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“Coran, how far am I? This system is huge,” said Lance, trying to hide the urgency in his voice.
“Wait, I'm giving coordinates to Shiro. But you shouldn’t be far away, the planet Caridani is in the middle of the system,” answered Coran, stressed. Lance tightened his lips, looking carefully at Red's panel, trying to locate the vague coordinates of the distress call.
They had received an unusual call. An agent from the Blade of Marmora had appeared on the bridge screen, requesting urgent help from the Voltron team. Her people had just suffered an ambush by a Galra fleet and the group of six members was forced to scramble in a wild chase, ending scattered in different parts of the galaxy. Since the lions were faster than most ships, she was asking for help to verify if her team had survived. Some had managed to send distress signals that showed up on the map. In the four points marked, the name of the corresponding agent appeared: Taraz, Inkor, Kolivan, Keith...
Keith? The whole team gasped.
"Kolivan and Keith were on this mission?" Shiro asked, frowning.
"Yes," replied the woman, her face darkening "They were heading towards the rally point, they hadn’t started the operation yet."
"Excuse me, what's your name?" asked Coran.
"Krolia," she replied. Her appearance was as fierce as all other Blades, but her gaze showed an unusual concern.
"My brothers didn’t want to ask for help," she said, "but in Kolivan's absence I’m asking you because... I know that Keith’s safety concerns you, at least. Please, find him. It’s the most distant signal of all, and we barely know a thing about that system...”
Lance realized at that moment that the woman's face was familiar to him. Too familiar.
"We’ll find all of them," Shiro replied, and Lance couldn’t help feeling annoyed at his composure. Although, lately, he couldn’t help feeling annoyed by most of Shiro's attitudes. That and the evident concern of the woman prompted him to step forward and speak.
"Keith is one of the best pilots we have. I’m sure he went further than the rest ‘cause he managed to distract them for a longer time. We'll find him, don’t worry.” He looked at Shiro defiantly, but he just nodded with a slight smile, making him feel like an idiot.
Krolia's sharp and intimidating face let a relieved smile appear.
"Thanks, paladin. I hope so."
They had to trace an improvised search plan. Allura, with Blue's sensors, would try to find those who didn’t send signals, accompanied by Pidge. Shiro and Hunk, slower, would go for the closest agents. Lance, having the fastest lion, would go to find the agent who had fallen farthest, that is, Keith.
And there he was, trying to find him, hearing the crossed communications of all paladins, requesting intel on atmospheres, gravities, and densities at the same time. Fear didn’t allow Lance to concentrate well because the desolate appearance of the system made him imagine the worst scenarios, which he tried to throw into oblivion with all his might. Keith was not dead, not even hurt. That stubborn asshole wouldn’t fall so easily. Which one of all these ugly planets was Caridani?
The comm came back to life in his ear, and Coran was finally able to give him some information.
"You are just entering Caridani's orbit. It’s the planet with the largest satellite of its system. According to the records, it has some peculiarities in its chemical composition that make it uninhabitable... the external layer releases under certain conditions toxic agents that saturate the subsoil. The conditions are often related to the curious orbit of the satellite, which usually..."
"Blah blah blah, Coran, I need to know if Keith landed on it or not," interrupted Lance.
"It is certainly here where the distress signal is lost, but it's impossible to know if he landed or... well, I'll send you a simulation of the tentative trajectory, let's hope for the best," said Coran.
That didn’t sound hopeful at all, Lance thought, feeling an ice cube slide down his stomach. When was the last time he had felt so afraid? If something had happened to Keith...
Tense, he set the panel to follow the course that Coran sent him and he could see a small planet whose moon resembled Earth's, except it was twice as large. The surface of the planet looked like a ball of purple wool from afar, tinged here and there with cracks and craters that looked like gray spots in it. Lance squinted, trying to understand what he was seeing as he entered its atmosphere. Crossing the dense clouds, he saw that it was night and the planet was covered, as far as the horizon could be seen, by fields and fields of some ugly purple grass. The only source of light at that time was the huge moon, giving it a desolate appearance, devoid of other vegetation, simply composed of those flat fields of one color. He felt not only his restlessness, but Red's in every fiber of his body. The Lion seemed to know something was wrong and began to descend precipitously, startling Lance.
"Calm down, buddy. You just have to take me to Keith,” he muttered, trying to keep his hands steady on the levers.
