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Lance raises his glass to the room for the fourth time this night. It’s the time to celebrate. Zarkon is dead and peace is a step closer. Returning home is a step closer.
The room is dark and lit up with rays of fluorescent lights that resemble the color of Voltron’s lions. Pink, white, and purple neon strobes splash against the walls of the room. It’s a party; that much is obvious.
“To peace amongst worlds! To Team Voltron! Hell,” He snorts and giggles to himself. “To Lotor!”
Alien races from worlds far and wide join in to cheer and raise their glasses high. Lance sits down at an empty table, puts his cup to his lips and chugs. The liquid is smooth; a tad violet in color, maybe even fuchsia, as if Lance cares about the detail. It’s just pretty, so pretty, and it tastes better than anything he’s had on Earth.
He asked Allura at the beginning of the celebration if the drink was alcoholic. She cocked her head and asked what he was talking about. Alteans didn’t know what alcohol was, of course, but he knew. He was never an avid drinker to any degree, but the wild family parties they had back on Earth made him somewhat experienced. Marco and his father were better drinkers than Lance ever was. They could go all night while Lance usually ended up puking in the bathroom. The drinks never tasted good anyway.
The drink in his hand now, is definitely alcohol or at least some type of space equivalent. Except this drink tastes like what love feels like and his stomach is completely tolerating it. His body feels warm and his head is in the clouds. He can stare at the drink in his cup all night. It’s gorgeous. The purple glow of it is entrancing, it’s familiar. Lance studies the drink. What does it remind him of?
What does it—?
“Lance,” Something else familiar. Not a color but a voice. It entices him like the vibrancy of his drink. He turns to his side and Keith Kogane is sitting next to him. “How many times are you going to toast tonight?”
“Maybe once more. Maybe twice.” Lance hums.
Keith is smiling; Lance can see it in his peripherals. He misses Keith’s smiles and the fond expressions he would make before. After Keith joined the Blade and left the castle, Lance realized just how much those faces mattered to him.
“You seem lost in something.”
“Not as lost as you were when I tried to explain my Voltron chant.” Lance’s shoulders shake as he chuckles. He never misses a chance to remind Keith of that moment.
That is a favorite memory of Lance’s. Keith was so cute. He remembers when he first mentally beat himself up over thinking that. He remembers when Keith confided in him and Lance never wanted to leave his side. He remembers when Keith left them and the opportunity for anything more went with him.
Keith sighs. “Do you have to make fun of everything I say?”
“You should take it as a compliment,” Lance says. “It means I remember the things you say. It means they matter to me.”
When Keith doesn’t reply with even a groan or an insult under his breath, Lance looks at him. He looks at Keith for the first time in what feels like his entire life and remembers what the color of his drink reminds him of. Keith’s eyes are the exact same color.
Lance looks down at his drink and back up at Keith who is frowning at him. The violet colors still sparkle in such a dark setting, amazing. Lance’s drink and Keith’s eyes are both gorgeous. He wonders to himself, how long do you have to fall, until you’ve actually fallen?
“Hey buddy,” Keith waves his hand in front of Lance. “How far gone are you?”
Maybe Keith had responded to him a moment ago. Lance couldn’t tell and that is entirely Keith’s fault. He should consider how much Lance draws him in and makes him lose any kind of focus he had before.
“Not far enough,” Lance runs a hand through his hair.
This drink; the draining urge to love and be loved; Keith’s eyes; Keith’s smiles; Keith. His heart is a mess right now because he’s in love with Keith.
You’re so gorgeous.
“I can hardly talk to you right now.” Lance mutters.
Keith laughs. “Because you’re completely wasted?”
“No.” Lance reaches to take another sip until Keith takes the cup and moves it out of arm’s length.
“Then why?” Keith is more serious now. He looks hurt. Lance doesn’t like that look. It wasn’t actually Keith’s fault. None of this was.
