Work Text:
The adjustment from living in the castle to living out of their Lions as they traveled from planet to planet on their route home was a bit tougher than any of them had expected.
Keith, in particular, experienced a delayed sense of grief as it finally sunk in that the castle-ship was truly gone. He hadn’t had many homes in his life. Sure, he had lived in plenty of different houses when he was in foster care, but the house he was born in and the shack in the desert were the only other two places that he had called home before the castle-ship.
He hadn’t been to his childhood home in years. The castle-ship was destroyed. And who knew what had become of his little shack during his years out in space. For maybe the first time in his life, he had the emotional intelligence to recognize that it wouldn’t be an easy fix. It made the winding road to mental recovery seem to stretch even longer before him.
But he recognized that, also for the first time in his life, he wasn’t alone in taking this journey.
It all started after one particularly rough mission.
Sendak had pulled one of his stunts again – he and a fleet of his troops had waltzed into the planet Aaalg and declared it theirs, much to the displeasure of its current inhabitants, so Keith decided to take the team in and intervene. They expected a quick and simple mission – sweep in with Voltron, boot the Galra off the planet, invite the newly-rescued Aaalgians to join their coalition, ride off into the sunset. As Lance would say, easy peasy.
However, in keeping with team tradition, it went a bit sideways.
Upon their arrival, the team had been banking on the enemy Galra doing the smart thing and taking off running when Hunk smashed in the door. But instead of fleeing the scene, they stood their ground. It turned out that particular fleet had a reserve of foot soldiers that their intel hadn't known about, and they quickly became overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. The paladins scrambled to keep from being overpowered, but they nevertheless slowly watched as they lost their advantage. The soldiers ended up capturing Keith in the middle of a scuffle, handcuffed him to a metal pipe, and turned him over to Sendak to use as leverage to force the rest of the paladins to stand down.
The aforementioned paladins blatantly ignored Keith's desperate pleas to keep fighting no matter what Sendak did to him, and held their hands up in surrender, dropping their Bayards to the floor. They couldn't risk getting Keith hurt.
He got hurt anyway.
Lance's eyes widened as Sendak took Keith's Blade of Marmora knife out of its holster and gently dragged the edge down Keith's pale cheek, barely breaking skin. By then, Sendak's generals had each taken a paladin and forced them down to their knees, securing their hands over their heads in an iron grip. They could only watch, helpless, as the bastard did what he wanted with Keith.
Keith grit his teeth so hard that his jaw ached to keep from screaming as Sendak continued to poke and prod at him with the end of his knife as he held Keith’s arms behind his back with one massive hand and lifted him up to face him. Biting his lip, he seemed to concentrate all of his anger into a searing glare fixed on the Galra. Then, he spat on Sendak’s face. “Fuck you.”
Lance jerked against his restraints as Sendak dragged the knife down Keith’s skin again. “Leave him the FUCK alone!”
Sendak just laughed darkly as one of his soldiers shoved a gag into Lance’s mouth.
The team watched helplessly as Sendak tortured Keith. He carved little patterns into Keith’s pale flesh with a knife. He kicked Keith in the ribs, his legs, smashed his hands with a brick. Sendak promised to kill off each one of them and make the rest of them watch, one by one, as he put on his sadistic show.
The Galra made the mistake of turning his attention away from Keith for a second too long though, giving Keith the chance to twist his body into an inhuman contortion in spite of his restraints to press a hidden button and activate an emergency signal. Krolia burst in minutes later, practically foaming at the mouth with fury at the sight of her beaten and bloody son. She broke Sendak’s ribs, smashed his face in with one well-aimed punch, then unceremoniously tossed him to the side as she swept Keith up in her arms and jetted away with the rest of the Paladins following closely behind.
Keith survived, but barely. Coran, along with Pidge and Hunk’s help, took the healing pod that they had transported Shiro’s clone’s body in, and somehow managed to divert some of Black’s energy to power it up and tucked Keith safely away inside of it.
As for the rest of the team, physically, they came out of it just fine. But they were just so goddamn tired. Nobody their age was equipped to handle this kind of lifestyle.
When they returned to their make-shift camp on a nearby planet after a quick debrief over the comms with Allura and Coran, the team’s nerves were collectively shot. They wordlessly slumped down onto the ground. Lance threw himself across Hunk’s lap and groaned. Hunk guided Lance into a laying position with his head in his lap as Lance cried. Pidge, Shiro and Allura were scattered around the camp fire, lost in their own little world.
Keith was in the healing pod for three days.
