Archive of Our Own

Something's not quite right with his brother, though, Keith thinks. There's something cloying-sweet about the way he pats Keith on the back, now, less gentle and understanding of Keith's aversion to touch and more firm; there's something hard and unflinching in his gaze that doesn't feel quite right anymore, doesn't feel quite as human.

He's sure he's just being paranoid, but still. It's the first time Shiro's words, however caring on the surface, haven't managed to make him feel any better. Rather, he feels crushed.

Scowling at his reflection, Keith unbuckles his blade from the belt at his thin waist and glowers at it, suddenly yearning for- yearning for answers, again. After the trials, he'd figured not delving into his identity would be okay, totally acceptable if it was at the cost of saving the entire goddamn universe. 

At present, however, he's not so sure. It's difficult to deny the cosmos a doomed fate when his own world, his own universe is nothing but a haze of abandonment, of silver-bullet voices, a miasma of hurt and repression and thunderbolts and tears. Irrefutably, Keith's aware of his position as the guardian spirit of fire, but sometimes, it feels like he's melting from his own wings; like he's always flying one inch too close to the sun.

That's what it's like, having to lead now. Not just one inch too close to the sun, even- he's fused into the heat of iridescent plasma and lucid stardust itself, a blaze that refuses to be controlled. He's too impulsive, too fiery to lead a team of hopefuls. Keith was never made for patching people together.

A knock on the door brings him more relief than he ever thought he'd have at that moment, and he hadn't realised just how far he'd spiralled back into thoughts of self-doubt and paranoia. Sighing, and inhaling in swirls of lucent courage, and steeling himself, he calls out hoarsely from the bathroom. His voice sounds raspy, unused, as though he'd been crying. 

(Not that it's wrong, in that sense.)

"Who's there?"

Swivelling around, he doesn't expect to see Lance of all people as the doors slide open, but an opalescent, liquid warmth abruptly floods through his creaking bones and aching body when he does. There's a strange sense of déjà vu hanging in the stilted air, ghosts and wandering traces of just days before when Lance had stood in this exact same position, baring a tiny part of his well-hidden insecurities to Keith.

Now, however, his shoulders aren't slumped and his face isn't impassive, devoid, colourless like it had been then. There's something akin to concern painted over his features, soaked into the furrow of his brow and the crinkles by his tired, tired eyes.

"Keith," he says, and then coughs awkwardly, diverting his gaze to the floor as a tiny, scarlet flush dusts over his cheekbones, constellations of invisible roses. Keith vaguely recalls that he's shirtless, which might be causing the embarrassment, and even though Lance has seen him like this before, he's never seen him after a battle. His own chest always looks like a battlefield in itself, afterwards. It's probably terrifying to look at.

Not terrifying enough though, clearly, because Lance flutters his eyelids shut and curbs his fists and lets out a small puff of air, before marching up to Keith with his head held unwaveringly high. He doesn't break eye contact, and for some reason his scorching gaze from a few meters away feels more intimate than skin-deep touches ever could. Keith gulps, audibly, watching as Lance follows the bob of his Adam's apple with that intense stare.

"Okay, buddy," Lance huffs, and the severity of his tone makes Keith's heart clench, a crimson headache pounding away at his mind in waves of noise and static.
"Okay. So. There's no easy way to say this, and trust me, I don't want to be here as much as you don't want me to," he continues, and Keith itches to correct him, lungs constricting taut and iron-heavy- I do want you to be here!- but he forces his face to stay perfectly sculpted in a mask of indifference, dubious of how the other boy would react.

"What?" he snaps eloquently instead, and Lance meets his uneasy, perturbed glance with that same scalding expression. There's something softer in his irises, though, like the calming thrum of raindrops against a window during a thunderstorm.
"I heard you crying," he finally admits straightforwardly, fiddling with his fingers, looking down. "I wanted to... to check that you're okay. You never cry, man."

It's no secret that Keith has built a thousand walls carefully around him, but it only took the wall separating his room from Lance's for his obnoxious, annoying teammate- his funny, beautiful, generous friend- to catch him in the most vulnerable of positions. Lance is right; Keith can't remember crying since he was about eight years old, a decade ago, when his father had left him by himself in a desert shack with drifting, ethereal promises (lies) of returning. Hey, son, I'm going out to meet some very nice people, okay? he'd said, an unusually large bag slung across those larger-than-life shoulders. I'll be back soon, lad. Don't wait up for me.