“It’s because of your face.” He mutters again. He’s a little disappointed that the drink is so far away now. He just wants to look at it.
Keith leans in closer to Lance. He furrows his eyebrows like he’s upset.
“Do you hate me that much?” Keith’s expression is furious but his eyes are still bright and lingering with distress.
“—Not that either.”
“Then why, Lance?” Keith’s voice was strained as if he wanted to whisper and let only Lance hear, yet scream at him simultaneously.
Lance turns to meet Keith’s gaze. He didn’t realize how close Keith had leaned in. It’s too close for comfort but Lance won’t move. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off of the pretty color again.
“It’s because you’re gorgeous,” Lance feels his heart rate accelerate. His body burns in comparison to the calming warmth he felt before. “And I hate that you make me feel this way.”
Keith doesn’t move either. He stares at Lance intently with a blush on his face that can’t hide even in the darkness.
“What are you saying?”
Keith is beautiful. The way his cheeks are a pink tint send flutters into Lance’s stomach. Is it possible for someone to actually look like this? Lance wants to rub his thumb against Keith’s lips and see if they feel as soft as they look. He wishes he could test it out for himself.
A hand slips over Lance’s under the table. The contact must have been on purpose because Keith doesn’t move his hand. He squeezes Lance’s and speaks softly.
“Lance?”
He almost forgets that he half confessed to Keith. Going halfway already exposes his feelings, going the distance might ruin his life. This may be his only opportunity, while he’s lost in a violet trance and tragically in love.
“I love you. I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you Keith,” Lance feels Keith’s hand tighten against his. He can’t tell if it’s for reassurance or from shock. “I’m sorry that I fell in love with you. I’m sorry that I act like I hate you for being so cool instead of promising that everything will be okay. I’m sorry that I drank that stupid drink that reminds me of your eyes and it’s making me say things like this.”
“Lance—”
“I’m sorry that I’m so frustrated. I’m sorry that you’re touching my hand and it’s making me nervous. I’m—”
“Lance.”
“Are you even single?” Lance sighs. “I shouldn’t say things like this if you’re not. If you have someone back home, I’m seriously jealous. Then again, if you are single and I can’t have you, that’s probably worse.” Lance is talking and not stopping. The words following more words were meant to cover up the last embarrassing thing he said. It’s only making matters worse. He knows because he does this when he’s sober and even then he can’t stop himself from making the situation that much more unbearable. “Look, I--”
Lance’s words are halted when he realizes he can’t talk anymore. He can’t talk anymore when he realizes that Keith’s lips are on his and they’re as soft as he imagined them to be.
An opportunity like this only comes around once every zero times in a lifespan, so he kisses back. Keith’s lips move senselessly against his, his fingers thread their way through his hair, and his thumb brushes Lance’s cheek as if he is someone fragile to Keith. That’s what Lance wanted to do to him.
The kiss ends and Keith stares at him closely. His face is flushed and his lips purse like they do when he’s being obnoxiously stubborn. Lance loves that about Keith too. He loves when Keith doesn’t back down even though he worries about that very characteristic late into the middle of night while Keith is away.
Keith’s mouth opens as if he’s starting to say something, but Lance can’t hear anything.
What is he saying?
Everything becomes a blur. Lance can hardly make out Keith’s face anymore. The violet sparks of his eyes are still there; Lance could never lose sight of that, but his eyes were starting to close and Keith was getting up.
Don’t go.
Lance tries to protest and realizes that his words aren’t actually coming out. He tries to extend a hand out and reach for Keith but he misses. Everything is spinning and he’s slipping in and out of consciousness.
“Don’t go.”
The words come out this time, yet they’re so soft that Keith probably doesn’t hear them.
“Don’t--”
***
The bed is so soft. Lance pulls a blanket against his face and nuzzles it. So soft.
Soft.
Keith.
Oh shit.
Lance is in his bed so it must have been a dream. His eyes widen and his heart beat speeds up. It had to be a dream.
