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Lance felt a kiss being pressed against the top of his head, he looked up, blue eyes meeting his mother’s gaze. There were times he still couldn’t believe he was finally home, safe and well, but he knew that he should treasure these moments with his family while he could.
“We will let you get some rest now, mi hijo.’’ His mother said softly, hand running through his soft, short hair. His niece that was sitting in his lap whimpered, tears pooling in her big eyes and she clung to his shirt.
“Can’t we stay with tío Lance?’’
“Tío Lance needs all the rest he can get. You know how we told you your tío is a superhero? Superhero’s need rest, too.’’ His mother said fondly and Lance would be lying if he said he wasn’t getting emotional. She then turned back to Lance. “We’ll be a few corridors down if you need anything.’’
Lance closed his eyes when he felt his mother kiss his forehead. “Thanks, mama.’’ He said quietly, turning to his niece and hugging her tightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Okay, squirt?’’
She nodded against his chest, reaching for his mother’s hand then and jumped off the bed. Lance leaned back in his bed and smiled at them as they waved one more time in the doorway.
“Sweet dreams,my boy. We love you.’’
“I love you all, too, mama.’’
The room darkener when the door was pulled shut and the silence settles around Lance, vaguely hearing his mom talking to his niece as they walked down the hall. When he couldn’t hear their voices anymore he turned on his back, letting out a heavy sigh and stared up at the ceiling. His mind was reeling as it tried to process everything that happened during the past two days.
They had arrived at Earth, got reunited with their families, managed to save Hunk his family from the clutches of the Galra, fought Sendak and his Galra fleet, fought another robot, Shiro had been able to transform the Atlas in a Voltron like robot and on top of all that the enemy robot seemed to have been controlled by an Altean.
Lance restlessly turned on his side. He knew this wasn’t over. Haggar was still out there somewhere and he knew that he wasn’t the only one that thought Haggar was behind the Altean in the robot. It frustrated him to no end because this war just never seemed to end. It was inevitable that they would have to leave Earth to find her and he really hated the thought of leaving his family behind again.
With a huff he threw the blankets off, swung his legs over the edge and slipped on his blue lion slippers. He opened the door, peeking around it to check if the hallway was empty before quietly sneaking out and making his way down the hall.
He knew exactly where he was going. After walking around for a few minutes he pushed the door open to the staircase that would lead him to the rooftop.
When he was just a student at the Garrison he escaped to the rooftop countless times late at night so he could look up at the stars. But walking up these steps he was reminded of one specific day when he headed up there.
It was the day hunk and him went up here together as they followed Pidge. It was when Pidge had told them about something called “Voltron’’. It was the day Shiro had crashed back on Earth and Keith had broken into the Garrison camp to save Shiro. And Lance, being Lance, had argued with Keith that he would be the one saving Shiro. It was the day they jumped on Keith’s hover-bike and escaped with him and an unconscious Shiro from the Garrison guards that chased them down.
It was the day their crazy space adventure had begun.
Lance remembered everything so clearly of that day that he almost found it hard to believe those events took place almost five years ago. It had felt like yesterday they found Blue and took of to Space.
He pushed the door open and walked over to the edge of the roof, sitting down and glancing up at the sky, too many stars to count shining above him. He had always wondered what it would be like to be up there among the stars, he had always wondered how big the universe was.
But now that he had been up there, that he had traveled through so many constellations, he realized the universe was much bigger than he had ever could’ve imagined. Lance had never felt more small. He stared up at the night sky, curling in on himself as he pulled his legs to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.
Something cold pressed against the back of one of his hands. It surprised Lance so much that he yelped loudly and flailed backwards only to be met with Kosmo’s confused head tilt.
“Oh.’’ Lance breathed out in relief as he tried to calm his rapid beating heart. “It’s just you. You scared me, buddy.’’
He lifted one of his tan hands and gently placed it on top of the cosmic wolf’s head, scratching him gently between the ears. Kosmo’s eyes fluttered shit and he tilted his head into his hand, a happy whine spilling from his throat. He stepped closer to Lance and pressed himself up against his chest, curling up on his lap.
Lance giggled and wrapped his arms around the affectionate space wolf. “You’re so warm! And your fur is so soft. I guess Mullet is taking very good care of you, huh?’’
