Chapter Text
Meet Me in the Hallway - Harry Styles
We're not gonna make it!
Keith vividly remembered Lance's words, always stuck in an endless loop inside his head, the last words Keith would've ever heard him say. To listen to him so hopeless made Keith's heart stumble blind, a feeling reaching into an endless dark but finding no purchase. And to think that he had not been with the paladins all because of his own ambitions, because he was struggling so hard to find a place where he felt he fit, and in that quest, he'd left behind the very people who'd done everything they could to make him feel what it was to have a home.
Now Keith would have Lance's back, he'd have all of their backs, he had thought, even if it cost him everything he'd worked so hard for. He'd already lost the Red Lion, but if he lost his team, too. . . Just losing Shiro had almost made him lose his mind, he couldn't bear the thought of losing anybody else. After his real family had failed him, he wasn't going to lose his new one. He did not want to live in a world they were not.
He'd surged the Galra ship forward, a ship that was partly his but was also another place he did not belong and recognized that he was prepared to die. And he did not mind.
Squeezing his eyes shut as if he could blot out the massive Galra ship and his impulsive decision, and all of the mistakes and cruel words he'd spoken in anger and haste, all he could see in the blaring red behind his eyelids, like a flashlight put against a fingertip, were the faces of all the people he would leave behind. Was it selfishness that allowed himself to keep going, or was it courage? Who was to say?
You're not the only one hurting. We're all right there with you.
He heard Lance's voice, how his words had somehow made him feel. . . less alone.
And then the world exploded.
He'd reigned the ship in, the response purely stimuli and irrepressible, as the thing he had been about to give his life for was impaled. Obliterated.
By Lotor.
After all that, he hadn't even. . . been able to save them. . .
In his heart, Keith distinctly recalled feeling shame.
"Keith?" He heard Lance's voice pull him out of his trance.
"Hm?"
"Were you even listening?" Lance groaned from his seat in the room they'd all taken to having discussions in on the ship. The ship they'd thought of as home for months now, and the ship Keith rarely ever found himself inside of. "This is kind of important, you know."
"Hey, Keith," Hunk piped up. "What if Lotor is your dad?" All eyes fell on him.
"What?" Keith said.
"Or maybe a brother? A long-lost sibling, perhaps." The room fell silent.
"Anyways," Lance said. "I say as soon as Lotor boards the ship, we trap him with a net gun—"
Pidge scoffed. "A net gun?"
"Yeah, like in the cartoons? And then while he's down I'll—"
Keith interrupted, "I thought you said this was important."
"Excuse me, but I wasn't finished," Lance continued in his ridiculous plan, and everyone listened intently to humor him.
"Whatever you guys decide to do," Keith said once the team had come to a stopping point. "You can't trust Lotor. He's an enemy and always has been, just because he helped you out this once doesn't mean anything."Just because he saved you and I couldn't.
"You?" Lance said. "You're a part of this decision, too." Keith looked away. He supposed he was right. The big mission was over, and the Blade of Marmora would be waiting to hear the Paladins' decision. Shiro led the team into another group dispute, throwing all their contradicting ideas around until they found the best course of action. Keith could barely listen to their words, eyes focused on the ground. He felt like an outcast, all the paladins of Voltron sitting on the couches together while he stood in the background like an old dog that wouldn't stop showing up at their doorstep. What was he to them, anyway?
After failing to catch any more of the conversation, he silently slipped out of the room and headed to the training area, figuring no one would follow or even notice his absence. It had been a long time since Keith had been in there at all, and the longing for something he could not have was sickening. Although he had been in the same room as them, although they once again walked the same pathways, they all still felt light-years away.
He booted up the training bot, the one he'd used at what seemed like years ago. Habitually, he went to discard his jacket, but then remembered he was wearing his Blade Armor. Keith shook his head as if he could rid himself of the memories and readied his Blade of Marmora sword in place of his bayard. How much time went by, he didn't know. He did not know how much time had passed between when he thought of this place as a home and now.
"Hey, man?" Lance called from behind him. Keith stopped, retracting his blade, panting from the exertion and the physical release that had effectively cleared his mind.
"End training sequence." He stood up straighter and looked over to see Lance in his gray t-shirt leaning up against the door frame, arms folded across his chest. He was surprised to find Lance was the one who had deigned to seek him out, but perhaps the burden had been placed on him again by the other Paladins like they were taking turns over which parent had to wake up in the middle of the night to keep the baby from crying. "What is it?"
