Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When he opens his eyes, the entire world is strange and new.

Confusion lays thick over him like a blanket, hot against him, constricting, relentless. It’s difficult to make sense of the shapes swimming in front of his bleary eyesight. Red light, a dark panel with pinpricks of light - stars , the thought comes from nowhere - the faint hum of something not quite him and abstract running through his head, under his skin. It’s all so terrifying for a moment that he jerks, trembling, until he realizes that his movements are restricted by the presence of something else.

There is a woman standing over him with dark skin and white hair, a pink helmet. Eyes that shine with concern as she holds his hand and she’s so beautiful. She’s so beautiful that he momentarily forgets that he’s afraid, and even though his confusion is wide and deep, he trusts the concern in her eyes.

An angel, he thinks, even as panic crawls up his throat like a terrified animal.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” she’s saying gently, her other hand gripping his shoulder, easily reading his distress. “It’s okay. Are you hurt? How are you feeling?” And then her voice turns battle-hard and firm and her eyes flicker away from him. He stares, watching how her eyelashes flutter, the purple-blue of her eyes piercing and hard as she glares out the dark panel. She’s probably looking at something, but he is afraid to look away. “Yeah, I’ve got him. He’s okay, I think, just stunned.”

Without prompting, she nods and then turns back to him.

“Let’s get you back to the castle,” she says, and her voice is softer again. A myriad of images conjure up in his head at the word castle and none of it makes sense at all in this context. This context? He doesn’t know what context he is in even to begin with. Fear clambers into his mouth, tastes bitter on his tongue and he shrinks away from her on instinct.

“Who are you?” And it takes him a moment to register the sound of his own voice.

She stares at him. Blinks. “Lance, please, this isn’t time for one of your jokes--”

Lance . Is that his name? He furrows his eyebrows and struggles to sit up, to stop leaning into the cradle of her arms. “I’m not--I’m not...joking.” He shivers as he realizes that he’s also wearing a helmet, covered in armor that is shiny and heavy against his chest and what the fuck is going on? Where is he? Who the fuck is he? “What is this?” His breath comes short and fast and hot, fogging up the protective glass as he looks up at her astonished face desperately. “Where am I? What’s going on?”

She reaches back out to touch his shoulder, gripping it firmly under her fingers, a pained expression twisting her face. “My name is Princess Allura. You don’t...you don’t remember me?”

He shakes his head and the helmet is awful and he can’t breathe so he rips it off and takes a great, deep breath of stale air. It does nothing for his panic to realize that he’s trapped in what looks like some sort of control room, something bright blazing outside. His heart pulses like a hummingbird’s wings in his chest, too light and too fast for him to calm down. His vision goes spotty, ears ringing as he grips the arm rests of the chair he’s sitting in with a white-knuckled grasp.

She stares at him, gripping his other shoulder as he starts to gasp. “Lance! Breathe!” Her voice goes up an octave and then he gets the feeling that she’s not speaking to him again. “No, he’s not hurt, Hunk, he’s--I’ll bring him to the medbay at once! Coran--”

He can barely make sense of her words, can’t hear her anymore even though her mouth is moving frantically, her calm facade barely masking her own panic and its too much to handle. Too much. His head tilts back and he suddenly can’t see anything at all. His stomach swoops and he hears himself gasp from far away, still trying to take in air that won’t come, and then he knows nothing else.

*

The second time he wakes, he’s no less confused, but the room is white and open and his clothes are soft, so his initial fear is easier to swallow. His arm is hooked up to a machine of some sort, and the screen shows lines and colors and numbers, but they don’t make sense to him, so he tears his gaze away and examines the low ceilings, the paper-thin sheets covering his legs, and finally, turning his head, he finds a short girl bent low over some sort of device in her lap, her fingers making furious tapping noises.

She glances up when she sees him stirring and his whole body tenses when their eyes meet and his fear threatens to grow out of control again because he doesn’t know who she is or why she’s looking at him with shock and...what is that? Is she tentative? Afraid? He can’t tell and it’s freaking him out.

He scrambles to sit up in bed, yanking the wire from his arm, and she seems to snap out of her trance, putting aside the thing in her lap to come over to him.

“Guys,” she says into something on her wrist, her voice cracks with disuse, “he’s awake.” She grabs his forearm gently, turning her attention fully on him and the crestfallen look on her face when he flinches makes this situation seem 100 times worse than before. “Lance, it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”

He stares at her for a moment. “Lance? Is that my name?” he asks, startled once again by the sound of his voice. It brings him back to the only memory he has, of waking up in the arms of that beautiful woman who had looked at him with immense concern. He focuses on the girl in front of him now, though, because the panic of that memory threatens to make him dizzy.

“Yeah,” she says with a sort of smile, patting his arm as she sits on the side of the bed. “You’re Lance. Do you remember me?”

The calm ebb of her voice, and the fact that there isn’t a feeling of danger or terrible wrongness pressing in from every side allows him to take a deep breath, allows him to remain in control of himself. He stares at her for a moment, at the sharp upturn of her nose, the round glasses, the shaggy haircut, the honey color of her earnest eyes, and nothing is familiar.

