEASE DON’T GO KEITH YOU CAN’T YOU CAN’T BREAK YOUR PROMISE WE HAVE TO STAY TOGETHER I CAN’T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU KEITH PLEASE NO PLEASE NO NO NO NO NO NO PLEASE NO NO NO NO!
Lance was sobbing and he could hear Keith crying softly into his helmet. Then Keith was finally responding, but his words might as well have been bullets from the way they stopped Lance’s heart and made him feel like he was already dead.
I’m sorry, Lance. I’m so sorry.
I would destroy every galaxy for you. You showed me what it was to live. To love. The universe can't exist without you in it, Lance. I'm so sorry I'm leaving you. I'm so, so sorry but you guys are my family. I can't let you die, and if there's a chance I can save all of you, I'll take death any day. I love you so much, Lance. Goodbye.
Lance couldn’t reply. He couldn’t breathe. This was happening. Keith was leaving.
Lance felt the mental rip as Keith broke Red free from Voltron, but all the other Lions held their ground. They understood Red and Keith’s mission. They would protect their Paladins. Lance didn’t care about the mission or himself or the galaxy. Hell, the entire god damned universe could burn. Keith was charging head on into his death and Lance was sitting here watching it happen.
He could feel Keith’s small burst of pride in himself, in their time as a team. His desire to protect his family. To protect Lance. He was so happy he could save Lance.
Lance just wanted to die.
The ion cannon was on its way to murder the love of his life. Lance was angry. So, so angry. But he only sent his undying love for Keith out into the vast void of space. Keith had to know. He needed to know how much Lance loved him. That his love would never die, even if Keith wasn’t there anymore.
Red wasn’t physically connected to Voltron, but the mental link was still there, strong as ever.
Lance sobbed out the last words he would ever get to say to Keith.
I love you.
The cannon hit Keith head-on. Lance could hear his screams, and then pain was shooting through his head as he felt the echoes of Keith’s pain. The rest of the team could feel it too, Lance could tell from the way their comms weren’t silent for a single second but instead, it was filled with their shouts and moans and cries.
Lance screamed. In pain. In frustration. In anger. In grief. In heartbreak. He screamed for the part of him that was very much dead now that Keith…
The blast was over as quickly as it had struck. Lance could only stare at the blackened red panels in front of him smoking and floating through space without any guidance. Blue cried out as her connection with Red disappeared. Lance cried out as his connection with Keith disappeared.
He wanted to grieve. He wanted to fly over to Red and go to Keith, even if he was gone. He just needed to see him. He couldn’t do this. God, he couldn’t do this without Keith. How was he supposed to exist without the other half of his soul?
Lance didn’t get the chance to do what he wanted. As soon as the initial shock of the blast passed over everyone, the Galra ships resumed their attack. They were done merely preventing Voltron from moving. Now they were going to eliminate the remaining Paladins.
Lance gripped his controls tightly, his mind numb and his body cold.
This is for Keith.
The remainder of Voltron broke apart and began a fearsome attack. It was fueled by the raw anger and anguish pumping through each Paladin. They’d just lost their brother, their best friend, their lover. They weren’t going to let the witnesses live to see another quintant.
Lance realized, as he took down ship after ship with precision and no hesitation, that he finally understood how Keith must have felt while he fought. This was what he felt every single time he had entered a battle. The pilot of the Red Lion, it only made sense that Keith would do everything with a drive so full of fire and vehemence. His mission had once been to protect himself and to destroy those who had hurt him. Over time he had changed. Keith replaced his regard for himself with every other individual in his life that he cared for. If anyone threatened his family, he would personally ensure that they never got the chance to think another thought.
All too quickly, the battle was over and the Paladins were the only ones still flying. The Castle of Lions appeared and Allura called out to them, asking what had happened. The castle had been trapped in the wormhole that had gotten the Paladins here in the first place, and the two Alteans hadn’t the slightest idea of what had just transpired.
It was Shiro who sharply gave the facts. Allura bit back a broken cry, trying to process the Black Paladin’s words. Nobody wanted to believe it, but all the evidence was right in front of them. A painful reminder of what they had lost. Of their failure.
Lance didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to hear anything ever again. He didn’t want to turn his Lion around because he knew what sight was waiting for him if he looked back.
He turned anyway. Because even through it all, he just wanted to see him. Lance knew what he was going to find. He knew that he was going to have to look at his boyfriend’s corpse and that he wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it. That he was going to have to eventually crawl into their bed, alone. He was going to wake up tomorrow and realize this wasn’t a dream and that Keith was really gone. He could never kiss his lips or tell him that he loved him or help him remember that the world could be beautiful and that living wasn’t supposed to hurt. Lance could never hold his hand again. He could never look at those beautiful eyes or the adorable angry pout Keith showed to the world or the small smiles that were brighter than the sun back home or the way Keith just always knew what to say and how he was just perfect and everything Lance needed and more. God, Keith was so much more. Lance would have to live every single day for the rest of whatever life he had left without Keith by his side.