During that time, Pidge started having nightmares during the few hours that she slept each night and dark circles grew under her eyes. Hunk became jumpier than usual and leapt at sudden noises. Lance alternated between sullen silence and being especially touchy and dramatic, covering up his nerves poorly. Shiro and Allura were affected too; Shiro felt guilty that he hadn’t been there to protect Keith, as he was still not in top physical form after dying and being transplanted into a clone’s body. And Allura, being especially empathetic to the Paladins’ feelings through her connection with the lions, felt a little bit of everything.
When Keith was finally released from the healing pod, Shiro was there to catch him. Lance stumbled into the Black Lion seconds later, out of breath, and rushed at Keith as soon as he could stand by himself.
“How are you feeling?”
Keith just stretched his shoulder a bit self-consciously, the tips of his ears reddening under Lance’s attention. “I’ve been worse.”
Lance just stared at him for a moment, flabbergasted, before sighing, “You're tough as nails, Keith,” as he yanked him into a hug.
The whole team visibly relaxed once Keith emerged from the Black Lion, his bantering with Lance audible from all the way across camp. Even if Allura hadn’t been in the room when they walked in, she would have known based on the relieved feelings emanating from the Paladins that Keith had woken up.
After Hunk had force-fed him to replenish his strength, the team wordlessly slumped down into their camp together – Lance sat Keith down with him onto his hammock and Keith silently laid his head down on his shoulder. Without a second thought Lance began to gently stroke his hair, automatically avoiding the scars on his forehead where Sendak had hurt him. The rest of the team followed suit, finding a seat wherever they could.
That week had been particularly hard on them. First Lotor’s betrayal and Allura’s heartbreak, finding out Shiro was a clone created to sabotage the team, losing the castle, and now, almost losing Keith. There had been a strain on the team unlike any they had experienced before.
Before Keith had left the team, they had all grown so close. They had been connected as Voltron at least a couple of times a week back then, and through Voltron, they shared a loose mind-link. They had moved in unison, a kind of intimacy that few people knew. The prospect of losing someone who they had literally shared a mind with was terrifying. Each of them visualized quietly how empty it would feel with any one of them gone.
They were tired. Not just physically; they were a down-to-the-core, my-soul-aches kind of tired. Being a Paladin was exhausting in its own right – training regimens, diplomatic meetings, keeping a strong face when it mattered. But more than that, they faced trauma daily that most people aren’t asked to face in an entire lifetime. As much as they tried to laugh it off (and make no mistake, there are times where laughing it off worked), being shot at, tortured, and pushed into wars they weren’t responsible for had ground them down to the bone. There were some things that laughter just couldn’t cure. Watching one of their friends get tortured was one of them.
Shiro stood wordlessly, causing the other Paladins to jump in surprise. He stiffly walked up the ramp and disappeared into the Black Lion. The rest of the team watched him go, staring at the Black Lion’s open jaw for a few moments after he disappeared into its depths.
Just when the team assumed he wasn’t coming back, Shiro re-emerged with a pile of blankets and pillows tucked under his arm and marched up to Lance and Keith. “I want to make a blanket fort, but I will need you to lend me a hand.” With a mischievous grin, he wordlessly raised his armless shoulder and motioned towards it with his hand.
Lance let out a bark of surprised laughter. “Did you… did you really just…?”
“And nobody ever believes me when I tell them that Shiro has the sense of humor of a middle-aged father of three,” Keith mused.
“Excuse me. I’m a thirty year old father of one,” Shiro retorted, affectionately ruffling Keith’s hair.
Keith’s face softened at this and Lance rose up from his seat on their hammock. “Okay guys. If we’re going to make a blanket fort, we’re going to do it right.”
What proceeded was the creation of possibly the greatest blanket fort in recorded history. Coran, Allura, and Krolia watched with faint amusement as each Paladin maneuvered their lions close to each other so they could tie sheets, tarps, and other assorted blankets between them to form a large tent, shielding them from the outside world. Even though it was merely a flimsy blanket fort, easily undone by a strong breeze, it helped them feel safe.
Lance piled all of the pillows into the center of their creation and then collapsed into the middle of it, wordlessly pulling Keith down with him. Shiro settled down next to Keith. Lance gave him a nod in solidarity, then lifted Keith up slightly, turning his body and tucking him into himself in a spooning position, then waved the rest of the team over. Hunk and Pidge, understanding the request, followed suit – Hunk settling in next to Lance and Pidge squeezing in between Shiro and Keith. The team silently wrapped themselves around each other. Personal space was nonexistent between them at the moment. They wanted to stay there, wrapped up in each other, forever.