They were descending too fast, while the thick clouds seemed to get tangled up in them. Even the atmosphere of the planet was dense, it was like entering cotton candy. Except in cotton candy, there were no smoldering remains of spaceships...
"Oh no..." Lance and Red thought at the same time. Red's scanner, in faint colors, detected a living being.
"Coran, I think I found Keith... Coran?" The comm made static noises in his ear. He didn’t have time to worry about it: Red descended with excessive force next to the ship, landing abruptly. In his haste, Lance didn’t pay much attention to this weird behavior and went out as fast as he could, running towards the smoke under the pale light of the moon.
"Keith!" he called, using his thrusters to get closer to the ship. He saw that it was damaged beyond repair, but a dark figure appeared behind it.
"Lance!" Keith surrounded the ship and both ran to meet each other. Lance felt that they were about to hug, but both stopped at the same time and were content to take each other's forearms.
"Man, couldn’t you find a planet farther from civilization to fall in?" he teased, but he felt so much relief that his knees were shaking a little. He couldn’t see Keith's face with his mask on, but the boy looked whole and in good shape.
"How did you know I was here?" Keith asked, in turn.
"Krolia told us that Kolivan, you and other agents were ambushed, so I had to come and save your ass, as always."
Keith didn’t answer. He let go of Lance's arms, taking a step back.
"Keith?" Lance asked, trying to guess his expression.
"Then, Krolia was the one who told you," Keith repeated. Lance remembered the woman's worried face. A face way too familiar...
"Uh… yeah. And she looked pretty worried, especially for you..." Lance crossed his arms, deciding whether or not to ask the question he had in mind. If Keith wasn’t wearing his mask it’d have been easier to decide, but he couldn’t say anything else anyway, because he was interrupted by sudden movement around them. The purple grass began to rise slowly as if it had come alive, and the boys could see that around them the fields were beginning to sway and shine with an ethereal and weak light.
"What’s with this grass? Why is it shining?” Lance asked.
"I don’t know anything about this planet, but I think it may be because of the eclipse," Keith said, pointing to the sky. Lance took a good look at the moon and noticed that a reddish halo covered a bit less than a quarter of its huge mass. Keith added: "I was watching it until you arrived. It’s been like this for a while"
Lance was going to say something, but he remembered that Coran had told him that Caridani was an uninhabitable planet... What were his exact words?
He couldn’t remember, so he put his hand back to his helmet's communicator.
"Coran, Lance here. I'm with Keith... Coran?" This time the comm didn’t even make static noise, it was simply dead. He tried a couple more times, while Keith climbed his ship and pressed the only surviving panel.
"Totally dead. It wasn’t like this when I arrived,” he said. Lance got a bad feeling.
"You know, the eclipse is dope and all, but I think we better leave immediately. Besides... Red is worried about you," he said, smiling. Although he couldn’t see his face, he was almost certain that Keith had returned the smile, nodding.
But the smile of both boys disappeared when they arrived at the cockpit and realized that Red’s systems were almost completely turned off. He was in a strange state, using minimum energy, and Lance couldn’t communicate with him.
"Come on, buddy, we gotta get out of here," Lance said, trying to manipulate the levers to no avail. The control panel barely shone, and the holographic screens didn’t appear. It was as if Red was taking an inconvenient nap.
"The auxiliary systems still work," Keith confirmed, looking at one of the panels. "The purifier too, we'll have a few hours of oxygen at least." He brought a hand to his face. "So much for saving my ass."
"Hey, you chose to fall on this weird planet in the middle of nowhere. It's all your fault," Lance argued, crossing his arms and legs in the pilot's seat. He heard Keith sigh. He was going to continue bickering, but then he noticed that Keith had turned off his mask and, seeing his face, suddenly felt breathless.
It was strange to finally see someone you've thought about so much. Even in the dim light, Keith's face was the same as always: pale, sharp and frustratingly pretty. It was so weird to have him right there when Lance had been thinking about him constantly and even more now that his bayard could take the form of a sword. Oh yeah, he was dying to tell him about his new ability and see his expression...
Keith moved towards the dead panel, next to the pilot's seat, and simply sat on it to look out.
“Seems like we’re gonna be here some time. I hope they find us before we have problems with oxygen,” he mumbled, worried. The moonlight entered the cockpit, illuminating his features, while the grass on the eternal fields outside swayed gently behind him, lighting up more and more as the moon went dark.
