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It had been a stupid plant. More like an overgrown thorn, really, because who knew what counted as plants anymore when they were approximately 45847394 miles away from Earth. Two hyperspace jumps away from the nearest botanist who might actually care about the flora and fauna of— what was this planet called again? Lance couldn’t remember. Whatever. He wasn’t Pidge or Shiro or Allura, he didn’t have a bottomless capacity for remembering names. It was one on an endless list of Galra-destroyed rocks. He wanted to care. He really did. But this was another dud.
The first dud had shocked him. Shocked everyone. He remembers the way Shiro’s mouth snapped shut as he tried to think of something Shiro-like to say about it. The planet was barren. The Galra had ravaged away everything feeling and alive about it. Left the empty husk of the society that had been there before. They found some bones. More unnervingly, they found things. Foreign tools and trinkets dropped into the streets. Abandoned on site. Buildings were left untouched, strange machines left toiling away after the citizens fled their posts.
They had called out for a while. They were Voltron dammit, here to save the universe, here to rescue species from the jaws of death. But they were also late. Way too late. And every dud planet they found reminded them that 10,000 years was a lot of conquering time to make up for.
The dud list went on- Hidrel, Klanton, Ydrifi, Pil, Quentenion… The first few Lance remembered, but now they pile up. It doesn’t matter, not as long as the others can keep track. He names this one Thornrock, because it has a big stupid thorn on a big stupid rock and he’s feeling especially creative today.
At some point they had started sending just one paladin down to the planets, for efficiency’s sake. Thornrock had been his to check. He landed, wandered, called around, went through the motions. Nothing. Looked pretty much the same as it did from the other paladins’ positions, hovering a few hundred feet into the atmosphere.
“Lance, get back to your lion, ASAP!” Shiro’s voice was sharp and urgent over the radio.
“What’s going on?” Lance called back, turning to his Lion, which looked to be close to a hundred feet away.
“An alien ship entered our area with major firepower, we need to intercept it before it approaches the castle.”
Crap. Lance pressed his feet into the ground, turning into a sprint. His form was solid and even, the result of weeks of training. He was making ground on his lion, watching for small cracks that split into the rocky terrain beneath him. Avoided the thorny not-plants with agile steps. He heard a humming above him, looked up to see the other lions circling into formation. They were moving counterclockwise, which meant that he should-
CRACK
The thorn snapped under his foot, and Lance was sent flying. He sailed facing upwards, watched the other lions circle for a moment before he landed with a crashing of limbs onto the unforgiving ground. His shoulder throbbed in pain, and he wondered if alien rocks could somehow be more rock-hard than normal rocks.
He winced and then opened his eyes to collect himself. As he did he caught the flash of movement in his peripheral, small and grey and— falling? The thorn. The thorn was falling, bouncing off of rocky walls of an endlessly black crevice. A sharp vertical cliff that Lance now realized he was inches, inches from falling into. His face hung slightly over the edge, and he scrambled to slide himself back. Shaking, he brought himself to his feet.
Normally on missions he felt safe. Normally he was inside his lion. He had almost died, probably, in his lion. But the prospect of a fiery explosion was something that had come with being a pilot in the first place. He had accepted that. But this—running around empty wastelands, almost falling to his death in a nameless planet, millions of miles from home—no.
So that’s what had done it. The stupid thorn. The stupid dud planet that he now hated. Sure, Allura, it was someone’s home once, but Lance couldn’t care. It was also very nearly Lance’s final resting place, and that went a long way into ruining the compassionate sentiment that they were all supposed to maintain.
He had made it back to his lion without any more incidents. His hands shook and he tried his best to control his thoughts before they had to try to form Voltron or something—
“Alien ship has exited the galaxy, we’re good, Lance.” Shiro sounded reassuring and positive, as usual. A human embodiment of a thumbs up.
“Perfect.” Lance sent back, only half-trying to keep the edge out of his voice.
Lance was quiet when they got back. He gritted his teeth at dinner, shoveled his blue food goo around his bowl. He wasn’t hungry. He settled his head into his hand, frowning. He was on edge, and every joke and round of laughter highlighted the fact that he was not in the mood for all of this companionship.
“I’m gonna go read.” He said suddenly, pushing himself back from the table.
Shiro beamed at him, an approving big brother smile. “Sounds good, I was thinking I’d run a few rounds with the droids, if anyone was interested.”
Hunk and Pidge shot each other a look. They had a project, one that Lance didn’t understand. Some computer thing that they obsessively worked on, day and night. They excused themselves to go fiddle with it.
Keith leaned back and crossed his arms over his stomach. “I think I’ll skip tonight, Shiro, I’m kinda tired today.”
