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It was a long flight back to Earth.
Before, no distance had seemed unmanageable. Lance knew what it felt like for distance to feel like that — he’d used to be just a normal citizen on Earth, after all, both terrified and excited by the months-long journey to Kurberos. But then he’d been thrust into a space-war and introduced to alien-tech and honestly, distance wasn’t too much of a challenge for them anymore. Not when they had the Castle of Lions. Not when they had wormholes.
Except… now they didn’t have those things.
They had no castle-ship and no high tech space-bending form of travel. Their communicators were small and limited. There was no contact between them and any of the planets of the coalition, no contact for them to learn of news of the universe, of the Galra empire.
Despite all this, the distance they still had to travel, the lack of communication that was available to them, the fact that sometimes they had to fly for days before they found another planet to land and rest on, Lance felt happy. Like, beyond happy. He felt the kind of happy that he hadn’t felt since before Keith had left for the Blade of Marmora.
Maybe it was kind of sad to admit, but Lance felt like, without Keith… he had no one.
Sure, he’d considered Keith his rival for some time, but that had faded over their time in space together, over all the missions and teamwork and love and appreciation they’d shared. They’d all shared. Or so Lance had thought.
With Keith gone, Lance had realized he was more alone than he’d originally realized. Everyone kind of paired off without him. Hunk and Pidge were the two tech-geniuses, Allura and Lotor were horrifically in love and together all the time (Lance couldn’t feel smug about Lotor’s betrayal even if he tried), and (apparently a fucking clone) Shiro and Coran had always been off doing responsible planning of defending the universe shit together. Lance had constantly found himself alone, holed up by himself and attempting to make himself feel useful when he was so clearly unwanted.
It didn’t help that, besides being ignored and pushed to the side most of the time, it’d also started to feel like no one really wanted to tolerate his presence anymore anyway. He couldn’t deny being a bit of an idiot sometimes, too easily caught up in his feelings, but it wasn’t like he’d let the way he’d felt about Allura ever get in the way of their missions. And despite this, despite his inability to control who he was attracted to (and trust him, he’d tried to have control over his attraction for quite some time now), Hunk and Pidge had made fun of him. Like, actually made fun of him.
There he’d been, high-strung and upset over the fact that the person he’d cared about was getting all wrapped up in someone else’s arms, and neither of the two people that were supposed to always be there for him had cared.
So, yeah. Lance was happy now. Because Keith was back.
He felt… complete.
Sure, it was all a bit weird… Like, Keith looked different. Was different. He’d told them all about his two-years in a time rift stunt, and it’d really, really thrown Lance for a loop. Like, the kind of loop where he was left sitting in the cockpit of his lion and just having an existential crisis for several hours, loop. Because Keith had lived two years without them. Virtually alone! That was insane! It was so stressful whenever Lance thought about it, in fact, that he was shoving it out of his mind right then. Gone.
But yeah, Keith was older. He looked… different. More mature. Which made sense, sure, if it’d actually been two years for the rest of them instead of a matter of weeks, but whatever. Plus, Keith had this cool Galra mark now. And his eyes turned yellow in the dark. And his teeth grew sharper when he was hungry. And he gave the best hugs possibly in the entire universe.
How did Lance know all of this, you ask? Because he was spending time with him. Non-stop.
While Lance had spent a few months feeling lonely and out of place and entirely unwanted, Keith had spent two years alone with his mom. And a totally awesome space dog, but that was beside the point. Which was the fact that Keith was as starving for attention as Lance was. Keith, who fit right back into Lance like a puzzle piece pressed into place, despite the two years between them.
And God dammit — it felt just like before he left. Those same stupid feelings in his chest, in his stomach. The butterflies, the nervous tingles, all that shit that he was supposed to feel around girls.
Fuck. It wasn’t wrong. Lance knew it wasn’t wrong. And even if it was wrong, he was in fucking space! Different races were shaking up together and Lance was too scared to even admit to himself that he might be… might be… Well. That thing which he might be?
God, he was such a fucking pussy. It’d been so much easier when he’d just been chasing after Allura. Like, on Earth, it’d been easy to ignore. To just concentrate on the surplus of girls all around him. But then there’d been space, and there’d been way, way fewer girls around, and only one who he actually saw on a daily basis. Two, now, he guessed, seeing as Romelle was with them.