They sat around their little creation for hours, each member unwilling to let the others out of their sight. Facing death was always a scary thing, but sadly, it wasn’t something they weren’t used to at this point. But facing the death of someone so close to you and being unable to help? That was the stuff of nightmares. They desperately needed to be together, to see with their own eyes that the most important people to them in the entire galaxy were still alive and well.
After a while Allura joined them, and the team felt a steady undercurrent of emotion rise within them. It felt like their lions - less ancient and more chaotic, but familiar. As they all individually relaxed and let the thrum wash over them, they were able to pick out the individual presences of each of the Paladins inside their minds.
In a stark contrast to the first mind-meld exercise they performed in their beginning Paladin days, they relaxed into the meld naturally. The team stayed there with love and caring and acceptance flowing over them in waves through Allura’s mind-link until their trembling stopped and a feeling of peace settled over them.
After a while, Allura cleared her throat. She could feel through the mind link that they were all hungry. She suggested a distraction – preferably one that involved food – and since there was no way the team would let each other out of their sight that evening, she suggested a team bonding night on a nearby planet.
Lance brightened and suggested that they find a friendly planet and explore some of the night life. A frown crossed Shiro’s face, but before he could protest Allura exclaimed, “That’s a great idea! There’s a planet in the coalition nearby that is very advanced and is known for its fine cuisine. I am sure we would receive a warm welcome if we decided to pay the citizens a visit.”
After a round of looks amongst themselves, checking in with each other to see whether or not they were up for it, the team quietly agreed and carefully untangled themselves from their cuddle pile. They informed Coran and Krolia of the plan, promised to check in later that evening, deconstructed part of their fort, and all piled into the Black Lion.
In spite of the late hour on that particular sector of the planet, the restaurant – looking very similar to a bar and grill from Earth – was alive and buzzing with energy. The lively atmosphere felt a little abrasive at first, but as the team silently eased into it, it began to feel almost… healing. They sat in a corner, away from the other patrons and restaurant staff. The dull drone of the restaurant’s customers talking and laughing along with the clanging of pots and pans in the kitchen blended to create a calming hum.
Then, with a roguish grin, Allura purchased a round of Nunvil for the table. Pidge lifted an eyebrow and sniffed at the beverage, then smirked as she recognized the scent – alcohol. Her hand clenched around her drink and she lifted it in a mocking toast before downing it all in one go.
Unexpectedly, Keith burst into unrestrained laughter from across the table before snatching up his own drink. “All right then, let’s fucking do this.”
The team needed to laugh and drink like they hadn't just almost watched their best friends die one by one, so that's what they did. They were pretty reserved in spite of the alcohol; they giggled together into the wee hours of the morning, cracking jokes about everything from their teachers back home to hilariously botched missions in their early months to faux pas that come from being air-dropped into alien cultures. They all felt better afterwards, warm and tipsy and feeling just on this side of normal.
Upon taking the Black Lion back, they still didn’t want to part ways. After a silent agreement over the mind-link, they decided to sleep in their fort. They all collapsed together onto the pillow pile, exhausted, and soon fell asleep to the comforting sounds of each other’s steady breathing and the warm weight of each other’s bodies.
So when the next week rolled around, after getting embarrassingly curb-stomped by a small Galra fleet and having to turn and run with their tails between their legs, Coran suggested that they check out a pacifist planet nearby to blow off some steam. The team agreed, found a sector of the planet famous for their breweries, and settled in to a quaint little pub on the outskirts of the city.
An hour and a round of drinks later and they lounged at their table comfortably, wearing their civilian clothes to help blend in, sipping their drinks and enjoying the looseness and warmth spreading through their bodies. They were still gently telepathically connected after their failed mission, so they just basked in their connection and in being alive. When they returned, they threw together a pile of blankets and fell asleep together under the stars.
The next week, although their mission went well, they went to another bar at a planet that reminded them of a technologically advanced ancient Greece and did a few rounds of shots. Their moods soared after a successful mission, and they wanted to capitalize on that after the rough couple of weeks they’d had. They toasted to their allies, to their health, to the concept of peace, and to the Coalition. As the night went on, they toasted to increasingly stupid things - like Galra soldiers who can’t shoot a gun for shit, armor that doesn't chafe, and enemies who monologue instead of attacking. Too giggly and sleepy to navigate back, they ended up creating a blanket fort inside the Black Lion that night and, once again, passed out in a giant cuddle pile.