"Why'd you leave back there?" He asked. Keith shrugged indifferently.
"I didn't have anything to say."
"Keith," Lance's eyebrows upturned, the way they did when he was concerned. Or flirting. He'd seen Lance do it enough to know. "You're still part of team Voltron. You know that, right?"
"No," Keith said, turning away from him, not being able to face Lance, a boy that represented the truth he'd been struggling to face. "I'm not a part of team Voltron. I have claim to none of the lions."
"Hey, that's not true," He heard Lance lean off the wall and come towards him. Keith was still breathing heavily from the training, sweat running down his temple. "Red talks about you all the time. He says good things, most of the time." Keith kept his eyes downturned. "If this relationship is going to work, we have to agree on partial custody." Finally, he looked at Lance, who had a slight quirk to his lip.
"What?" Lance chuckled.
"But seriously," He said. "Whatever you want to call it, team Voltron, team Space Boys, team Lance," He nudged Keith with his elbow and gave his most brilliant smile to try and sell the name. "Either way, you're a part of us. You're a part of this." He said. Keith searched his eyes, the all too familiar shining dark blue, overflowing with sincerity, and. . .
Lance used to only be tender to him when he was beaten down, too exhausted to continue to act like he hated Keith, but now he stood in front of him with full health and a full conscience, yet he had still come to search for him. Maybe Lance had just been maturing quicker in his absence, a boy growing up with no one to exchange childish banter with anymore. Or had the burden of this war finally honed him? Did he feel it weighing on his shoulders as Keith did, like Atlas holding up the sky?
Keith's heart continued racing despite his body's stagnancy.
"Yeah," Keith said, breathing a small sigh and succumbing to his emotions. "I know you're right. It's just hard to feel it sometimes. That I'm important."
"What are you talking about?" Lance said, sounding a lot like something Keith had said to him not so long ago. "You're not just important, you're a necessity. We need you, Keith." When the room fell silent, he continued. "I—I need you." He put his hand on Keith's shoulder, so gently, he swore he could feel the warmth even through his armor. "Who else is going to force me to do better? I can't have you one-upping me. Making fun of Hunk is no fun, he just gets upset and asks where he went wrong." Lance gave him a small smile, and Keith, much to his own dismay, found himself smiling back. How odd it was to find the two of them there, chatting easily as if they were childhood friends, as if there was never a time that they did not know each other.
"I guess that just means I'll have to keep being better than you." Lance huffed, unconvinced. "Plus, if anything, it'd be Team Keith." He switched the conversation to something more lighthearted, something easier for Keith to stomach. The rarity of the exchange would be enough to keep him up at night.
He scoffed, "You wish."
The team set ship towards a meeting place to reunite with the rebel fighters where Pidge and Matt shared a fist bump and an excited conversation about the "epic fight." After Pidge and Hunk got wrapped up in chat and Matt spotted Keith talking to a few of the other recruits, Matt detached himself to approach him.
"Hey, Keith? Could I talk to you?" Matt said, smiling tentatively.
Keith replied warily. "Uh, yeah, sure." They walked into another room away from the front of the ship.
"I just wanted to say. . ." Matt's eyes searched the room nervously before resting on Keith's. "About that battle. Without you, we wouldn't have won. We wouldn't have even had a chance. Because of you, we have that chance, at a real future. Whether in that future you want to rule your own planet or just go back home. . . Either way, I want you to see that future and I want. . . I want you to hold on to it. To cherish it, and to stop at nothing to get there." Keith tore his eyes away from Matt's. They'd never really talked like this, and he felt vulnerable knowing Matt was there for such a heavy moment in his life, a shared secret. "That's what I did, at least. And look, I'm halfway there!" Matt smiled and looked in Pidge's direction. "It's important to keep sight of what you really want. I hope you can find that, and see that there are people that really want. . . well, you." He chuckled.
Anyway," He wrapped up. "If you ever want to talk, I'm here, but I'm sure there are other people too. Just remember there's always somebody." He began walking away, but Keith couldn't stifle his next words.
"Don't tell anyone." He was clenching his fists so hard they shook, the leather of his gloves chafing against itself. He gave Matt a sideways look, enough to see him nod shortly and glide out of the room, leaving him alone in his thoughts.
What did Keith want? Where was his future? To discover his parents, to lead to him discovering himself and his place in the universe, and. . . to be discovered. He realized he did not want to tread the self-realization path alone, but he had pushed everyone away. . .
Who was left for him? If he died, who would weep for his body? Who would they send a coffin home to?
