Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the world Lance grew up in, finding your soulmate was everything. It is the best moment of your life when you found the person you are meant to be with. Most people find their partner by the time they turn 25, but there have been cases of soulmates not meeting until they’re closer to 30.

When a child is born, their partner’s hair color changes to match their partner’s color which usually represents their most dominant personality traits. The partner born second is born with hair that matches their soulmate’s color. The catch is, until you meet your soulmate, the only colors you can see are your and your partner’s colors. It’s also a specific shade of the color as well. Someone that can see red can only see a certain shade of that color enabling people to find their soulmates easier. Parents, if they haven’t found their soulmate yet, can see their child’s color and the child’s partner’s so that they know when their child’s soulmate is born.

Red usually indicates a confident, often athletic person. Blue generally meant that the person was lively and outgoing. Green indicated genius level intelligence; yellow tended to represent a very caring person; and black, often with white streaks to differentiate between normal black and soulmate black, was the color of a strong leader. It only stays the color for 24 hours before fading, but often people will dye their hair that color once they’re older to help find their soulmate; a service done only by people who’ve already found their partner since they’re the only ones that can see all the colors.

Online soulmate finding websites let you add the shades you can see to your profile so that anyone that can see those two colors can contact you. But the only way to know if you’ve found your soulmate for sure is to touch palms. It’s not just a simple holding of hands, it’s an intentional touching of hands, fingers and palms lined up, and if that person is your soulmate, you will suddenly be able to see all colors.

The color was also what appeared on their body whenever their soulmate gets hurt. It is also the same shape and size of the wound. The lines in their hands would light up when their soulmate is in distress and the lines will start blinking if your soulmate is dying.

The worst thing is when your hair turns gray all of a sudden. When someone’s hair turns gray, it means that your soulmate has died. It was very rare for a child to be born with gray hair, but it did happen and it was a parent’s worst nightmare. To know that your child would never even have a chance to meet their soulmate was devastating.

* * *

Lance’s world was a mixture of red and blue, it had been since his hair turned red when he was six months old. It was a lighter red that his mother said reminded her of fresh strawberries. His mother had made sure to take plenty of pictures with his red hair to hang above the mantel next to his siblings’ soulmate photos. Marco’s hair had turned bright pink on his third birthday; Luis’ hair had turned a dark blue on his the last day of kindergarten; and Veronica had been born with neon green hair that had faded into a dark brown after the first day.

His parents were soulmates and had found each other online while they were in college. It was amazing to have bonded parents as children of unbonded parents experienced more domestic turmoil and divorce. Most unbonded couples didn’t last, but some did; especially two people who’s soulmates died young. It was obvious just by the way his parent acted around each other that they loved each other and were meant to be together.

They were both very compassionate when, after he turned 13, he woke up with new pain marks from his soulmate more often than not. A lot of times the pain presented itself as thick red stripes across his back, he’d cried for hours as his mother cradled him her arms the first time they had appeared. They appeared on his back, arms and legs, but never where anyone would be able to see when he wore a t-shirt and jeans. Sometimes he woke up with a red ring around one of his eyes or cuts across his cheek more likely from being backhanded by someone with a ring on.

His hands were almost always lit up red from his partner’s distress though luckily they never started blinking. The first time it had appeared it burned so bad from the intensity of the emotional distress his partner was feeling he was unable to even close his hands. His parents had kept him home from school that day and comforted him the best they could.

* * *

It was three in the morning when 4 years old Lance woke up in the middle of the night screaming, his left side a deep red color and burning.

“It’s your soulmate,” she explained.

Lance was confused, and asked her, “how could my soulmate have done this?”

“Mijo, when your soulmate is in pain, you feel it too,” his mother told him, “often as a burning sensation wherever they’re hurt.”

“So you’re saying someone hurt my soulmate?”

“Yes, baby. I’m sorry.”

His mother scooped him up into her arms and held him close, kissing his forehead.

“Mamá?” Lance asked from the backseat of the car.

“Yes?”

“Why would someone hurt them?”

“I don’t know, Mijo. Maybe it was just an accident.”

“Oh, okay,” and he let his mamá put him back in bed and sing him to sleep.

Very rarely did any marks appear, just the usual bumps and scrapes from being a kid, until he turned 13. After that, he was almost never not covered in red bruises that showed the signs of both physical and emotional abuse. It hurt him so much that his partner was subjected to such horrible physical and emotional abuse on a daily basis. It made him feel so useless. Here he was with a loving, caring family and his partner’s life was living hell; it made his heart ache.

* * *

Keith was born with blue hair, the color of the ocean just as the sun was setting at night, that faded into black. He’s been able to see red and blue his whole life, just like how his father had always been able to see purple and orange. He’d never met his mother, but he knew his father had been born with purple hair and was able to see all the colors. His father told him he’d been bonded with his mother and it made Keith wonder why his mother had left if they were a bonded couple because divorce between bonded soulmates was incredibly rare.

“She didn’t choose to leave, she had to,” was all his father ever told him about why she left.

He said she was a strong, brave woman and she loved them both very much. Sometimes he would get him to tell him stories about her. His favorite was the one about the stray blue and white cat they’d found, named Blue, and then taken her under their care for a while. When he asked where the cat was now, he was told his mother took Blue with her when she left. Keith was disappointed, he’d always wanted a pet of his own.

He was 12 when his father died in a fire. He’d fallen asleep on the couch drinking booze with a lit cigarette between his fingers. All it took was one small touch of the cigarette to the alcohol and the house went up in flames. He hadn’t been home that night as he had been spending the night with a friend, his only friend. His Dad always drank when he wasn’t around to help cope with the loss of his soulmate. Keith knew about it, but never said anything since it had never interfered with their relationship before; usually his dad was a very responsible drinker. But that night was the anniversary of his mom leaving, so it was a particularly hard night for his father and this time, he’d taken it too far.

Child protective services had come and shipped him off to group home the second after his father’s small funeral had ended. It was really just him and a few of their neighbors that attended the service. Living so far outside the city meant not a lot of people knew who you were. The first group home was okay, he guessed. Three meals a day, a decent bed, and a kind roommate. He was sure his soulmate’s hand lines were red from the emotional pain he was feeling and watched as his own hands started glowing blue in response.

It was nice to know his partner felt empathy for other people, even those he’d never even met and knew whether or not they deserved it. Finding his soulmate and finally being happy for the first times since his dad died felt like a pipe dream. He wondered that when he did if his partner would embrace because of all the pain their connection caused them over the years.

For the next two years he was passed around to multiple horrible foster families who always sent him back in the end. Most of them were just in it for the money and sent him back when he became too difficult or violent. Most of the foster parents would hit or beat him when he got out of line. There were a few good families mixed in there, but they sent him back because of his anger issues and attitude as well. So he learned not to let anyone in because it was just easier that way. If nobody was close to him, nobody could really hurt him.

* * *

Keith was sitting on his bed at his latest foster home after getting into a fight with one of his foster siblings. He couldn’t even really remember how the fight escalated, but he did remember the words that drove him to swinging his fist into his “brother’s” nose.

“Maybe that’s why your mother left you!”

Keith had seen red and thrown the punch before he could even really register what he was doing. He was almost certainly going to be sent back to the group home by tomorrow. This had been his last chance to stay in a foster home. Now he would spend the rest of his time in the system growing up in the group home unless someone chose to take him in, which was unlikely especially with his track record.

Keith looked up when he heard the door to his room swing open and bang into the wall. His foster father stood in the door, eyes blazing, anger radiating off of him in waves.

“You broke my son’s nose you little bastard! You’re going to regret that,” he growled and then lunged.

Keith rolled off his bed, narrowly avoiding the man’s grasp. He’d long ago learned to notice the signs when he was going to get a beating. He ran towards his open door only to find his foster mother blocking his path. The woman was not small and was impossible to get around, he was trapped.

He felt the man grab the back of his shirt and throw him to the ground. The first kick landed on his stomach and then his shoulder as he curled himself into a protective ball on the floor. The last thing he registered before allowing himself to slip away into the back of his mind where his father and the imagined image of his mother would comfort him was that the lines of his hands had lit up blue.

While it was nice his soulmate was so responsive and empathetic to his pain, he wished his partner didn’t have to see and feel everything that was happening to him. It was slightly weird to know that a stranger already knew so much about him without even meeting him. He just wished he could offer his partner more than the pain he was so used to.

Chapter Text

Lance woke up at 6 am to his ribs and back burning. His hands were lit up red and aching as well. One look in the mirror told him his soulmate had endured yet another severe beating.

Who would do something so horrible to somebody my age?

He carefully applied the cream his doctor had given him to help numb the burning sensation caused by their connection. Normally people just tolerated the burn when it came, but his happened so often that the only way to really cope was with numbing cream. It made him sad to numb the pain of his partner, but he still had to go to school like normal and the pain distracted him too much when left untreated.

“Lance, you up?” his mother called.

“Yes, Mamá!”

“Good. Don’t want to be late for your last day of school.”

Lance groaned, one more day and he’d be done with this shit school and off to the galaxy garrison to become a pilot. He was really hoping for fighter class, but it was extremely competitive. Only accepting 20 new fighter pilots out of about 150 hopefuls a year meant that only the best of the best got in. Everyone else were trained to become cargo or personnel transporters instead.

He threw on his favorite blue shirt and what the tag said was a green jacket. One way the fashion industry made people’s lives easier was add tags to the inside of every piece of clothing to tell consumers what color it was.

Every store was required to have a color chart on the wall too so that people could read about which colors went best together. That way when they could finally see color they wouldn’t have to entirely replace their mismatched wardrobe or look back at old photos and cringe at their poor color combinations. The more popular stores also had a few people who could see all colors to help shoppers buy items that went well together.

It was a nice accommodation for people that had yet to meet their soulmates and Lance really appreciated it. But even with that help sometimes he would go downstairs and his mother would send him back up to change. One time he’d accidentally put on one of his sister’s neon pink shirts and his older brother’s pink and gray camouflage style jeans when he was in a rush. His mother had just about passed out from laughing when she saw him. Like the kind woman she is, she didn’t let him go out looking like a some fairy princess, but she still took his picture, much to his annoyance, to giggle at for years to come.

“At least you match!” she’d said between her outbursts of laughter.

Lance threw on a pair of jeans and quickly made his way downstairs. He greeted his mom with a kiss on the cheek before stealing a few pieces of bacon from the growing pile next to the stove.

“I saw that young man,” his mother scolded.

“Sorry, Mamá. Gotta run, I promised Hunk I’d help him carry the last day of school snacks he baked.”

She waved him off and turned back to the stove. Lance left the house and made his way over to Hunk’s house. Hunk’s mother greeted him at the door by gathering him into a crush, yet loving, hug. It’s easy to see where Hunk got his giant teddy bear like persona.

“Yo, Hunk! Where you at?” Lance called from the living room.

“Kitchen!”

“I should’ve figured that.”

Lance entered the kitchen and immediately his senses were bombarded with a ton of wonderful scents. Homemade goodies littered the counters ranging from fresh blueberry muffins to macadamia nut bread. Lance could feel his mouth start to water when his eyes landed on the cupcakes Hunk was decorating.

“Are those your famous ultimate chocolate cupcakes?”

“Yes. But you’re not allowed to have one until the end of school party like everyone else,” Hunk stuck his tongue out at Lance.

Lance glared at him, “how is that fair? Without me you wouldn’t even be able to get all this stuff to the party!”

“Too bad,” Hunk teased just as he picked up one of the snickerdoodles and popped it into his mouth.

“Hypocrite,” Lance muttered, grudgingly starting to fill a container with chocolate chip cookies.

