Chapter Text
The world had never been kind, and it seemed that the universe wasn’t either. When Keith turned 16, he began to feel the strange, faded sensation of pain that wasn’t his. It was hard to explain, really. The pain could be strong, but it was dull at the same time. As intense as the pain could be, it had a slow build and a slow fade which was what told him it wasn’t really his pain even if it felt like it was.
The first time he’d felt it, it had been a sharp pain in his arm that built slowly until it seeped deep into his bone. He could feel the sting of bones tearing through muscle and skin, but his arm was very much intact. That didn’t keep Keith from letting loose a string of curses and fighting the tears that prickled in his eyes.
He’d never believed the stories. Well, he had once, but when he failed to feel any random pain, he figured maybe it was because he didn’t have a soulmate. When he was about 13, he figured maybe it was because he didn’t work like other soulmates. He wasn’t into girls, so maybe he was excluded from the soulmate pact of feeling the other’s pain. When he first fell for someone at the age of fifteen and had his heart broken, he figured maybe it was all just bullshit. There was no such thing as a soulmate.
And yet there he was, sixteen, feeling the agony of a broken arm when his arm was perfectly fine.
He’d felt more pain after that, and had given his soulmate a fair share as well. Sprained ankles, fist fights, one time his soulmate came down with a flu which came at the worst possible time for Keith, and not to mention the stubbed toes. It wasn’t until one day when Keith felt a pain sprouting up slowly along his arm until it morphed into the uncomfortable feeling of an arm being twisted just enough to make someone stop moving.
Another fight?
Then the sharp scrape of something digging into his skin. It felt so deep, so precise, that Keith knew it wasn’t just a scrape. Someone was cutting his soulmate. Keith grabbed a marker and traced along the pain that sprouted on his skin.
Wetback.
Keith stared at the word he’d written in shaky, smeared black ink. He felt a flare of anger at these strangers, these people with no faces who were hurting… well someone Keith didn’t know, but who was his soulmate regardless. And who the hell carved something like that into a person’s skin? Was his soulmate crying? Screaming for help? Were they holding back their tears? Were they fighting back?
Keith spent a long time wishing there was a way he could communicate with his soulmate after that.
When he was admitted into the Garrison, Keith found that his soulmate seemed to have a habit of getting into fights. He just wasn’t sure if they began because of his soulmate or if a lot of people just seemed to have it out for them.
The second year he was in the Garrison, there were less moments of sudden pain. It had dwindled down to a few stubbed toes and the occasional pinch on the arm.
It wasn’t until Keith had found himself on a ship, far out in space, with three strangers, two aliens, and Shiro that Keith had even remembered he was supposed to have a soulmate. They’d been given their bayards and while Keith inspected his own, he felt a wave of electrifying shocks spread through his body, making him wince. At the same time, he turned to see Lance on the ground with Pidge standing over him with a smirk.
“Yeah, cute,” she chuckled, powering her bayard off.
Still, it wasn’t until Keith had gone to the Blade of Marmora base with Shiro and returned to the ship that he’d felt absolutely positive. When he’d returned, Lance was holding his side where a blade had managed to slice Keith’s skin. For a moment, Keith just stared at him until Lance noticed he was back.
His eyes had gone wide as his fingers touched the apple of his cheek where Keith knew he had a swelling bruise. Keith had left without another word. He had more to worry about than a soulmate.
As the months went on, Keith found himself growing fonder of their goofball, loverboy, sharpshooter. He had become Keith’s stability. His voice of reason. Lance had become someone Keith needed in his life.
Then one night, when Keith couldn’t sleep, he’d decided to take a walk around the castle. He’d run into Lance who was staring out at the stars with a blanket wrapped around him.
“Lance?” He noticed Lance wiping his face before turning slightly. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, just… thinking of home.” Keith frowned and sat beside him. “I just…. I know I try not to think of it too much, but… I just need a moment to let myself feel homesick.”
“So that’s what that is,” Keith huffed, taking a deep breath. “No wonder I couldn’t sleep.”
“What?”
“I just… felt weird. I couldn’t sleep. I guess physical pain isn’t the only thing we share.” Keith bit his lip as he waited for a reaction. They’d never really spoken about the connection between the two of them. They’d always danced around it, both pretending like they didn’t know.
Then Lance laughed and pulled his knees up to his chest. “So you caught on too, huh? I was starting to think it was just me.”
Keith shook his head and looked out at the expanse of stars. “I just never really knew how to bring it up. I mean, you weren’t really fond of me to begin with, and I was supposed to believe we’re….”
“Soulmates,” they said together. They looked at each other and burst into laughter, both blushing.
“The first time I felt you, you’d broken an arm.”
“I remember that. The one time I’ve ever broken my arm. I was racing my sister, climbing a tree in the park. I was fifteen,” Lance said. He looked at Keith and smiled. “The first time I felt you, you’d gotten in a fight. I only felt it in my hands and a hit in the stomach. I take it you won.”
“I’ve been in two actual fist fights in my life, so you’re either talking about the time I got called a fag in school or the time I got in a fight with my first and only boyfriend. He’d broken up with me for something stupid so I sort of lost it…. I won both, so….” Lance frowned and looked away. “You got in a lot of fights. Can I ask about one?”
“Sure.”
“They hurt you. Wrote something into your skin. I traced it out on mine.”