Keith let out a breath and felt it come out shaky and unstable. He began to retreat to the inner workings of the ship, to be alone and to try and sort through these feelings where no one could see him. Alone to brood and wallow, to think and turn over every inch of the encounter until he would convince himself he should never speak again, and alone. Always alone.
"Keith?" He jerked, shaken out of his self-absorption to see Lance lean out of a pocket of shadow on the wall.
"Lance? What are you doing?" His arms dangled by his sides, his brown hair plastered in its little strands around his forehead from wearing the helmet that was now tucked securely under his arm. It was still strange seeing Lance in Keith's red instead of blue, almost like he'd lent Lance his favorite jacket, but Keith was in the Blade of Marmora getup, and he imagined that was a lot stranger. To not look like a paladin at all.
"Well," He looked away from Keith, almost. . . bashfully. "Hunk and Pidge were talking smart, and Shiro and Allura were being all diplomatic and I didn't really know where I fit myself in the mix, and I realized you weren't in there, so. . ." He scratched the back of his head.
"You came to look for me?" Keith blinked in surprise.
"Yeah, but only to tell you if I have to suffer through it then so do you!" He hmphed, crossing his arms over his chest. Keith chuckled, earning a sideways grin from Lance as he peaked around his pout.
"Maybe you should've been loner Lance," A smile spread across Lance's face, a sun coming over a horizon.
"Man, Hunk was right, Galra Keith is better than regular Keith." Lance's eyes widened briefly, as if surprised by his own words, yet it was too late to take them back.
"Well, I am funnier than you," Keith flicked his wrist, putting out his hand in a laid back gesture.
"What!" Lance shouted, incredulous, balling his fists and rocking on his heels animatedly. "Oh, you wish, emo boy." Keith gave him a teasing grin until he saw Lance's face fall and his voice take on a more serious tone. "About that. . . What was Matt talking about?" Keith stiffened, all hopes of wrapping himself in Lance's easy bubble of jokes and teases vanishing.
"I. . ." He struggled to think of an explanation that would spare himself from the truth, but he did not want to be anything but truthful with Lance. "I tried to sacrifice myself. To take down the barrier." He wanted to shy away from the confession, but he forced himself to look Lance in the face and take whatever reprimand he had coming his way, bracing himself for it.
Lance's face fell. He stared at him, opened mouthed, wide-eyed. The expression was a harder blow than anything Lance could have possibly said, and Keith felt it like a slap across the face.
Except he didn't speak.
Lance crossed the distance between them in just three long-legged strides, letting his helmet fall to the floor. Before he knew it, Keith's body was tugged to Lance's, whose arms wrapped around his neck. Keith felt all the air in his body dissipate into the air in between them.
"I—"
"Don't you even think about leaving me, Keith," Once his initial shock subsided, where he'd stood like a fish out of water, Keith released the tension in his body and slowly let his head fall onto Lance's shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel his hair grazing Lance's, could feel the weight of their plated chests heavily pressed together, the strength in Lance's embrace, keeping Keith and everything that had felt so broken firmly gripped together. "I don't care if your mom or your uncle or your pet turtle left you, I'm not going to do that. None of us are. So you can't leave us, either." Keith's arms had been by his sides, but he lifted them, gradually, to encircle Lance's waist.
"Thank you," Keith whispered. "Lance." They stood there for a moment, alone in the embrace.
Lance broke it, "Why is it you're always sweaty?" Keith's eyes opened and he shoved Lance away, gripping his own upper arms as if he could shield himself from the intimacy. "What? I'm just saying, last time I put my hand on you, you were soaked."
"I had been training!" He protested.
"Aw, Keith," Lance flashed a glittering smile. "Are you just nervous around me?" He doted. Keith felt his cheeks heat up, and he tried to tilt his head down so his hair would cover it up, but Lance undoubtedly caught the movement. He smiled—a real one—yet still somehow equally as charming. "So I do still have it," Lance said breathily, enchanted, slightly surprised but not visibly displeased.
"The only thing you have is a constant tendency to get on my nerves," Keith grumbled defensively.
"I think you mean a charming tendency to . . . to not get on your nerves. Quite the opposite, actually." He lifted his chin defiantly. Keith kept pouting and shouldered past Lance.
"You wish," He recited. Even as he escaped the room and Lance's strange allure, even when he was alone in his bedroom and the day dragged into night, even though there was a war raging and there were future battles to be braved, he would still find himself smiling.