The following week they hit up a nunvillery that strongly reminded them of an Earth club and got so wasted that they walked back to their camp, which was only a few hundred yards away, and didn’t even bother to set up a blanket fort. They simply used each other as pillows and snoozed until noon the next morning, steadfastly guarded by Keith’s wolf. They woke up hungover, but Allura – being the determined, responsible leader that she is - forced them to gulp down several glasses of water and eat a big breakfast, so they bounced back and resumed training later that evening.
A few weeks later, they stopped in a quiet tavern on a friendly, if under-developed, planet in the Kedios galaxy. They stopped in a quiet bar outside the continent’s capitol city. Lance showed Keith how to take a selfie with their communicators, and Keith sent a selfie to Krolia with the caption, “I love my life!” It brought tears of joy to her eyes. In the two years that she had known him, she had never seen her son as happy as he was wrapped up in Lance’s arms.
Their weekly bar hopping adventures were pretty much expected now. Rumors throughout the coalition had spread about the Paladin’s commitment to checking out the local customs and cultures of each of the planets in their alliance, so they were greeted with open arms each time they landed and were promptly escorted to the very best taverns, restaurants, and attractions that the planet had to offer.
Not to say it was all sunshine and roses – they still occasionally ran into a Galra fleet on their path to Earth and had to take them out, or came across a planet that one of Sendak’s fleets was attempting to colonize and had to rescue them. But each time they finished a battle, they came down from their adrenaline high by chatting up ideas for their next weekly night out over the mind link.
Spending so much time mind-melded had begun to affect them; while at first they could only communicate vague pictures and ideas, they could now communicate in full sentences and they could easily pick out each other’s voices within their conversations. They also felt a startling increase in empathy for one another. It was hard not to empathize with someone when you were fused with their brain that long. What was once friendly banter and teasing over the mind link turned into something softer, more affectionate. Each member of the team felt affection emotions a little bit differently, but they could all recognize the general feeling of affection in spite of the small, nuanced differences in how it was presented.
Hunk didn’t hide much from the team. The term “open book” applied well to him. He felt love strongly, unrestrained and unrelenting. Love was simple to him. It was a force of nature, and he didn’t bother resisting it. He never held it back. It was beautiful for the others to behold. The affection that Hunk held for his team felt like warm sunshine over the mind-link. He shared memories of cooking with his moms, the way they encouraged him to tinker with machinery when he started to show an interest in it, the shock on his moms’ faces when he began to create increasingly complex machinery out of salvaged bits from the junk yard, discovering his passion for engineering, his excitement of being accepted into the Garrison to pursue his dreams, and the shock of ending up on a space adventure that he never wanted. The adoration and respect that he felt for his team as they grew closer. The joy that grew within him when he helped rescue Shay and realized that he was genuinely capable of making a difference in the universe.
Shiro was generally quiet, but when the situation called for it, he had a soft eloquence to the way he expressed his feelings. Shiro had seen enough trauma throughout his life that he had gotten really good at psychoanalyzing himself. He surprised the team at first with how his mind processed things. He viewed feelings as neither right nor wrong; they just… were. Every feeling was valid in its own right, and they were all there for a reason, whether stemming from maladaptive behaviors or otherwise. As Shiro gradually let his guard down around the team, he shared what it was like to be stuck in the Astral Plane. He shared what it was like to watch someone pretending to be him, unknowingly or otherwise, slowly sabotage these people that he had come to love. He shared with them what it was like to die, and to be reborn in a new body. He allowed them to feel how the body he’s in still doesn’t quite feel right, like a fresh pair of sneakers straight out of the store – it feels too tight in some parts and too loose in others, but he’s slowly breaking it in and getting more and more familiar with it with each passing day.
Keith, to everyone’s surprise, didn’t fight it at all when he felt the team start to poke around inside his mind. Back when they started mind-melding exercises upon first becoming Paladins, Keith was all hard edges and blockades, but there was a certain softness about him now. He was still recognizably Keith, the essence of him staying the same, but time had changed him – for the better, they silently realized. He was at peace. He had no hesitation in sharing his back story – the shame and confusion of growing up without a mother, the pain of his father’s death, the terrifying three years of moving from foster home to foster home. The day that Takashi Shirogane, Garrison recruiter and star student, visited his foster home and attempted to recruit him for the Garrison. His frustration when the state refused to let him attend the exclusive school because, as a ward of the state, he had to stay in public school. He had vented his frustration to Shiro about the State controlling his life during the older man’s weekly visit to his foster home. He could still recall, word for word, what Shiro had said to him that day: “I can get you out of the State’s hands for good. Keith… I know I’m too young to be a father to you, but... if you’re willing, I’d like to be a brother to you. I want to adopt you.” He shared the struggle of accepting Shiro’s familial love for him after feeling so unloved for so long, the internal battle with his self-worth every time he got into a fight in school when a classmate mocked him for being gay, the earth-shattering day when he was told that Shiro had died.
