Chapter Text
"Do you think he has like, toe beans?"
Barely sparing a glance up from what she was working on, Pidge frowned. "Who, Keith?"
"No, Zarkon." Lance told her, rolling his eyes. "Yes, I mean Keith."
Now she did look at him, if only to glower. "Thanks, Lance, that was a mental image I didn't need."
"You're welcome." Lance said. "But seriously, what do you think- toe beans?"
"If you're so concerned about Keith's feet, why don't you ask him?" Pidge told him, hands resting on the helmet that she had been tinkering with.
It was Keith's helmet, in the middle of adjustments. As far as he could tell, she was working on opening up a hole at the base of it, so that he could slip that new braid of his through and not have to just cram the whole thing in there.
Ugh, and he'd thought the mullet was bad. Braid Keith was like, entirely next level.
"Uh, because that would be weird?" Lance told her. "Hey there Keith buddy, I know you've only known me for like, a month now what with your whole weird magic amnesia bullshit and all, but do you mind if I take a quick look at the soles of your feet? Yeah, like that'd go over well. I'd sound like a total freak!"
"So instead you come to me and ask about his feet." Pidge observed, arching her brows. "Because that's not weird at all."
"I didn't, I was just-!" Lance sputtered. "I was just trying to make conversation, that's all!"
"Don't worry Lance, I won't tell anyone about your foot fetish." Pidge remarked, the grin she gave him her most impish yet. "Besides, I'd be more worried about the obvious fact that two of his toes fused together than I would be worried about," and did she have to hold his gaze like that, "-toe beans."
Lance couldn't help but wince at that. When she put it like that, she kind of had a point. It was impossible to forget just how Galra Keith was now, but he tried not to think too much about the how of it all. The person himself didn't remember a damn thing about it, and it wasn't like they had records to go off of so it wasn't like any of them actually knew what the process had been like, or what exactly had been done to him. Which... all things considered?
That was probably a good thing.
"Why are you here anyways?" Pidge asked. "Aren't you usually," oh no, here came the air quotes, he hated the air quotes, "-getting your chill on in the lounge around this time of day?"
"Usually." Lance said, with as much dignity as he could muster. "Lounge is occupied."
Just a month ago, those words wouldn't have sparked the instant understanding that they did, but just a month ago, they were all starting to give serious headspace to the idea that Keith might actually be dead.
"Coran did say that adolescent Galra sleep a fair bit." Pidge observed.
Letting out a faint snort, Lance leaned back. "Can't believe Keith's like, a Galra baby."
"Adolescents aren't babies, Lance." Pidge chided. "We're adolescents. Galra just spend a lot longer in that stage than humans do, what with the longer life span and all. Besides, the fact that he's willing to fall asleep out in the open like that means he's comfortable with us."
"You ever think that he's actually more comfortable with us than pre-amnesia Keith?" Lance asked.
She actually seemed to consider the question for a change. "Maybe? I mean, I don't think pre-amnesia Keith hated us, but he didn't exactly spend a whole lot of time hanging out with us."
"Yeah, it's weird." Lance observed. "He actually like... seeks us out now, sometimes?"
The first time Keith had crept up on him- and he was sticking to that description, Galra Keith was quiet as hell when he moved, damn Marmora training- he thought he'd come to pick a fight. But no, all he'd wanted was to see what it was that he was up to. He guessed it kind of made sense. Keith didn't know any of them. Of course you'd want to try and learn about people you were told that you'd known in the past, however reluctant he was to hear any details regarding himself.
It was just... Keith didn't do that. Or well, he hadn't.
But Kethe? Kethe was a whole new ball game.
And that was the weirdest part of all this. Not the fact that Keith had sprouted fur, or grown a tail, or, as he had found out with no small degree of amusement, could purr- but the fact that he kind of both was and wasn't Keith.