Lance looked sideways at Keith. Keith was never tired, and he always wanted to hit things. It was part of his whole “bad-boy” persona. He especially enjoyed hitting things when it was just him and Shiro. Said they always had such great teamwork and compatibility that he couldn’t get with anyone else around. Whatever, Lance didn’t care what Keith was up to. He just wanted to be alone, for once.
Lance stood up, walked out the door in the direction of his bedroom. He blew past it, climbed the stairs to one of the observation decks. It was a smaller observation deck, but it faced into space at this time of day, away from Thornrock, capturing the most stars in the window.
He stood on the deck, leaning backwards onto the small ledge built into the wall. Stared out into the endless darkness of space. He liked to pretend it was the same night sky as Earth’s, even though he knew it wasn’t. He hadn’t realized until leaving Earth how familiar dots sprinkled across a black sky could be. He didn’t think he’d miss the way the big and little dippers poured smoothly into each other. Didn’t think he’d miss the three shining spots of Orion’s belt. But here he is, staring out at someone else’s night sky, thinking about how alien this feels too.
“Lance.”
Lance jumps out of his skin at the voice, grasps for the ledge, steadies himself in a way that is definitely not cool and definitely not smooth at all.
“Whoa, okay— sorry, I didn’t mean to.” It’s Keith. Looking genuinely apologetic. Which means Lance must look pretty genuinely rattled. Great.
“What do you want?” Lance says, sighing and crossing his arms over his chest. He sulks his back against the ledge.
“You don’t read.” Keith has a way of talking in statements that drives Lance up the wall.
“So?”
“So, you told everyone you were going to read at dinner.”
“And you’re, what? Coming to interrogate me about that? Calm down, Detective Keith, I—“
“Lance.” Keith is frowning. He looks angsty, as usual, but he’s trying to pull it back. He settles a quietness into his voice.
Lance doesn’t respond, just focuses his eyes back to the stars. He huffs out a breath. An angsty, Keith-y breath because he’s had a bad day and he deserves to be the grumpy one for a while.
Keith watches him closely. Then he reaches out, grabs Lance’s wrist and turns him, gently, back to face him.
“What’s wrong?”
Lance hesitates. Not because of his grumpy act but because Keith is staring at him, with big, dark eyes. His eyebrows are knotted downwards. His free hand rubs at the back of his neck. He looks—concerned?
“I—I almost died today.” The words are out of his mouth before he has time to think them through. And now they hang there, undeniable. Lance hadn’t realized, hadn’t really realized, that they were true until this moment.
Keith’s face melts, torn between confusion and concern. His mouth hangs open slightly, and Lance can see the tops of his teeth.
“What? When?”
Lance sighs. “I was running back to the blue lion. And I tripped. Which- hilarious, I know- I tripped over a stupid thorn. And then I slid and then I was on the edge of this giant crevice. Watching the thorn bounce into nothing. Just rocks and darkness all the way down.”
Lance shakes his head. Takes a breath. “So, you know, maybe that thorn, that stupid thorn, could’ve been me. Falling into a crevice on some nameless planet. One of the great paladins of Voltron trips on a rock and dies. The headlines would be spectacular.”
Keith sets his jaw and Lance can see the muscles tense. His chin drops, shifting a strand of hair into his face. He leans forward onto the ledge, turning his back towards the space outside.
Lance shifts his feet. He doesn’t know what else to say and somehow Keith looks more upset than him now. Lance watches the starlight linger around the dark edges of his hair. Waits.
“Lance-“ Keith breathes out, glancing sideways at him. “Lance don’t joke about that.”
Lance pauses, surprised, before pulling himself up next to Keith. He crosses his arms along the ledge, wrings his hands nervously.
“Keith, what are we doing here?” Lance stares down at his hands. Thinks about the ever-positive Shiro answer to that question. Or the logical Pidge answer, or Hunk’s answer, a joke probably, clapping him on the back. But he can’t think of Keith’s answer, even though that’s the answer he might need the most. Keith pokes out a finger, thinking, drawing imaginary circles into the surface of the ledge, going around and around again.
In a slow movement, Keith’s finger stops circling. Instead it draws up. Brushes over Lance’s shoulder, behind his neck. He pulls Lance in carefully, closes the space between them. Soon their foreheads touch. Keith looks up, suddenly making eye contact with Lance. Lance feels overwhelmed, not used to having someone so close. Not used to having someone standing there actually listening to him. His chest tightens and he tries to breathe normally.
“We’re doing our best, okay?”
Lance chokes down a sob, collapses his face into Keith’s shoulder. Wraps his arms around the person in front of him. Holds onto him while he lets go of his terrible day with the stupid thorn and the planet that tried to swallow him whole.
He opens his eyes slightly, stares into the randomness of the stars in front of him. Maybe they’re not Earth’s stars, but here with Keith, they start to feel a little less foreign. Maybe these stars can feel a little bit like home too.