Allura felt things very differently from the rest; she was Altean, after all, and grew up in a very different culture. She was raised to lead, raised to be a servant of the people. She tended to put others before herself, and her team had to calmly remind her on several occasions that if one of them grows weary, their whole team grows weak. She can’t burn herself out for the sake of helping others. After that, she would repeat to herself like a mantra, “I need to take care of myself so I can take care of others.” At that, the team abruptly change their strategy and pushed back at that train of thought – that reasoning, Shiro insisted, only granted her permission to take care of herself so she can take care of others, rather than ranting that she is allowed to be taken care of in her own right. When the team would gently press her, she revealed that she was terrified to take anything for herself in life. She shared her shock at Lotor’s betrayal, how she mourned for the loss of her connection with someone she grew to consider an equal and ally in both love and the ongoing war effort, and her shame at allowing Lotor to gain power and knowledge while she sat back and pined over him. Late at night, her eyes would frequently sting with held-back tears as she fought off feelings of unworthiness. She then felt the team’s love seeping into her, reminding her that she is worthy of love and she wasn’t naive for chasing happiness. Over time, her tears finally fell along with the walls around her heart.
Pidge was different. She felt affection and protectiveness almost fearfully, even violently. It felt like a sharp pain to the others over the mental connection at first, foreign and strange. Losing her dad and her brother in one fell swoop, and at such a young age, had permanently altered her mental landscape. The team had to spend several weeks sending reassuring feelings towards her in order for her to feel a little more secure in her friends’ safety. Over time, the dull ache inside her faded and was hardly noticeable anymore.
As time went on, the team also noticed that Pidge didn’t internally refer to herself in feminine terms. It was difficult to describe, but her mental picture of herself was very gender-neutral. They then learned that Pidge feels a strange sense of dysphoria in the back of her mind whenever someone refers to her as “she” or “her” that she hadn’t had the time or mental energy to address since their little adventure began. The team collectively, wordlessly, decided to refer to them in gender-neutral terms. Pidge’s affection and gratitude radiated through the mind link at the team referring to them with gender-neutral pronouns without them even having to ask.
In stark contrast to Keith and Hunk’s willingly open mindscapes, Lance was incredibly closed off at first. He had a lot of walls up. He frequently shut down his end of the mental connection whenever someone tried to probe too deeply into his subconscious. Lance could feel the frustration radiating off the team in waves, leaving him feeling ashamed and conflicted. He was still the same Lance they had always known; he laughed, he joked, he flirted, he fought when he needed to. The only time he would react strangely is when the team would try to push into his head, so most of the time they would back off when they sensed his discomfort. But over time, they grew more and more impatient with his standoffishness over the mind-link.
One day, after a fight with the Galra when he had broken three fingers on his dominant hand, ruining his shooting accuracy, resulting in Keith almost getting ambushed, the team attempted to push down his mental blockades again and he snapped. He threw his walls down and it felt to the team like a landmine had gone off, raining shrapnel down upon their consciousness, as his unfiltered thoughts and conflicting feelings came pouring through to each member of the team in turn.
To Pidge and Hunk, I spent months feeling isolated while you two were sitting right beside me. I was heartbroken, and you made fun of me. I thought we were friends. I thought you were better than that. I thought I mattered to you.
To Shiro, You never took me seriously. I know it wasn’t really you, but I can still vividly picture the look on your clone’s face as he yelled at me to stay out of it. He dismissed me and it hurt, and every time I see your face, I remember it. I feel guilty for taking it out on you, especially considering just how much shit you’ve been through, but I can’t help it. All I ever wanted was your approval.
To Allura, I’m sorry I tried to turn my feelings for you into a joke and then fell in love with you anyway. I wish I’d had the courage to approach you in seriousness about my feelings for you a lot sooner, if only to move on and save myself months of pining. I hope I didn’t push you away by pursuing you in the way that I did. You mean more to me than the way I treated you.