Like, he was Keith. There was no debating that. But he also... kind of wasn't? Kethe and Keith were like, incredibly similar, appearances aside, to the point where trying to act like they were different people was a stretch but... there were differences. Some of them were subtle, like the shape of his bayard. Others were more pronounced, like the way he would actively seek out company from time to time instead of spending most of his time either on the training deck, or with Shiro.
Guess living as another person for several months would do that to a guy. It wasn't like the Blade of Marmora had given him a new past or anything like that- but just the general lack of having one was enough to make an impact. He wasn't going to claim that he knew enough about how the human (Galra?) brain worked to know exactly how, but even he knew that memories were kind of fundamental in shaping a person.
So without them... yeah, changes were bound to happen.
That said, he knew like, jack and shit about Keith's past. The first time he'd met him, it was when he'd crushed his sim scores at the Garrison, claiming the number one spot. At the time he'd thought that he was a smug little bastard, all aloof and distant, pretending not to care. In hindsight, he realized he'd probably been like, thinking about what he was going to have for dinner or something. He didn't know. He definitely hadn't been mocking him, at any rate.
Shiro probably knew, but it was like... weird to ask about someone's past when even they didn't know about it- or even seemed to really want to know about it. Because honestly? He kind of didn't.
Keith like... never asked.
He'd kind of expected him to sort of... start doing that, after the one time he'd seen himself, but it had never come up. Maybe he was just waiting for the right moment, or maybe he just wasn't ready for that line of questioning yet... but it was weird. If he'd been the one to lose his memories, he'd definitely want to know what he'd been like.
Then again, if he'd lost his memories, he'd still be human. From what little he managed to gather from Coran's explanation, the only reason the witch had been able to do this to Keith was because he already had Galra blood in the first place.
So that was... that was a whole new ball in play, he guessed. Maybe Keith just stunk at juggling.
"I mean sure, it's kind of weird." Pidge's voice broke him out of his thoughts. "But not like, bad weird, right?"
Considering the question, Lance frowned. "Nah. Definitely not bad weird."
"Although," Lance added, "-it is kind of weird how he like... remembers basically nothing about Earth. I mean, maybe he wasn't that up to speed on his pop culture, but even pre-amnesia Keith knew what a cow was."
Pidge let out a faint bubble of laughter at that, clearly recalling the red paladin's first introduction to Kaltenecker. He'd tried talking to it, and had been visibly embarrassed when he'd been informed that it was an animal, and therefore, couldn't understand him.
"True." Pidge admitted, turning over Keith's helmet in her hands, giving it a slight frown. "But there's only so much we can teach him about it when we're in the middle of space. All we have is the stuff we brought from Earth, and like, the video game console we bought at the-"
She froze.
Lance blinked- then grinned. "...you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Space mall?" Pidge asked.
"Space mall."
He wasn't sure what he was expecting when Lance swooped into the room, but it probably wasn't this.
"Please Shiro, you have to let us go back to the space mall." He'd said, clasping his hands together, as if in prayer.
"...space mall." Shiro repeated.
"Yeah, the uh- the Unilu swap moon or whatever Coran called it." Lance told him. "Which, by the way- totally just a space mall."
Well at least now he understood what it was that he was talking about, if not why he suddenly wanted to go there out of the blue. He hadn't gone with them on their last trip- he'd been kind of busy fighting Zarkon on the astral plane- but from what he understood, their last trip there had been... interesting.
They'd come back with a cow, for starters.
"So what is it that you need at this... space mall?" Shiro asked.
"Oh, it's not about what I need." Lance told him, placing a hand over his chest. "It's about what Keith needs."
Lance.
Thinking about Keith.
This had to be some sort of trick.
"Keith." Shiro repeated, arching a brow.
"Uh, yeah, Keith. You know, tall, purple, and fuzzy?" Lance told him, before heaving a sigh. "Look Shiro, you know just as well as I do that his head's like this freaky void, so I'm just thinking about what I can do to help our most favorite space cat."
"Space cat." Shiro repeated- again.