This unexpected picture made all the nonsense that Lance was about to say suddenly lose meaning and die in his tongue, because he was already having problems with oxygen. Struggling, he took his eyes off Keith's sharp profile and focused on the landscape that opened before him from the pilot's seat.
"I hope so too," he said. For his own sake and his troubled heart, at least.
An hour went by and the eclipse covered almost half of the moon. The first ten minutes they had been quiet, watching the night show outside, which minute by minute became more impressive. The grass shone and its movement simulated a gentle surge, hypnotizing... But Lance felt nervous and the silence always drove him mad, so he couldn’t take it anymore and decided it was a good time to tell Keith the latest news from the Castle. During that hour he spoke of Coran, Pidge and Hunk, of their serious and dumb adventures, of their visit to Lotor’s castle where, with tears of laughter, he told the episode of the reprogrammed robot and then, with disdain, spoke of the Galra Prince and his (unfortunate) new friendship with Allura. Keith listened attentively, at first only laughing from time to time, without interrupting, until Lance finished explaining the recent discovery of Oriande, as if he was narrating a bad fantasy movie.
"And Lotor went there alone with Allura? Why’d you let them?" he asked, frowning.
"I'd love to see you try to argue with her about it. I assure you that I’ve tried everything so that she doesn’t forget that Lotor is still Zarkon’s son, but after the episode of their fancy Altean marks, honestly, I gave up." Lance shrugged. "And, by the way, the castle was in a similar state as the Lion is right now. Which is actually worrying me.”
Both boys were silent for a moment, feeling a sudden cold that reminded them of the precariousness of their situation. Keith, however, said:
"I’m surprised that Shiro would allow it and say nothing. Didn’t he really say anything?"
Lance's face darkened. It was dangerous terrain: if he wasn’t careful with what he said about Shiro, he’d probably annoy Keith, which would make the wait quite unpleasant.
"Shiro... well... Shiro has his own problems," he finally replied. He couldn’t help but sigh.
"What do you mean?" Keith asked, worried.
Lance had a lot to say about the issue, but he didn’t want to worry Keith, nor did he want to betray Shiro's trust, after he had confessed that he didn’t feel like himself at times. Despite the hurtful things he had said, Lance had kept that secret and wouldn’t betray him now. Besides... a very small part of himself didn’t feel like talking about Shiro with Keith, looking at his eager expression.
"Look, pal, I think it’ll be better if you to talk to him personally. I’m sure he needs you a lot, after all," Lance grumbled, trying to suppress all bitterness in his voice. To his surprise, Keith snorted, fog coming out of his mouth.
"Need me? He doesn’t need me,” he said, hugging the leg he had on top of the control panel, shivering slightly. Lance frowned, also shivering a little.
"Keith, are you crazy? I'm sure that if he could exchange our places he’d do it any day."
He said it without thinking and then immediately regretted it. Keith looked at him suspiciously.
"Why are you saying that? Did something happen?” he asked.
"No," Lance answered immediately. He stood up to look at the auxiliary panel, and quickly added, "It's getting too cold in here. It seems that the eclipse is causing the temperature to drop and the auxiliary controls are giving preference to oxygen overheating... quiznak."
"Lance, seriously..." Keith tried to stay on the subject, but Lance shook his head.
"Forget it Keith, nothing happened."
He started digging through the emergency kit that the paladins kept in their lions. It had some useful things, like an inhaler to remove toxins from the lungs, bandages, water, ointments for wounds... he finally found what he was looking for: a small golden bottle, filled to the brim. Moltrine wapan.
"Alright, time to get serious. The eclipse is barely halfway through and we’ve been here for one varga... or one hour, whatever. If we continue like this, either we freeze or we run out of oxygen. We have to prioritize oxygen, so... we'll have to use this," said Lance, shaking the bottle.
"Is it that weird liquor that Coran gave us long ago? I never used it,” Keith said, now shivering visibly. His armor was colder than the paladin’s uniforms.
"No one, because we've never been trapped on a frozen planet, thankfully. According to Coran a sip is enough to regulate the temperature of the body for a short while," explained Lance, opening the cork of the little bottle with a ‘ploop’. A nauseating sweet smell immediately filled the cockpit.
"I really hope this isn’t one of the times when Coran's experiments go wrong," Keith said, looking apprehensively at the little bottle. Lance approached him, offering the bottle with a smirk.
