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Keith panted heavily, feeling exhaustion and satisfaction wash over him as the Castle’s training deck shut down. He looked at the black glint of his Marmora blade in stark contrast to his mostly-white surroundings and smiled a little at the melding of the two sides of his life. He had left the paladins and Castle before, and he still spent more time than not with the Blade of Marmora, but ever since the Naxzela incident several months ago, he had worked harder to maintain his connection with Voltron as well as the Blade of Marmora. There were many aspects of his life that were split between the two groups, after all.
Once his breathing was more relaxed and his heart rate had gone down to something more reasonable, he made his way over to the bench on the side where he’d placed his belongings that he had brought with him to the training deck. Five minutes and an entire bottle of water later, Keith picked up his red jacket and left the training room, heading directly toward the room he stayed in whenever he came back to the Castle for visits. Technically, he could go back to the room that used to be his at any time, but, well, boyfriend privileges meant a bigger room, and Keith was certainly not going to turn that down.
As he walked, Keith enjoyed the feeling of being back in earth clothing. At the Blade of Marmora, Keith mostly wore his suit all the time, so the cotton of his t-shirt and weight of his old red jacket hanging over his arm were comfortingly familiar. He strode down the hallways he’d long since memorized, following a familiar route to the section with the bedrooms the paladins lived in. He walked past the smaller rooms, including his old room, before coming to a stop just outside of the door to his current room. He was about to put his hand on the handprint scanner to open the door when a sound stopped him.
“ Mmmm… ”
That was… undeniably a moan. Was that Lance??
“ Mmm, yeah, right there~ ”
Yeah, that was Lance’s voice. Keith’s imagination conjured up images of what could possibly be causing Lance to make such… pleasured vocalizations, to put it mildly.
Lance gasped obscenely, and then… “ Are you alright? ” a low, rich voice asked. Lotor.
“ Better than alright. That feels amazing, ” Lance answered.
At this point, Keith knew exactly what was happening on the other side of that door. He also wasn’t sure what to do about it. Of course, Keith was not the kind of person to listen in on such activities, and if it was any other two people in the Castle, in any other room of the Castle, it wouldn’t have been Keith’s business. He would have just pretended that he’d never known. If it had been Lance and someone else, or Lotor and someone else, Keith would have probably stormed right back to the training room to take out his anger before confronting them later. But, these two specifically …
Not for the first time, Keith wished there was some kind of polyamory handbook. What is a person supposed to do when they made an agreement with their partners that no two of them would take that step to escalate the relationship without consulting the third… and then two partners go ahead and do just that??
Keith took a deep breath, trying to push down the feelings of hurt and jealousy. Lance and Lotor were dating, so this really wasn’t cheating , per se, just… well, he wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, but it felt like a betrayal of trust. He hovered outside the door, unsure what to do next.
“ Go a little harder, ” Lance said. Then, a moment later, he gasped and yelped, “ Too hard! ”
“ Sorry, Love. ”
Without thinking about it further, Keith slammed his hand on the scanner and stormed into the room. Two sets of blue eyes immediately fixed on him – deep, indigo blue against yellow, and sparkling sea blue against white. Keith stared back at them, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. Like he’d half-expected, he could see the toned planes of Lance’s exposed back as he lay face-first on the bed. Like he’d half-expected, he could see Lotor straddling Lance’s hips, leaning over Lance’s body, but… that was where Keith’s mental image stopped lining up with reality. Lotor was completely clothed. Lance still had his pants on. Lotor’s position was too high on Lance’s body for the… activity Keith had imagined. And a jar of expensive lotion Lotor and Lance had bought at a recent trip to the Space Mall sat open next to Lance’s head while Lotor’s palms shimmered with the same substance.
“Hello Keith,” Lotor said easily, apparently oblivious to Keith’s crisis. “Did you have a productive training session?”
“U-uh,” Keith answered smoothly, “yeah it was… fine… I guess…”
“Good,” Lotor said, turning his attention back to Lance. He put his hands on Lance’s back and began to rub and press in smooth motions, drawing moans of bliss out of Lance.
“ Oh ,” Keith murmured. A massage . Why… why hadn’t he thought of that?? Keith suddenly felt stupid and flustered. All that anger and mental deliberation… and Lotor was just giving Lance a massage.
Lotor looked at Keith with curiosity and confusion. “Your face is turning red, little Red,” he said, making a pun out of his nickname for the former Red Paladin.