"Yeah, yeah, space cat, try and stay with me here Shiro." Lance told him. "You know what they have at the space mall? They have an Earth store at the space mall. And you know what Keith doesn't have?"
"Basic common sense about the planet he was born on, that's what." Lance finished.
Okay, now they were getting somewhere.
"So you want to take Keith to this... Earth store?" Shiro ventured.
"Yes, yes that is exactly what I want." Lance told him. "Please, Shiro?"
Considering the question for the span of a moment, Shiro eventually let out a short sigh. He did kind of have a point. "As long as Keith agrees to it, you can go."
Pumping his fists, Lance grinned. "Yes! Thank you Shiro, I'll go talk to Keith right-!"
Then he paused, almost seeming to think better of it.
Ah, he knew what that meant.
"Where is he this time?" Shiro asked. "Not on the training deck again, I hope."
He could understand why that kept happening- Keith had always been good at ignoring his body's own signs of exhaustion, so it came as no surprise to him that this hadn't changed in the least.
"Conked out in the lounge." Lance reported. "He's actually wearing his jacket this time, so it's not like he conked out on the training deck and Hunk just found him and brought him to the lounge."
Satisfied with that, Shiro gave him a nod of his head. "Just remember Lance- if Keith says he doesn't want to, that's the end of it. We all need to let him find his comfort zone here."
Though given Keith's general curiosity regarding all things Earth... he kind of doubted he'd say no.
"Space... mall?"
The confused tilt of Keith's head was hard to miss, Lance thought. "Yeah, you know- a swap moon?"
"I... don't know what that is either." Keith confessed after a moment, his tail swaying behind him. "But you want me to come with you to this... this swap mall?"
"Uh yeah, that's about it. You, me, Hunk and Pidge." Lance told him, wondering how he could have possibly come out of that with a third, completely new name for the place. "Like, you don't have to come if you don't want to, dude, that's not the way we do things around here."
"No, I mean, I-" Keith began, before frowning, almost seeming to draw in on himself for a moment. "Are you sure you want me to come?"
And nope, he wasn't having that.
Listen, maybe he wasn't the most knowledgeable guy around, but even he could tell that Keith was living through like... the worst existential crisis he had ever witnessed. But the least the guy could do was give them a little more credit- none of them were going to abandon him just because he'd come back to them being a little fluffier than they remembered.
"Uh, duh?" Lance told him. "This whole trip is kind of for you, so... yeah, I'd say we want you to come."
"For me?" Keith asked, perking up at that.
"Yeah, like- there's this Earth store at the space mall, that sells like, all this stuff from Earth." Lance told him. "Well, I mean it's all kind of outdated stuff, like you should have seen what the alien dude in charge of it was wearing, I swear his fashion sense was worse than yours-"
His words earned him a snarl, but he pressed on, knowing damn well by now that nothing would come of that.
Unless they were on the training deck. All bets were off if they were on the training deck.
"So anyways, Earth store." Lance told him. "Since like, you're always super curious about Earth stuff, we thought you might want to go. But if you don't want to then-"
"Okay."
"-then that's okay, I totally under-"
"I said okay, Lance."
"You sure?" Lance asked.
"I wouldn't have agreed to it if I wasn't sure." Keith told him. "So yeah, I'm sure."
"Okay, well, glad to hear it buddy." Lance said. "I can talk it over with Coran, set a date."
"Sounds like a plan." Keith told him, before pausing. "So is that where you got the cow?"
"Yup!" Lance beamed. "She was free with purchase."
Oh space mall, how he had missed you so.
Sure, the last time he had been here, it had ended in unexpected head trauma, but hey- he wasn't about to hold that against it.
"Alright you four," ah there it was, Shiro's most authoritative tone, "-a few ground rules first."
His loud groan was totally ignored, Shiro pressing on. He sort of tuned out what he was saying- except for the last part, only making out the very tail end of it. "-and no more farm animals."