But for so long, it’d been just Allura. And sure, Lance had had feelings for her. She was gorgeous, there was no denying. But there was also no denying that the feelings he had for her didn’t even begin to rival the way Lance had felt just when Keith had left alone.
At first, Lance had tried to convince himself that it was a good thing. That he’d be able to force himself to calm down.
Instead, he’d just found himself missing Keith more. And now that he was back, Lance’s feelings were back and blazing brighter than ever.
And Keith was… Well, he was amazing.
In his lion, he was a commander. A leader. He was strong and brave and endlessly smart. He was quick to come up with a plan but even quicker to listen to the ideas the rest of them had. He relented control to them as easily as he took it back, leading the team by having them lead as much as he did.
And out of his lion — he was sweet. He was kind and compassionate, and still way too quick to rise to a challenge, way too easy to get fired up. But he laughed more easily, too. And whereas before, back when he’d been living with them all, he’d shied away from touch, now he leant into it. He pulled people into hugs, patted them on the back when they did well, rubbed Pidge’s head when they came up with an algorithm to make their lions form not only Voltron, but also an actual giant metal tent, for when they landed on planets that were uninhabited.
He was still Keith; he was just soft around the edges.
There was a knock at the door, and Lance sat up. This would be their second night staying on this planet, because they’d had to fly for nearly two weeks since the last one and it’d been probably four planets since they’d last landed on an actually inhabited one. God, beds were nice. Lance missed beds. Truly under-appreciated, they were.
“Who is it?” Lance called softly. He’d been on the verge of sleep, which wasn’t very surprising. He was exhausted lately. They all were. Near-endless flying towards a planet probably months-worth of travel away was exhausting. Sometimes Lance fell asleep in Red and she went on autopilot for him.
“Who do you think?” Keith’s familiar and slightly deeper rumble answered. Lance flushed, but he stood and paced towards the door, opening it wide open.
He and Keith had a… thing. Lance supposed maybe it was inevitable, when you spent as much time together as they did. When you accidentally woke yourself up for the third sunrise in a row because sleeping deeply had become somehow foreign to you. When you sat together outside, underneath the rising sun, with your shoulders pressed together and your fingers just barely touching between you. Yeah, it was kind of hard not to have a thing.
Lance figured he knew more about Keith than he hid about anyone else in the universe, now. He knew how much Keith had missed them all in his two years alone, how scared he’d felt that he might never get to see them again, how confused and lonely he’d been. How close he’d grown with his mom, despite all that. How he’d heard hundreds of stories about his dad, feeling close to him again for the first time since his death.
Lance had learned that Keith’s space-dog was his first-ever pet, and that it was probably the best thing to ever happen to Keith. And he learned that Keith had named him Yorak, for some unknown reason, but that he only ever addressed him as “Baby”.
In return, Lance had told Keith a million-and-one things, stories that he’d missed and feelings Lance had never shared. How distanced he’d felt from everyone, how embarrassingly unloved and unappreciated. How he’d felt towards Allura. How he’d died, for a little bit. How no one had ever said anything to him about it. How they maybe hadn’t even cared.
He told Keith about how he’d struggled with his sexuality for a long time, and was still coming to terms with it. In turn, Keith had told him that being heterosexual was overrated, which had made Lance laugh even as he’d flushed pink.
“Hey,” Lance said, as Keith was revealed on the other side of the door. Lance still felt a little breathless every time he saw him. His hair looked luscious and soft and not really like a mullet anymore, just long. (Also, it didn’t just look luscious and soft, it was luscious and soft. Lance had touched it. He had no shame). And he was leaner now, stronger. Taller. Fuck that, by the way. Totally not fair. Coran kept calling Lance “number four”, which was actual bullshit.
“Can we come in?”
Lance didn’t have a chance to answer his question, didn’t really need to answer it in the first place, before Yorak was pushing in between Lance’s legs and jumping up on his bed, ignoring Keith’s, “Baby, no!” and, “Sorry.”
Yorak made himself right at home at the bottom of Lance’s bed. His temporary bed. They were leaving tomorrow morning, Lance was pretty sure, which would mean however many more hours and days he’d be alone in his lion. Well, mostly alone. There was always Kaltenecker, but he wasn’t really one for conversation.
With Yorak already on Lance’s bed, Lance held the door open wide, letting Keith in. This wouldn’t be the first time they’d fallen asleep together. There was something about knowing they wouldn’t be able to be in each other’s presence for a while that only made them cling tighter to one another.