Lance flinched hard as he felt a new red mark burn itself onto his arm. He paused to look at it and saw the shape of a large adult hand wrapped around his upper arm, probably to drag his soulmate somewhere.

Hunk glanced over when he heard Lance stop grumbling about the unfairness of the situation. His smug smile fell when he saw the mark on Lance’s arm. Well, he couldn’t see the color of it, but his eyes had learned to detect the slight darkening of Lance’s skin since he’d seen it happen so much over the past few years.

Hunk himself only saw the world in light green and bright yellow. His hair had turned green when he was 3. His family had been so happy for him that they’d baked him a green cake in the exact shade he could see that very afternoon. Since then, his birthday cake has always been decorated green and yellow. For his last birthday, which was only a few weeks ago, his mother had designed him a cake with a green cat and a yellow cat entwining their tails as the cake topper. When he asked about the cats she’d just replied with, “Just felt like the right thing to do.” Her response left him confused, but he’d enjoyed the cake immensely anyway.

“Here,” Hunk said, handing Lance one of the sugar cookies with his favorite raspberry frosting.

Hunk wasn’t too good with words, but he’d found good food and a huge shoulder to lean on tended to do the job just as well, if not better. Was he lacked in talking ability, he made up for with his mad cooking skills and great listening ears.

Lance gave him a sad smile and accepted the cookie, “Thanks, Hunk.”

Hunk could tell Lance didn’t want to talk about it, so he did his best to relieve the tension by squirting Lance with some of the leftover strawberry frosting for the chocolate cupcakes. A short stream of frosting smacked Lance right in the nose, “Hey!”

Lance stared at him, his mouth gaping open, “Oh, it’s on, buddy.”

Lance quickly snatched up one of the discarded frosting bags and squeezed it as hard as he could. The caramel flavored frosting hit Hunk on his left cheek. Hunk paused to run his fingers through it and lick his fingers, “Yummy!”

The two then shared an identical set of positively evil grins before turning the kitchen into an all out frosting war zone. By the end of it the kitchen was a complete disaster and both boys needed to change their clothes. Both were doubled over, clutching their stomachs when Hunk’s mother finally came in to see what was going on.

“What have you done to my kitchen!” She demanded, “Both of you go upstairs and change, now. You’ve only got 10 minutes to finish packing up all this food if you want to make it to school on time.”

They both scrambled up the stairs to get changed. Lance spends so much time here that Hunk gave him a bin to put some clothes in if he ever came over unplanned. It was mostly made up of pajamas, but held stored some regular clothes there too. Lance carefully checked the color tags before putting on a light green shirt and a pair of brown pants with Hunk wearing his usual bright yellow T-shirt and brown shorts. They took turns in the bathroom washing the frosting out of their hair, both of them giggling like 5 years old the entire time.

“ Mission successful ,” Hunk thought, happy he could make his friend forget his worries if only for a short while.

* * *

Keith had been dragged back into the group home by his arm early that morning. His back and ribs ached from the beating he’d received from his foster dad. He sat huddled on the hard mattress the home dared to call a bed. Sleeping on ground would be more comfortable than this. He hadn’t moved for about an hour when suddenly the door to his room swung open.

Keith flinched out of habit, expecting a fist to the face to follow the abrupt entrance. But that didn’t happen, instead the person stopped just inside the open door and waited for him to look up. Keith slowly turned his gaze towards the stranger standing in the doorway. He was a tall, much taller than Keith, Japanese man who practically radiated “golden boy.” His hair was black for the most part, except for the longer section in the front that was white. His was well built and wearing a galaxy garrison uniform.

“Are you Keith?” he asked, his voice firm, yet kind somehow.

“Who’s asking?” he shot back.

“Captain Takashi Shirogane of the galaxy garrison.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed, captain ?”

Takashi narrowed his eyes a bit, but otherwise didn’t change his poster, “I’m here to inform you that as part of a community outreach program in this area that you’ve been selected to take part in, I’m here to escort you to the garrison.”

“Selected? You mean the home wants to get rid of me.”

“They did mention that you have trouble with taking orders and respecting authority and thought the garrison would be able to help.”

Keith rolled his eyes and turned his head back towards the window, “not interested.”

“This is not really your choice. We need as many new cadets as we can get and your name’s come up.”

“I don’t care. I’m nobody’s project.”

“You are not a project. You go and fail, you get sent back. Nobody is going to hold your hand through this.”

Keith glared at him, “I’m still not coming.”

Takashi nodded, “If you want to flunk out, fine. But you’ll never get a chance to learn to fly again.”

Keith perked up at the mention of flying. He’d always dreamed of learning to fly and leaving this place behind. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

“What’s the catch?” Keith asked warily, he’d long since learned not to trust strangers.

“No catch. Come, see if you make it, and if you do, become a pilot for the galaxy garrison. Simple as that.”

“Uh huh, sure.”

“Promise,” he said raising his arms in surrender.

Keith carefully weighed his options. Stay here and be at the mercy of abusive adults until he’s 18 and then probably be forced to take some shit job just to survive. But it he took the offer to go to the garrison, he could learn to fly and possibly get to explore the galaxy. Then he would be far, far away from everyone who’s ever tried to hurt him.

“What the hell, fine. I’m in, Captain Shirogane” Keith said playing up his annoyance while also doing his best to conceal a wince of pain as he stood.

“Great! Pack your stuff, we leave in 10 minutes,” he said and went to leave before turning back to Keith briefly to say, “Welcome to the team, Keith, and please, call me Shiro.”

Keith had a feeling his life was about change drastically and for the first time in a while he felt okay with that. “Nobody beating me into the ground, no more sleeping on a moldy mattress, and three guaranteed meals a day. Besides, it more of a science exploration. It’s not like I’m signing up to fight an intergalactic space war. How bad could it be?”

* * *

Lance and Hunk’s last day of school had been a great success. Hunk had received a ton of compliments on his food and Lance had eaten his fill. He’d even gotten to finally kiss his longtime crush Emily. She was a shorter, Puerto Rican girl that had moved here last year after her Dad got transferred. He’d been flirting with her all year long and she’d kept teasing him. But Lance was nothing if not persistent and kept trying. It had happened when he stole the last sugar cookie with raspberry frosting for her. She’d said it was a thank you and a goodbye kiss since he was headed off to the garrison next week and she was going to New York to attend college and become a filmmaker. Since then, he’s been on cloud nine.

He’s known she wasn’t his soulmate the whole time, but a lot of people liked to date other people before meeting their true partner. A lot of people considered it good practice for the real thing. Of course sometimes a person’s soulmate would die before they met so it was good to explore other options, particularly if you get a lot of distress signals and burn marks. It was also just in Lance’s nature to be really flirty with every girl he met. He knew he liked guys too, but guys didn’t generally respond to his flirting as well as girls did.

Another thing that’s made his really happy is that for the past few days he hasn’t woken up with any new burn marks. His hands were still red more often than not, but the lack of new marks was a good sign. It was too early to really start hoping, but Lance prayed his soulmate had found a way out of the horrible environment he’s been living in.

“Lance! You ready for our first day of class at the galaxy garrison?” Hunk asked, calmly snacking on he last of his homemade macadamia nut bread.

Luckily, they’d be placed in rooms right next to each other.

“Yeah! Today we find out which teams made fighter class and which ones are just regular pilots. I really hope we made fighter class. I put everything I had into their pilot evaluation course,” Lance said laying upside down on his bed.

“I don’t know. I think fighter class might be a little bit uh... extreme for me. I prefer stable, slow moving planes.”

Lance frowned, “Ugh. Just please don’t throw up on me when we’re training if we’re on the same crew, okay?”

“I’ll do my best, but I’m not making any promises. I’m an engineer, not a pilot.”

Soon enough they were all called down to the main meeting hall to get their assignments. Lance got as close to the front as he could to make sure he could see everything that was going on. He accidentally elbowed some guy in the ribs making his way towards the stage.

“Hey! Watch it, asshole,” the guy growled.

The guy was a few inches shorter than Lance and quite obviously missed the memo that mullets were no longer fashionable. Right away Lance noticed he could see the red color of the shirt he was wearing underneath his partially unzipped garrison uniform, but it was probably just a coincidence and didn’t mean anything. He was glaring at Lance, his mouth shaped into a scowl.

“Sorry, it was an accident. I’m just really excited to find out where I got assigned. I’m hoping for fighter class. I’m Lance by the way. And you are?” he smiled at the strange boy.

“Keith.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Lance nodded, “cool.”

He then turned his attention away from the rude boy to focus on the stage. Commander Iverson stepped up to the podium and welcomed everyone to the garrison.

“Welcome, young cadets. I’m not going to lie, the training that lies ahead of you is not going to be easy and many of you probably won’t make it if you don’t try. Give this place everything you have to offer and you shouldn’t have any problems. Now, the fighter class pilots. When I call your name please join me on the stage. The pilots are Abraham Ford, Beatrix Linger, Hannah Surox...”

Lance could feel his heart practically beating out of his chest as he listened for his name.

“Keith Kogane...”

Lance glanced over to the guy next to him as he watched him make his way towards the stage. Lance listened intently as Commander Iverson called off the rest of the fighter class pilots. He felt his heart drop into his stomach, he hadn’t made it.

Commander Iverson spoke again, “The rest of you are cargo pilots and will be getting your crew assignments tomorrow. As for the fighter class crews we have...”

Lance could barely focus on what Iverson was saying, the only thing that made it through the haze of disappointment surrounding his mind was “Hunk Labine and Pidge Holt are with Keith Kogane...”

Hunk was joining fighter class when he didn’t even want to be in fighter class. Lance glanced up at Keith on the stage, the guy looked bored out of his mind. He gave off the vibe of “I don’t care what happens because I know I’m that good.” It pissed Lance off so much as he watched Hunk join Keith on stage with a big goofy smile on his face. Lance couldn’t hate Hunk since he was probably as miserable as he was right now, but he could be mad at Keith. Lance didn’t care what it took, he was going to do everything he could to prove he was just as good as Keith Kogane.

Chapter Text

Keith groaned and did his best to resist the urge to bash his head again the controls as he heard Hunk throw up in the back of the plane for the third time this week. They hadn’t even been going that fast. They’d been training for over a year now and the guy still couldn’t keep his lunch down on the faster simulations. But this wasn’t even a simulation!

“Seriously dude, the hell is wrong with you?” Keith asked, smiling teasingly.

“I dunno man, my doctor said the pills he gave me would help.”

“Well, obviously they didn’t,” he turned around to face his crew.

Hunk was leaning over the waste disposal chute in the back of plane and Pidge was typing away on her computer. It was their first real flight together since they’d started training and it was a simple enough assignment. All they had to do was fly all the way around the world without causing any huge emergencies or having to land. In this plane a trip like this took 2 days to complete and so far, it’s only been 12 hours.

“How’s it look Pidge?” he asked.

“All good on my end. The plane should be able to stay on this course for the next 3 hours before you really have to start flying it manually again.”

Keith nodded. He almost always called Pidge by name because he knew she was a girl, but for some reason trying really hard to come off as a boy. He’d know since the first week of flight school when she refused to use the urinal in the men’s bathroom. He was pretty sure Hunk had figured it out too, but he wasn’t sure and didn’t want to blow her cover. She probably had her reasons for being here just as he had his. He just hoped her reason wasn’t escaping routine abuse.

“Cool. Hunk, do us all a favor and clean that stuff up. I’m not sure if Commander Iverson will deduct points for the bridge smelling like vomit or not, but I’d rather not find out. Also, I don’t want to smell it for the next day and a half.”