Keith had waited all night. Then a week. He'd had to take the emergency money pot to buy some toilet rolls and canned pineapples and a supply of bread for himself.

When a month had passed and his dad still hadn't come back in a flurry of muscles, and musk, and the smell of earth and sand and desert land, he had curled up on their tiny sofa and cried for days on end, punching the walls till his knuckles had bled cherry-red and crimson, choking and gasping and hiccuping and wailing like a child. Because he had been. He had been a child. The bruises had hurt. The ache of his heart had been worse.

Only now, just a few minutes back, had Keith let a sob rip from his throat as violently as it had done all those years ago; and only because Keith had been feeling the pressure of leading, and fucking up, and suffering to the fullest damn extent he could ever feel, and had finally. Reached. Fucking. Breaking point. 

It's hard, being shoved into space with five people he barely knows (even though they're growing into a rag-tag family, now) after not having any genuine human interaction for years, not except from Shiro. It's hard, having to take the role of the impulsive, angsty, impossibly talented one, mostly because sometimes he just wants to crack a smile without being analysed for it and sometimes he wants to mess up without being told he's not allowed to. Most of all, it's hard losing your brother twice and having him return as a completely different fucking person (is he even a person? What is going on with Shiro? Keith can't breathe every time he thinks too hard about it) and having to lead his team instead. He sucks at leadership. Always has.

Without a doubt, he knows he's not as intelligent and compassionate as Hunk, as strategic and quick-witted as Pidge, as adaptable and noble as Lance. He's definitely not Shiro, above everything else. He's just Keith- impulsive Keith, hot-headed Keith, shoots-before-he-thinks Keith, always-putting-himself-first Keith. Lance had said it himself, raw and bitter and true. He's selfish as fuck.

Right now, nevertheless, Lance isn't looking at him like he's the most self-centred pile of shit in the world, and more like he's... he's worried. Which he probably, genuinely is, to be fair, because of course, he'd heard Keith sobbing. Anyone would be worried because it's so out of character for him- not just Lance, he reminds himself bitterly. It's not like he's special or something, to him. 

So, Keith does what he does best, and denies everything.

"I wasn't crying," he utters defensively, but the inflamed hitch in his throat betrays him, so that it comes out as more of a weak stutter than a bold, assured declaration. Lance rolls his eyes so far back that they seem to disappear into his head. He whistles, low and dark once more.
"Dude, your eyelashes are rimmed with red. Don't lie to me," he says, quietly but not unkindly. He steps closer, seemingly hesitating for a moment before reaching a trembling hand out and placing it tentatively on Keith's bare shoulder, locking his gaze into place. 

The touch burns, Lance's long fingertips ice-cold against his firedust skin. He flinches away, jaw tensing.

"Keith, stop hiding away," Lance tries, and there's a plea registering in his timbre now, rough and angry and disappointed and sad all at once.
"I told you that I got you when we were fighting today, and I did mean that, and in more ways than one! I know I'm the silly goofball who never means what he says, but I promise I did this time, okay? You're my- you're my friend, Keith, even if I think you're out of my league most of the time. Like I said, I got you, buddy."

Friend.

Keith's body delates him, turns traitor against him. He can't remember the last time anyone's ever referred to him using a title, let alone claimed to be his- to be his friend. He's spent his entire life feeling like he's negligible, unimportant in the grand scheme of things, like he could slip away and people would notice initially but then they'd grow accustomed to it because he didn't matter that much to them, anyway. 

On the other hand, being Lance's friend means that Lance wants him there; means that they weren't just thrown together as a pair of mismatched delinquents to do some universe-saving by fate, or by destiny, or by whatever the hell unknown force is dictating all this. Being his friend means that he's somewhat significant to Lance, that he's someone that Lance is willing to put effort into.

