Work Text:
There were twenty-one people in the room, most of them trustworthy. Keith surveyed them all. Matt was laughing with his fellow rebels; Pidge and Hunk were nerding out together about something Keith didn’t care to understand; Allura and Shiro were speaking with their heads close together, and Keith raised an eyebrow; Coran was speaking with Hutor, a member of the blade that seemed to also have a love for shiny facial hair, which was odd considering he didn’t have any. Then there was Lance.
He kept flitting between groups, joining in conversations, then shuffling for a moment before leaving again, and finding someone else. He was doing his rounds it seemed, and there was only one person left.
“Keith,” He greeted, resting on one hip, his helmet held against the other, “How’s it hanging?”
“Fine,” Keith answered, trying not to move his eyes away from the boy’s eyes. They were boring into him, knowing.
“Sure,” Lance said disbelievingly, “Why are you lurking in the corner? You led the final strike, people want to thank you.”
“Everyone here was part of it.”
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t grateful,” Lance sounded so sincere, so kind, and it made Keith want to run.
“Is that your way of thanking me?”
Lance pursed his lips, looking at the ground. This was the most nervous Keith had seen him since he came to his room with his concerns about being a part of the team. Ever since that day, Keith had seen Lance differently. He wasn’t just cocky and competitive, though those were two of his traits. He was kind, insecure, and selfless. Keith didn’t know how he hadn’t seen that before.
And to think, he could have lost it all.
“Earth to Keith,” Lance must have said something, and Keith snapped back to reality. He swallowed, the same feeling from when he was about to crash into the particle barrier washing over him. Fear, anticipation, loss. It faded just as quickly, though, and Keith relaxed further against the wall.
“What?”
Lance looked behind him at the others, at Shiro, who was consumed in Allura’s words, and Hunk and Pidge who had joined Matt and the rebels to celebrate.
“What aren’t you telling us?” The words hit Keith in the chest like a bullet. Was he that transparent? Lance, notoriously oblivious Lance, could see he was hiding something. Keith didn’t reply, instead raising his eyebrows in a silent question. Lance huffed, “You’ve got that look on your face that says you want to punch something. Hard. That only happens when I’ve pissed you off, if there’s some unfinished business with the galra, or if you’re having an internal battle,” Lance smiled slightly, “I got that last one from a lot of observation and assumptions but I’m pretty sure I’m right.”
Keith didn’t know whether to be complimented or creeped out that Lance had been keeping an eye on him. He settled on comfortably disgruntled.
“Maybe you should focus on your own training rather than my facial expressions.”
“And that’s a text book avoidance technique,” Lance pointed triumphantly, “I mean, I get it, if you don’t want to talk about it or whatever. But we’ve been through a lot, and I like to think that we’ve, you know, bonded.”
Lance’s eyebrows pulled down into an unsure frown, like he suddenly regretted even walking over here. He looked like he was about to leave again when Keith suddenly let himself go and grabbed the boy’s wrist. He wasn’t sure what to do next, but he didn’t want to say it here.
He looked at the crowd, at the laughing people, and tried to translate what he was thinking to Lance, who simply nodded and led them away. Keith didn’t let go of his wrist.
“Aha!” Lance shouted triumphantly, he opened a door and pulled Keith inside. It was a closet.
Lance just pulled him into a closet.
“Really?” Keith looked around in distaste.
“Well, you clearly weren’t going to find anywhere,” Lance turned around and flicked on a light.
It was surprisingly roomy for a random cupboard in the castle. He and Lance were a few feet apart, and there was plenty of space for Lance to flail once Keith told him what he had done.
“I-” Keith stopped, frustrated with the words that just wouldn’t come out of his mouth. He groaned, and sat down, leaning back against the cupboard door. Lance followed suit, sitting down opposite him, legs crossed and face open- “I thought we weren’t going to do it. That nothing would get through the particle barrier,” He took in a deep breath. Like ripping off a band-aid, “I was going to crash my ship into it to break it.”