Kosmo’s ears twitched at the name of his owner.
“He seems to like you.’’
Startled, Lance jumped again. Kosmo huffed in annoyance and his yellow eyes silently told him to stop moving around so much because he was comfortable in the Cuban boy’s lap.
“Geesh, Keith!’’ He glared at their leader who was leaning against the wall next to the entrance door. “Don’t scare me like that. What are you even doing here?’’
Keith’s violet eyes moved to the space wolf that was in Lance’s lap. “Kosmo noticed you leaving your room. He was worried.’’
“Ha! You called him Kosmo! I told you it was a good name!’’
With a roll of his eyes, he pushed himself off the wall and made his way over to where the red paladin was seated and sat down next to him. The two sat beside each other in silence, Kosmo’s slow breathing as he slept the only thing that could be heard in the quiet night.
“So,’’ Keith said slowly. “What brought you here at this time of night?’’
Lance stared down at the sleeping Kosmo, hand absentmindedly stroking his dark fur. “I couldn’t sleep.My mind is still processing everything that happened these past few days.’’ He waves his hand around. “Everything happened so fast.’’
Keith stared up. “I feel you. Everything did happen really fast. And to be honest, I felt sort of out of touch with all of you when I came back from the space weblum. It really felt like so much hand changed after I left for the Blade of Marmora.’’
“Why did you leave anyway?’’
“I- was confused. I didn’t really know where I belonged. I felt like I wasn’t ready to be the leader you guys deserved to have.’’ Keith mumbled, playing with his own hands. “And our conversation we had when we found Shiro- well, Kuron- kept replaying in my head. You were much more needed to the team than I was at that point. So I decided to leave.’’
Lance gaped at Keith, jaw slack and blue eyes wide. “You left the team for me?’’
Keith blushed. “Well- I mean- Not just for you. I needed to find myself, I guess. And I mean, I met and reconnected with my mom. I got Kosmo...’’ He trailed off with a smile, hand lifted up to crawl his sleeping pet behind his ear gently. “So... Maybe I was supposed to leave the team for a bit.’’
“You know, I feel like the whole lion switching situation was kind of good for me. Red was kind of difficult to control at first for me-’’
“Yeah, she can be stubborn like that.’’ Keith chuckled.
“But we’re bonded now. Although-’’ Lance paused, face morphing into sad expression.
Keith seemed to pick up on what he was hinting at. “You mean when she didn’t come for you at first when we were calling for the lions? What even happened?’’
Lance shrugged, attention focused back on playing with Kosmo’s fur. “She- just didn’t respond to me. And it was just me and Veronica against a fleet of Galra and- I really thought that was going to be it.’’
“We were really worried.’’ Keith admitted softly. “When you didn’t respond to us, I-’’
Lance stayed silent and avoided his leader’s gaze. He himself might have known why Red hadn’t responded to him and that was because he still made himself believe he had feelings for Allura. But Keith coming back to the team really had set things in another perspective.
He wasn’t in love with Allura, he just projected the feelings he felt for Keith onto her when he had left them to join the Blade.
He was in love with their leader, the black paladin and the head of Voltron, Keith.
“Maybe that Bob guy was right. Maybe I am the dumb one.’’
Keith’s eyebrows furrowed into a frown and clenched his jaw. “No. They were wrong. You are not dumb, Lance. You are far from it actually. I should’ve said something about it, we all should’ve but I was just so confused as to why and how we got there that I didn’t stop to think about it.’’
Lance scoffed. “Please. You even said yourself you didn’t want to spend eternity there with me. You don’t have to pretend to play nice.’’
“I’m not pretending!’’ Keith huffed out agitated, closing his eyes to calm himself. He moved forward to cup the other his chin and turned his face so violet eyes met blue ones. “Lance, I lied okay?’’ He whispered desperately. “I voted for you to get out of there because out of everyone, you were the one to leave the most in my opinion. Not because I don’t want to spend eternity with you but I knew how much you missed Earth and your family.’’