“No,” he says and his voice is blunt. Loud. Echoes around the nearly empty room and it’s all-consuming whiteness, unable to conceal anything in the bright lights.

She lets out a shaky breath and then nods slowly. “Okay. Alright.”

His eyes feel hot, his throat raw. Something is terribly wrong here, something is not right and it’s his fault, he’s sure of it. “I’m sorry.”

She smiles again, though. “No, it’s okay! Don’t be sorry, Lance, it’s...it’s gonna be fine. We’re gonna figure this out. Here--my name is Katie, but you all call me Pidge. Everyone is on their way to see you; we’ve been really worried.” Her words come out stilted, kind of awkward, like she’s not used to this or doesn’t know what to say.

The lump of emotion in his throat makes it hard to talk. “Everyone?”

She nods. “Yeah. Do you remember Allura? Who…you woke up with her.”

Right, she did say her name. He nods, too, tentatively. “Yeah…”

“She’s coming to see you. And...you really don’t remember anyone?”

He blinks at her, tries to reach hard back into the dark wall of his mind, but there is nothing. Empty, bottomless, nothing. “No,” he nearly whispers, and the heat in his eyes prickles because he should remember, right? The woman he first saw - Allura - she’d been so worried about him, had clung to him with desperation in his panic. Why doesn’t he remember her?

And this girl here, Pidge, she’s searching his face with concern and her hand on his arm is gentle, if awkward, and he feels a crushing weight of depression because she’s important, they were both important, and they both care about him and he doesn’t remember them at all. And now she’s telling him that there are others and all he remembers is waking up in a red light and being unable to breathe.

“Aww, Lance, c’mon don’t cry,” Pidge says nervously. “It’s okay, dude. C’mon…”

It’s not okay, he thinks as he scrubs furiously at the gathering tears in his eyes with both hands, shying away from her touch. It’s really, really not okay.

“I’m...I’m so confused,” he mumbles into his palms as his breath hitches.

“Well, I’ll explain it, but let’s wait for the others,” she says kindly, and he notices that she doesn’t try to touch him again.

They fall into a strange, tense silence and once he gets a hold on his emotions, he drops his hands into his lap and studies them. There’s a star-shaped freckle on the knuckle of his right thumb, a little white scar running parallel along the outside of his index finger. He wonders how and when that happened. There’s a bruise on his left hand, faded, nearly healed, kind of yellow. A more recent reminder of a past he can’t recall. He bites his lip.

The door to the room opens and a large boy with an orange headband comes barrelling inside, his eyes wide as he stares at Lance.

“Oh man...Lance, buddy? Hey, how are you?” The boy quickly rushes to the bedside, out of breath and his eyes look bloodshot, like he’s either been crying or not getting enough sleep. His dark hair is a disheveled mess, too.

“‘M fine,” Lance mumbles, averting his eyes before the urge to cry and well up in him again. This boy cares about him, too, he thinks, and he doesn’t look the least bit familiar. Not at all. He wonders how much of this debilitating disappointment he’ll have to take before he doesn’t feel like he’s going to crumble to pieces.

“He doesn’t remember,” Pidge says, breaking out of her silence.

Lance grimaces and ducks his head further in shame.

“Nothing?”

Pidge must shake her head no, because she doesn’t respond.

The heavy weight of a hand on his shoulder makes his muscles tense. It’s warm, though, and comforting, so the sudden bolt of unsureness, of fear, quickly melts back into the puddle of self-disdain he’s currently wallowing in. “Dude, that’s...that’s okay,” the boy says, and his voice is a gentle rumble even though he sounds on the verge of tears himself. “I’m Hunk. We were roommates at the Galaxy Garrison together. Attached at the hip. You’re my best bro.”

Best bro. Lance shudders as a roll of guilt heaves in his stomach. He looks up to see Hunk giving him a reassuring look, as though he really believed that it is okay. Lance offers a watery smile. “Hi.”

The open door of the room fills with three more people who are quick to rush over to the bed as well. One, a tall man with an orange moustache, his eyes crinkled with worry. Another man, broad and strong looking with a scar on his face and a robotic arm. His gaze is a little more controlled and Lance quickly looks away from him nervously to fix his eyes on the woman he first saw when he woke up. She looks tired, her hair wild and purple bags under her eyes prominent even against her dark skin.

“Allura,” he remembers aloud.

She smiles as she sits on the bed by his foot. “That’s right, Lance.”

“Why, hello there, Lance,” the orange haired man greets in a voice that is lilting. “How are you feeling, my boy?”

“I’ve been better,” Lance says in reply, shrugging one shoulder, eyeing the blue marks under the man’s eyes. “I think.”

Pidge flashes a smile, a sort of relief softening her face as she gestures. “That’s Coran. He and Allura are Altean, which is why they have funny ears.”

Allura sighs, but it sounds in good humor. “Very funny, Pidge.”

“This is Shiro, he’s our leader, and like, a really good dude all around,” Pidge continues.

Shiro - the one with the scar - waves his mechanical looking arm in Lance’s direction. “Hey, Lance, it’s good to see you awake.”

Hunk clears his throat. “Did anyone get a hold of Keith?”