Keith can't stop himself as he comprehends what Lance had just said. Irrepressibly, a hot tear slips out of his left eye and slides down his face, searing into his bloodied cheek like a deluge of kerosene, like platinum. He swipes rapidly with shaking fingers to wipe it, but suddenly there's too many tears and a faint moan audible through his quickened breathing, and before he can even try to stop, he's sobbing.

"Keith... oh, Keith," Lance whispers as Keith turns his back to him fiercely and hunches himself into the wall, digging his eyelids into his smouldering arm to stem the flow of teardrops. He just wants to shrink, collapse inwards like a dying star and explode in a supernova so he doesn't have to be so blindingly visible anymore. Gravity can go fuck itself. All his life, he's engineered himself to be very, very small, but right now, everything is way too fucking big; being the leader of Voltron, and being the supposed best pilot on the team, and basically replacing the Shiro who doesn't even feel like Shiro anyway, and crying in front of Lance, and being Lance's friend, and mattering to him as more than just worthless flesh and bone, and...

As he spirals and his chest feels like it literally is contracting into fractures of opaline, stained-glass nebulae, he feels something cold coming nearer to his spine and grounding him, anchoring him back into the smoky kaleidoscope of reality. The frigidity of Lance's presence makes the sun-drenched fever of his bare torso fade away, just a little, and Keith melts once again. 

One inch too close to the sun, he thinks. 

Too close to Lance.

Lance's arms slowly, steadily come to encircle him, pressing down comfortingly against Keith's ribcage, and Keith feels the universe shatter around him and build itself back up again. His fingers ghost over his stomach, his chest, every drag of his splayed fingertips leaving glowing imprints that flicker like molten starshine against Keith's skin. He shivers under Lance's cautious ministrations, having never been touched so reverently before. Lance traces out circles and trajectories like flight paths, the constellations that Keith could see back in his desert shack on Earth, little letters over and over again till he understands what they spell out, so frantic and forlorn as they scrawl across his shoulder blades.

S-T-A-Y. 
S-T-A-Y.
Stay with me right now, Keith. Please stay with me.

 As the two of them stay rooted to the spot for but a fragment of spacetime, they both feel the electric buzz in the air crackling and pulsing, something left unsaid tying them together but still... something. They've never been partners where their words spoke volumes, but more the actions; and so when Keith feels Lance's white-hot breath fanning against his naked shoulder and then the nape of his neck, he lets him. They've gone from rivals to teammates to this, but not once has it felt utterly wrong or too fast for Keith. It's not something he has to put a title on, anyway, because it's always been glacially building like this- so damn natural for the two of them.

For once, everything feels right.

It almost seems like hours have passed when Keith realises his tears have stopped and he's inhaling, exhaling in and out just fine, and he registers the brush of Lance's lips against his neck right as it happens. The fucking feverish, igneous warmth of that mouth makes something in his lower stomach clench and ignite with a dangerous, delicious heat he's been trying to avoid for a while now, so he gently nudges Lance away, removes his own arm from his eyes with a shuddering breath.

Despite the fact that Lance isn't hugging him anymore, he stays in contact with him, fingers skimming his back in a sedate, tender graze that lights up every last one of Keith's nerves like moondust, like dynamite. He doesn't have to look to know that Lance is sluggishly caressing every ridge, every sky-blue bruise, every raised scar of silver and gold that criss-cross all across his flesh after the more strenuous fights with Voltron, like the one they'd just had with the Galra generals. 

Lance delicately strokes each fucking flaw and learns Keith's body like it's a map, like it's a map and he's goddamn lost. Keith can't help the hushed moans that fall past his lips, but he tries to restrain those eager, telling sounds the best he can, and neither of them comment on it.

Finally, after a lifetime of stroking Keith like he's the most exquisite, most extraordinary jewel in the goddamn world, Lance speaks. 

"You've got to take care of yourself more, buddy," he says with the tiniest, tiniest chuckle, clearly trying to lighten the atmosphere a bit after Keith had essentially just fallen to pieces in front of him.
"We can't have our leader getting hurt all the time now, can we?"
"Shiro's our leader," Keith bristles, facing Lance head-on at long last and meeting his dilated pupils with his own afire ones. "I'm not replacing him, Lance. You know as well as I do that I suck at being a leader."