Lance grimaced and grabbed his forearm. “Yeah, I remember. I’d just come to the States from Cuba. My English was… rocky. But I was smart in math. I got bullied for it a lot. Until I got admitted to the Garrison. I got to start over. My English was better. I wasn’t just the boy from Cuba, I was… a pilot.”
Keith bit his lip and reached out hesitantly to touch his shoulder. Lance looked at him and smiled. “I’m not that great at comforting people.”
“Hugs work.” Lance opened his arms, expanding the blanket in his arms. Keith smiled and shuffled forward, wrapping his arms around him as Lance brought the blanket down around them both. They didn’t talk much after that. They simply looked out at the stars, until they fell asleep on the floor.
After that, they found themselves working together much easier. Lance was like an extension of himself, something Keith knew and understood. But it wasn’t until the day that the team nearly died that anything changed.
Keith had gone with the Blade, and Voltron had been trapped at the hands of Haggar. They would suffocate and die if something didn’t breach that stupid barrier. His soulmate was there. His family- Shiro, Pidge, Hunk, and Allura. Pidge had just found her brother. They deserved more time together. It wasn’t a hard decision to make. Not for Keith.
But then, Lotor of all possibilities had come and saved the day. By the time everyone had gathered on the castle ship to figure out what to do about Lotor and his sudden change in morals, Matt had told the team what Keith had planned to do.
Horrified, they’d gone to see him, making sure he was okay, making sure he was sane, lectured him, and hugged him. Except for Lance. Lance had stood there, face blank, and absolutely still. Keith felt something uncomfortable bloom in his chest as he pulled him aside to get a reaction out of him. Before he could even say anything, Lance took a sharp breath and gripped his shoulders.
“What were you thinking? Why would you-? You-” He kept stammering over his words, but before Keith could calm him down, Lance cupped his face and kissed him.
Everything else had stopped. It had melted away. The second Lance’s lips brushed against his own, he felt like he had been renewed. He felt invincible. Nothing could ever hurt him again.
As they pulled apart, he found tears streaming down Lance’s cheeks, his eyes brighter than ever. His fingers trembled against Keith’s cheeks.
“Please don’t ever do something like that again.”
Keith could only manage a weak nod.
Ever since then, they’d been nearly inseparable. Keith remained with Voltron acting as a messenger for the Blade, training weekly as he updated them. It was a little rocky at first because Keith was so unused to relationships in general and Lance was a very touch-based person whereas Keith was very talk-based.
Lance tended to search for hugs, for hand-holding, for light touches, and any other form of human contact as reassurance. He used touch as a way to express himself. Keith on the other hand preferred to just be told. He wasn’t good at picking up on signals and he needed to simply be told when Lance needed something, when Lance was upset, just like he did with Lance. Keith was very to-the-point when it came to communicating with Lance whether they were arguing or trying to have a moment. It drove Lance crazy because he needed build-up, understanding of every explanation and outside factor and Keith didn’t understand why plain and simple wasn’t enough. What was the point of why’s and where’s and how come’s?
Eventually though, they found a bit of a compromise. Lance began to ask permission to touch Keith if it was a random urge, which later turned into simply letting him know. And Keith began to incorporate explanations before Lance could ask for them and offer the touch reassurances he knew Lance needed in order to keep from reading into things. Arguments dwindled, and they were able to work together much better.
The wonderful part was that despite how used to each other they were, there were still moments when Lance surprised Keith. Moments when he sort of stepped back and had to think, Whoa. This guy is actually my soulmate. Like the battle they’d had on a planet named Draxa.
There, the children had been taken to a special bunker to keep them from the rest of the war. A platoon of Galra soldiers had targeted it and planned to ambush it. Lance had left his lion and gone to fend them off all on his own. When the battle had ended, he’d gone to every single child to make sure they were okay, to comfort them if they were frightened. They all stared at him, this real-life hero right in front of them that had saved their lives.
That was the day Keith realized he was in love.
Kissing Lance was one of Keith’s favorite things. They kissed every morning, every night before getting into bed, every time before a battle even if they were mid-argument, and each time after a battle. There were times when Lance randomly told him, “Hey, I’m gonna kiss you now,” and Keith enjoyed those too.
But not as much as the ones he expected.
In those routine kisses, he knew and craved the touches he would receive. The fingers raking through his hair, the warmth of a hand pressed to the small of his back, the fingers ghosting over his cheek. He knew he should expect touches and those were the only times Lance didn’t have to let him know a touch was coming. And he loved touching Lance. He loved feeling the soft but quick thump of his heart by pressing a hand to his chest, he loved feeling how warm his dark skin was just under the hem of his shirt, he loved hearing his breath hitch each time Keith dug the pads of his fingers lightly into the nape of his neck, loved kissing him until Lance’s lips were slightly swollen, his cheeks flushed, and his breaths short.
Although his absolute favorite thing about Lance were his eyes. How he’d give Keith the softest look just before falling asleep, the desperation in them when they reached each other after a battle and knew exactly where the other was hurt, the lazy daze after waking up or after kissing, the focus when they trained together. He even loved his eyes when they were dark and stormy during an argument. But Keith would never forget the passion, adoration, honesty, and fervor in his voice and eyes when he first told Keith the words, “I’m ridiculously in love with you, Keith.”