Two strange things happen, then. It’s in the way everyone huddled around Lance’s bed seems to fall silent for just a moment. An out of place awkwardness that demands context, which Lance is lacking. It’s like this is a taboo, the mention of a boy named Keith, and it puts him on edge. His mouth feels dry, throat sore, still, with untethered emotion.

The second thing, is that at the sound of the word Keith , Lance’s stomach bottoms out, swooping, and then his chest hurts . He has to bite his lip again from gasping in surprise.

He wants to ask questions, but he feels so small and still so confused and everyone is looking at him so expectantly ...the words are unable to form themselves in his mouth.

“He’s out of range,” Shiro responds, breaking the weird tension. “The Blade said that they’d pass along the message for us when he returned from his current mission but he’s been gone for several days and they haven’t heard from him lately.”

Hunk frowns. “He’s…”

Shiro sighs, nodding. “Yeah.”

They drop the subject just like that, almost with relief and Lance, perturbed, is stuck on the word. Keith . He has no idea who this name belongs to, and he’s paralyzed because of the way it grabs him. He wants to chase after the feeling, to ask for clarification, but a wave of irrational fear washes over him.

He clears his throat. “Can...can someone explain what happened?” His voice is kind of scratchy and wraps his arms around himself, feeling maybe too exposed despite knowing that everyone in this room cares about him. Or, at least, about who he used to be. Whoever that was.

Allura is the first to speak up after another awkward pause. “We were on another mission, trying to save a Galra base from a beam of radiation. I was going to get struck with a current, but you pushed me out of the way,” she explains haltingly, as if the words are hard to pull from her mouth. “When I got into your lion, you…”

He stares at her. So much of what she says sounds like gibberish because he doesn’t understand but… “I was what?”

“Dead,” Pidge says flatly. “You were dead.”

Suddenly Lance is finding it very hard to breathe again. His eyes go wide and he clutches at his sides hard enough to leave bruises on his own skin, feeling the blood drain from his face. The darkness. That nothingness. That’s why he can’t remember, that’s why there’s nothing to pull from. He shouldn’t even be here right now. He shakes violently and bites down on his lip hard enough to draw blood.

Allura grabs his ankle as if to ground him where he is and his breath hitches as he jerks away from her to bring his knees into his chest, curling in on himself. She winces and draws away as Hunk makes a noise of incredulity and the rest of their faces all crease with concern and pity and maybe something else. “Pidge, whoa, could you be a little gentler?” Hunk demands, voice shaking.

She scowls, but her expression is fragile. “What do you want me to do, spoon feed him the truth? He needs to know! It’s a big deal!”

Shiro speaks up, a firm voice of reason. “We don’t need to sugar-coat things, but Hunk is right. Forgetting isn’t easy, and we should be mindful of that as Lance adjusts.”

There is a murmur of agreement as though Shiro would know what he’s talking about but Lance is still just trying to concentrate on getting his breath back, on not flying apart in every direction. He cards one shaking hand through his hair, feeling on the verge of a whole fucking meltdown.

“S-So...why am I alive?” he asks softly, licking his dry lips, and his voice breaks like glass.

“I saved you,” Allura replies, but her voice is a little jilted with emotion too. “I have knowledge of Altean alchemy, which deals in quintessence. When you were struck, I...I don’t know how I was able to find your quintessence, but I was able to pull it back, and then you woke up.”

He breathes in. Out. Nods. So many words that are unfamiliar. He wraps his arms tightly around his knees. “Where am I?”

Coran pipes up, putting one finger in the air. “You’re on the Castle of Lions, which is our home base in our fight for the universe, although things are relatively peaceful right now. You’re a Paladin of Voltron and--” He cuts off, seeing Lance’s dumbfounded expression. “Oh...I’m afraid it is a lot to process, isn’t it?”

Lance gives him a smile that isn’t quite forced, but it feels all wrong. “Yeah, uh...maybe...maybe just give me the basics? I’m…” He’s tired. So fucking tired. He doesn’t want to think anymore.

Shiro seems to understand. “We’ll give you some space. Hunk, since you’ve known Lance the longest, do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Hunk replies quickly.

The rest of them say their goodbyes. Allura lingers and Pidge looks as though she’d rather stay, too, but she bites her lip and follows everyone else out.

Hunk then scoots the chair that Pidge had been sitting in earlier over to the side of the bed and sits down. “Okay, Lance, what do you want to know? I don’t want to info dump all over you, and you look kinda tired.”

Lance presses his chin against his folded arms, warily looking up at Hunk in the chair. He means to ask about what Coran meant by the whole universe-saving-thing, or what the word Altean means, or maybe even to ask about what a castle of a lion is. Maybe he means to ask about how they all seemed to end up here together, wherever here really was, but Lance finds different words on his tongue, rolling from his mouth before he can stop them.

“Who is Keith?”

Hunk looks surprised by that question, as if it was the last thing he expected to hear. “ Keith? ” He repeats, for verification, and Lance hesitates before nodding. Hunk leans back in his chair and watches Lance carefully. “He’s, uh, well, he was a part of our team for a long time, but he joined a group about a year ago called the Blade of Marmora, who are allies of ours.”

Lance glances down to the mattress beneath him, curling his toes under the sheet and holding onto his knees tighter.