“Yup,” Hunk said, he still looked a bit green, but hopefully he wouldn’t throw up again.

Hunk opened the door and disappeared into the hallway to grab some cleaning supplies. Keith rolled his eyes, that guy and his stomach. He could eat anything put in front of him, but a little turbulence and it all came rushing back up in a second.

“Can you keep an eye on things for a little while? I’m going to try to take a quick nap so I can be more awake for the night flight over the Atlantic ocean,” Keith asked Pidge.

“Sure thing. I’ve got some work I want to go anyway.”

Keith nodded and gave her a quick pat on the back as he made his way off the bridge. He passed Hunk on his way to his room. Hunk was carrying a ton of different cleaning supplies, half of which he didn’t need. The guy obviously had never cleaned up vomit before since the janitors at the garrison usually cleaned up after him in the simulator. Keith had cleaned up his fair share of vomit from his time in the system; come to think of it, his fair share of blood, too.

Keith shook his head to clear that thought out of his mind. This was the last place he wanted to get trapped in one of his nightmares. It was their first real mission and he didn’t want his shit past fucking it up. It they completed this trip successfully, they’d be moved up to the next stage of training. That’s when they’d learn how to operate in battles both in space and on Earth. So far nobody had been forced to use any of those methods since they had yet to find any proof of alien life, but it was still good to know.

Keith opened the door to his room, kicked off his shoes, and immediately flopped onto the bed. The room was small, only big enough for a twin bed and a small dresser for his clothes. There was a small room in the back that acted as a bathroom consistently only of a toilet, sink, and shower so small Hunk joked he had to wash one half of his body at a time; hell, even Keith found the shower to be a bit of a squeeze.

There was also a tiny night stand positioned next to the bed with a lamp sitting on top of it. The lamp was bolted into the table to keep it from flying off during the flight. Next to it, attached by some heavy duty magnets was a picture of him and Shiro on stage the day he was given the award for being the best upcoming pilot in the garrison. Shiro had been so proud of him. Shiro had gathered him up in a big hug as soon as he was able to leave the stage.

It felt especially good because just a month before that, during his first week at the garrison actually, he’d gotten into fight and nearly got expelled. Only Shiro vouching for him had kept him there. He’d attempted to knock the other guy’s head off when he’d insinuated that his Dad had murdered his mother and that’s why he’d refused to tell Keith where she was or why she left. Both of them had ended up with a black eye and a few other scrapes and bruises. But, the main reason he’d been in more trouble than the other guy was because he’d hit first and that first punch to the face had apparently broken the guy’s nose.

Keith had been fully prepared to be sent back to the home since that’s what had always happened in the past, but instead Shiro had told him that he’d never give up on him. That he believed in him and his talent as a pilot and to never give up on himself either. Ever since that day, Keith had put everything he had into his training and it all paid off the day he was given the honor of being named the best upcoming pilot in the garrison.

Keith ran his fingers over the glass covering the picture. In his left hand he was holding the small golden trophy aloft and his other arm was sling around Shiro’s back. Shiro had one of his arms over Keith’s shoulders and the other was outstretched to take the picture. If nobody knew them, they’d probably guess that they’d been friends for years.

Keith frowned, while the memory was good, it also brought back the memory of Commander Iverson coming to him almost six months ago and telling him that Shiro’s mission had failed due to “pilot error.” Keith didn’t believe him because Shiro was the best pilot in the garrison, but Iverson stuck to his story and ignored Keith’s outrage. That day he’d broken four training dummies trying to get all his anger and sadness out; it hadn’t really worked. They’d received their pilot class assignments the next day, him going to fighter class, and he hadn’t been able to enjoy it with his mind too focused on Shiro.

Keith smiled sadly at the picture, “Thanks Shiro, for everything... wherever you are because I know you’re still alive out there and I’m gonna find you as soon as I get my pilots license,” he murmured aloud before drifting off to sleep.

* * *

Lance drummed his fingers on the controls of the cargo ship he was currently flying. It wasn’t their first real flight, in fact it was their third time trying to pass this mission. The first time his engineer, Gabriel, had somehow managed to accidentally start a fire on the bridge; automatic failure due to causing an emergency. The second time his technician, Sarah, miscalculated their flight plan and had them flying in the opposite direction for about an hour causing them to miss their drop off time.

So far, everything was going smoothly, but there was no telling what the next 12 hours would bring. The ineptitude of his crew only made him hate his rival Keith more. Keith had not only been named the best upcoming pilot in the garrison, but had both Hunk and Pidge on his crew. Hunk and Pidge were two of the most brilliant people in the entire garrison and together were a team to be reckoned with.

But most of all, Lance missed hanging out with Hunk. Ever since the fighter class training started, he’d barely seen his best friend. They’d even moved all fighter call cadets into a special area of the dorms reserved just for them. Their rooms were twice the size of Lance’s and were almost four times as nice. Lance’s mattress was covered in plastic and the frame creaked something awful when he moved. Their mattresses were brand new and felt like you were sleeping on clouds. They each had a private bathroom while Lance had to share a common bathroom with all the guys on his floor. Part of him knew he shouldn’t be mad at Keith for any of this, it wasn’t really his fault, but the rest of his brain found blaming Keith much easier than learning to face his own inadequacies.

He ran his hands over his face to try to wake himself up a bit. He severely needed a nap, but both of his crew members had bailed as soon as their jobs had been completed. They really weren’t needed until it was time to land. He’d tried to stop them, but neither of them listen to him and just do their own thing all the time anyway. It didn’t matter what approach he tried to adopt to get them to listen to him, it never worked.

Lance check his watch, still 11 hours left to go. He was going to die. And if he happened to survive this, he vowed to punch both his crew members and maybe Keith - but he’d seen him practice sword fighting in the training room so probably not literally - in the face.

* * *

When they landed, Commander Iverson was there to welcome them back and congratulate them on passing the mission with a perfect score. Keith politely shook his hand as he was supposed to no matter how much he wanted to nail the lying bastard in the gut.

“ ‘Pilot error’ my ass,” Keith thought angrily as he gave Iverson the required closed mouth smile.

He could tell Pidge hated Iverson too, even finding it hard to be polite to him in formal situations such as this.

“Congratulations cadets. You’ve all passed with flying colors and are now able to advance onto the more rigorous training simulations. A feet unsurprising considering your combined track records. You have the rest of the day to yourselves, but please report to the upper level flight simulator tomorrow at 8 am sharp. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” they all replied before being dismissed.

As soon as they were in the hallway, Hunk let out a joyous yell, “We passed guys, isn’t that great!”

“Yeah,” Pidge said, “now you can throw up in the more advanced simulators.”

Hunk narrowed his eyes at her and stuck his tounge out, “very funny Pidge. I’ll have you know I’m getting better.”

“That’s true,” Keith said, his lips curving into an mischievous smirk, “you only threw up three times this week instead of five.”

Hunk tried to maintain a straight face as Pidge and Keith both started laughing, but he broke and joined in. He knew his digestive system was out of wack, but it was good he was able to have a sense of humor about it. With that, they all went their separate ways with Keith heading up to the training rooms to spar, Pidge disappearing off to her room to work on some project she refused to tell anyone about including them, and Hunk making a beeline for Lance’s room.

Hunk knocked on the door and heard a tired, “come in,” through the door. He carefully opened the door and stepped inside immediately taken aback by what he saw. He’d forgotten how tiny these rooms were and from the looks of how cluttered the space was, there wasn’t near enough room for someone to really live full time in.

Lance was sprawled out on the bed in his favorite PJs, he could tell by the stars covering the back of his shirt. He was told it was blue and red, his soulmate colors, but of course Hunk could only take his word for it. Despite the upbeat music playing from his phone on the nightstand, he looked down, like really down. His face had lit up when he saw Hunk come through the door, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes like it used to. Hunk wondered if it was his soulmate or if he was still bummed about not making fighter class.

“Hey Lance, what’s up?”

“Not much, how are you?”

“Great! We just passed our first flight mission with flying colors. We’re moving onto the more advanced simulations tomorrow.”

Lance’s face fell slightly, but he quickly recovered, “Hunk, that’s awesome!”

“Have you passed yours yet?”

This time Lance didn’t even try to conceal how upset he was, “No. My team and I have failed it three times in a row. My crew is absolute shit and obviously don’t care about what they’re doing. This time both my crew members slept through the landing. I had to land the plane manually all by myself. While I was commended for my successful landing, Iverson failed us all because we were supposed to do it as a team.”

“Dude, that sucks. Keith is awesome. I’ve never seen such a good pilot, except for Shiro of course.”

“Can we please not talk about him?” Lance begged.

“Uh... sure thing. So, what else is new?”

They chatted and goofed around for the next few hours until the signals telling them it was time for lights out came on and Hunk went back to his dorm. He was worried about Lance, but he wasn’t sure what exactly he could do. Maybe sleeping on it and a delicious breakfast would help.

* * *

Keith woke up feeling refreshed and ready to get started on the last leg of his training. He was so close to getting his pilot license and being able to go look for Shiro, just a few more months at the most. His plan was to bring the rescue mission idea up to his crew first and hopefully get them to agree to help him and then go to Iverson and ask for permission to go. If he said no, Keith would just steal a ship and go despite Iverson’s orders; he wasn’t planning on coming back until he’d found Shiro anyway. Pidge would probably would be all for it, she’s constantly asking questions about the Kerberos mission, but Hunk would be much harder convince.

Keith entered the training area and took a spot close to the front so that he was sure to see everything. Hunk appeared soon after followed by Pidge and they both came up to stand beside him.

“You ready for this?” Hunk asked.

“I was born ready,” Keith responded confidently.

Commander Iverson walked in and stood in front of all the cadets, calling them all to attention. He briefly explained the layout of the mission saying that it was a simulated rescue mission on another planet. The objective was to locate and extract the team of scientists stranded there, simple enough.

Then he mentioned the word Kerberos and Keith felt himself starting to get angry. It wasn’t just any simulated rescue, it was the rescue of Shiro’s crew. Iverson went on about the mission, giving more backstory on it saying they were stranded due to “pilot error” on a routine scientific research data collection.

Keith just stood there, his blood pressure slowly rising to a boiling point as Iverson kept talking until, “Keith, since you and your crew are the best cadets here, you’ll go first to demonstrate it. Now get in there.”

Keith barely managed a polite, “yes sir,” along with his crew members before climbing into the simulator.

Once he sat down in the pilot chair, the screen lit up to show the planet Kerberos from orbit. It was a beautiful planet, but the image only proved to piss Keith off more. He looked behind him at his crew and he could see that Hunk was a bit put off by the realistic mission, but Pidge looked almost as mad as he was. He could see her hands shaking as she approached her station, but it was the look in her eyes that told him it wasn’t nervousness, but contained rage.

Keith turned back to the screen as the simulation started and he took a deep breath. He could do this, it was only a simulator designed around the falsified claims Shiro crashed his ship. He shook his head to clear the train of thought and focused on the screen to begin the mission. It went like all other missions as first, but he could feel his anger slowly rising as each minute passed and more fake info was displayed on the screen.

Finally, like a switch flipping in his brain between logical, controlled Keith and all out anger driven maniac, he’d had enough. He pushed the simulator faster and faster, ignoring the yelling of his crew and the angry words of Iverson coming in over the loudspeaker. He put the plane into a nosedive, the blood pounding in his ears blocking out everything else going on around him.

The ground got closer and closer as he kept his position until finally he crashed the plane directly into a mountain. The simulator lights turned red and the door slide open. When Keith turned around he barely registered Pidge’s shocked face and Hunk vomiting in the tool box next to his seat. He stormed out of the simulation, Pidge hot on his heels, and turned to face a very pissed off and red faced Commander Iverson.