He wanted to curl up in the corner and never move again.
Instead, he found himself piloting Blue over to Red. His Lion gently grasped the smaller Lion with her front legs when did Red get so small and led the other Paladins back to the castle. He moved as quickly as he dared, but he was afraid that if he jostled the still-smoldering Lion, it could break beyond repair or hurt Keith further.
You can’t hurt a dead person, Lance.
He shut down his mind before he could think anymore, focusing on carrying the Red Lion into their hangars. As soon as he had put Red down, Lance was jumping down from his Lion, ripping off his helmet he couldn’t breathe and sprinting to the unmoving Lion. His suit and armor protected him from burning himself when he brushed against a charred panel. He pushed his way in through the gap in Red’s open jaw and ran to the cockpit. He could hear the other Paladins yelling and running behind him, but he couldn’t think about anything else right now.
He reached his destination. It was surprising, he really expected more damage to be visible, but there was just black where there used to be red and white. The rest was the same but somehow different.
The boy slumped over in the chair was the same. But not quite.
Lance couldn’t push down the painful wave of nausea. He held his stomach and vomited. The smell of burnt flesh was too much. But he had to get to Keith. He needed to say goodbye, even if Keith wouldn’t ever hear it or say it back.
He walked to the front of the pilot chair and felt his own heart stopping. Or was it speeding up?
There he was. The boy he loved. The boy he’d lost.
Lance reached out a hand but stopped when he saw how much it shook.
He couldn’t do this.
He had to do this.
There was blood on Keith’s chin and on his mouth. His eyes were closed. Lance could still see where tears had made their way down Keith’s cheeks.
He just wanted to brush them away. He wanted to tell Keith it was going to be okay. But he couldn’t. Everything was not okay.
Lance didn’t turn when the others filed into the room, somehow all fitting despite the size of the space. He couldn’t stop staring at Keith’s face, willing his boyfriend to wake up, just open your eyes dammit just wake up please, please don’t leave me.
Lance couldn’t remember what it felt like to be in love. He just felt empty.
Nobody wanted to move. Moving meant they had to deal with this—that it had happened. Finally, Lance did. He had to.
Lance gently pulled the helmet off Keith. He bent down and pressed a trembling kiss to his love’s forehead. Lance’s hands found their place on either side of Keith’s face where they had rested so many times before. He pulled back, only to find himself falling forward to bury his face against Keith’s armor, the armor that was supposed to keep him safe. This wasn’t how things were supposed to end.
Lance wanted to cry, but no more tears would come. His head laid over Keith’s heart, a place Lance had lain so many times before. This was the part where Keith would wrap his arms around his boyfriend to pull him closer. Lance waited for the contact that would never come. Instead of the content humming that usually followed, Lance only heard silence and the thumping of his own heart. It was irregularly beating. He would feel it beat, over and over, but every once in a while he would hear an off-beat thrum. The more he tried to focus on it, the more spread apart they became. Why would his heartbeat have an echo? One with a different tempo and fewer beats?
Wait.
That wasn’t his heartbeat.
Lance pulled Keith closer to him, listening hard for any sign that he wasn’t losing his mind and that maybe this was really happening.
He waited with bated breath.
Then came the faint pulsing underneath the blackened red and white.
A heartbeat?
Keith’s heartbeat?
Keith was dead. Dead people don’t have heartbeats.
Lance heard the noise again. He reached two shaking fingers to Keith’s neck.
A slight pulse pushed at his fingers.
Keith’s not dead? … Keith’s not dead!
*
*
*
The next few minutes passed in a frenzied blur. Lance had pulled Keith into his arms, trying not to focus on the fact that there was no response at all from the dying boy, but now he had time, he could still save him. Coran and Allura ran out first, hurrying to get a pod set up. The others ran behind, surrounding Lance. They all knew Death defied the Altean’s advanced science and medicine. Near-Death was a different story and sometimes had better results. They just had to get Keith there in time. And then hope it was enough.
Lance and Shiro stripped Keith of his armor and the flight suit underneath, cringing at the burns that covered his body. Trying not to focus on the faint pulse. They just had to get him into the med suit. Then he could go in the pod. Then there would be a chance.
When the glass slid up, sealing Keith in the pod, Lance fell to the ground. He stared in shock at Keith’s unconscious body and watched as numbers displaying his vitals flashed across the screen. Coran tried to explain the Red Paladin’s injuries as simply as he could. They didn’t know if Keith would be able to wake up, but in the case that he did, they needed to know the condition he would come out in.