“You and Keith bickered a lot, but I think you were learning to work together by the time he left,” Hunk supplies after a moment, his voice slow and low. “Do you...do you remember him, or something?”

The word Keith is entirely unfamiliar. Entirely. When Hunk had said it first, it was like hearing the name for the first time, speaking it into this new existence where nothing made sense. Lance thinks for a moment and there’s not even a shadow, not even the smallest inkling. He can’t picture at all what Keith might look like or how he might sound or what they apparently used to fight about. There is nothing before that sudden burst of red light that had greeted him when he woke up.

And yet, hearing it now, puts a weight in his stomach that he hadn’t felt before. Heavy, dense and somehow empty at the same time, like the void itself presses down on him. Something he can’t put a name to, something that makes him ache, makes his throat feel tight and his eyes feel hot. It would be alarming if it wasn’t, suddenly, the only tie to who he was on the other side of that dark, dark wall in his mind.

“No,” Lance murmurs, staring hard at the white sheet below, and he wonders if he’d ever lied about Keith before. He wonders why he’s lying now. “No, I don’t. You guys just...seemed worried about him.”

Hunk nods. “Yeah, we didn’t want him to leave, but Keith does what he wants, so we couldn’t stop him.” He chuckles a little, but it’s not a happy sound.

Lance frowns. He wants to keep asking about Keith, to chase this only lead he has on a life he can’t remember, but there is also so many more important things he doesn’t know about, so he pushes the unnamed feeling aside and wills himself not to cry. Keith . He keeps the name close.

“Hunk?” Lance tries the name out on his tongue instead.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Can you tell me about myself?”

Lance learns that he is from a large family - he has loving parents, two older siblings, a younger sister, one niece and one nephew. He learns he grew up on an island named Cuba on a planet called Earth and that the ocean was his first love. Hunk shares with him all the funny stories that he can remember about Lance’s family and Lance listens in raptured awe, half-relieved to hear that he came from such a place of love, and also feeling sick to his stomach because he has forgotten everything.

He can’t remember what his mom looks like or how his dad smiles and it hurts. He can’t recall how it felt to hold his niece for the first time, or what his little sister’s laughter sounds like or how good it was, to be his nephew’s favorite uncle. He tries his best to hold it together as Hunk talks through it all - because as bad as it is to not remember, not knowing is even worse - but eventually the words taper off into a subject that’s less touchy.

Hunk then begins to tell him about the Garrison as they grab something to eat and then he takes Lance on a brief tour of important rooms in the castle (which Lance has learned is a spaceship - oh, yeah, he’s in the middle of fucking space ). After another round of awkward contact with everyone else on the ship (Coran and Allura are aliens apparently; Lance doesn’t know why he’s surprised), Hunk leads him back to the sleeping dorms in a long, cold hallway.

“...and that’s why I go by the name, Hunk.” Hunk smiles, coming to a stop. “Sweet, dude, this is your stop.” He pats the seam of the automatic doors and gestures to a panel for Lance to touch. “If you need anything, I’m two doors down.”

Lance presses against the panel and his room opens up. “Who’s is that?” he asks, thumbing at the room directly beside his. It’s not a terribly important question, but it slips out without pause. It’s good to know who he’s close to, anyway.

“Oh, that’s Keith’s old room, so it’s empty.”

Keith. The name tugs on him. Painful. Insistent.

He nods slowly, recovering from the sudden ambush of feeling because what the hell and then tentatively smiles up at Hunk. “Thanks for everything.”

Hunk grins and then sighs. “You’re welcome! Uh...I know you don’t really know me, or I mean, remember me anymore I guess, but like...can I hug you?”

“Did we hug a lot before?”

Hunk looks sheepish. “Sort of? I guess, yeah.”

Lance still isn’t sure about anything, but Hunk has been so kind and accommodating since he woke up that Lance finds himself almost at ease. He hesitates for only a moment before slightly spreading his arms. Hunk’s grin widens and he steps forward, wrapping Lance up in a hug that screams familiarity, and he yelps in surprise, frozen.

“Oh, man, Lance, you really scared me yesterday.” Hunk’s voice is downy soft, verging on breakable. “I’m so glad that you’re okay. I dunno what I would have done without you.”

Lance slowly reciprocates the hug, his arms wrapping around Hunk’s middle as he sinks his face against the taller boy’s shoulder. And he doesn’t feel okay, not by a long shot, but this is so much better than feeling nothing. “Yeah...I’m sorry.”

Hunk pulls away chuckling. “No, don’t apologize. It’s cool. You’re here now and you’ve got all of us to help you.” Lance smiles again but he doesn’t feel it, crossing his arms over his chest as he side eyes the dark room that is supposed to be his. Hunk must notice because he takes a few steps back, waving his hand. “I’ll let you get some rest. Let me know if you need anything.”

Lance takes his time reacquainting himself with his room. He fingers through the clothes hanging up in the closet and changes into something that looks comfortable enough to sleep in. There are some pictures on his walls, photos of landscapes that are, unsurprisingly, unfamiliar. On the other side of the room, there is a mirror, a couple bottles of lotion and something creamy that smells sweet when he opens it.