"Aw shucks, Shiro, I was hoping to bring home a chicken this time." Lance told him- and though he was clearly joking, he couldn't help but flinch a little underneath Shiro's gaze. "Alright, alright, no more farm animals, I got it."
"And Hunk?" Shiro spared a glance over towards the yellow paladin. "Try not to get captured by food court employees this time."
"I will do my utmost best." Hunk told him, giving him a surprisingly honest salute.
Keith, for his part, watched them with a curious expression, almost as if he wanted to ask, but somehow thought he wasn't prepared for the answer. It was different than the expression that he wore whenever they skirted a bit too close to discussing his before- he wasn't afraid of the answer, so much as he seemed to have already accepted that it wouldn't explain shit.
Which was fair. Their last trip to the space mall had been a wild time.
Lecture over, Shiro left them to their own devices- Coran had given him a list of things that he thought they needed around the castle-ship. They had about an hour of free time before they were supposed to meet up in front of the clock, which was more than enough.
"Keith, my buddy, my pal," Lance began, grabbing him by the shoulders, "-are you ready to get your first real taste of Earth culture?"
Tilting his head, Keith's brows furrowed, almost looking hesitant. "...I guess?"
"That'll do." Lance told him, giving his shoulders a pat, before finally releasing the Galra from his grasp. "Now, onwards to the Earth store!"
"To the Earth store!" Pidge and Hunk echoed.
There was a pause, a beat if you would.
"...to the Earth store?" Keith hesitantly repeated, uncertain. "Was... was I supposed to say that with you guys?"
Ah yes, Lance thought to himself. Some things truly never changed.
(He still thought the chant went I say Vol, you say Voltron.)
For someone that they had knocked over with a cow, the Earth store sales-alien sure did seem happy to see them. Guess he must have been serious when he said he never sold anything.
If he had anything to say about the Galra that was currently pawing through his merchandise, he kept it to himself. Which... come to think of it, aside from Varkon and that Sal guy that had chained Hunk to a sink, there didn't seem to be an awful lot of Galra hanging around the space mall.
Which was probably a good thing? They might actually need Keith's knife then.
Which... yeah, he'd totally brought with him. To the space mall, which was like, really low on the list of places he might need to stab someone.
As near as Lance could guess, it was the one he'd brought from Earth. It looked like, virtually identical to the one the Blade of Marmora had given him, but one could transform, and the other couldn't, so he kept the one that couldn't with his civilian clothing. The other he took with him when he left to run missions for the Blade of Marmora.
Which was... a thing.
He still didn't quite know what to make of the idea that Keith had gone and joined a super secret Galra spy ring during his absence. On one hand, the whole concept of a super secret Galra spy ring working from within the ranks of the Galra Empire to overthrow it was like, super cool.
On the other hand... it was eerie, almost, the way he blended in with them.
He'd gone with Shiro to the Blade of Marmora base, he'd seen Keith with them. Before his name had been called, he hadn't even thought twice about the one Galra that was shorter than the rest.
And sure, one could argue that was like, before he knew the truth. But it hadn't been the only time. Planet Puig? He hadn't even noticed that Keith was a part of the ground forces until after they returned from the mission.
He had been there, on the same planet with them, and he had never so much as left the Blade of Marmora's side.
Knowledge or death, some part of him whispered, wondering how much Keith followed that same creed himself now.
And then he shook the thought off. No, nope, no sir- he had come to the space mall to have a good time, he was not about to get bogged down thinking about things like that. Time to think about something- anything- else.
Thank god he quickly found one.
Or had one like, thrust into his face, bless Keith's Galra heart (and it was a Galra heart, now, and he didn't even want to think about what kind of transformation that had involved). "What's this?"
"Ooh, lava lamp." Lance said, taking it from him. "Totally retro."
"There's lava in there?" Keith asked, for a moment, almost seeming alarmed. His fur even bristled.
Totally a giant space cat.
(Why, oh why, was he only missing the fluffy ears? Why was God so cruel?)