"Why me first?" Keith asked, frowning.
"I don’t wanna miss it if you start breathing fire or something... what's wrong, are you scared?" teased Lance. Keith wrinkled his eyebrows and took the bottle with determination. He hesitated barely two seconds and brought it to his mouth, taking a good sip.
"Woah, easy champ," said Lance, receiving the bottle and watching Keith savor the liquid.
"It's too sweet," he said, wrinkling his nose. However, his eyes began to moisten and he coughed. Then he coughed and wheezed.
"Oh no, Keith?!" Lance took him by the shoulders and saw the boy cough and struggle as if he was choking for a solid minute, until the coughing calmed down and finally he could speak, his eyes bright.
"It fucking burns," Keith managed to say, his voice raspy. However, the tremors had stopped, and a nice blush had appeared on his cheeks. He looked at Lance and added: "Woah, I think it works."
Lance looked at the little bottle and noticed that Keith had taken quite a bit. Maybe he should have done it first, now that he knew it burned it’d be even harder... He found Keith's eyes challenging him. No choice: closing his eyes, he gulped hoping for the best.
Indeed, the taste was even sweeter than the aroma, barely tolerable. As he swallowed, the sensation spread through his throat and stomach, and it became a generalized burning that immediately made him cough and writhe. He seriously thought that he was going to die for that entire torturous minute, but once the spasms stopped, he noticed that the burning had spread to the rest of his body and gave him the sensation of being completely sunk in a hot tub. Keith laughed heartily and Lance found himself unable to stop smiling despite the teasing.
"Shut up, Mullet, you looked as pathetic as me," he said, with the corners of his mouth twitching.
"I don’t know why it’s so funny," Keith said, sitting back on the panel and covering his face with one hand, unable to stop laughing.
"You have the most twisted sense of humor I've ever seen," Lance declared, and Keith burst out laughing. He was holding his stomach and his eyes were wet as if he was releasing the repressed laughter of a lifetime, and Lance felt immediately infected. He leaned on the back of the pilot's seat and the laugh escalated so much that he even kicked it.
The bottle contained mixed liquid lava and laughter gas, Lance thought, exhausted from the outburst.
Two hours and fraction. The eclipse moved slowly, but at least more than three-quarters of the moon were already covered by the red halo. Outside, the sky grew darker, and the grass of the fields brighter: it had begun to emit soft lavender vapors that danced making cute patterns on the surface. Both boys were now sitting on the board in front of the windshield, face to face, at a respectable distance and enjoying the view, their heads resting against the glass, in the same position.
The wapan had the quality of not only regulate the temperature of the body, but apparently of appeasing panic. They could still see steam coming out of their mouths when they spoke, but they felt warm and comforted, and now it was Keith's turn to talk and tell stories of his brothers from the Blade. Both laughed honestly, Lance marveling at his dangerous adventures and discovering with surprise that Kolivan was much less stiff than he thought.
"I hope he’s ok. He's a good guy," Keith said, concluding his story.
"Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Shiro was going for him, he must have found him already. He just has to find us now," laughed Lance.
Despite the cozy atmosphere, silence fell between the two boys. Now that they were comfortable, would he dare to ask? He had to try.
"Then, about Krolia..." Lance managed to say.
"Hey, about Shiro..." Keith said at the same time, and they both fell silent and looked at each other, alarmed. But the wapan was still working, and in fact, it seemed to be stronger than before: both smiled at the same time, enduring laughter.
"Ok, ok, let's do this. Just one question for the other, one shot, no more. Alright, so, what’s yours?” Lance asked, pointing a finger at Keith.
"Eeeerrrr, well..." Keith seemed confused by the limitation and Lance took advantage.
"Then I go first. Is Krolia a member of your Galra family or something?” he asked, without thinking too much. Keith pressed his lips together, still flushed by the wapan, and Lance felt dazed again. A heat that had nothing to do with the drink extended through his stomach and caused all kinds of latencies, totally uncalled for.
"Yeah. How did you notice?" Keith asked on turn, and Lance tried to focus on something other than the movement of his lips as he spoke.
"Dude, if you don’t want to be discovered then both of you should change your hairstyles," Lance taunted, holding his laugh again as Keith stretched a foot over the controls to hit him with his heel. Lance glanced appreciatively at Keith's handsome face "I don’t know, you just look alike..."