“The hell was that!” he demanded.

Keith, his hands quaking with rage, “pilot error asshole,” he growled and then punched him in the face.

Chapter Text

The garrison was buzzing with the news that their best pilot, Keith Kogane, had punched Commander Iverson in the face and been expelled. Hunk knew Keith wasn’t even a bit sorry for doing it. He’d just accepted his expulsion, packed up his stuff and left. He’d only stopped to say goodbye to his crew briefly before leaving. Hunk understood why the simulator had pissed him off as he’d found the mission to be disrespectful of Shito too, but he’d never imagined Keith taking his anger so far. Hunk was going to miss Keith, he’d been a great pilot and a good friend.

Currently, Hunk was sitting next to Pidge outside Iverson’s office waiting to find out what was going to happen to them now that their pilot was gone. The door swung open and Iverson stepped out. The two cadets stood up and turned to face their commander. They followed him into his office and sat down in the two chairs in front of his desk. The room was littered with various flight awards and banners showing off all of Iverson’s accomplishments as a pilot.

“As you are both aware, Kogane is gone and he’s not coming back. You two are the best crew we’ve got, but we can’t afford to place you with another fighter class pilot since half of the process is team bonding and all the other crews have already done that. That means you’ll be getting a new pilot who will be moving up from cargo to fighter class. This does unfortunately mean that you’ll have to retake all of the previous exams you passed with Kogane. I’ll let you know who it is tonight at dinner. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” they both responded.

It sucked that they were going to have to start over, but both of them understood that a cargo pilot to being able to jump directly into advanced fighter pilot simulations was simply not possible.

“Good, dismissed.”

As they made their way back to their rooms Hunk asked, “who do you think it’ll be?”

“I’m not sure. There are plenty of good pilots in cargo class that wanted fighter class. Maybe Drew or Serena will make it, they’re both pretty good.”

“Yeah, or maybe Derek or Karla. They both passed their first flight missions with flying colors.”

“True, but remember, they don’t want to break up crews that have become close already. Derek is dating his engineer, Tara, and Serena is best friends with her co-pilot, May. So it’s gotta be someone who doesn’t get along with their current crew and people know it, yet is generally considered likeable and a good pilot.”

They both furrowed their brows in thought before Hunk blurted, “Lance!”

* * *

Lance had never gotten called down to his office before and he figured it probably had something to do with the expulsion of his rival, Keith. Maybe Iverson was going to upgrade him to fighter class now. He rubbed his knuckle of his right hand as he made his way to Commander Iverson’s office. They were lit up red and burned. Usually his soulmate received the beating, but this time it looked like he’d given it.

No other marks had appeared on him for months. They’d basically stopped completely the second he’d set foot in the garrison; however, he had yet to meet someone who could see the same color shades as he could. It was disappointing, but probably for the best since he had to stay focused.

Lance stopped outside Iverson’s door and knocked twice before hearing the commander’s voice telling him to enter. Lance saluted him and waited for Iverson to allow him to sit.

“McClaine, do you have any idea as to why you’re here?”

“Does it have something to do with Kogane being expelled, sir?”

“Yes. You’ve been upgraded to fighter class,” he announced.

Lance did his best to keep a neutral expression on his face. Iverson did not appreciate sudden, explosive emotional responses to things. Lance had long since lost track of how many times he’d been yelled at for being too loud and goofy during training. But this time he managed to keep his cool; he’d have time to properly freak out later.

“As for your crew, you’ll be replacing Kogane and taking on Labine and Holt as your crew. Right now you need to go to your dorm and pack up your things. Here is the key to Kogane’s old room. As for training, you’ll report to flight deck C tomorrow morning at 8 am sharp. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Lance responded as saluted Iverson before leaving.

As soon as the door was shut on his old room, he leapt into the air and shouted for joy. It had taken a while and the stupidity of his rival to get there, but he’d finally made it to fighter class. Lance quickly picked up all of his stuff and threw them into a couple of boxes to carry to his new room, Keith’s old room. It was right next to Hunk’s and he was super excited to be rooming next to his best friend again.

The door to his new room slid open to reveal a huge bedroom with a door in the back left corner that must be the private bathroom. The walls were and the ceiling was painted to resemble the night sky. The bed was twice the size of his old one and looked about a million times more comfortable. He dropped his stuff on the floor and took a flying leap to land on the bed. It was soft yet firm and he wanted to just curl up and take a nap so badly, but he forced himself to get up and unpack.

He placed the numerous pictures of his family on the large oak desk in the back right hand corner of the room. The window blinds next to it and were shut so he threw them open to see what his new view was like. His old room had looked down on the parking lot, not exactly the most exciting thing ever. But his new room had a wonderful view of the mountains in the distance where the sun would be coming up every morning. He longed for the day when he’d wake up and be able to see the multitude of colors it bathed the sky in each morning. Lance smiled as he gazed out on the landscape before him, it was perfect.

He stuffed all his clothes in the giant dresser next to the bed and found a new set of garrison uniforms designed specifically for fighter class pilots. He also found two sets of sheets, only one of which could he see the color of. They were red, which was unusual for garrison bedding. Normally everyone had the same stuff, black comforter with white sheets; not that he could really tell the difference. He just knew one was dark and the other was light. This was Keith’s old room, maybe he’d left them behind when he was expelled and the staff had just decided to let the next pilot have them. Lance shrugged and put them back not planning to ever use them.

A light ping behind him had him turning around to face the computer. A notification had lit up the screen saying “dinner in 10, cafeteria E.” That must be where all the fighter class pilots got to eat. He quickly threw on his uniform and made his way to the dining hall, eager to see Hunk and meet Pidge. This was going to be so much fun, he was sure of it. Because anything Keith could do, he could do better.

* * *

Keith rolled over onto his side as the sun coming through the grimy window of his house hit him in the face. He really needed to get something to block the sun so he didn’t get such a rude awakening every morning. It’s been almost a week since he was expelled from the garrison for punching Iverson in the face. He didn’t regret hitting him, but he did regret not apologizing and accepting the month long suspension. He’d been offered redemption if he agreed to apologize to Iverson in front of the whole garrison and be reassigned to cleaning the ships for a month, but instead he’d mouthed off and gotten himself expelled. Now he’d never be able to get his pilot's license and go after Shiro.

Keith sat up and put his head in his hands, but he refused to let himself get stuck on the past. What’s done is done, he needed to move on... but to what? He had nowhere to go. He was 18 now so he wasn’t eligible to go back into the system, something he was grateful for. However, that meant he had no place to stay. After driving around aimlessly for a few hours, he’d decided to go back to his childhood home. Part of him wondered if the place was even still standing after all these years. It hadn’t burned down in the fire, but it would be a miracle if they place was even habitable after over 6 years of neglect.

When he’d arrived to see the house still standing he was relieved, but when he opened the door and a few rats ran out he was suddenly less optimistic. It smelled awful inside and he would see where the earth had started to reclaim the building. There were multiple holes in the wood that promised the existence of more creatures, spiderwebs decorated almost every square inch of the place and a few cockroaches scuttled back into the darkness as the light from him opening the door flooded the living room. He hopped back on the bike and went into town where he used what little money he had to purchase cleaning supplies, a flashlight, and some food. He’d need to get a job soon unless he wanted to live off rats for the foreseeable future.

It had taken him the next 12 hours to rid the place of spiderwebs, roaches, and a plethora of other insects that had made their home in the old house. He threw mothballs down the holes in which he suspected rodents lived to drive them out and set a few traps baited with cheese on the ground as well. In the barn, he found a few apple boxes that he cleaned and then carried into the house to act as a makeshift bed. He threw the blanket he’d kept from the garrison on top and used his duffel bag full of clothes as a pillow opting to sleep in his normal clothes.

A squeak drew him out of his thoughts and he caught sight of a mouse running across the floor. The first time that had happened he’d jumped in fright, but now he was used to it. He watched to see which hole the mouse disappeared into before throwing a few more mothballs down the hole. He hoped eventually they would all leave or at least migrate to the barn. The alarm clock he’d found in a dumpster last week started beeping, reminding him it was time to get ready for work. He’d gotten a job in town at a dojo to train people in sword fighting and taekwondo. The owner had been impressed with Keith’s skills and was happy to add sword fighting and taekwondo to his list of services.

Keith grabbed his uniform and stuffed it into his backpack and hopped onto his bike and took off for the town. Since his house had no running water, he had to use the dojo’s locker room as his bathroom. If he had to use the bathroom at home, he wandered out a ways from his house to take care of it.

“Morning Morgan,” Keith called as he entered the dojo.

“Ah, hello Keith,” Morgan replied smiling.

Morgan was a kind man and Keith respected him a lot. Morgan knew about his home situation and had promised to given Keith his old sofa as a bed for free as soon as the one he ordered online last week arrived. Morgan lived above the dojo so he also let Keith use his kitchen to cook food that he could take back home. Sometimes he even invited Keith to stay and eat with him and his wife.

On his first day, Morgan had given him a check for $200 and Keith had baulked and said their must’ve been a mistake. Morgan had insisted there hadn’t been and that he needed the money anyway so just take it. He’d thanked him and used the money to buy a real pillow, food, a piece of plywood and a bunch of cinder blocks that he used to create a makeshift coffee table for his house. The rest of the money he used for gas for the bike so that he didn’t have to walk the 5 miles into town every day. Morgan made his life easier in a lot of ways and Keith made sure to thank him every day for what’s he’s done for him.

One of the kids came up to him and tugged on his shirt to get his attention. Keith turned to her to ask her what she needed when he noticed he could see the blue shade of her shirt. It was a comforting sight, reminding him no matter how he was living, there was still someone out there for him and it made him happy despite knowing he still had to go back home to a rat infested house after this.

Keith shook hands with all his students as they left, just like he always did. Today he’d gotten a new student, a young boy named Sam. He looked a lot like Hunk, but his personality reminded him more of Pidge. It was kind of a weird combination, but it made him nostalgic about his memories with his crew back at the garrison.

It had only been a week, but it might as well have been a lifetime. He missed his crew and wished he’d had more time to say goodbye before leaving. He honestly hadn’t thought he’d miss them as much as he did, but his life felt kind of empty without Pidge and Hunks’ banter and tech talk that he could never understand. He smiled just thinking about them, he wondered who their new pilot was and how they were doing adjusting from cargo piloting to fighter class.

Chapter Text

Lance grinned as he attempted to guide his crew through the Kerberos simulator for the third time. Hunk looked about 5 seconds from throwing up while Pidge kept giving him the same blank look and relaying information in an annoyed tone. Hunk had taken to him as a pilot right away, but Pidge hadn’t. It was easy for him to see that they both missed their old pilot, Keith. Pidge made no real effort to disguise her anger at how long it took for him to get them back up to where Keith had them before he left. Even Hunk had trouble disguising his preference for Keith at times.

“I remember how Keith used to...” he’d say and then launch into a story about their former pilot that often left Pidge and Hunk clutching their stomachs with laughter and Lance feeling extremely left out.

Of course he and Hunk were still best of friends, but he couldn’t help feeling like his failure to connect with Pidge was his fault. He couldn’t understand how someone as antisocial as Keith was able to succeed in forming a bond with someone as nerdy and talkative as Pidge while Lance failed. He’d tried everything from flirting with him to being serious (to the best of his ability, which wasn’t all that good) to cracking as many jokes as he could, nothing worked. When he asked Hunk about it, he’d just shrugged and muttered something about bonding over missing parents and refused to elaborate any further.