To Keith, I hate how much better than me you are. I want to tear you down. I want to push you away. I want to punch your stupid, perfect face. I hate the way you make me feel. I hate the way that I act when I’m around you. It really hurt when you said you didn’t remember me when we were rescuing Shiro from the Garrison pod. I lied when I told you that I didn’t remember the bonding moment. I look up to you. I want to hold you close. I felt so alone without you, and the day you came back to the team was the first day in months that I was truly happy. I’ve never felt as alive as I feel when I’m near you. I would cross galaxies for you. I want to apologize for every antagonistic comment I ever made to you and I have no idea where to start. I’m sorry for taking my confused feelings out on you. I’m terrified that I’m in love with you, because that means a lot of things for me that I’m not yet ready to accept within myself.
The resulting cacophony was a sonic boom through a field of glass.
Pidge and Hunk internally collapsed in guilt, chanting back in their minds, We didn’t know. We’re so sorry. We didn’t know. We’re so sorry. In feeling their genuine remorse for hurting him, guilt over not realizing he had been hurting so badly, and fierce dedication to make it up to him, Lance felt himself letting go of his anger towards them.
Shiro simply flooded Lance with understanding and affirmation of his worth. Lance leaned into it gratefully.
Allura started to apologize, but Lance cut her off with an affectionate burst of feeling. It’s okay. I’m happy to have you in my life. Everything is okay. I’ve moved past it.
But Keith. As Lance’s feelings flowed over him and he slowly worked from his hatred, jealousy and inferiority to his deep affection, and ultimately his confession, Keith’s corresponding feelings flowed from indignant confusion to amusement, finally coming to rest at shocked wonder.
His quiet response was like a pin dropping in a silent room.
You love me?
Suddenly Keith was in front of him. Physically, not just in the mindscape. Keith was physically in front of him, yanking him from his daze, putting his hands on him… and kissing him.
His lips are just as soft as I’ve always imagined.
The faint amusement over their mental link indicated to Lance that Keith had definitely heard that.
Within a few weeks, Lance’s internal dialogue had changed and the whole team felt it. Like fixing an ache you’ve had for so long that you’d forgotten what it’s like not to hurt, Lance’s emotional healing made the team nearly giddy with relief. Lance shared with them just how much he misses his family – his abuela’s cooking, the constant noise all around him in his pleasantly chaotic family home, what it was like to grow up with five siblings, the heated feeling of fighting his siblings for his parents’ attention, and the guilt over even daring to think anything negative about his family considering how long it had been since he had seen them. He shared with them just how much he looked up to all of them: Hunk with his steadying presence and gentle disposition. Pidge with her technological brilliance and unwavering loyalty. Shiro with his calm strength and quiet wisdom. Allura’s powerful presence and grace.
And Keith.
Keith, always giving him incentive to be better. Keith, pulling him in like a magnet. Keith, giving just as good as he gets. Keith, with the newfound steady strength of a leader. Keith, with the same quick wit and playful fire that Lance had loved about him from the very beginning.
Lance shared his sheer joy at belonging, unquestionably, to a team who loves him. He shared what it felt like to finally come into himself and accept himself for who he is, and to stop denying his truth out of fear. Lance shared all of it.
And after a while, Lance shared with the team exactly what it felt like to fall in love with Keith.
It was like the first ten seconds of taking a freefall in his Lion. It was like returning after a long mission and finally collapsing onto a warm, familiar bed. It was like the first bite of a batch of garlic knots fresh from the oven. It was like dancing in the surf on Veradero beach at midnight.
Loving Keith was like coming home.
Now that all six of them had their minds wide open, their mind link only grew stronger. They sometimes left it open well after missions ended, just to chat and bask in each other’s presence. Allura felt a quiet nudge in her mind at odd times, which she realized was a teammate requesting that she initiate a mind link. She always obliged, and quickly figured out that she could tell who was requesting it; each person’s touch in her mind felt different. Distinct. They could all feel it and they could immediately tell when one of them wasn’t connected. Allura would seek them out and the team would feel a rush of warmth, feeling complete, when the missing member joined the link. They found themselves spending more and more time together, whether in the immediate vicinity of each other or not.
This is it, Allura realized one day, in absolute wonder. This connection. This is what it means to be a Paladin of Voltron. This is the kind of bond that my father intended all those years ago. And we’ve finally found it.
The bar outings continued. The team went from simply sitting around, drinking and laughing together during their outings, to dancing together as the weeks went on. It started with Keith admitting, under the influence of a very sweet alien liquor, that he knew the choreography to Beyonce’s Single Ladies.
Lance, of course, wouldn’t let him sit down until he had demonstrated, with Lance joining in about halfway through because of course he knew the choreography like the back of his hand.