"I- what, you don't know what a cow is, but you know what lava is?" Lance asked, looking incredulous.
"Lava exists on other planets, Lance." Pidge supplied, barely even sparing him a second glance as she busied herself with rifling through a box of assorted game cartridges. "Volcanoes aren't exactly an Earth isolated phenomena."
"Hm, fair point." Lance admitted. "And no, it's not like, actual lava, it's just... it's just called that, that's all."
"Oh." Keith seemed to blink, fur that had been raised in alarm settling back down. "Why?"
"Uh..." Trailing off, he realized that he had no idea. "I don't... I don't know?"
For the span of a moment, Keith's expression was next to unreadable- before he made a slight hum, taking the lava lamp back from Lance. It seemed like he'd figured something out, but felt no need to share whatever it was with the class.
Which was like, so Keith.
"You gonna buy that, buddy?" Lance asked, before pausing. "Wait, do you even have money?"
"Kolivan gave me some." Keith told him, turning the lava lamp over in his hands, his claws lightly clicking against its surface.
"What, like an allowance?" Lance joked.
"A what?" Keith blinked, glancing down at him.
(He was never going to get used to Keith being taller than him.)
"I- you know what, nevermind." Lance told him. "Your room could use some decor anyways."
It seriously could. If there was one thing that he had noticed during Keith's absence, it was how empty his room was compared to the rest. Even Shiro, who hadn't accumulated much in the way of personal effects, at least had a few items of note, but Keith?
Keith had his clothes and his knife, and that was it.
Even his shack on Earth had been weirdly devoid of any personal effects. Sure yeah, it had been cluttered- but there was nothing really personal, nothing to give it that human touch.
When he had left the Garrison, he'd done so with nothing more than the clothes on his back, and the knife at his waist. As if somehow, the latter was the only thing that he had of value.
It was like he could just up and leave behind his whole life at the drop of a hat. And from what little he understood about Keith Kogane- he probably could.
Hell, he had. Even Shiro, steadfast and stalwart, would sometimes let it slip that he missed Earth. But Keith? It was like homesickness was a foreign concept to him, something which he could fathom in others, but never truly understand.
So Keith- Kethe?- actually wanting to have anything in the way of personal effects was... a good thing, right?
Maybe it meant that he wasn't going to leave, go back to the Blades at the first chance he got.
...okay, wow. He didn't even know he had been worried about that, until like, right this second. Sure, he hadn't actually hated Keith since like, the food fight, but they'd never exactly gotten super close- but... yeah.
He kind of didn't want him to leave.
Not again, not after he'd just come back.
Sure, he'd come back to them purple and fluffy, but he'd come back.
He hadn't thought he would. He'd thought... he'd thought for the longest time that he was dead, that the reason they never found him no matter how hard they looked was because he wasn't there to find, not anymore.
He should have tried harder to stop him from going through that door, to keep him from going after that druid. He had a chance to stop him, and he'd barely done anything. He didn't care what Shiro said- if he was dead, it would have been his fault.
But he was alive.
Oh thank god, he was alive.
It hadn't... he would have thought it would have hit him long before this, and it had, kind of? Back in the kitchen, when he had first stumbled across the Galra with Keith's face, it had been like seeing a ghost.
But the fact that he was actually alive, somehow... somehow it had managed not to hit him until this exact moment.
He hadn't gotten his rival- his friend- killed.
"Lance?" Hunk's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "You okay dude?"
"I-" Lance blinked. "I- yeah, I'm fine Hunk. Just... just got lost in my own thoughts for a second there."
"So what," Keith barely even spared him a glance, too busy trying to decide if he wanted the red or the purple lava lamp, as if it made any difference, "-you had more than one thought?"
"Wow, Keith. Wow."
He bought both lava lamps.
There was probably some kind of symbolism in that, but damned if he knew what it meant. Literature had never been his best subject.
Besides, it was symbolism revolving around lava lamps, so who cared.
(He did. He cared a lot. Damn you, Keith Kogane.)