"She's my mother," Keith said without ceremony, and Lance straightened up so fast that he almost fell on his face.
"Your mother!" Lance crawled towards Keith, until he sat down beside him, waiting to hear the story. Keith seemed reluctant to tell it and Lance was sure that, if it wasn’t for the wapan, he wouldn’t have, but the boy began to speak, telling how they had met each other and what had happened since then, beginning in a low voice and raising it more and more as he seemed to gain confidence.
"Well, that explains a lot. Krolia asked us for help to find you, actually. She even disobeyed the rest of the Blades," recalled Lance. Keith lifted both legs until they were on the board and wrapped his arms around his knees.
"I’m just… I'm not sure how to react. We still haven’t had the chance to talk about what happened, but the truth is that I’ve tried to avoid it too. I don’t know-- I don’t know what to say to her." The boy let out a soft sigh that made the hairs on the back of Lance's head stand up. What was happening to his body?
Keith paused and then added "If she asks me to forgive her... I don’t think I can do it. But I don’t want to tell her that either. I know she cares about me."
Lance considered it for a moment, trying not to get too distracted by banal things like the way in which the light from the fields reflected in his mate's eyes.
"Well, I'm not an expert, but I think you have the right to be angry at her. I mean, I don’t know all your story, but I think that if I were her I wouldn’t expect you to forgive me so easily," he finally said, while Keith fixed his eyes on him. Feeling that he blushed even more, Lance added:
"But you could consider giving her at least the chance to apologize to you, regardless of whether you can accept it. You can’t decide anything if you haven’t even been asked the question, right? You know, a first step..." the boy blinked, fearing to have crossed the diffuse line of Keith's tolerance and added, “Ah, sorry, I guess the devil's juice is making me talk too much."
"No... it's okay," Keith smiled slightly, his knees covering his expression a bit, but his eyes looked relaxed and comforted. His voice was soft.
"Thank you, Lance. I'll think about it."
The light that came from behind him illuminated Keith in violet tones and projected the shadows of both along the cockpit. Lance was slow to process Keith's words, stunned by the perfect balance of what he saw before him. Automatically, like a robot, he reached out and put a hand on his pal's head.
"Anytime," he said, ruffling his hair. Keith shook his head as if to shoo his hand, but he never stopped smiling, now with a strange expression. Almost... fond.
"You always know what to say. Why would you think that Shiro would want to exchange you for me?" Keith asked, and Lance felt a stitch in his brain numbed by the drink. He even seemed to feel cold again, although he wasn’t sure if that was possible.
"Oh, great, you remember that instead of..."
"That's my question, Lance," Keith said, now more serious. Lance was intimidated by it, aimed directly at his biggest concern of the moment. How to explain it without feeling like a fool? How to talk about Shiro in front of Keith?
Looking at the bright field, avoiding his gaze, Lance replied:
"It's not that I really believe what I said. It’s just…"
"What?" Keith pressed.
"That I... I feel... lonely. That’s all."
There. He said it. He felt himself blush profusely, but honestly, he was no longer interested in hiding how bad he felt. To his surprise, this time it was Keith who crawled the few inches that separated them, sitting so close their legs and arms glued together. The eyes of his former rival looked at him intensely.
"Why?" he asked.
Lance opened his mouth, but couldn’t help but exhale as if stifling a laugh. Was it really Keith Kogane who wanted to know about his emotional state? His bright eyes, numbed by the wapan, were simply irresistible. Compared to them, his worries suddenly seemed so small and insignificant... he wanted to talk about other things. Or nothing, and just stretch a hand and...
He shook his head, trying to focus. Because, why not? Time to spit the poison that corroded his heart.
"Hunk and Pidge are my pals, but they always have something to do. It's not that they leave me aside, but I can’t always follow them, because I don’t have their brains. They have these... same brainwaves? if you catch my drift,” he said, now remembering clearly the things that hurt him. He looked straight ahead to not lose focus with Keith's face, but they were so close that he could almost feel the warmth of his flushed cheeks, while he listened in respectful silence.
"Coran is always busy, you already know him. And now Allura has Lotor. I know it must be hard to imagine, but seeing them together makes an impression," continued Lance "They can discuss for hours about their tales of magic cities and Altean stuff. When they’re together it’s like... there seems to be nothing they can’t achieve. It’s almost scary." He smiled sadly at Keith. He found his eyes attentive, fixed on his face. Asking.