His attention was pulled back to the simulator as Pidge said something about not proceeding in that direction, but Lance ignored him as he was already too busy trying to tune out Hunk’s barfing. Besides, third time’s a charm, he knew what he was doing. He then accidentally clipped the side of the mountain and the plane crashed. The lights in the simulator turned red and the doors slid open. Iverson was shouting at them and Lance did his best to pay attention, but his mind was elsewhere.

Between his ever increasing low self-esteem and once again waking up with bruises all over his body, he wasn’t able to focus as well as he should’ve. It was the first time in over a year that it had happened. His knuckles were red, a ring of it around his left eye and multiple bruises on his back, sides, and torso which meant his partner had been in a nasty fight. He wondered if his partner had won or lost, it was hard to tell, but the lack of glowing red lines on his hands told him his partner had most likely won.

“Understood!” Iverson barked in his face.

Lance quickly saluted the man, “Yes, sir.”

Iverson eyed him suspiciously before turning to the rest of the class, “dismissed!”

The cadets all turned to leave, many of them snickering to each other about Lance’s failed run in the simulator. Ever since joining the fighter class, he’s felt alienated from his fellow cadets. Almost all of the other pilots look down on him, often reminding him the only reason he’s here is because Keith washed out. They make sure he remembers he’s beneath them and no amount of Hunk telling him how awesome he is helps. Lance knows he’s not as good as the others, but he refused to quit, whether out of spite or sheer stubborn, stupidity he wasn’t sure.

“Yo Lance, dude, what’s up? You’ve been in a weird headspace all day,” Hunk said catching up to him as he headed back to his room.

Lance didn’t say anything, he just reached up and used his sleeve to wipe the makeup he’d borrowed from Susan next door off his face. She was Mexican, but their skin tones were fairly similar so it all worked out. She’d taken one look at him and understood what had happened since she too woke up with soul bruises more often than not. Out of everyone in the fighter class, she was the closest thing he had to a friend besides Hunk. If you can consider bonding over the horrible mistreatment of your respective soulmates proper grounds for building a friendship.

Hunk’s face fell when he saw the dark ring around Lance’s eye, “how bad?”

“Bad. There’s red on my hands too. They must’ve been in a nasty fight or something.”

“Damn, that sucks. Why didn’t you call in sick and go talk to a counselor or something? You know they have soul counselors on campus, right?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to bail because...”

Hunk kept walking, not saying a word, just looking at Lance expectantly.

Lance sighed, “because I didn’t want to let you and Pidge down. We’ve been working on this simulator for months and we’re one of only five crews to have not passed it yet. Now we can’t take it again for another two weeks.”

Lance hastily unlocked the door to his room and stormed inside. Hunk entered more slowly behind him as Lance removed his shoes and let himself flop backwards onto his bed.

“I feel like a complete failure,” he whispered aloud, not even caring if Hunk overheard him.

Hunk frowned as he looked up at his friend and pilot, he could see the stress of trying to be as good as the other pilots weighing on him. He knew how difficult it was for Lance to deal with the crap thrown at him by the other pilots about how he’d never be as good as them. Lance always managed to laugh it off and come up with some witty comeback that had other people in stitches and the bully fuming. But he couldn’t fool Hunk though, no matter how wide his smile was, it wasn’t genuine and never quite reached his eyes.

Not to be misunderstood, Hunk loved hanging out with Lance again, but he missed Keith too and still enjoyed telling stories about their time together. He saw Lance’s face fall every time Keith was brought up in conversation in a positive light. Hunk never did really understand how or why Lance’s one sided rivalry with Keith had started and he especially didn’t get why Lance couldn’t let it go even now that Keith had been expelled.

“Hey, you’re not a failure. Anyone would’ve been thrown off their game if they’d woken up to as many soul bruises as you did. It’s not your fault,” Hunk attempted to reassure him.

Lance rolled his eye and turned over onto his stomach, propping his head up on his hands, “uh-huh, sure.”

Hunk frowned, he just couldn’t figure out how to snap Lance out of this funk he’d been in and the new soul bruises were only making it worse. They sat there on Lance’s bed quietly as Hunk racked his brain for a way to cheer his friend up. Finally, a lightbulb went off in his head, sneaking out! Lance loved risky plans that almost always got them in trouble, maybe even Pidge would want to tag along. It would be a good bonding experience for the team and maybe, if he was lucky, it would break Lance out of his depressed state of mind, if only for the night.

“Hey Lance, you heard about the new bowling alley that opened in town?”

“The 2000s era retro one with the glow-in-the-dark bowling balls, light up pins, and neon disco balls?”

“That’s the one! What do you say to sneaking out tonight and going there? I know how much you’ve been wanting to go,” he playfully nudged his friend.

“I don’t know, man...”

“Aww, come on. It’ll be fun! I’ll even try to get Pidge to go if you want. It would be a great bonding exercise for us, plus just plain awesome.”

Lance sat up slowly to face Hunk better, he was starting to consider it. He took in the hopefully face of his best friend before finally giving in.

“Ugh, fine. You win. We’ll sneak out to go bowling. But first we gotta find Pidge.”

“Oh yeah!” Hunk yelled and jumped off the bed, “Come on, dude. I know just where to look.”

“Where?”

“The roof,” Hunk said making his way over to Lance’s door, “sh- he is always up there at night doing super awesome science stuff.”

“What kind of science stuff?” Lance asked as he quickly pulled on his favorite jacket over his shirt, slipped on some tennis shoes, and followed Hunk out of the room.

Had he known this was the last time he’d see his room for years, he’d have stopped and grabbed the picture of his family sitting proudly on his nightstand, but he didn’t. Instead he chased after Hunk as they raced up to the roof where they found Pidge scanning the universe, picking up alien chatter and towards an encounter with his hero that would change the course of his life forever.

* * *

Keith winced as he sat up in his bed. His sides and back throbbed from the beating he’d taken yesterday. Three guys had cornered him in an alley on his way to the store and attempted to rob him at gunpoint, but Keith knew a fake gun when he saw one. Real guns were hard to come by anymore with the strict gun laws the government had passed after World War III ended. While he’d come out on top in the fight, he’d still received a rather spectacular smackdown thanks to it being an unfair match of three on one.

Morgan had not been super pleased with the knowledge of him getting into a fight, but understood that it was self defense and nothing more. He’d given him a container full of his famous chicken and rice soup and told him to take the rest of the day off to heal. He’d graciously thanked Morgan and accepted the food before returning home. Over the past year he’d slowly started turning the shack he lived in into more of a home. He now had curtains, no rodents living in the walls, a real bed, a rusty old washing machine, a microwave, and a few other very useful additions, including a working bathroom. It wasn’t much, but it was functional and he was grateful for all of it.

He flinched as he felt the lines of his hands burn blue. They’d been lighting up more and more over the past few months, ever since he’d left the garrison actually, than they had ever before in his life. It was strange and very worrisome. Part of him wondered if this is what it felt like for his soulmate when he’d been constantly stressed growing up in the system and bouncing from one shitty household to the next.

He glanced over at his clock, it was around 10 am, he’d slept in longer than he’d originally planned. But it didn’t matter all that much, today was Monday and his day off. He climbed out of his bed and walked into the other room to use the bathroom, which was by far his favorite addition to the house. No more showering at work or pissing in the great outdoors for him; at least, not as often. He grabbed a bowl and poured some plain oatmeal and hot water into it for breakfast. The little mini fridge he’d bought couldn’t hold much, but it was enough for just him.

He quickly threw on an all black outfit, according to the color tags, and pulled his favorite red crop jacket over top. When Morgan saw him in it for the first time he’d laughed and said, “that crop style is hella gay, so it’s perfect for you. Plus, it’s just look good on you.”

He’d come out to Morgan almost six months ago when he was caught staring at his fellow co-worker, Jonathan’s, ass during practice one day. He’s know he was gay for a long time, but he’d just never trusted anyone enough to share that with before and it had felt so good to finally tell someone. They’d both laughed their asses off at Morgan’s comment about his jacket.

“Next time don’t wear a shirt under it,” Morgan had joked and Keith had rolled his eyes and blushed redder than a perfectly ripe tomato.

Keith smiled fondly at the memory as he slid on his gloves on his way to his bike. He’d taken to exploring the huge rock formations to the north of his house. A while ago he’d picked up some weird reading and just felt like he was supposed to be looking for something, he just wasn't sure what exactly. He spent the day just like all his other days off, exploring and trying to figure out the significance behind the plethora of lion drawings he’d found in one of the bigger caves in the area.

Just as he was about to turn in for the night, his energy scanner started going crazy. The readings were off the charts and when he looked up he saw what appeared to be some kind of asteroid crashing to earth. But, as it got closer, he realized it wasn’t an asteroid at all but a spaceship, an alien spaceship.

If he wanted to find out what happened to Shiro on Kerberos, whoever was in that ship was his best chance. He had to get to it before the garrison did. He floored the gas and the bike sped off into the night toward the direction of the crash. By the time he got there, he was too late. The garrison had the whole area blocked off and crawling with guards. He noticed some action on one of the old comma lines Shiro had built into the bike so he communicate with his fellow commanders while he was out riding. The lines hadn’t activated since he left the garrison. Most likely because he’d done his best to avoid the garrison. He quickly switched the audio on to see if he could hear what they were talking about down there.

“Oh my god, get Admiral Sanda now. She’s going to want to see this,” a man’s voice came over he radio.

“What is it?” a woman asked.

“It’s Takashi Shirogane, he was piloting the ship.”

“Holy shit, he’s alive!” the woman gasped.

“Yeah, and apparently very familiar with alien tech.”

Keith just sat there in complete and utter shock. He’d dreamed of the day he found Shiro, but not once had this situation crossed his mind. He heard something else about quarantine and keeping his arrival secret from the outside world, but Keith didn’t give a shit about protocol and he’d be damned if he let a bunch of stuck up pricks in garrison uniforms stop him from seeing his brother. So he devised a plan and put it into action. When an explosion near the crash site drew the guards away, he slipped inside to grab Shiro and bolt. But he was stopped by some unexpected guests.

“Nope, I’m saving Shiro,” the tall, lanky one said moving to slip Shiro’s other arm over his shoulder.

Keith rolled his eyes, not in the mood to argue, and just loaded them all into his bike. He was super stoked to see Hunks and Pidge again, but they’d have time for a proper reunion later because right now they had to get out of there before the guards came back. Slamming his foot down on the gas - ignoring the indignant shrieks of the guy named Laurence?... Luther?... Leandro?... whatever his name was - he sped towards home, uncertain of what would happen when Shiro finally woke up.

Chapter Text

Together, Keith and Lance laid the unconscious Shiro down on Keith’s bed. Hunk was busy throwing up his dinner outside and Pidge was aimlessly studying all of the research covering his walls. It had been a split decision to bring them here instead of taking them somewhere else, but he figured being this far from civilization would give them a hand up in remaining undiscovered.

“Keith,” Pidge asked, his hand smoothing out a few of the more wrinkled pieces of paper, “what is all of this stuff?”

Keith turned away from Shiro to see what Pidge was talking about. They were a bunch of photographs he’d taken of the strange markings he’d found in caves all over the canyon to the north.

“I’ve been exploring the canyon to the north since I got expelled, those are some of the weird drawings I’ve found hidden in caves all over them. They’re all of a Lion, but I haven’t been able to figure out what significance that holds yet.”

“Interesting. I wonder who left them.”

“Me, too,” Keith made his way over and placed a hand on Pidge’s shoulder, “by the way, it’s good to see you again.”

Pidge smiled up at him before pulling him into a hug, much to his surprise, “I missed you, too.”

Keith only hesitated for a second before wrapping his arms around Pidge and returning the hug.