Besides that, there isn’t much here to hint at who he was and that’s...disappointing beyond belief. It is as if Lance had never lived here at all, really. Frowning, he starts opening draws in the dresser against the far wall, looking for something, anything, that might give him a clue, and he stops breathing when he comes across a notebook and a bundle of pens shoved into the bottom drawer thoughtlessly beneath some spare sheets.

At first glance, the notebook appears to be empty, which is good because Lance can use it to write down everything he’s learned. To categorize it and make sure that he can’t lose anything ever again. But as he’s paging quickly through a second time - just in case - he finds a page near the back that’s been torn out and folded up, as if to avoid being found.

His heart pounds as he drops the notebook on the bed beside him and opens the creased paper and his breath stops for the second time in as many minutes when he realizes what it is.

A letter.

Or, it was supposed to be. It’s nearly blank, except...

At the top corner of the paper, there is a name, with a little comma after it, indicating that there was more to be said, at one time. However, there is nothing but an expanse of white, clean paper, untouched. A written silence. Lance feels that same ache from earlier yawn inside of him, dragging at his heart and his breath and even at his bones, sinking deep. His hands begin to shake a little as he runs his thumb tenderly over the sharp curves of the name, and then he can’t fucking take it anymore.

The tears he’d been holding back all day come rushing forward all at once and Lance tightens his fingers in the paper as he begins to cry. It’s an awful, heaving, guttural thing, even as he muffles it into the palm of one hand. Scratching his throat, his eyes so full of salt and water that they are sore. He cries for his family, who loves him so much and who he can’t even picture in his mind. How guilty he feels for forgetting them because what kind of person is he, to forget his own family so easily?

He cries for this group of people on this ship, who had been worried sick about him and who he couldn’t hardly bear to look at for the amount of shame that twisted through him at his empty memory. He cries for Allura, who had looked just about as guilty as he felt, for Hunk who has been so good and kind to him, even though it can’t be easy talking to a best friend who doesn’t know you anymore.

He cries for himself, for not being strong enough to remember. He cries because he’ll never be the same and he doesn’t know who that person was and he cries because that’s the worst part of all: not even knowing what he’s mourning.

He cries for the unwritten letter, which says too much and nothing at all.

He cries and cries until there’s nothing left, until he’s sure that he’ll never cry over this again. Once his breathing is back to normal and the salt tracks are dry, he goes to the bathroom, and washes the tears from his face with one of the soaps from his dresser. It helps. Something about the smell is calming; not a memory, not even close, but maybe that’s the whole point.

After, he crawls into bed and spends an hour writing down everything Hunk told him in his notebook. When he can’t write anymore, exhausted, he turns the lights off. He doesn’t know why he folds the blank letter back up and smooths the paper between his thumb and forefinger. Thinks that maybe it’s kind of weird that he holds onto it in the dark while he’s preparing to go to sleep. But it’s the only concrete proof of his past. It’s comforting, in a way, after the onslaught of tears.

As Lance is laying in bed on the edge of sleep, he’s thinking about how he hadn’t even known his own name when he woke up, hadn’t even known his own voice. And he’s looking at the ceiling of his dark room with heavy eyes, the folded letter in hand, thinking about the word so carefully scripted into the top of the paper.

One word. Keith .

It has to mean something. For him to feel like this, when nothing else feels like anything, it has to mean something .

*

The next morning, Pidge snags Lance’s attention after breakfast, looking much more upbeat that she had yesterday. “I have an idea,” she says by way of greeting, dragging him into a room with couches and warm lighting. There are wide windows that show off the vast emptiness of space and Lance looks away from those nervously, still adjusting to the idea of space travel.

“Okay?” Lance replies, because what else is he supposed to say. He’s still feeling raw after crying for nearly an hour last night, but it helps that almost everyone has been talking at him, easing his mind, and trying desperately not to put him on the spot.

She plops down on the couch and yanks a device into her lap from the end table. Lance follows her lead tentatively, glancing up as Hunk ambles in after chasing them down the hall. “Okay, I know that you’re still in story mode or whatever to get caught up on current events, but I was up all night thinking that there had to be a way to restore your memory.”

Lance is immediately wary, but Hunk responds enthusiastically. “Oh really?”

Pidge nods. “Yeah. We can do it the old-fashioned way and try to trigger it with something familiar, y’know, but if that doesn’t work, I think I can hook my computer up to the red lion and see if they somehow got stuck in there.”

“Ohhh, yeah that makes sense,” Hunk says enthusiastically. “With the mind-link, right?”

Pidge beams. “Yeah! At the very least, if his memories are in there, we can extract them and make a hollow like King Alfor. Then that way at least he’ll have access to thoughts and memories that no one else can tell him.”

Lance can’t really come up with a good reason why he doesn’t really...Like, he should be thrilled at the thought of getting his memories back, right? So he won’t have to be confused and everything will make sense again and he’ll remember his family and his friends and he’ll know . And he’ll take them, if he has a chance, happily and eagerly, but...but there is something so final about the wall in his mind. There is no give, no light around the edges and doesn’t...he doesn’t wanna get his hopes up, okay?

Yeah.

But he doesn’t know how to say that out loud. Doesn’t want to take away from the excitement shining on Pidge’s face, so he doesn’t. He takes a breath. Refocuses.