The team laughed as the two of them flawlessly imitated the music video in spite of their intoxication, matching each other move for move. They worked so well together, so naturally in-sync, both in and out of battle. They taught the rest of the team the choreography and they danced as a group at every available opportunity, scaring more than one group of unsuspecting aliens. Lance had convinced several of them that it was a human cultural dance from back on Earth.
“Technically, I’m not even wrong,” he insisted, “because Beyonce isn’t just a person, Keith, she’s a cultural phenomenon.”
Coran and Krolia watched their comings and goings in amused silence, begrudgingly approving of their new bar-hopping routine. The team seemed closer than ever. They appeared to be, for the first time, thriving rather than merely surviving.
As the weeks went on, they continued to surprise each other. Once-reserved Keith turned out to be a genuine party animal. He could dance like Magic Mike and didn’t mind being the center of attention, such a contrast from the aloof kid he used to be. Lance surprised the group as well; it turned out he had some talent that they didn’t know about – he could break-dance better than anyone they had ever seen. He and Keith would frequently get into dance-offs, and as with all aspects of their lives, the two of them competed against each other and pushed each other and they both got better for it. Keith learned some moves from Lance and they break-danced in sync, earning awed stares and cheers from the crowds of aliens around them each time they performed together. In turn, Keith taught Lance some Magic Mike-style dance routines, and the two men caused quite a few club patrons’ cheeks to flush and pants to tighten. They were both very kinesthetic people; dancing just came naturally to them.
It wasn’t just Lance and Keith that were kinesthetically oriented though; they were all kinesthetic people. It just came with the territory. Sparring, wielding a weapon, hand-to-hand combat… fighting and dancing aren’t that entirely different. One is just better choreographed.
Each outing became rowdier. Keith and Lance’s weekly break-dancing competition turned into dirty dancing against one another, and as the rest of team got more comfortable with each other, they began to engage with them too. They all just wanted to feel alive with the people who they had almost died alongside. At each outing, every member of the team made sure to spend at least a few minutes dancing with one another. They all dirty danced together, even Keith and Lance with the others, regardless of gender and sexual preference or relationship status. Sexuality be damned; they were all so close at this point that nobody cared. There was a certain intimacy to be found in consistently almost dying together – what’s a mindless pelvic grind compared to that? It felt amazing to feel their blood pumping together, pressed together and feeling each other’s breath, reveling in the physical evidence that the people they care about most were alive and right there with them and so connected, physically and mentally.
Each teammate brought their own spice to the mix. Keith’s style of dancing was smooth and sensual. Lance’s was straight dirty. Shiro and Pidge were a little more reserved, but easily opened up with the team, even keeping up with the two rowdier boys as they grew more comfortable and confident. Allura was shy at first, but Keith slid in behind her to guide her hips and, flush against her back, felt her pick it up quickly.
Alcohol flowed easily on those nights, but their mind-link flowed even easier.
Of course, they still kept up with the coalition duties and made significant daily progress in their journey towards Earth. They hunted for food on uninhabited planets, accepted donations of supplies from allied ones, and fought the Galra whenever they came across them. But at least once every few days, they made a point to visit a local bar or club at a friendly planet to blow off steam. The team loved their new routine. It cleared their heads, it reaffirmed their connection, and it was fun. For the first time since they went into space, their lives were beginning to feel balanced.
One night, they found what appeared to be a gay night club in a city named Telmarisse. Their attempt at taking out a Galra fleet earlier on that evening had gone badly – about as badly as one could possibly go – and they needed to shake off their residual feelings of terror.
Keith walked straight to the bar, downed four shots of bitter alien liquor, jumped up on an empty table, and started dancing like a stripper even though the booze hadn’t even hit him yet. Lance cheered him on and wolf-whistled as he moved. Keith just cocked an eyebrow in response and leaned down, extending his hand, pulling Lance up onto the table with him. They began to grind in sync, Lance bending his knees to press up against Keith’s backside.
Keith had almost died during the battle that day. He had infiltrated what they believed to be an abandoned Galra base on foot for intel about the state of the Galra resistance. The rest of the team was leaving the base to return to their lions, but Keith stayed behind for a moment to try to use his Galra DNA to break into one more computer system. The rest of the team was waiting outside when the alarm was sounded unexpectedly and the whole base was flooded with Galra sentries.
Keith was trapped. But Lance heard the alarm go off and went in after him. He knew it was a suicide run even as he shot the doors down with his bayard, but the alternative of leaving Keith to die alone in a base full of Galran robots was unbearable.