Lance seems to genuinely consider this for a moment before narrowing his eyes and squinting at Keith, looking him up and down which is kind of- kind of hot, really, since Keith can feel the tips of his ears bloom red with all the attention. He's still half naked, after all.

"You don't suck as a leader," Lance chooses to say, carefully, but Keith just scoffs and crosses his arms, glaring to the side in frustration.
"Really, Mr. I-don't-want-Keith-to-lead-me-anywhere?" he asks sardonically, that little hint of self-doubt that's been gnawing at him crystal-clear in his voice. His walls are up again, forged back into place as quickly as they'd collapsed with Lance's previous, tender touches.

"Wait, you remember what I say?" Lance gapes, and Keith has to strain hard to hold back from weeping again and screaming in his face that yes, Lance, I remember everything you say, because you're so fucking observant and happen to voice all the imperfections that I secretly know I have and try to ignore. And I love that you tell me it all because no-one else is that fucking blunt about it and you help me know what to do to continually improve myself, but still, still, it does fucking hurt sometimes, Lance. It hurts.

Instead, he says, "Yes, I do,"

"As mentioned just before- I hardly mean what I say, dude, even though I did mean that I've got you today. And even if I said that I didn't want you to lead me at the time,  Keith, I don't think that way anymore! I'm serious. You don't suck, you're far from!"

"I do suck," Keith grits his teeth, "Honestly, why does everyone sugarcoat with me? I was talking to Shiro just now and he said that I'm good at this but I'm not, I mean you've seen me tear the team apart over and over, and- and my plans aren't even thought out properly, let alone gone through with. Hell, everything I suggested today was worthless and Shiro had to step in for us to not die out there! Lance, you guys... you guys could literally die out there and I feel like I'd still be coddled and told I tried my best, even though it would be my fault because I'm fucking Galra with some shitty fucking purple eyes," Keith croaks, and there's hysteria rocketing in his voice, "And everything's my fault all the fucking time, and I wish people would stop denying it!"

He doesn't want his newfound family to die, doesn't want to be the reason they die.

Gasping fervently for breath, he waves his hands around in reflex then assembles himself, folding his flailing arms back into their default crossed position to continue. "I just-"

"Keith, cut all this shit," Lance hisses, abruptly, his volume way louder than the rest of their conversation has been thus far. In fact, it could almost pass as a shout.

Keith freezes. 

He's never heard him swear before, Lance always opting to use more child-friendly language as a result of coming from a massive family. The look on his face right now is downright scary, however, eyebrows knitted furiously and mouth pressed taut into a line, like a tightrope of unsaid words.

"You- you've got to stop worrying so much about everything you do! For a guy who runs on impulses, you sure do have a lot of anxiety," he reprimands, chewing on his bottom lip till it's bleeding, just about. Then he glances up again, gently bringing those cold hands forward to cup Keith's jaw, tilting his head up a little so that their gazes are level. 

"Yeah, Keith, you mess up a lot, but that doesn't mean you suck! Everyone messes up. You're a genius, sure, but you're allowed to mess up too," Lance tells him firmly, gingerly, one fingertip smoothing back and forth across Keith's jutting cheekbone like he's made of glass. Keith swallows, those words Lance had just voiced- you're allowed to mess up, you do mess up- being words he's longed, craved to hear for years upon years on end. As Lance carries on, a lump forms in his throat and tears threaten to spill again from behind his neutron-star eyelashes. 

Oh, God.

"Look, I'd never sugarcoat for you, and you know it. I'll always, always tell you what I honestly think," Lance promises, poking at the apple of Keith's cheek slightly.
"And what I think is that yeah, most times, your plans kinda have holes in them, and a lot of the time you're a bit lousy when you go off by yourself and try to do the whole lone wolf thing. But that's- that's not your fault, Keith, it's not your fault that you're used to being alone and thinking the whole world relies on you! The thing is though, dude, it doesn't-" he affirms, "- and the whole point of being a team is so that we can make up for each other's crappy areas and get better, together. You're a great leader because you think fast, and you do take in what we say after battles, and you're the slickest dude with a sword in the history of ever, and most of all, you're always learning and bettering yourself. I believe in you, and so should you," he trails off.