Lance’s face froze, his eyes wide.
“What?” His voice was quiet, almost unrecognisable compared to his usual gusto.
“I- it was the only option. At the time.”
Lance blinked. Once. Twice.
“You were going to sacrifice yourself.”
Keith nodded.
“You were going to die.”
He nodded again.
“And you weren’t going to tell any of us until we found your wrecked ship.”
Keith ducked his head.
“I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.”
He couldn’t bear to look up, to see the look on Lance’s face. Would he be angry? Disappointed? Sad? Or worse, would he be nonchalant? What if he didn’t care at all?
“You- you idiot!” Angry it was, then, “How could you be so- so selfish?!”
“What?!” Keith’s head snapped up, “What I did was the opposite of selfish! It would have saved millions of lives!”
Lance gaped like a fish for a moment, before suddenly standing up and pointing at Keith accusingly.
“You were going to leave me- us! You didn’t care!”
Keith stood up too.
“You would have done the same thing!”
“Yeah! But- but this is different!”
“How?!”
“Because it’s you!”
“How does that make it different?!”
They were inches away from each other’s faces, chests heaving. Behind the anger in Lance’s eyes, there was something else, something Keith wanted to dive into. But as quickly as it came, it was gone, and Lance just growled.
“Next time you want to get yourself killed, at least tell Shiro. I know you care about how he feels.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lance shook his head, taking a step back. He rubbed his eyes, and sniffed. Was he- was he crying?
“Lance?”
The tension from the argument was gone, and instead Keith just felt guilty. He didn’t know why this mattered so much. When it came to the universe, the needs of the many outweighed the few. The lives of all those people were more important than just Keith. Anyone’s life was.
“Shove off, Keith,” Lance abruptly pushed past him and opened the cupboard door. His shoulders raised and fell with a deep breath, and he looked at Keith over his shoulder, “Go find your blade buddies, I’m sure they’d be happy to let you fly into a particle barrier.”
The door slammed shut, and Keith was left with just the dim light above him and a heavy feeling in his chest.
*
With so much to discuss, including Lotor’s offer then disappearance, the blade and the rebels stayed at the castle. Keith didn’t know how long they’d be there for, but it felt like they’d already been attending meetings for weeks. Every single one was laborious.
Usually Keith would jump at the chance to discuss strategy, but lately he just wasn’t feeling it. His thoughts kept straying to what Lance had said.
‘Because it’s you!’
Keith wasn’t different. He wasn’t special. Anyone in the blade could give their lives for the cause, and Keith wasn’t exempt from that.
Lance wouldn’t talk to him. He wouldn’t even meet his eyes. Keith could stare at the side of the boy’s face for ten minutes and the only sign that he had even noticed would be an irritated glare straight ahead.
This was one of those situations where Keith had done something without actually realising it. He wasn’t good at reading people, and was even worse at reading people he liked. What he wanted them to feel would always cloud his judgment.
What Lance was mad about had to have something to do with Shiro. He had mentioned him by name, after all. Maybe he had feelings for him? That was the only reason he could think of for him being so angry about Keith not telling everyone about his plan. But that didn’t explain why Lance said he was different, that him sacrificing himself was different to anyone else doing it.
Nothing made sense.
The only think Keith knew for sure was that he didn’t want Lance to be angry with him. He wanted the boy back, in whatever capacity he could have him. And some argument about a potentially universe saving sacrifice wasn’t going to ruin it.
Keith was terrible at letting people in. He pushed them away before he got rejected. He wasn’t going to lose someone now. Especially Lance.
Lance was Keith’s friend. He was everything.
So, as always, Keith had to do something to make shit happen. This time, though, it didn’t involve a life or death situation, just an emotional one-to-one.
Never mind, they were practically the same thing.
His opportunity came at the end of dinner on the fourth day. At least, the fourth Altean day. Keith wasn’t sure about the similarity to an Earth day.