"And... Shiro. Well, Shiro is tired. He’s not the same person he used to be, but I understand why. He feels a little lost, maybe the leadership is passing the bill. He isn’t listening to us like before, and about me in particular... with me he...” He pressed his lips. He couldn’t say it, because expressing it aloud was recognizing what hurt him the most: that his idol, his leader, didn’t consider him worthy. It was ridiculous to suffer so much for something like this, being accustomed to everyone thinking that he was irresponsible and headless, and doing little to dissuade them. Maybe it hurt because the time Keith had been the black paladin he didn’t feel that way. He had never felt so much confidence and satisfaction as when he realized that his role as Red Paladin was to support the leader, when he felt he had a place next to the most unexpected person. And he had long since realized that he missed Keith as much as he missed his family, the sea, and all the good things he had left behind on Earth. That’s why he always was on his mind.
He felt a lump in his throat and blamed the wapan. He turned his head to the opposite side, hoping Keith wouldn’t notice, and stayed in that position until he felt the other boy leave his side and take the short step that separated him from the pilot's seat. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance saw that he was bending down to take something from there, but it was too late when he realized what it was.
"Keith, what are you doing?!" he screamed, horrified, seeing that Keith had taken the abandoned bottle of wapan and took another sip. The boy started coughing while Lance, dizzy with fright, sat him in the pilot's seat and tried to give him water from another bottle. But Keith rejected the water and only waited for the eternal minute until the heat subsided, rasping with wet eyes.
"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?! One sip is enough, what if your head explodes or your stomach melts?! What would I do here if you get sick?!" Lance yelled, furious, looking at the bottle to measure how much he had taken. It was just one more sip, but it couldn’t be good...
Keith simply looked up at him.
"Courage," he mumbled. Lance looked at him with wide eyes.
"What?"
"I'm fine," said Keith. It seemed like he wanted to keep an angry expression and couldn’t. He smiled again and Lance felt relief and something else.
"Ok, pal, how many fingers do you see?" Lance asked, holding up three fingers.
"T-three," Keith stuttered, barely stifling a laugh.
"Alright, then. Make an 'ok' sign," demanded Lance.
With a short hiccup, Keith raised his thumb and forefinger and made a circle with them. Then he burst out laughing, which caused him to cough again.
"You're crazy, man. Don’t even think I'm going to keep this a secret, you hear me?" Lance sat on the floor next to the pilot's seat, relieved. Keith frowned, let out one last cough and looked down at him from that position.
"You're not alone."
Lance looked back at his mate, surprised. The shock had made him forget what they were talking about, but apparently, Keith wasn’t going to let it go.
"How could you feel lonely when the team can’t be without you?" He continued. He was beginning to sway a little on the seat, but his eyebrows were furrowed.
"Keith, buddy..."
"Hunk and Pidge follow you in everything you do, they tease you because they like you… you look like siblings," he said, his tongue slightly wiry, but his eyes attentive. Lance was speechless.
"Everyone loves you, how can’t you see it? Sometimes I think that Allura only laughs with you. Coran copies all the words you teach him, he hugs you... And Shiro ... what are you even saying, when he always speaks so well of you. Sometimes he told me I should learn from you. To express myself, to put more heart into our missions," confessed Keith, clenching his fist in his thigh. "How can you think like that? Why would he want to take me back, having you there? You connect the team, without you I bet nobody would even speak. Instead, I…"
It seemed that the stream of words had run out, so Keith relaxed his expression, his face even redder than before, the look on his eyes blurry. Lance couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but he didn’t even think about contesting what he had said. He swallowed and let out what he really wanted to point.
"Not everyone loves me, then. Someone’s missing on that list."
Keith fixed his eyes on his, blinking slowly.
"You have no idea, Lance McClain," Keith snapped, again drunken-mad at him.
The grass on the outside had stopped rocking, paralyzed and stretched to its full extent, pointing toward the moon, now completely covered, with a disturbing red halo around it. It was the peak of the eclipse, the darkest hour, but the boys were not watching, too occupied looking at each other.
Feeling like he was about to discover a treasure, Lance took the bottle of wapan, uncorked it and with shaking hands put it to his mouth. A small sip. For courage, too.
The hours had been forgotten. How long had it been? It didn’t matter. The eclipse would begin to decline now, the pearly white of the moon reappearing in a corner at any moment, but nothing mattered anymore to Lance, other than hearing Keith's voice again.