Lance raises an eyebrow. “Red lion?” The image he’s picturing doesn’t line up at all with what they’re saying, although talk of lions have been mentioned in passing over the last 24 hours.

It prompts a conversation about what exactly the Voltron thing is that Coran had mentioned last night, especially after Pidge incredulously wonders why Hunk hadn’t told Lance about it the night before. By the time they’re done explaining the bare basics of the paladins, the lions, and defending the universe - including where they stand now with Prince Lotor at the helm of the Galra Empire - Lance’s brain feels fried.

“Do you wanna see your lion?”

Lance looks at Hunk with wide, saucer eyes, sitting up straighter on the couch with interest. “Can I?”

“Uh, yeah, dude. We need you to form Voltron, so it’s probably a good idea to get back in there and bond with Red. Assuming you have to re-bond, I guess.”

Pidge smiles. “Maybe it’ll help you remember something? You love flying, Lance.”

That sounds...right, Lance decides. The idea of rushing through the air, totally in control...yeah. He hums in agreement.

*

Okay, so....Lance isn’t quite sure what he was expecting when he was told about magical flying robot lions in space but holy fuck, dude, it wasn’t this . Hunk leads him to his hangar and then promptly leaves after explaining that bonding time with your lion is kind of a one-on-one deal.

Lance stares up in awe at the alien robot for a long time. He pilots this thing? He must have been good at flying; his love for it must have come from his talent. Pidge had told him that the lions are somewhat sentient, so Lance purses his lips and, taking comfort in being alone, he walks towards one giant paw and rests his hand gingerly on the claw.

“Hey, uh...Red? Is that what we call you?”

Something rumbles under his skin and he recognizes it from the very first time he woke up. A spike of fear nearly makes him wrench his hand away but then the feeling is comforting and he sags under the relief of something so warm, almost protective.

“Oh, man, you’re...is that you?” he looks up as far as he can, craning his neck. Emotion wells up in him but he can’t name it, only that it feels good, and that he is so happy to be standing here right now. It puts thoughts of his memory loss and weighty disappointment far from his mind. “Thank you. I...”

He doesn’t startle when the lion moves, the head dropping down as jaw opens and beckons him inside. There is no hesitation, stepping in easily, earnestly, wondering if there’s something here that can tell him about his past, but his footsteps slow when he reaches the cockpit and instantly recognizes it.

Allura, leaning over him with a crease in her eyebrows. The red light.

Before the panic can incapacitate him, warmth is pushing against him again, like a purr. Soothing the frayed nerves and steadying his trembling hands. It rumbles bone-deep, far beneath the surface of his skin, and Lance hasn’t felt this safe in all of his memory.

He laughs shakily. “Thanks again...ah, I guess you probably got hit pretty bad when I did too, huh? Sorry; my bad. That was my fault. I promise I’ll make it up to you.” He makes his way to the pilot’s chair and sits down in it, letting his head fall back against the tall backrest with another rush of all-consuming relief. He can feel anxiety under the surface - thoughts of still not being strong enough, his guilt simmering - but they are entirely eclipsed by Red’s presence.

“So you chose me,” he murmurs, remembering what Hunk had described about the process of becoming a paladin. “Why?”

His stomach swoops when he feels the answer as a series of thoughts and explanations in his head, put there by the lion. Lance clenches his hands around the armrests as Keith’s name passes through his mind and it electrifies him. He can’t concentrate on anything else and he feels it in his gut again, what that name does to him. He gasps at the sheer surprise of it, the ache of it, blindsided.

“Keith was yours?” Lance replies breathlessly, voice pained.

Yes. Lance thinks a thought that isn’t his. Yes, that’s right. Keith belonged to Red. There’s fondness in that. Longing.

He pulls the folded letter from his pocket where he had stuffed it the minute he’d woken up and got dressed this morning. Opens it. Stares at Keith’s name written so firmly in the corner of the paper. “Why did you choose me ?” Lance wonders in a small voice, and even the comfort of Red’s presence can’t ease his desperation to understand why it seems that everything comes back to Keith.

Red answers again with more thoughts that Lance didn’t think. I chose Keith. He blinks at the blank letter. It’s a wonderfully simple answer, wrought with more meaning than he can comprehend. Red chose him, because he chose Keith. As leader. I accepted him as the black paladin.

Red pours other thoughts and ideas into Lance’s head, how Lance had belonged to Blue and how everything had changed when Shiro went missing. It only takes moments and Lance finds himself struggling to catch his breath, hands creasing the letter in a tight grip that he has to work to loosen. It’s so much. There was nothing about his life before this clean slate that wasn’t strange and big and it’s daunting.

“I’m sorry,” Lance whispers. “You miss him.” Keith .

Yes. The thought is sure and heavy. He can feel the bond that Red had with Keith, how strong it was, how Red reacted violently to Keith being in danger and how much Keith had loved Red in return. But then there is reassurance, a bookend to the yearning. Lance feels the rush of being wanted and he lets out a long, slow exhale. He drops his hands into his lap, still holding onto the letter and his eyes drift shut with relief.

“Thank you,” he says softly. “Thank you.”