Confessing to Keith was not once on his list of things to do. Sure, he wanted to but it wasn’t worth it. The pain of rejection mixed with a twinge of depression couldn’t be healthy while stuck in outer space. No matter how vast the universe was, he couldn’t escape Keith out there.
He shouldn’t have drank the space alcohol, no matter how pretty it was.
“Are you finally awake?” A voice comes from somewhere in Lance’s room. Keith is here with him.
The blankets are the most comforting part of this situation. He pulls it up and over his head entirely. This is not happening right now.
“No.”
Lance could hear Keith click his tongue. His footsteps draw nearer. Lance can’t tell what’s louder; his heartbeat or Keith’s heavy-footed steps.
Keith is standing next to the bed now. Lance can make out his figure through the thin blanket.
“Get out from under there.” Keith says.
“No.”
Keith grabs ahold of the blanket in an attempt to uncover Lance himself. The edge of the blanket is being tightly squeezed between Lance’s palms and fingers. He doesn’t want to face Keith, not yet.
“Lance,” Keith’s voice is husky like it gets when he’s impatient. “Please, talk to me.”
The voice goes from murderous to hopeless in the span of three seconds and Lance’s heart sinks. He needs to talk to Keith. It’s the least he could do after the shit fest of emotions he unwound on him.
“Okay.” Lance mumbles against the blanket and relishes in his last few seconds of comfort. Keith is completely visible now and steps back. Lance eyes Keith as he pushes the blanket off of himself and sits up against the wall of his bed. He brings his knees up to his chest and keeps his eyes downcast. Keith seems angry and Lance must look like a hot mess.
“Are you feeling better?” Keith asks.
“I feel alright.” Lance answers. Since Keith mentions it, he realizes that even though he drank way more than he could possibly tolerate in a night’s period, he feels fine. He doesn’t actually remember having a lot of the side effects that he unfortunately always had when he drank back at home. He didn’t feel tipsy or queasy at any point during the night. He did however, feel hypersensitive about every emotion that he felt and he talked a mile a minute; that was something that happened on Earth.
“Good,” Keith folds his arms. “I guess the serum that you drank actually did help.”
“Serum?” Lance asks.
“After you went unconscious, I brought you to Allura. She laughed at first but gave me this,” Keith pulls out a small vile of clear liquid from his jacket pocket. “She said that the drink you had was best for celebrations but some alien races experience terrible side effects. If she had known she wouldn’t have given it to you.”
Lance snorts. “Yeah, no kidding.” That explains why Allura and Coran stayed totally mellow while drinking that stuff.
“You woke up mumbling about something so I gave it to you. Then you went right back to sleep.”
Lance grimaces. He probably said something embarrassing, although he doubted it could top some of the things he said directly to Keith.
“About tonight—” Keith keeps his arms folded and looks directly at Lance.
“Dude, I’m sorry about what happened. I—” Lance bites the inside of his bottom lip. “I didn’t mean anything by all that. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“Are you kidding me?” Keith’s eye twitches. Lance recalls how “to the point” Keith has always been. What a cool characteristic when it wasn’t being used on him. “Tell me the truth.”
Keith sits on the bed in front of Lance. He’s so persistent. The face he makes when he’s determined to do something looks like a mixture of a child pouting and a restless teenager scowling. It makes Lance want to hold and spoil him, tell him that he could just do whatever he wants. Lance can’t win.
“Alright,” Lance sighs. “I meant everything that I said to you, but I never would have said it out loud if it wasn’t for that stupid drink. You can just forget about it if you want…” Lance trails off and mutters to himself. “You even kissed me just to shut me up. That was cruel.”
Keith rolls his eyes and leans in even closer.
A familiar scent floods the space around Lance. After Keith left the castle, his scent slowly disappeared. Lance misses it. For someone as rough around the edges as Keith is, for someone who spars non-stop, Keith always smells so nice. Everything about Keith is so nice.