A loud groan interrupted their reunion and they pulled apart to see Shiro slowly waking up, holding the back of his head. He’d probably hit it by accident on the tumultuous ride back to his home. Shiro blinked his eyes a few times before carefully sitting up and staring around at them in confusion.

Eventually, his eyes stopped shifting around erratically and managed to focus on something, and that thing was Keith.

Shiro’s eyes widened as he practically leapt out of bed to pull Keith into his second hug today, a very rare occurrence—normally he only allowed the kids in his classes at the dojo to hug him.

“Keith!” Shrio all but yelled, nearly squeezing all of the breathe out of his lungs.

Pulling away, Keith grinned, “It’s good to have you back, Shiro.”

“Thank you for saving me.”

A quiet “ahem” averted their attention to Lance who was standing behind them, an eyebrow raised in annoyance. Keith rolled his eyes, why did this dude feel the need to butt in on their conversation? So far, his presence had only been inconvenient. Keith was glad to have Hunk and Pidge back, but he could’ve done without the addition of this guy.

“Ah yes, thank you to the rest of you as well. It’s Lance, right?” Shiro said extending his robotic hand out for him to take.

Lance only hesitated for a second before accepting the hand shake, after all, Shiro was one of his heroes. At that moment, Hunk came walking into the house holding his stomach, face still slightly nauseated looking.

“My name’s Pidge,” Pidge piped up from Shiro’s side, “and his name’s Hunk. We were part of Keith’s crew back at the garrison before he got expelled.”

Shiro’s expression went from fond to shocked within seconds and he spun around faster than Keith had thought humanly possible, “You got expelled!?!”

Keith swallowed hard, he’d planned on mentioning that to Shiro much later, never if possible, “um... yeah.”

“For what? You were at the top of your class when I left on the Kerberos mission.”

“I may have, um...,” Keith nervously scratched the back of his neck, “punched Commander Iverson in the face.”

“And then?”

“Refused to apologize,” he hung his head a bit.

“Why on earth did you do that?” Shiro lowered his voice, giving off a strong “brotherly disappointment” vibe.

“He made your mission into a simulation in which we were tasked with rescuing you and your crew. He kept blaming the failed mission on you and I couldn’t take it anymore, I snapped. I’m still not sorry for hitting him. I’m only sorry it got me expelled.”

Shiro sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes, “how long have you been living here?”

“A little over a year.”

“What is this place? Looks like it was abandoned when you moved in.”

“It’s my childhood home. You know, before I got sent into the foster system. I was surprised to find it still standing. It was full of rats, spiders, and a couple other things when I came back, but eventually I got everything out.”

“And just how did you manage to support yourself?” worry evident in his tone.

“Got a job teaching sword fighting and taekwondo in town at a dojo. Morgan, the owner, has helped me a lot since I moved out here. He’s the one who gave me the bed, microwave, and hired a plumber to fix the bathroom.”

Shiro nodded, accepting his explanation. He’d been more worried about his well being than angry. That simulation was not in good taste and he could understand why it had upset him. He was just glad he was safe and had been cared for.

“Hey Keith,” Hunk broke the tension, “why do you have all of those pictures of a lion on your walls?”

Keith moved around Shiro to stand next to Hunk who was staring up at his research wall.

“Been tracking a weird signal ever since I accidentally picked it up while riding my bike through the canyon. Since finding it, I’ve had the desire to search the area, but I’m not sure for what. While I haven’t been able to decipher the importance of them or who left them, I didn’t manage to figure out that they were all talking about an event happening last night. And then you showed up,” Keith said looking at Shiro.

“I... I don’t know anything about a lion, but I do remember them talking a lot about some kind of powerful weapon. They called it Voltron.”

“Voltron?” Pidge was surprised to hear Shiro say the word, the same word his scanner had been picking up for months.

“You know that word?” Keith furrowed his eyebrows, “does it have something to do with your ‘secret project’?”

Pidge’s eyes widened, if Keith knew about him sneaking around, why had he never confronted her?

“I respected your privacy,” Keith said, his apparent ability to read his mind sometimes still going strong.

“Thank you,” Pidge have Keith an appreciative smile, then threw a bit of a scowl at Lance, adjusted his glasses before moving on, “and yes, it does. I’ve been intercepting alien transmissions on a homemade scanner ever since I got to the garrison. They kept repeating that word, Voltron. Sounded important.”

“It is,” Shiro’s voice sounded determined, commanding, “and we’ve got to find it before they do. We can’t let a weapon that powerful fall into their hands.”

Keith stepped forward, ready to follow Shiro wherever he went, “what should we do?”

“We should look for it, but I’m not sure where it is or how to find it. Maybe it has something to do with those caves and drawings you keep finding. It only we had a way to track it.”

“I might be able to help with that,” Hunk interjected, raising his hand, “if I could get a copy of what the wavelength looked like and of the code of it, I might be able to build a device to detect the signal and lead us to this weapon.”

“We should be able to get it from my bike and a couple of us could drive into town to print it at the local library. Should only take about an hour or two to get there and back. It should probably be me and Pidge.”

“Why just you and Pidge. What about if we wanted to go?” Lance argued, hands turned out so that his wrists were resting on his hips, arms cocked out to the sides.

Keith raised an eyebrow at him, “Why on earth would you want to go? Only two people can really fit on my bike comfortably and besides, do you know anything about condensing wavelengths into a printable, graph format?”

“Uh... no,” Lance’s face fell a bit.

“Uh huh, that’s what I thought,” Keith turned away from Lance, who had transitioned into glaring at him from the corner of the room, to look at Hunk, “Hunk, I’ve got some food in my fridge. Think you could whip us all up something to eat for lunch? Got an old grill out back next to a fire pit with a grate over it for cooking on and some freshly chopped wood.”

Hunk smiled and gave Keith a two finger salute, “Shouldn’t be a problem. It will be ready by the time you two return.”

Hunk immediately turned around and began muttering to himself about what he could use and how he could cook it. With that, Keith and Pidge waved goodbye to them and exited the house to head to the library where hopefully they’d be able to complete their mission without getting caught by any garrison guards looking for Shiro. They both prayed there wouldn’t be any around at all.

* * *

Lance sat quietly on one of the apple crates next to the fire ring which Hunk was currently using to cook them up some bratwursts. On the grill he was roasting carrots and sliced potatoes. Keith and Pidge have been gone for almost an hour now and as soon as they’d left Shiro had practically collapsed back onto Keith’s bed and been asleep within seconds.

Today had been a whirlwind of events. First, climbing up onto the roof and finding Pidge listening to alien radio chatter. Then, running to the sight of a crashed spaceship and discovering it’s his hero Shiro only to have his rival swoop in and save him. Then, they got chased by the garrison all the way off a cliff before finally arriving at Keith’s old childhood home.

Honestly, the place is a dump and Lance is doing his best not to feel bad for the guy. Keith’s lived here alone for over a year and hasn’t complained about it once. Kind of makes Lance wonder what Keith’s life was like before the garrison. He shook his head to clear those thoughts, he couldn’t start sympathizing with his rival. He listened silently to Hunk whistle as he cooked, practically dancing from the grill to the fire pit and back every couple of minutes.

What he was really angry about was Pidge and Hunk positively lighting up upon seeing Keith. Their bond was so obvious and it killed him to know that his crew was just as dedicated to their old captain now as they were when he was still at the garrison.

It was really Pidge and Keith’s relationship he was annoyed by. He knew Hunk was still his best friend, even if he subconsciously preferred Keith as his captain. Pidge had nearly jumped up in excitement at the proposition of going into town with Keith. What he couldn’t understand was why. Every time Lance had seen Keith he was hiding at the back of the room, arms crossed over his chest and glaring. The dude was seriously scary at times. Yet Pidge has a bond with him stronger than Lance had ever been able to form.

He put his head in his hands and groaned in frustration. Last night was supposed to be a bonding night for them as a team, but instead he was sitting at Keith’s house while his rival and Pidge ran off to the library to print up some code to locate a massive weapon aliens wanted to get ahold of.

“Hey, what’s up?” Hunk asked, breaking into Lance’s tornado of self doubt and frustration while calmly turning the bratwursts over the fire pit.

“Nothing.”

“Uh huh, sure,” Hunk pinned him with one of his signature doubtful glares.

Lance crossed arms and contorted his body so he couldn’t see Hunk without moving from his seat, “I told you I’m fine.”

Hunk chuckled, “Yeah, you’re fine and I’m admiral of the garrison.”

Lance narrowed his eyes and side eyed Hunk, who was still calmly tending to the food.

“I’m just mad Keith showed up,” Lance grumbled, still refusing to look at Hunk fully, “I mean, the dude’s been gone for over a year and you guys are still so attached to him, especially Pidge.”

“He’s a good guy once you get to know him a bit,” Hunk stood up from the fire pit and moved back over to the grill, “he had a really rough life before the garrison.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why Shiro was all over him when he woke up. We all helped save him.”

“Well, to be fair, Keith laid a lot of the ground work and we kind of stepping in at the end, but I guess you’re kind of right,” Hunk started using tongs to gather the potatoes and carrots off the grill while Lance threw a sideways glare at him, “But the reason he’s so close with Shiro is because Shiro saved his life.”

Lance uncrossed his arms and spun around to face Hunk in shock, “What?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not my place to share, but if it gets to stop glaring at Keith like he kicked your puppy, fine,” Hunk finished loaded all the food onto a plate and set it down on one of the available apple crates before taking a seat next to Lance.

“Shiro is the one who got Keith to join the garrison. Keith told me if it wasn’t for Shiro convincing him to join up, he’d probably have ended up on the streets.”

“Well, he still kind of did.”

“I guess so, but it would’ve happened a lot sooner and he wouldn’t have had any family at all. At least now he had the memories of Shiro, Pidge, and me—and apparently this Morgan dude—to help him remember there are people out there who care about him. He used to talk about stealing a ship and going out to look for Shiro and not coming back until he found him,” Hunk started picking the bratwursts up and placing them next to the carrots and potatoes on a separate dish, “Keith was ready to basically die for this guy. Stealing a ship is a huge felony and, if he ever returned, would’ve landed him in prison for life. It’s why he got so mad when he was in that simulator and ended up punching Iverson.”

Lance nodded, everything made a bit more sense now, but he still didn’t like Keith. Once story about his life was not going to get him to do a full 180 and start liking the guy. There was nothing in this world that could get him to see Keith as more than his rival.

* * *

Keith sped along the road, Pidge clinging to his back for dear life. He was speeding a bit, okay a lot, so he guessed it made sense. He always preferred to travel fast. He was quick and agile, which is why he preferred bikes to regular rovers.

About halfway there he felt Pidge tap in Morse code on his side.

How much further?

He carefully removed one hand from the bike and tapped back on Pidge’s lower thigh.

5 miles.

Ok, came the response.

All cadets were required to learn Morse code in case they were in a situation where they were unable to communicate verbally. Such as under attack and hiding from their assilaints or on a stealth mission somewhere. Both of them had picked it up quickly and had used it to communicate quite frequently during class or even just when they didn’t feel like talking.

Keith had become very close to Pidge, not as close as he was with Shiro, but close. He knew about his father going missing and Pidge knew about him growing up in the foster system. Pidge didn’t know about the abuse though, he’d only ever told Shiro about that.

The absence of their fathers was a connecting point for them and made them grow closer during their time at the garrison. They told each other stories about what they remembered and what they wished could’ve been instead. They talked about their guilt, their sadness, and their longing. Pidge basically became his best friend after Shiro went missing, popping into his life just days after the fateful announcement that the Kerberos mission had failed and everyone aboard was assumed dead.