There’s a soft hum under his skin in response. He tucks the letter back away carefully and reaches to take a hold of the pilot controls. They’re warm under his palms, almost vibrating with energy and it feels right.

“Should we try this out again?”

This time, Red growls happily out loud, sending Lance into a startled fit of laughter.

Pidge was right. Lance does love flying.

*

The next few days are spent adjusting.

That’s what Shiro calls it. Adjusting . Maybe it’s an adjustment for everyone else on the team, but for Lance this is all new. As nice and welcoming as everyone has been, he’s still not entirely at ease and after the initial confusion fades, he prefers to be alone. There is a gap between him and the rest of the group, and he knows without being told that he isn’t the same as he was. He thinks that maybe they think he could be the same, with time, and it only makes him feel more distant. It’s lonely.

Hunk is easily the one Lance feels most comfortable around with his gentle aura and the way he doesn’t push, but he barely knows how to talk to Shiro without feeling awkward. Shiro is gracious about it, but it doesn’t make it any less weird.

Pidge and Allura are mostly absent but for different reasons. Pidge has been trying to extract Lance’s memory from Red, keeping her busy as she bounces between that and whatever other techy thing she does in her spare time.

Allura has been working with Prince Lotor on some project he doesn’t quite understand but he also gets the feeling that she’s avoiding him. It makes him wonder if he did something to offend her before he died, or if maybe she saw something in his death that she doesn’t want to talk about. He’s afraid to find out, so he doesn’t chase after her, either.

Lance ducks out of the room whenever Coran enters just because he can’t fucking understand a single word that comes out of that guy’s mouth. It always leaves him feeling irritable. Hunk mentions in passing that no one really knows what Coran talks about sometimes, so it makes Lance feel marginally better, but only just. Everyone else can at least decipher shit based on what they know and Lance knows nothing .

But Lance feels best when he’s moving and he isn’t forced into awkward conversations. He flies a lot in Red, which comes naturally to him, so the hardest work happens on the training deck. His weapon changes form which gives him double the amount of distractions as he hones his shooting skill and practices hand-to-hand with the drones. Muscle memory does wonders; he’s quick and flexible and his reaction times are so impressive he doesn’t realize what he’s done until it’s over.

It’s a week later, when Shiro and the Blade of Marmora set up a quick call for briefing about the progress on both sides, that everything shifts. Lance and the rest of the paladins gather to listen in on the feed and he has his hand shoved deep in his pocket, holding onto that dumb letter as though he could will something from it’s existence.

In all honesty, there are only two things that bring him comfort: the letter and Red. He’s starting to believe that it’s not coincidence that they are both directly linked to Keith. He doesn’t know a thing about the Blade or what Keith does over there, but as soon as he found out about this call, a hope so vicious it burned lit him up. The sheer scope of his desire to see Keith startles him, terrifies him. He’s too busy thinking about the scale of it to pay attention to the exchange of information.

“Any news on Keith?” Shiro asks near the end of the call, snagging Lance’s focus violently. Everyone in the room goes silent, breaths held. Lance clutches the letter so tight in his pocket that he can feel it crumpling in his hand.

Kolivan’s expression doesn’t change. “None. We’ve lost all contact.”

Lance blinks because...what?

The rest of the room erupts as the team demands answers but he can’t hear them over the sound of his own heartbeat. He can scarcely breathe. We’ve lost all contact. The words carry such finality, as though Kolivan doesn’t expect there to ever be any news about Keith again.

The weight of it is heavy.

Crushing.

And Lance can’t breathe.

His head clouds up, heat prickling behind his eyes and it’s agony. No one notices when he spins on his heel and leaves the room with his head held high, as if running away can put more space between him and what he’s feeling. His footsteps are loud as his walk turns into a run, and it’s not working; he still can’t breathe. The idea of Keith missing, the possibility that he could be dead somewhere out there, cuts like a knife through his heart. He can’t bear it.

The clarity in the pain comes fast and hard and he only makes it to the hallway in their sleeping quarters before he’s leaning against the wall, the tears spilling over, and slumping to the floor. He buries his face in his hands, taking shuddering breaths, the chill of the floor and wall pressing against him ruthlessly. His throat burns with emotion.

How...how do you miss someone you don’t know? Is that even fucking possible?

Who was Keith, to become so integrated into Lance before that he can feel the echo of him on the other side of death? And, if they had been close, why did he leave Lance behind? Whoever Keith is, Lance wants to hate him. He wishes he could. He doesn’t want to feel like this and not know why . Lance bites his lip and smears the tears across his cheeks, trying to erase them only for them to be replaced by more.

“Lance?”

He winces, looking down the hall to see Allura standing there, shocked at the state of him if the tone of her voice is anything to go by. Hot embarrassment rises up in him and his desperation to hide the tears increases tenfold, but there’s nowhere to run and his legs are too shaky to carry him anywhere, anyway.

“S-Sorry,” he says, and his voice is broken as he sniffles and turns away, hiding his face. “Sorry. I-I shouldn’t have left, it was rude. I know. I know, I’m sorry. I just...I-I just --”

She walks towards him slowly. “Are you alright?”