“You know there are other ways to make you stop talking other than kissing you? But you’re not wrong entirely, that was why I did it.”
It’s Lance’s turn to roll his eyes. Then he feels a hand beneath his chin, gently raising his head to look at Keith.
Keith is still pouting. No matter how much his heart hurts, he can’t convince himself that Keith isn’t the cutest being in the galaxy. Even if they’re face to face, Lance can’t meet his gaze.
“Look at me Lance.”
“I can’t.”
“Fine,” Keith brings his hand up and covers Lance’s eyes. “Then don’t.”
Keith says this and Lance finds his lips brushing against Keith’s again. God, he could get used to this feeling.
This time the kiss is brief. It ends as quickly as it started.
“If the last one was to shut me up, what was that one for?” Lance asks once he remembers to breathe again.
No response. Lance wanted to see Keith now but he couldn’t. Keith’s hand was still shielding his eyes.
“Keith, what was it for?”
“To tell you…” Keith starts and stops.
“To tell me what?”
“To tell you that I’m in love with you too.”
“You are?” Lance reaches up to move Keith’s hand but it won’t budge. “Keith let go.”
“No.”
“You made me look at you after saying something embarrassing so let go.” Lance pries Keith’s fingers off of his face and Keith looks gorgeous. His entire face is red; his lips tremble as he tries to form words; his chest heaves at a pace just barely faster than usual, and Lance is still falling.
“You love me?” Lance asks. He sits up and moves to match up Keith’s line of sight with his own.
“Yeah. I do.” Keith says.
Lance starts to laugh with exasperation until tears roll down his face. Keith loves him back. Not as a teammate, not as a friend, but Keith is in love with Lance.
“Hey, don’t cry.” Keith presses his thumb below Lance’s eye and wipes away a running tear.
“I’m just happy.” Lance cries harder and laughs again.
Keith laughs with him. “Me too.”
“I didn’t think you’d feel that way,” Lance says once he manages to calm himself down enough to speak. “You even left the team.”
“You know that I had to,” Keith’s expression is painful. “I never wanted to, but I had to. I never wanted to leave you.”
Lance knows Keith had to leave. That was a big factor when Lance considered telling Keith how he felt in the past.
“I understand,” Lance’s eyes fall on the wet spots he left on the bed. “I understand that you’ll have to leave again too,” Lance rubs his face again. “It’s okay Keith, because I’m tough and I’ll love you no matter where you are in the universe.”
The tears are swelling up again. Lance hates how prone he is to crying. How was Keith supposed to trust him when he says he’s tough all the while desperately crying his eyes out? It’s just that Keith made him so happy, that the thought of him leaving again undoubtedly made him sad.
“I’m not leaving you again Lance.” Keith says.
“What do you mean?” Lance looks at Keith. “What about the Blade?”
“I met my mom,” Keith smiles; there’s the fond look that Lance loves so much. “I finally met her.”
“You did?” Lance feels his face perk up. Keith left to work alongside the Blade of Marmora because he needed to learn about who he was. His mother was directly tied to that.
“Yeah I did,” Keith chuckled. “She’s here tonight actually. I want you to meet her.”
“Oh my god. We’re skipping so many steps here,” Lance’s own smile never falters. “I’d love to.”
“Okay,” Keith looks like he can’t help but smile. “You were the first person I thought about telling. It didn’t turn out that way, but that’s because I needed to tell you how I felt first. One thing at a time right?” He shrugs nervously.
Lance moves to sit on his knees. He wraps his arms around Keith and nuzzles his face against Keith’s shoulder. He’s always wanted to do that.
“Keith Kogane, you can tell me about every tick of your life right here and now, and it’ll only make me fall in love with you even more.”
A light breath of air escapes Keith and shortly after, he’s holding Lance too.
“Thank you Lance,” Keith grips the back of Lance’s shirt. “Thank you for loving me.”
Lance doesn’t hear any of it, but he can tell that Keith is crying too. He can feel the wetness on his shoulder and feel the way that Keith quivers against him.