Lance’s breathe caught in his throat and tears gathered in his eyes, bottom lip wobbling. Keith tugged him closer without hesitation and engulfed him in a hug. Lance froze for a second before melting against the black paladin, burying his face in his shoulder as tears streamed down his cheeks. Keith robbed soft and gentle circles in his back as the younger man sobbed in his shoulder.
“You are amazing, Lance McClain. You are a great right hand man, a great best friend and most of all, you are the best Sharpshooter we could have ever asked for. You’re important to the team. You’re important to us.’’ He whispered in his ear.
Kosmo had woken up and was whining when he saw Lance was crying, pushing his head against his back. Lance pulled back, eyes and the tip of his nose red from crying. Keith’s hand gently cupped his face, thumbs wiping his cheeks dry. Lance sniffled, heart pounding louder in his chest when he saw all kinds of emotions swim in his leader’s eyes.
“You are important to me.’’ Keith whispered hoarsely.
The tension between the two boys grew, violet eyes taking in all the features of they Cuban boy’s face. Lance exhaled shakily as his eyes flicked from his eyes to his lips and back up again, shuffling closer to him ever so slowly.
“Lance,’’ Keith licked his dry lips. “I- Can I kiss you?’’
Keith didn’t even have the time to blink after that before Lance leaned in all the way and kissed him deeply. The black paladin’s eyes fluttered shut and moves his lips in sync with his. Lance tilted his head, noses brushing against each other, too deepen the kiss and tangled his fingers in that soft mullet, arms locked tightly around his neck, a soft moan leaving his lips between kisses.
They parted with a soft pop when the need for air became to great. Both their eyes were still closed, minds reeling in the mind blowing euphoria they had been in. A giggle echoed through the empty night and then Lance was full on laughing, Keith staring fondly at his crush- or boyfriend? They would have to talk about that in the morning. Lance was just too beautiful when he laughed like that.
“What’s so funny?’’
Blue eyes twinkled in the moonlight. “Nothing. I am just happy.’’
“And here I was wrecking my head about the fact that you were in love with Allura.’’ He teased him.
Lance’s face heated up. “I don’t think I ever liked Allura like that. I think- I projected the way I felt about you onto her. It’s you, Keith. It’s always you.’’
“Oh.’’ The leader squeaked out, cheeks flushing a deep red.
Lance rested his head on his shoulder, immediately feeling two strong arms slot around him and pulling him closer, a head resting on top of his. Lance smiled, heart skipping a beat happily. He let out a yawn and felt Keith’s chest tremble under him as he chuckled.
“I think it’s time for bed.’’ He heard him say and a hand tapping on his back right after, signaling for him to get up. “Come on, sharpshooter. Let’s get you to bed.’’
Lance whined, he was in no mood to walk all the way back. He was way too comfortable in his lover’s arms. Instead of moving, he heard Kosmo huff and jump in his lap. Then there was a big flash and for a second it felt like he was falling into an endless pit until it abruptly stopped and he found himself sitting on his own hospital bed, blinking in astonishment.
“Thanks, buddy.’’ Keith petted Kosmo’s head. “Let’s let Lance get some sleep, yeah?’’
He was climbing of the bed before a the red paladin shot forward and wrapped his tan hand around Keith’s wrist. “Wait!’’
Keith halted his actions and stared at his lover in surprise. Lance sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.
“Could you- Do you maybe, eh-’’ Lance stuttered shyly. “Will you stay and cuddle me? I- Sometimes i get nightmares and- When I sleep with someone next to me while they hold me it’s less likely for me to have them.’’
A fond smile slipped on his face and he gestured for Lance to scoot over, getting in the bed next to him. Lance snuggled up to him as Keith opened his arm as a silent invitation and wrapped his own arms around the warm boy, Keith nuzzling the top of his head. Kosmo curled up on the bed by their feet. “Thank you, Keith.’’ Lance muttered sleepily.
Keith kissed his head softly. “Sleep, Lance. I’ll be right here.’’
Lance hummed softly before the steady thumping of his boyfriend’s heartbeat lulled him into a deep and nightmare free sleep, a soft smile on his face.
The next morning the door to his room opened with a soft creak, Veronica’s head peeking in to see if her brother was still sleeping. When she saw the two boys curled up around each other, fast asleep, she smiled before very silently closing the door again.
“About damn time.’’ She smirked.