Keith slowed down as he approached the town, Winchester, the dojo coming into view over the huge hill separating his house from civilization. He carefully made his way through the town, weaving in and out of traffic and waving at a few of the pedestrian who called out to him, welcoming him. He taught a lot of the kids here sword fighting and had gotten to know a lot of these people fairly well. He’d have to stop in and see Morgan while Pidge was at the library to let him know he might be able to come in for the next few days.

He parked in front of the library which was situated next to the town hall in the center of Winchester. It was a small town, so small you could blink and miss it if you weren’t careful. Most of the buildings were older, some having been around since the late 2000s, but there were newer buildings mixed in as well. Overall, it was a nice place and Keith really liked it here, though he preferred living outside town limits.

He jumped off the bike and turned to help Pidge down, “Go on inside, computers are to your right. I’m going to go ask Morgan for a few days off and then I’ll meet back up with you.”

“Okay. How long you think you’ll be gone? This could take a while or no time at all, depending on the quality of their computer systems.”

“I’ll be back in about 30-40 minutes, the dojo is just down the road.”

“Cool, see you soon,” Pidge threw him a peace sign and headed inside.

As Keith made his way to the dojo, a small group of kids came running up to him, trying to hug his legs.

“Hey!” he yelped, skillfully and playfully avoiding their grasps, “What are you guys doing?”

The kids giggled collectively, “we’re trying to give you hugs!”

Keith smiled down at them, dropping down to their height, “And why would you want to do that?”

“Because we love you!”

He feigned annoyance, rolling his eyes and huffing a bit before breaking into a grin and opening his arms, “well, come here then.”

The kids squealed with delight and just about knocked him over with the force of their group hug, all of them piling on top of him all at once. He let them stay that way until his ankles started to ache a bit from the way he was squatting and stood up.

“It was nice seeing you guys, but I’ve got to go talk to Sensi Morgan about taking a few days off for personal reasons. So, class might be canceled for the next day or two.”

“Aww,” they groaned, all of them whipping out their signature pouty faces.

“Hey, it’s just for a couple of days. I’ll be back soon, I promise. Don’t forget to practice.” he smiled down at them, ruffling a few of the kids’ hair before bidding them goodbye and continuing on his way to see Morgan.

The bell attached to the top of the door frame rang as he opened the door and stepped into the dojo. The place was quiet as it was between classes, but he could hear Morgan humming to himself in his office. He was supposed to teach a class on defense at 1 pm, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay that long, it was barely 10 am. He smelled the fresh scent of pancakes and syrup causing his stomach to growl in response, angrily reminding he hadn’t eaten in over 12 hours. He’d given all of his breakfast food to the others, claiming not to be hungry.

“Morgan! I know you’ve got pancakes back there. I can smell them,” he called, removing his shoes so he didn’t track mud through the place.

“Well then why don’t you come in here and get some!”

Keith laughed at Morgan, the only person that he knew that could be generous and sound annoyed, protective, and stern at the same time other than Shrio.

He quickly helped himself to a couple pancakes, covering them in homemade syrup as he sat down across from Morgan.

“So what brings you here so early? You don’t normally show up until noon anymore since you got your bathroom at home working,” Morgan asked pouring more syrup onto his pancakes.

“Need to ask for a few days off, including today if you’ll let me.”

“Why?”

“Some old friends found me and are staying with me at my place. Was hoping to take a few days to be with them.”

“Friends? I thought you said you didn’t have any friends left,” Morgan said, raising his eyebrows in suspicion.

Keith picked nervously at his pancakes before answering, “I didn’t think I did. Thought they all hated me after my expulsion from the garrison forced them to start their training all over again with a new pilot.”

Morgan nodded, pondering the situation, “Well, you haven’t missed a single day since I hired you and you’ve never used any of your vacation days, so sure. You can have the next few days off, including today. I’ll call and let everyone know.”

“Thank you.”

Keith stayed with Morgan and talked about nothing for a while longer. Morgan talked about the meteorite that hit and explosions that went off nearby last night, but Keith never mentioned finding Shiro at the sight of that crash or that it was an alien spaceship and not a meteorite. The garrison was doing a lot to cover what really happened up, just like they had with the Kerberos mission.

Keith glanced at his watch, it was almost 11 am now and he’d told Pidge he’d be back long before that. He really needed to get going.

“Thanks for the pancakes and the time off Morgan, but I’ve got to go,” he said standing and depositing his paper plate in the trash can.

“Okay, go have fun with your friends. I’ll see you on Wednesday,” Morgan waved him away as the bell in the main room starting ringing, signaling the arrival of his next class.

He made his way back to library quickly, hoping Pidge was okay despite him staying away longer than originally planned. He opened the door to the library and made his way over to the computer lab only to find Pidge hunched over the computer muttering to himself.

“How’s it coming,” he asked moving to sit at the computer next to him.

Pidge just about hit the ceiling he jumped so bad.

“Don’t do that!” he whisper shouted, reaching over to lightly smack Keith on the arm.

“Hey, sorry. Just wondering how much longer we’re going to be here.”

“Not long, I just have to finish isolating this one variable and then we should be good to go.”

“Alright,” Keith nodded and stood up, “I’ll be over in the nonfiction section where you’re done.”

“Cool,” he mutter distracted already by the numbers flashing across the screen.

Keith was only a few pages into a new book about sword fighting techniques of the early 2500s when a group of garrison guards came walking through the doors of the library.

Keith immediately got up, abandoning his book on the table beside him, and rushing back over to Pidge. They had to go now.

“Shit!” the only word running through his mind as he snuck back towards Pidge.

“Hey, are you done?” he whispered coming up behind him.

He jumped yet again, “seriously dude!”

Keith quickly shushed him, “Garrison guards, we’ve got to go now.”

“Oh shit,” his eyes widened, “I just need another two seconds to finish printing it. I’ve got it all done, but this printer is super slow.”

Keith walked over to the printer, tapping his foot soundlessly against the carpeted floor in his rush, “come you stupid piece of shit, print.”

He glanced back over his shoulder, the guards were talking to the receptionist, probably asking if they’d noticed anyone knew in town since last night. Which would obviously lead them to Pidge. He grabbed the paper as soon as the printer finished slowly pushing it out and grabbed Pidge, practically dragging him through the library to the back exit.

Once outside they cautiously made their way to Keith’s bike before turning tail and zooming out of town as fast as they could. Just in time too as the guards exited the library, obviously looking around for something or someone. That had been too close for their comfort.

Chapter Text

Hunk stared down at the small monitor he’d built out of nothing as he led them through the canyon in search of this alien weapon. Keith was right on his heels keeping a watchful eye out for possible garrison guards or other danger. Shiro trailed slightly behind him with Pidge at his side pestering him with all kinds of questions about the mission and what happened to the rest of the crew while Shiro did his best to supply answers. And a ways behind them was Lance who was dragging his feet in the sand, his head hung low.

Ever since they’d run into Keith, his crew had barely looked at him when Keith was in the room. Hell, they talked to Shiro more than they had to him. He understood that they were excited to be reunited with their old captain, but it still hurt.

Lance looked up at the rest of them and watched as Keith used his hand to signal something to Pidge and he responded immediately in the same way. It must be some kind of communication they’d come up with as a crew. He’d seen Hunk and Pidge use it to communicate during class, but he’d never been able to figure it out. He wished he had, hell he wished they’d come up with something like that of their own, but Pidge had always been distant with him.

Absentmindedly, he kicked a small rock in front of him which ended up flying and hitting Keith in the shoulder. He flinched and turned his head just far enough to throw a quick glare Lance’s way before resuming his watch. The only things to be heard was the wind rushing between the columns of rock and the crackling of Hunk’s tracker. It was driving him crazy.

It felt like hours before they stumbled upon a cave covered in lion carvings. Huge carvings covered the floor of the cave with smaller ones scattered around on the walls and ceiling. They were simple yet interesting, if only because of his wonder as to who left them and why.

“What are these?” Shiro asked, his mouth open in wonder mirroring the rest of them.

“These are the lion carvings I was talking about,” Keith responded.

Lance reached up and let his fingers brush against one of the carvings only jump back in shock when the carving started to glow a bright blue, the blue he could see.

“What the!?!” Lance shouted, quickly backing away from the wall as all of the carving started to glow a bright blue.

Wait... he could see that. Why?

“They’ve never done that before,” Keith spoke from behind him sounding just as shocked as he was.

A loud cracking noise overpowered their questions and the next thing he knew, they were falling. Yelling filled the cave as Pidge and Hunk held onto each other for dear life as they all sped down the world’s scariest water slide. Lance reached the bottom first, landing in heap in a huge puddle of water. He groaned and opened his eyes only to see Keith headed straight for him. He yelled and tried to get out of the way but failed and was knocked back to the ground as Keith landed on him.

“Get off!” Lance growled shoving him away as soon as he’d caught his breath.

Keith glared at him before turning to check on the others, “Sorry,” he said standing up, “Everyone okay?”

A couple of groans answered him as they all tried to get up.

“I think I broke something,” came Hunk’s voice as he sat up in the water.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of cookies he’d snagged before they left Keith’s house. The once beautifully frosted sugar cookies were reduced to a bag of cookie crumbles.

“Ah man,” Hunk groaned frowning at his misfortune.

He then shrugged, opened up the bag, grabbed a handful of crumbs and tilted his head back to drop the pieces into his mouth.

“Still tastes good though.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but he was smiling brightly at Hunk’s antics. Lance was smiling softly, too. Hunk never failed to brighten his darker moods—most of the time.

Luckily, none of them appeared to be injured. A blue glow started from behind Lance and he turned around to see what it was only to come face to face with a giant, blue, metal robot lion.

“Whoa,” he breathed as he stood.

It was incredible. Of course, it would probably be even more impressive if he could see more than just the blue of the force field and the lion’s paint. He could also see the red accents on the lion’s chest, head, and shoulders. The fact that both colors were present on the lion was strange. It was incredibly rare for him to see both colors at the same time unless he planned for it intentionally.

“Is this it?” Pidge piped up from his side, “Is this the Voltron?”

“It has to be,” Shiro mumbled, still trying to process what he was seeing, they all were.

Keith was the first to move towards the lion, totally unaffected by the idea that it was basically an alien war machine, completely unpredictable and dangerous. Not wanting to be outdone by him, Lance quickly followed Keith’s advance.

“It looks like there’s a force field of some kind around it, I wonder how we get through,” Keith mused, placing his hands on the force field.

Lance was mildly disappointed that he didn’t get thrown backwards by some super protective blast of alien energy, but he pushed it aside.

“Maybe you just have to knock,” he suggested and promptly knocked on the forcefield a couple times; he could feel Keith rolling his eyes at him.

The reaction was immediate. The forcefield glowed even brighter before disappearing, the cracks in the ground glowed blue and the lion’s eyes glinted as if it was waking up from a long slumber. A strong wind blew force him and Keith back a bit as they all stared up at the lion in awe.

Lance flinched as his vision was suddenly filled with a vision of five lions, only two of which he could make out the colors of, red and blue. They all varied in size and design, but were all still massive. He watched in amazement as the five separate lions all came together to form one huge robot holding a flaming sword.

“Wow,” they all whispered that the same time.

“Did... did everyone see that?” Lance asked, just wanting to make sure he wasn’t going mad.

“Voltron is a robot!” Hunk burst out, punching the air in his excitement, “Voltron is a huge, huge awesome robot!”

“And this is just one part of it,” Pidge continued, immediately shifting into his inquisitive mode, “I wonder where the rest of them are.”

“This has to be what they’re looking for,” Shiro said.