Keith is breathless. Lance is staring pointedly at the ground with a blossoming, flushed glow across the bridge of his nose now, but continues nonetheless.

"And besides, man. We really do make a good team- the two of us, I mean. I'll always try to fill in for you when you fall down, and I'll tell you when you're doing stuff wrong and protect you and try to make you think before you just go in for the kill! I'm your- I'm your right hand man, buddy, so don't go too hard on yourself and leave some of the burden to me too, okay?"

Right hand man. Right hand man.

There's silence.

Keith doesn't have any words, never has when he's with Lance. It's been like this ever since he was eight years old; he's never known what to do in emotional situations, always choosing to retreat, to go back to isolation and loneliness but certainty, all the same.

What he has with Lance, though, is uncertain, something he'd usually avoid because it's so damn new to him; they're perpetually caught between forced nothingness and something more, something beautiful, something safe. What he has with Lance feels like it has a heartbeat of its own; it pulses in waves of midnight blue and seaglow, break and shudder and gone, the way they support each other and tear each other down and build each other back up again, neck and neck, back to back, hand in hand. Space ranger partners.

What he has with Lance is strange to him but he takes it, anyway. Like everything he ever does, he goes in with a stellar resolve, without a single semblance of abandon. Really, Keith doesn't even think he minds uncertain, not if it's with this boy of ocean eyes and firecracker grins anyway.

And so, in a blitz of red cheeks and indiscernible sparks, he wraps his arms all around Lance once more.

"Thank you, Lance," is all that he can make his mouth move ever so slightly to murmur faintly, muffled into the taller boy's shoulder; but there's an undeniable fondness in his voice that even he can hear. He's never been one for initiating physical contact (not since they'd held hands during their bonding moment that Lance had apparently- apparently forgotten) and therefore, by all means, this should be scary. He's unafraid, now, though, unafraid so long as he's with Lance. 

"You're welcome, Keith. Honestly, dude, you just have to shut up and trust me, sometimes, y'know?" Lance smirks into Keith's curls, and they both laugh, Lance having echoed what Keith yelled on his hoverbike when they started this whole Voltron thing.
"Oh, and for what it's worth, buddy, you don't have shitty purple Galra eyes, alright? You aren't Galra, you're Keith," Lance professes, very determinedly. The beam that pulls at the corners of Keith's smile is magnetic.
"You're Keith, and the Keith I know has pretty cool eyes, not Galra ones. They're kinda different, sure, but in my humble and wholly correct opinion, they're a hell of a lot more human than his ugly alien mullet..."
"Hey, shut up!" Keith huffs into Lance's t-shirt, but he's smiling. He can hear the smile in Lance's words, too.

"Your eyes- they remind me of sunsets on Varadero Beach. All violet and grey streaks across the sky," Lance sighs, and Keith's heart stutters to a halt. "Stretching into the horizon, melting into the ocean at the very end. I don't know if that sounds dumb, but my mom was- is a poet, and that's how she'd describe it, y'know?"

Keith makes a little noise of contentment, and Lance just laughs.

"So, yeah. Whenever I look at you, you carry a little bit of home in your apparently Galra eyes, but that's... that's Earth. So I'd say you're the most human of us on the team, after all,"

"Lance," Keith starts in an overwhelming rush of affection, but Lance shushes him swiftly.

"Keith. Are you gonna stop hugging me anytime soon, or what?" he chuckles, and Keith knows there must be crinkles of amusement lining his eyes.
"No," he says stubbornly, and lopes his arms around Lance's neck even tighter, feeling at home with his body flush against the other's.

Keith takes everything he has within his heart and puts it into his mouth, drawing back to kiss the bottom of Lance's jaw. It's feather-soft.
His eyes still sting, his body still aches. But his chest doesn't feel quite so empty anymore.

"My right hand man," he mumbles, softly. Lance merely smiles, holding Keith in his arms like he's made of something important- like the blood in his veins runs with a flood of stardust and gold and precious stones, not the quintessence of the enemy.

"Yeah, Keith. I'd follow you anywhere," is all Lance says, then, lacing his fingers with Keith's near his hips and leaning in till their lips almost meet.

This time, he means it.