He had drink and coughed and now his mind was definitely wrapped in a strange golden mist. The heat of the drink was too much and he felt sweaty under his suit, although he knew that the Lion was still ice cold and taking it off might kill him. But in his new mental state nothing mattered at all, not even the possibility of staying there to die.
All his actions had been observed with indifference by Keith, who watched him with drooping eyelids, his hair disheveled, his cheeks flushed. The most beautiful thing Lance had seen in a long time, so much that his eyes could barely register it. He needed to see it up close. He needed to hear what Keith had to say. A little wobbly, he leaned over the pilot's seat, resting an arm on the backrest.
"Then, what’s this secret I don’t know, Keith? I'm stupid, you have to tell me or I will never guess," he purred.
"You're not stupid," Keith growled, and Lance felt electricity run through his body.
"I was sure you thought so? You always get angry when I speak. You never like any of my ideas," said Lance.
"Because you always talk to me like you hate me or you think I'm an idiot," Keith claimed, and Lance could see him pout. Irresistible, he thought guiltily.
"Then that means I’m actually stupid, see? I made you believe all that and it's not true," said Lance.
Keith looked confused and then frustrated. It could be read in his face 'checkmate', Lance thought, holding back his laughter. Adorable. Trembling a little, he sat on the floor and rested his head on Keith's legs, cheekily. Nothing mattered anymore, except being close to him, telling him what he thought, dispelling his doubts. He closed his eyes.
"You're always so good at everything, Keith. Everything I’d want to be, you are. And I’m just a dumb, insecure brat. That's why Shiro doesn’t trust me. But you know what? I don’t care. I wouldn’t even mind that if you were with us like before. You and I, when we're together, we do things right. The truth is that I miss you a lot. I know you can’t, but... I just want you to come back."
The wapan was a real dangerous weapon, Lance thought in a corner of his mind. He was aware that everything that was happening was the most shameful thing he had ever done, letting out the darkest secrets he had in his heart, but still he couldn’t stop. Heat had risen to his face and his whole body throbbed. All the efforts of the part of his head that was still working were directed to stop his ridiculous urge to take off his armor and run naked together with Keith directly to the bright fields that stretched before them, so there was no control on the nonsense he could say, except the weight he felt on his tongue, which was distracting. Maybe that's why it took him a while to realize that something was dripping on his head.
He looked up and found a pair of wet eyes. Keith cried with the expression of a wounded child. Despite the wapan, Lance felt completely frozen inside. He stood up quickly and leaned toward the boy, who made no noise as tears fell from his misty eyes.
"Oh no, what did I say? No..." Lance was panicking, but Keith's arms wrapped around his waist and pulled him close. He had to hold to the back of the seat to avoid falling. Looking down he saw his black hair, but the face was hidden and stuck to his abdomen.
"I thought you didn’t want me back… I thought you didn’t even care about me." Keith squeezed him so hard that Lance felt breathless, but maybe it was because of the shock. He saw his own shadow projected into the cockpit, illuminated by the soft violet light from the exterior, transforming everything into a strange, surreal dream. He was sure that at any moment he’d wake up in his room at the Castle so, in that case, he had to hurry and do what he really wanted.
With some difficulty, he let go of Keith's embrace, who looked at him again with his wounded expression, although now he also looked a little embarrassed. Maybe he was also aware of what he was doing just enough to feel ashamed, but not to stop. Lance brushed the disheveled hair off his face with a gentle movement of his hand.
"Be honest with me, Keith. Are you saying this just because of the liquor, or is this how you really feel?" he asked, stroking his face. Keith's cheeks burned from the alien alcohol, and his eyes looked at him like dark pools of water. The boy didn’t answer. He only closed his eyes, inclining his face to Lance's hand, as if he enjoyed the caress and didn’t want to let go.
Lance felt that he was out of breath, his impulses contradictory and confusing, but he still had enough control to wait for an answer. He pressed his knees on the pilot's seat, brushing Keith's, and sat on his lap. He put now both hands on his cheeks.
"Keith, please, answer. Will you remember this tomorrow? What we have said… will you…”
He needed to know. He wanted an affirmation, the pass he expected. Keith seemed so out of it, but…
“I’ve missed you so much… of course I'll remember. You said you miss me too, I can’t forget…” said Keith, smiling so innocently that Lance had real trouble breathing. This was not only the person that always lingered in his mind: it was a version of that person that felt the same about him. It had to be a dream.