Keith wouldn’t be all alone in his lion — he wouldd have Shiro and Krolia, but for some reason, he missed Lance as much as Lance missed him.
Actually, Lance had lied. It wasn’t always just him and Kaltenecker in the red lion. Sometimes Shiro tagged along with Lance instead of Keith. They’d grown closer since the whole un-cloned-Shiro incident. There’d been a lot of crying and apologizing on Lance’s part, and a lot of hugging and shushing on Shiro’s. Ever since, Lance had found that he had a lot of awesome advice, actually, and that he was surprisingly funny. He also sent an abhorrent amount of unhelpful and embarrassing looks Lance’s way whenever Keith opened up a direct comm-line to him. Sometimes you wanted to have a conversation one on one instead of with everyone, alright?
“You tired?” Lance asked, as Keith shut the door behind him and scanned the room, as if he hadn’t been there with Lance just last night.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Keith said. He’d been off all day with Allura, talking to the locals and coordinating communications. They’d be passing along a message to the rebel groups for them, but their technology was a lot less advanced than the Castle’s had been. It’d be a while before anyone got their message.
“Come on, then,” Lance said, leading the way back to the bed. He was already dressed in his pajamas. Or, what passed as his pajamas. Everyone had gone and gotten their belongings in those final minutes they’d had, but all Lance had been able to think of was Kaltenecker, the stubborn cow who Lance had probably talked to more than anyone in the past months. Other than the mice.
What Lance was saying was that he was in his boxers. There’d been no time to grab his robe and slippers and all that, despite how comfortable and luxurious they’d been.
Keith stripped down to a similar state of undress, the both of them entirely too comfortable like this for two people who weren’t even dating. Officially.
They crawled into Lance’s bed, Keith behind Lance was his arm wrapped him, their legs tangled, and Yorak stood up from where he’d been laying at the bottom of the bed, plopping himself down on Lance’s other side. Lance buried a hand in his fur, smiling as Yorak tilted his head as Lance scratched behind his ears.
“Go to sleep, Lance,” Keith said, his voice soft near Lance’s ear. “We’ve got a long day of flying ahead of us.”
“Mmm,” Lance said. “Think I’m used to it by now, thanks.”
Keith snorted softly behind him. But as Lance let his eyes slip shut, he felt Keith’s lips pressed warm against the back of his neck and then against his shoulder. Keith’s whole body was warm, actually, but somehow his lips were warmer. In response, Lance intertwined their fingers. He may or may not have pressed a kiss to Keith’s knuckles.
—
Come morning, it was time to go. Lance knew the drill: they needed to get dressed, eat, restock their food for the coming days, and set off in the direction of Earth, hoping they’d come across another friendly planet soon enough. It would all past much too fast, and the flight would pass much too slow. The only parts they really had to look forward to were being back on Earth — the only home they had left that wasn’t destroyed - and landing on peaceful planets for much needed rest and downtime.
Except this morning had an added part that Lance wasn’t used to.
“Lance,” Keith’s voice murmured, somehow even deeper in the mornings than it was during the rest of the day. Totally not fair, by the way. Keith had cheated the aging system.
“Mmm?”
“Time to get up.”
“I don’wanna,” Lance whined, turning his head and burying it into Keith’s bare chest. Warm.
“Ya gotta,” Keith said, imitating Lance, and then, suddenly, Lance was wide a-fucking-wake. Because Keith was pressing a kiss first to his cheek, and then, once Lance’s eyes opened, to his lips. It was warm, and soft, and amazing, and perfect, and Lance found his eyes slipping right back shut, his hands burying themselves gratefully in those wonderful locks of Keith’s.
“C’mon,” Keith said, because he was evil, and he rolled out of the bed and took his face and lips way too far from Lance’s. Lance got up simply to chase them, which Keith seemed entirely too aware of.
“Maybe you can help me convince everyone to fly faster, this time,” Keith said teasingly. “I mean, the faster we find our next pitstop, the faster we can actually see each other again.”
“You sure your Galra side isn’t making you evil?” Lance teased, but he took Keith’s supposed-challenge for what it was worth.
He pestered and prodded and poked the team into flying as fast as he could mange. They traversed what was probably a week’s worth of distance in three days, and Lance spent the whole night holding Keith close and kissing him silly.
Yeah, Lance could say he was happy.