“S-sorry, I just…” Keith fumbled for words. “Lance was pretty loud. I could hear from the hall, and… I thought…”
Lance’s eyes, which had been closed in contentment, suddenly shot open in fear and realization. “Oh, quiznak . That’s… awkward.” His face started to turn red, too. “Was I really that loud?”
“Well, I could hear Lotor speaking, too, so I guess there just isn’t really any soundproofing.”
Lotor’s cheeks turned ever-so-slightly bluer than usual along his cheekbones – the only sign of his embarrassment at the situation. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to keep that in mind for future activities .”
The emphasis on ‘future activities’ sent a little thrill through Keith. The three of them had only been dating for about a month and had not been intimate yet, and they had agreed to not take that step until all three of them were ready for it, but, presumably, they would be ready for that sometime in the not-so-distant future.
Silence hung in the air for a moment, accentuating the awkwardness, until Keith finally said, “So… I’m going to go take a shower now.”
Lotor raised an eyebrow at him.
“Because I was training!” Keith quickly added. “Not… not far any other reason. I’m just sweaty from working out, that’s all.”
“Ah, I see,” Lotor said in an airy and distinctly unconvinced tone. “Well, I may require the shower after you are done, though for a… different reason.”
Lance turned very red and buried his face into the pillow, though Keith could see the corner of a grin. “I just wanted a nice, peaceful massage,” he muttered into the fluff. “Was that too much to ask for?”
Lotor chuckled and resumed the massage. Just as Keith was about to head into the adjoining bathroom, he called, “I could give you one as well, after you come out of the shower. You might need one after all of that training you’ve done.” His eyes conveyed sincerity and hopefulness, and Keith knew that Lotor honestly just wanted to take care of him.
Keith felt himself smile. Lotor really was a great boyfriend. “Yeah, sure, that sounds great,” he said. “Though I don’t think I could return the favor…”
“I could!” Lance said, turning his face away from the pillow to face Keith. “I give great shoulder rubs, I promise. We can make a massage train! I’ll rub Lotor’s shoulders while he massages you.”
“I am not so sure that would be such a good idea,” Lotor said gently, laughing, “but I certainly would not turn down a shoulder rub from you after I’m done with Keith.”
“Okay, fine by me.” Lance shrugged.
“Lance!” Lotor chided. “Hold still.”
“What, I can’t shrug my shoulders?” Lance asked, shrugging yet again to taunt Lotor.
“Stop that!” Lotor insisted, but there was no bite in his tone. In fact, it sounded like he was just barely holding back laughter.
Lance laughed merrily, clearly enjoying the game. “Make me,” he challenged.
A mischievous glint shone in Lotor’s eyes as he pressed his thumbs deeply into Lance’s back, causing the paladin to immediately relax. “You were saying?” Lotor asked innocently.
“Mmmm… not fair,” Lance groaned in reply.
Keith rolled his eyes at his boyfriends’ mischief, but he couldn’t hold back a grin. He kept smiling even after he got into the shower, letting the warm water relax his tired muscles as he washed away the sweat from training. Outside the bathroom, he could hear Lance and Lotor (primarily Lance) as the massage continued, though eventually the sounds from that stopped, leaving Keith curious as to what they were doing now.
After getting out of the shower, drying off, and putting his pants on, Keith stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. He saw that Lance had already gotten out of the bed and had put on his blue robe that he’d refused to part with even after becoming the Red Paladin. He was leaning up against a well as he stood, chatting with Lotor, who remained sitting on the bed. Both looked to Keith as he walked toward them.
“Here, come lay down,” Lotor said, motioning to the bed. Keith did just that, relaxing into the mattress as Lotor began to coax the tension out of his muscles.
“While you two do that,” Lance said, “I’m gonna go get us a snack. Any requests?”
Keith exhaled slowly, biting back a groan, before he answered, “Surprise me.”
“Choose whatever sounds best to you,” Lotor told him. “Thank you, Love.”
Lance made a ridiculous finger guns gesture as he left. “I’ll be back soon! Don’t have too much fun without me!”
Lotor laughed softly. “We wouldn’t dream of it.”
All Keith could offer was a thumbs-up as his voice was lost to soft sighs, but he was sure that Lance understood what he meant by it.
Keith really did have the best boyfriends ever, didn’t he?