Praying not to wake up yet, he just crossed the line and kissed Keith, and he responded. It was desperate, sloppy, confusing, lips brushing as if their lives depended on it. Their position heated things, but it wasn’t possible to do much more in such a hostile environment; not that they cared, moving, grinding, touching by pure instinct. They had to settle with kissing their mouths and necks, press their bodies together in the cold that surrounded them, and thankfully, as time passed, Lance found out that contrary to what it did to the mind, the wapan seemed to depress the body, which was quite helpful to control his lower half. Ardent kisses became chaste pecks and caresses, soft smiles and droopy eyes. In fact, both were so tired and sleepy that after who knows how long, absolutely lost in time and space, Lance found himself on Keith’s arms, resting his back against his chest, and his head on his shoulder. Since he was taller the position felt a little awkward, but he couldn’t care less.
That’s when he could hear Keith snort in his neck.
“What?” Lance asked, lazily.
“You won’t be able to deny it anymore. I’m cradling you in my arms,” said Keith, sleepy and content.
The last spasms of laughter came to them, smirking into each other’s faces, until Keith stopped and his head dropped over Lance’s shoulder, falling asleep. Lance pressed his forehead against his cheek.
“Yeah… if you even remember tomorrow,” he whispered, and then looked outside, feeling cold. Maybe the drink was finally wearing out. Maybe it was just fear.
The moon was white, less than half of it covered, the fields slowly turning dark again, their colorful vapors gone. As if telling Lance that the dream was over with the last remains of the blessed eclipse. He closed his eyes, wishing to wake up there, instead of in his bed.
"…CE! LANCE! Do you copy me?” Pidge's voice was ringing in his ear and Lance's eyes opened, startled. He was sitting on Keith’s lap, who was still sleeping soundly, with his nose on his shoulder and his arms around his abdomen, while on the outside the moon was disappearing from the sky leaving a weak light that could mean that it was dawn. The eclipse had passed, the purple grasses had returned to their usual ugly appearance and the Green Lion was landing right in front of them, followed by the others.
He let go of the arms of his companion, straightening up in a single jump and answered:
"Here Lance. I was already wondering if you had forgotten us in this dump."
He heard the rest of the team celebrate and express relief through the comm. Lance noticed that Red's interior was warm and the lights were working again. The eclipse had finished perhaps a long time ago and they were already safe.
“We were so scared, this place has the weirdest gravitational field I’ve ever seen, no wonder nothing lives here except for this nasty grass, I’m actually…”
Pidge’s voice was talking in his ear, but Lance ignored her. He looked towards the pilot's seat where Keith was still sitting, without opening his eyes. He didn’t look good: he was pale to the lips and Lance, alarmed, put a hand under his nose. He was breathing normally, he realized, relieved. Maybe the wapan had bad side effects and he wasn’t looking any better, but while their team descended from the lions to help them, Lance took a few seconds to appreciate the view, to sort out his vague memories. Although in somewhat choppy sequences, everything was still there. His stomach clenched, while he felt himself blush and then, again, the cold fear running through his spine.
Would Keith remember anything that had happened? A part of himself felt that it was best for him not to. To believe that everything was a strange dream, in the middle of this toxic field. But the other part told him that his heart couldn’t handle that. If Keith didn’t remember anything, Lance would have to do something to forget what they had spoken, the warmth of his arms and the impression his lips had left on him, or he would go crazy. He simply couldn’t tolerate losing the most important night of his life, where he exposed his heart, and fake it never happened would kill him.
And it was at that moment, while the other paladins were walking towards Red, that Keith opened his eyes. His empty gaze went slowly up to meet Lance’s eyes, who felt the fear and uncertainty bubble in his aching stomach.
Keith was too pale to blush, but Lance noticed a tremor in his lips as he lifted, with some effort, his right hand. He extended three fingers, staring at him. The bubbling seemed to subdue and Lance let out an exhalation that was too much like a relieved sob for his taste.
'How many fingers do you see?' he had asked last night.
Raising a trembling hand, he put his thumb and forefinger together, making an OK sign. The curve of Keith's mouth shivered, forming the sweetest smile he had ever shown, weak and pale in the seat, while Lance couldn’t help to smile him back, from the bottom of his heart.