“It’s incredible,” Keith murmured, mostly to himself.

The ground shook as the lion suddenly started moving, lifting up off it’s haunches to stand on all fours. Pidge and Hunk immediately flipped out with Hunk grabbing Lance in a bear hug while Pidge ran to partially hide behind Keith who then immediately shifted into a protective pose in front of him. Keith didn’t doubt Pidge’s ability to defend himself—he’d seen him train—but if this thing turned out to hostile, he preferred his friend not be in the direct line of fire.

The lion lowered its head, coming to a stop in front of them and opening its jaws, producing a ramp to board it. Lance smirked, his curiosity winning out over his survival instinct. Though he was also partially influenced to charge ahead so as not to be outdone by Keith's impulsivity again. He confidently walked up the glowing blue metal gangplank into the lion’s mouth. He climbed up a set a stairs into what could be considered the lion’s brain area. Inside the room there was a comfy blue pilot chair in the middle of the floor and high tech monitors covered every inch of the walls.

He made his way up to the chair and sit down, crossing his arms and legs, “Here we go-AH!”

As soon as he sat down, the chair shot forward nearly sending him crashing into the control panels. He sat up rubbing his head and neck from the sudden whiplash. Man was he glad Keith hadn’t been there to see that.

The monitors lit up and blue screens popped up all around him as the others joined him in the cockpit. The biggest screen directly in front of him cleared so that they were staring at the inside of the cave, they must be looking out the lion’s eyes somehow.

“Awesome!” Lance exclaimed doing his best to take it all in at once almost snapping his neck in the process.

“Okay guys, I feel the need to point out, just so that we’re all you know, aware. We’re in some kind of futuristic alien cat head right now,” Hunk cut in, leaning uneasily on Lance’s chair.

A chill ran up Lance’s spine and a humming noise briefly blocked out Hunk’s nervous ramblings, “Whoa, did you guys hear that”

“Hear what?” Keith asked.

“I think it’s talking to me,” he leaned over the control panel and pushed a few random buttons that just felt like what he need to do.

Suddenly the lion stood up from it’s crouching position and let out a loud roar that caused a few rocks to fall down into the center of the cave. Lance grinned, grabbed the throttles and took off busting through the side of the cave and out into the sky. Lance laughed while everyone else screamed.

“You... are the worst... pilot... ever!” Keith yelled at him as he spun the lion around in a barrel roll type move.

Lance ignored him and continued flying around to get a feel for the lion; he was having a blast while everyone else screamed in terror. After a little while, the controls started moving on their own. It was as if it was on autopilot and they were all just along for the ride. It ran across the ground kicking up massive amounts of dirt and rocks in its wake before blasting off towards the sky.

“Make it stop!” Hunk begged doing his best not to puke while inside an alien war craft and in close quarters with his friends.

“I’m not making it do anything, it’s like it’s on autopilot.”

“Where the hell are you going?” Keith demanded clinging to the chair and Shiro for dear life.

“I just said it’s on autopilot,” he snapped back, “It’s saying there’s an alien ship approaching Earth. I think it wants us to stop it.”

“Well, if this is the weapon they’re looking for, why don’t we just give it to them?” Hunk proposed, obviously terrified, “Maybe they’ll leave us alone.”

Shiro spoke for the first time since they’d entered the lion, “No, we can’t give it to them. These monsters spread like a plague across the galaxy destroying everything in their path. There is no bargaining with them; they won’t stop until everything is dead or under their control.”

“Oh... never mind then,” he apologized as they all halfheartedly glared at him for suggesting surrendering the lion.

The lion shook as it exited Earth’s atmosphere. As soon as they entered outer space, everyone except for Shiro calmed as they stared out the windows in amazement at seeing space for the first time. They’d all flown through it in simulators back at the garrison, but only Shiro had actually been to space. Pidge pressed his hand up against the glass as if he could reach out and touch the stars reflecting in his glasses. Even Hunk wasn’t focused on their situation anymore as he gazed out the side window with Keith.

A giant glowing ship appeared out of nowhere and Lance yanked back on the throttles hard to get them out of the path of the giant battle ship.

“Holy shit!” Hunk yelled, “is that really an alien ship?”

“They found me,” Shiro whispered, fear leaking into his voice for the first time since Lance had met him.

Bolts of light shot out from the side of the alien ship and Lance did his best to maneuver them out of the way of the lasers. He dodged and weaved as more blasts followed the first in an never ending barrage of white light.

“I think I know what to do!” Lance yelled over the screaming of his crew.

“Careful man, this isn’t a simulator,” Pidge warned throwing him a sideways glare as if to say if you get us killed, I’m going to beat your ass.

Lance laughed at his comment, “Well that’s good, I always wreck the simulator.”

“What!?!” Keith yelled as he took off at full speed toward the alien ship.

He threw one of the throttles forward while pushing the blue button on the side causing a blast of blue light to shoot out from the lion’s mouth. It was still incredibly strange to be surrounded by so much of the color he could see. Explosions occurred on the surface of the spaceship in the wake of the blast he’d dealt. While they were distracted, he dove under the spaceship only to pop up on the other side and drag the lion’s nails across the surface of the ship causing more explosions.

They all cheered as they left the scene of the battle heading away from Earth in an attempt to draw them away from their home. They flew past Kerberos, a feat that takes their ships months to accomplish, with the alien right on their tail. They all gasped as a huge circular thing appeared in front to them, the lion urging Lance to go through it. It looked similar to a black hole, but with intricate swirling designs encasing it.

“Where does it go?” Pidge asked Lance, he seemed to have the greatest chance of knowing.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “Shiro, you’re the senior officer here, what should we do?”

“Whatever happens, the lion knows more than we do. I say we trust it, but we’re a team now, we should all decide together.”

They glanced around at each other, the answer obvious and dangling in front of them, both terrifying and exciting.

“Well, I guess we’re all skipping class tomorrow,” Lance said breaking the tense silence, “except of course for you Kogane.”

“Just shut up and fly, asshole,” Keith snapped back at him, barely resisting the urge to smack the back of his head.

“Language,” Shiro warned and Keith rolled his eyes as Lance pushed the lion through the swirling circle in front of them.

* * *

Upon landing on an alien planet, Keith practically bolted from the cockpit of the lion. He felt really bad for Hunk because even he was feeling a little sick after flying with Lance at the helm. Being the first one out of the lion, he paused to observe their surroundings. In front of him was a tall castle whose wall glinted in the sunlight. Should he call it sunlight if it’s not from the sun? He wasn’t sure and his brain couldn’t handle trying to puzzle that one out at the moment; the day had been weird enough already.

The landscape was an open plane stretching out over rolling hills as far as he could see in every direction with the exception of dark a mountain range located to the south. Small groupings of trees dotted the land with a few rivers cutting through the hills. It was beautiful and made him long to see it in full color.

Everything was in a grayscale, just like Earth. The only thing he could see was the color of the lion and of a few of the wildflowers growing next to the path they’d landed on. It confused him as to why he was able to see the lion’s blue color and the few rings of red. It was strange for him to see both colors in such quantity.

One by one the others made their way out of the lion. Lance was spinning around so fast trying to take everything in Keith was sure he was going to fall on his ass. Pidge was staring up at the castle in awe as was Shiro, though with a more guarded and cautious air. Hunk, on the other hand, was trying to not throw up again with one hand over his mouth and the other holding his stomach.

The lion let out a huge roar causing them all to jump and back away from it, but all that happened was the doors to the castle sliding open. Shiro warned them to keep an eye out before leading them into the castle. He kept his hand near his knife just in case, ready to defend them at a moments notice.

Pidge stuck close to his side, he could tell he was scared and trying not to show it. Keith respected that bravery and allowed him to inch closer to him as they ventured down the winding, self-illuminating halls of an alien castle. Hunk was so scared the poor guy was practically vibrating. Lance’s eyes darted around constantly like he was watching an intense game of ping pong. Shiro walked confidently through the halls, giving off an air of “I dare you to hurt us.”

Out of all of them, he and Shiro were the best fighters, Hunk and Pidge the smartest, but he wasn’t quite sure who Lance was yet or how he figured into the group. Honestly, with or without Lance, Keith thought they had a pretty solid team for dealing with anything that might be waiting for them in this castle.

They made their way into a large room with a bunch of circles arranged in a circle on the floor with what appeared to be some kind of control panel in the middle. Pudge immediately went over to start examining the pedestal while the rest of them observed their surroundings. He almost drew his weapons for the uptenth time today when two of the circles on the floor opened and a set of tall, cylindrical pods came rising out. He could just barely make out the impression of people inside the pods when they opened.

The first one revealed a woman who promptly fell forward and Lance ran to catch her.

“Father!” she yelled as she reached out at thin air, collapsing in Lance’s arms.

Keith knew he was gay, but he had to admit that this alien woman was beautiful, probably one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Keith resisted the urge to facepalm when Lance immediately jumped into flirty mode.

“Well hello there, the name’s Lance,” he smiled down at the alien in his arms.

She frowned, “your ears...”

“What about my ears?”

“They’re... hideous. What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing! They heard exactly what you said about them!”

This was obviously not going the way he’d planned.

She moved unbelievably fast grabbing Lance by his ear and twisting him around so that he was kneeling on the ground.

“Who are you? Where is my father?” she demanded as Lance tried his best to break her hold on him.

“Whoa!” Shiro stepped in, “We’re from a planet called Earth. We don’t know anything about who or where your father is.”

She released Lance who scrambled away from her rubbing his ear left ear gingerly.

“How did you get here?”

“A mechanical lion brought us.”

“Color?”

“Blue,” Lance chimed in figuring he was probably the only one of them that could see what color the lion was.

Keith froze, eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. Lance could see the color of the lion? It probably meant nothing. After all, the lion was technically blue and red and Lance hadn’t mentioned the red bits. Besides, there was no way that annoying prick could be his soulmate.

“How did you get the Blue lion? Where is its paladin?”

Shiro held his hand up in surrender, “We don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe if you told us who you are we could help.”

Before she could answer the second pod opened and a man stepped out.

“Intruders!” he yelled and immediately went for Shiro who dropped into a defensive pose.

“Coran, wait! Something doesn’t make sense here,” the woman stopped by placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Who are you?” Keith reiterated, hand hovering near his knife.

The woman straightened up to her full height, radiating power, “I am Princess Allura of planet Altea and that’s Coran, royal advisor to my father, King Alfor.”

They looked around at each other in confusion, none of them recognizing any of what she said.

Noticing their confusion, she quickly made her way to the pedestal in the center of the room.

“How long have we been asleep?” Allura whispered to herself.

She placed her hands on either side of the pedestal and a screen popped up over it, her eyes widening as she looked at the strange squiggles that must be their language.

“Coran, we’ve been asleep for ten thousand years!”

“What!?!” the alien man yelled in shock.

“Altea and all of the planets in our solar system have been destroyed. My father is dead, our culture is lost, and we very well may be the last two Alteans alive.”

Coran’s face fell, he looked as if he was about to pass out from the news.

Allura slammed her fists on the pedestal, “Zarkon!”

Shiro stumbled back as if he’d been struck by an invisible force, “I remember now, I was his prisoner.”

“He’s still alive after all this time? It can’t be true.”

“I’m sorry, but it is.”

Allura collapsed onto the floor and Coran rushed over to her, taking her into his arms.

“Everything is going to be okay Princess, the Blue lion has returned so there is hope,” he tried to comfort her as she cried for the loss of her people, her father, and her civilization.

Coran looked up at them, “which one of you piloted the lion here?”

Lance raised his hand, “I did.”

Coran nodded, “We have much to discuss.”