As Lance burst into the main control center and saw Keith across the room with a sea of bots between them. Keith was dual-wielding his Marmoran blade and his bayard, looking for all he’s worth like a gorgeous force of nature as he slashed through sentry after sentry with his eyes glowing a vicious purple.
Lance could see him. He was right there. But he couldn’t get to him.
He fired his beyard until his trigger finger hurt from over-exertion and then transformed it into a sword and slashed away at anything he could reach. The battle felt like it lasted hours even though it was probably only minutes long. With desperation, he watched Keith as he was slowly overwhelmed by their sheer numbers.
Lance reached Keith just as Keith cried out and was pulled to the floor by the surrounding forces. Just as Lance threw himself over Keith, unquestioningly prepared to give his life to protect him, Red burst through the wall with a deafening roar and scooped the two of them up in her mighty jaw. Before Lance passed out from exhaustion, he could have sworn he heard Red let out a sigh and fondly ask, Whatever am I going to do with you reckless little cubs?
Keith’s body had been wound tight in a ball in Lance’s arms, still braced for impact, when Lance came to. He seized Keith’s hands and pried them away from his face to search his expression for signs of pain. Keith looked up with a wince, realized he wasn’t dead, and threw his arms around Lance. The two of them trembled together for a moment, their psychic link clearly relaying the terror still fresh in their minds. Concern and relief flowed over them in waves from the other members of the team as they drew nearer to where the rest of their team had been positioned. Once Keith and Lance had landed and joined them, they all shakily nodded to each other. They didn’t need to express out loud their mixed gratitude and worry. They all felt it.
They flew back to their temporary base of operations – a small structure that strongly reminded them of an Earth hotel - in the middle of a small town named Telmarisse on the planet Ottaire. They quickly debriefed with Coran and Krolia, stripped themselves of their armor, and showered. Once they had all reconvened in the lobby, all Keith had to do was wonder aloud, “I wonder if this town has a gay club?”, and the team was grinning and running for the Black Lion to begin their night of blowing off steam.
Lance’s eyes sparkled as he moved against Keith’s lithe body, attention completely focused on the other man, pressing his cheek up against his neck and murmuring a loving stream of consciousness into his ear. They balanced themselves with ease, swaying back and forth. Lance ran his hands up and down to caress his chest and abs, feeling his rapid heartbeat under that lightweight cotton t-shirt. He always found himself so profoundly comforted by the feeling of Keith’s heart beating. He needed to feel that he was alive firsthand, pulsating and moving and breathing and his.
After the team danced themselves into a sweaty mess, they stumbled back out of the club, giggling at Lance’s ridiculously exaggerated impression of Coran’s accent – “Oi, do ya fancy a spot o’tea, mate?” Keith fell over himself with laughter. Lance quickly caught him and slung an arm over his shoulder.
The team made their way to the Black Lion, whooping and laughing, not a care in the world. Though none of them said anything, they were all well aware of Krolia tailing them a few hundred feet behind them. They had caught on at that point that they usually had either Krolia or Coran following them, but allowed it to happen. They felt even freer and safer knowing that someone was looking out for them, though none of them would admit it out loud.
Lance glanced back at Krolia, who he could have sworn winked at him. He just rolled his eyes fondly and turned back to his team.
Still filled with mirthful laughter, they stumbled into the Black Lion, who navigated its way back to camp without their direction. They all stumbled out of it and back to their hotel and piled into Keith and Lance’s room, pushing the two beds together and collapsing in a pile against each other. More often than not, the team ended up like this nowadays – pressed against each other, reveling in their mind-link, each magnifying the group’s feelings of comfort, acceptance, and – lately, increasingly unrestrained joy.
The team left the psychic link open all the time nowadays, basking in the loose connection to each other, allowing the others’ feelings to be a soft hum in the backgrounds of their minds. It was comfortable. Familiar. Having spent so much time in each other’s heads, it felt almost second-nature to have the mind link open. As much as the link felt like an unnatural intrusion when they felt it for the very first time, their minds now felt somewhat empty without it. The connection that they held with each other was one unlike anything they ever dreamed they would experience. They balanced each other out, filling each other’s pitfalls, holding each other up in times of need.
Their hearts felt full, like the feeling of having just eaten a warm home-cooked meal; the dull ache they used to feel was, over time, replaced by the stream of love and acceptance seeping from their teammates’ minds.
They may never feel normal, but this was their version of normal, and they wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.