The burns could be healed but would leave deep scarring that could potentially cause chronic pain the rest of his life. That wasn’t even the bad part, though. The cannon's blast not only burnt Keith and nearly killed him upon impact, but his legs...since his feet had been touching the ground when the shock hit, more of the power was absorbed into his legs than the rest of his body. The nerves in his legs were destroyed beyond repair. If Keith would ever have a chance of walking again, they would have to amputate both legs above the knee. Coran assured them that the prosthetics they would build would attach to the remaining functioning nerves in his upper thighs, enabling the prosthetics to operate the same way his legs had before. It was just going to be a huge, difficult transition for everyone, especially Keith. That was, if he woke up.
It seemed the only reason Keith hadn’t been killed instantly was that Red had fused together with him to take more damage onto herself in an attempt to save her Paladin. It had worked, though everyone but Lance was baffled at how exactly the Lion had done it. Lance had piloted Red before, he knew her love for Keith was more intense than anything he’d ever seen or felt (excluding his own love for Keith, that is). If there was a way to protect Keith in the slightest, Red would have found it.
After the debriefing on Keith’s status, which was still incredibly unstable but no longer getting any worse, the team filed out to clean up and to rest. Their exhaustion was crashing back down on them from the day’s events.
Lance remained alongside Coran, his hand pressed to the glass between him and Keith. He gently pressed his forehead to the cool surface and smiled through the tears in his eyes (the bastards, they decided to show up again).
You’re not getting away from me that easily. Wake up soon, my love. I’ll be waiting for you.
*
*
*
Two long months had passed when the pod finally released a very confused and tired Keith, who was glad to find arms holding him up off the ground because, wow did his body hurt. He looked up and of course, it was Lance. He didn’t have any clue how he was alive, but Lance was there and everything was okay now. Keith smiled at Lance, and the two stared into each other’s eyes for several emotional seconds before Lance bent down to gently kiss Keith. He wanted to hold Keith close to him forever and never let him go, but the rational side of his brain reminded him that now there would be time for that later.
Lance settled Keith onto the low bed Coran had set up next to the pod. The Altean man smiled sympathetically at Keith, who had finally noticed that where his legs used to be there was metal. Coran did his best to recap everything that had happened without overwhelming Keith. The whole time, Lance sat on the edge of the bed with one of Keith’s hands tightly grasped in his own. Coran left the two once he had taken Keith’s vitals and checked that everything looked good, or as good as they could be, all things considered.
Lance didn’t know what to say because he couldn’t figure out what Keith was feeling.
Keith didn’t know how to feel. Until he glanced up, looking lost and scared, at Lance and found warmth and love and his entire world staring back at him. This was a big change, and if Keith was being completely honest he was terrified. But he had Lance standing beside him. He didn’t need anything else.
*
*
*
Lance was there for every second in the weeks that followed. For Keith’s first steps on his new legs. For Keith re-training his muscles to fight in a completely different way with prosthetic legs supporting him instead of flesh and bone. For the many, many breakdowns when Keith’s legs hurt and when he fell and when his body shook from overexerting itself and when his burn scars flared up at night with pain and his frustration because things were so much harder now and it was so stupid. Every time, Lance was there to pick him back up and to give Keith the encouragement he needed to not give up. The rest of the team was incredibly supportive and they all did everything that they could to help Keith and his adjustment, but Lance saw through Keith’s bullshit and right down to his core. Lance knew the truth behind Keith’s lies and because of it, he was able to give Keith everything that he needed.
It wasn’t easy and it certainly wasn’t quick, but eventually, Keith got used to his legs. There were bad days that threatened to tear apart everything he had worked toward, but every time Lance would be there to bring him back down to the ground. Keith found it ironic that it took floating around in space for years was all it took to find something to finally ground him.
It was finally then that Red came back online for the first time since the battle.
Keith cried. So did Lance and Blue.
That night, when Keith and Lance laid down in their bed they were finally at peace. They still had a long, hard war to fight, and they might not win it. They were going to face death countless times, and maybe Keith’s legs weren’t going to be the only casualty. Even so, through all their fears and doubts, they found their love for each other. They realized that even if their time was limited, it all would have been worth it just to be able to lay by each other’s sides.
Keith pressed closer into Lance, turning his face up enough to press a kiss to his lover’s lips. Lance smiled into the kiss. Keith smiled even wider. He would take all the pain and suffering in the world just to live in Lance’s arms. Lance would eliminate all the pain and suffering in the world just to stand by Keith’s side. Lance kissed the top of the shorter boy’s head as he wrapped his arms tighter around Keith. He was so in love with this boy.
I love you so much.
I love you too. More than anything.
Nobody knew what tomorrow would have in store for them. But none of that mattered. Right now Keith and Lance had each other, and that was more than enough.