Lance pushed his bowl of food goo away from himself and said a quick goodbye to everyone before making his way to his room.
Keith did the same.
He had to walk a bit faster to catch up, having left it a good minute before asking to leave so that it wasn’t too suspicious. Shiro still gave him a knowing look, but Keith chose to ignore it.
“Lance!” The boy in question was almost at his room when Keith got to the end of the corridor, and froze with his back turned. He stiffened when Keith got closer, but didn’t make any other effort to acknowledge his presence, “Hey,” Keith gently touched his shoulder, and Lance crumbled, relaxing completely, and moving to sit on the floor in front of his door.
Keith sat next to him.
“I know you’re angry with me,” He started quietly, staring at his feet instead of at the uncharacteristically quiet boy next to him, “I’m not sure why, but I don’t like it. I’m sorry, for whatever I did. I just- I’m bad with social cues and-”
“This isn’t about social cues, Keith,” Lance interrupted, sounding years older than he was. He was fiddling with his fingers, squinting his eyes like he could possibly see the words he was looking for at his fingertips, “It’s about you not valuing your life. It’s about you not acknowledging that you’re important.”
“I’m not even a paladin anymore,” Keith sighed, slouching slightly.
“No, not- not important in a universal way,” Lance met his eyes, and there was that look again, so deep and beautiful that Keith could comprehend it, “In the most human way. You’re important to people, Keith. You’re important to me. I don’t know what I would’ve done if- if-” Lance broke off with a sob, and all at once, Keith understood.
This wasn’t about the universe, it wasn’t about the sacrifice, it was about losing someone. Keith tried to imagine if it was the other way around. God, he was stupid.
“But I didn’t,” He crawled so he could meet Lance’s eyes from in front of him. He grabbed one of Lance’s hands and put it on his chest in a moment of confidence, “I’m here, Lance. I’m alive. Stop thinking about it.”
“I can’t,” Lance said, staring at where his hand met Keith’s shirt, “You just- you always put yourself in danger and now you’re in the blade and I don’t know where you are, or what you’re doing, and-”
“I’m only there because I didn’t want to kick you out of Voltron,” Keith admitted, and Lance’s eyes snapped up. He shrugged sheepishly, “You’re an important part of the team.”
Blue eyes searched his face, looking between his eyes, at his forehead, his cheeks, his mouth. They trailed down his body and squinted into a frown. Lance finally seemed to come to a realisation and tugged on Keith’s shirt so their noses were touching.
Keith’s left hand ended up next to Lance’s hip, the other by his shoulder on the wall. Being on his hands and knees was awkward and embarrassing but this close to Lance, Keith couldn’t find it in himself to care.
“You are an idiot,” Lance pronounced every word slowly, staring into Keith’s eyes with no fear or hesitation, “Muy estúpido.”
“Alive, though,” Keith replied cheekily, and Lance smiled. That was all he needed. He closed the distance between them, using the hand braced on the wall to hold himself up as he met Lance’s lips with his own. Lance’s hands ended up on either side of his face, pulling him even closer so he was up against the wall and Keith was close to falling over.
“Don’t you ever do something so self-sacrificing again,” Lance said when they broke apart, and Keith nodded dumbly.
“Okay.”
“And you’re coming back to Voltron,” Lance’s eyes were open, clear, “The Blade of Self Sacrificing Idiots can go fuck themselves. I want my Keith back.”
“Try telling that to Kolivan.”
“I’ll get Allura to do it,” Lance smirked, and Keith imagined the conversation. No one would question the princess.
He looked down at Lance, at the boy who told him when he was being an idiot, when he needed reining in, and when he needed to believe in himself.
“I love you,” The words were out before Keith could stop them, and he tried to resist the urge to slap his hand over his mouth.
“I love you too,” Lance grinned, pulling Keith in again for a softer, less urgent kiss.
Then, Keith thought something he never thought he would.
Thank God for Lotor.