This is it, he thinks, this is when you know that you’ve finally fallen hopelessly and unavoidably in love with him.
“It’s actually kind of late now,” Keith says without pulling back. “I think most of us have checked in for the night.”
“How long was I out for?” Lance asks.
“About four hours in total. It’s the middle of the night now.”
“Sorry,” Lance says against the material of Keith’s jacket. “You didn’t have to wait around.”
Keith laughs. “When you woke up the first time, after I gave you the serum, you reached for my arm and begged me not to go about twenty times before you even took a sip.”
Lance groans. “You said I was mumbling about something. You totally knew what that something was!”
“Yeah, I did.” Keith chuckles. Lance is certain that the tears have stopped now.
“I’m glad you stayed.”
“I wouldn’t have left anyway.”
Lance smiles to himself and hums. He, against better judgement, pulls back from Keith.
“I guess I can’t meet your mom tonight then.”
“No, but she’ll be here in the morning.” Keith slides his hands down from Lance’s back and settles his grip on Lance’s arms instead.
“Then what now?” Lance is excited. Keith is holding onto him like he’s afraid of losing him and now that Lance is being let in, he’d give Keith the world if he asked him to.
Keith hesitates. “We should probably go to sleep for now.”
“You did say it was late,” Lance didn’t want Keith to leave. “I guess you’ll go back to your old room?”
“No,” Keith shakes his head. “Allura put me in a guest room for the night. It’s so much more spacious than these rooms, I’m not sure why we had such small rooms to begin with.”
“Right? My feet hang off the bed!”
“The other bed is twice as big. I guess I’ll go there now. Alone,” Keith says that like he is mostly talking to himself and then he smiles weakly at Lance. “Unless you wanna come along?”
Lance has to mentally send a distress signal to his brain telling it that the heart is freaking the hell out right now and needs to be stopped.
“Yes, please,” Lance says without thinking. “I mean, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you and maybe this sounds clingy and you don’t like clingy but I don’t want you to be away from me just yet.”
“Lance, I asked you.” Keith laughs.
Lance returns a sheepish grin. “You’re right, let’s go.”
***
Every inch of skin Keith touches burns Lance. Fingertips are brushing against his cheeks and weaving through his hair. Soft and subtle kisses are being shared on Keith’s fancy bed. Lance only wonders for a single moment why the paladins had such small rooms when the guest rooms were so luxurious. His thoughts dissipate when the smooth kisses become quick and desperate. He’s moving against Keith with as much focus as he can muster up.
Keith is fast and fierce, in all aspects. Even now, he threads his fingers through Lance’s hair and presses their lips together, close and urgently. Keith slides his tongue into Lance’s mouth as soon as the opportunity makes itself apparent. Unforeseen spontaneity is the definition of Keith’s existence. Lance likes when Keith is passionate about something; he loves when Keith is passionate about him. It gets him going. He puts a hand on the back of Keith’s head and grips a handful of hair. Their noses brush and Lance wants to smile, he would too if he currently wasn’t in the midst of making out with Keith.
It’s sloppy. The wet kisses, the way they toppled on top of each other on the bed, the way they fell in love. It’s reckless and ambitious; it’s what Lance always wanted. Maybe it’s what Keith has wanted too. Lance hopes that it is. He hears Keith’s breathing hitch and although he can’t see Keith in the darkness, he can feel him. He can feel how Keith’s grip is tightening and how the aggressiveness of the kiss is slowing down into soft flutters against each other, once more.
Keith is kneading his fingers against Lance’s scalp. They lay sideways, facing each other on the bed. It won’t be light enough to see each other until the morning, and secretly, Lance doesn’t want morning to ever come. Feeling and seeing are all the same to him right now and it’s perfect. Lance presses his forehead against Keith’s and he can hear the faintest giggle trickle out of Keith. He smiles to himself, wondering how in the world a person can be this gorgeous.