A sob threatens to tear through him, so he bites down hard and shakes his head. Vulnerability scares him, but she was there when he woke up, and despite not knowing why she hasn’t so much as looked at him in a week, he isn’t strong enough to hide right now. A part of him still wishes he’d been able to make it to his room before he collapsed, though.

“What’s wrong?” she murmurs as she comes to a stop in front of him and crouches down.

Lance laughs, but it’s hard and sarcastic. “Where do I start?” He sniffles again and then lets out a deep, shaking breath, trying to get a hold of himself as he runs a salt-smeared hand through his hair.

She frowns, but her expression is hard to see through his tear-clouded eyes. “Is this about Keith? He’s a fighter; he’ll come back. We’ve had radio silence from him before.”

It doesn’t matter that it’s happened before, it’s that Keith’s own leader doesn’t think he’s alive. The last person to talk to him doesn’t think he’s alive . Did she follow him down here to comfort him or what? He doesn’t respond to Allura. He doesn’t want her to know .

She takes that for refusal. “Then...is this about your memories?” she asks gently, reaching out to place a hand on his knee. “Do you want to talk to someone about it? I could go get Hunk.”

“I don’t want to talk to Hunk,” Lance says, a bit sharply. He sees her grimace, wincing away from him, and guilt immediately nudges him. “Sorry,” he apologizes quickly. “I’m just...I’m just strung out right now.”

She nods, pulling her hand away and seating herself on the floor fully. “It’s alright.” She takes a deep breath. “I understand if you don’t want to talk to me. I know that it’s my fault you’re like this.”

The confusion is enough to override the heartbreak. “What are you talking about?” he asks, looking at her fully now, his tears still gathered, but running much slower now.

Her face scrunches up in pain and...and is she going to cry, too? “I managed to save your life, but I couldn’t save your memories,” she elaborates and despite her expression, her voice is strong. “You ought to blame me.”

It’s like a slap to the face. “No, Allura. I don’t--I don’t blame you; you saved my life. You saved my life . I could never blame you.” He stares at her and she stares back.

“You don’t?” she says softly.

He shakes his head, smooths another tear away. “No way.”

Her shoulders drop in relief and she almost smiles. “You are so kind, Lance. That part of you has not changed at all.”

He uses the collar of his shirt to wipe at his nose, grateful for her praise. “Thank you,” he murmurs. “But…I don’t really wanna talk about all of this.” He gestures to his salt-stained face and gives her a thin smile. “Sorry.”

She nods after a moment. “It’s okay, as long as you know that you can talk to us. I...I’m sorry that you’re hurting. I hate that we have to ask so much of you under the circumstances, but we do have Voltron to think about. We need you to be strong.”

Despite her words being almost harsh, it’s the only thing anyone has said all week that actually makes him feel better. It’s exactly what he needs: the push to move forward. “I won’t let you down,” he promises.

She smiles. “I know you won’t.” A pause. “It’s nearly time to eat dinner. Will you come back with me?”

The thought of eating is so repulsive that his stomach rolls. “I’m not hungry. I think I’m going to sit here for a little while.”

She spends the next two minutes trying to convince him to join but Lance just needs to be alone and eventually she relents. He waits til she’s gone, gathering himself, and then slowly hauls himself to his feet to retreat to his bedroom. The tears have pretty much run their course by the time the door closes behind him, so he curls up in the corner of his bed, back to the wall, and writes in his notebook.

Or, he thought he was done crying. His eyes feel hot again when he remembers what the Blade had said about Keith, each word as sharp and painful as the last. He remembers that Allura had faith Keith was still out there somewhere and he holds onto that. He writes it all down; even the way he had cried.

He sets the pen down when he’s done and runs a finger over the last sentence. There’s more, he thinks; there’s so much more to what happened today and he doesn’t want to forget.

Taking a deep breath, in and out, he picks the pen back up with a steady hand and presses the ink tip into the paper.

I think I loved Keith , he writes out slowly.

I think I still do.

Chapter Text

He has a hard time sleeping that night after hiding the notebook and tucking the letter under his pillow.

It strikes him that no one knows.

Which is honestly fucking wild.

Lance doesn’t know how they could not know. How had he been so good at hiding his emotions when the way he feels is so all-encompassing? Did they know the real him at all or had Lance just been a great pretender? He’s beginning to think it’s likely that he hadn’t been as open as everyone makes him out to be. Lance had secrets, too, and he doesn’t know what they were anymore. Maybe Keith was his only secret.

Anyway, the point is, if they had known, they would have told him. He is 100% sure of it. It seems like a vital memory that they would be sure to explain immediately, given how concerned they are with Lance regaining what he lost. Pidge would have jumped at the chance to trigger a memory; she’s obsessed with restoring him to, what she has called, his full potential.

So, they don’t know, but...

Did Keith know?

He thinks Keith doesn’t know, because he left and because of the unwritten letter. Had he been in some sort of relationship that prompted a confession (whether accepted or rejected), that letter would have been fully realized and sent. So there’s no way - no way - that Keith knows the depth of Lance’s feelings.

He stares at the ceiling of his bedroom with a dry throat and tries to picture what Keith looks like, fingers knotted into his sheets. Is he tall? Short? He sounds tall; or, he feels tall, the way he closes in on everything that Lance knows. He feels tall and big and close . How does he wear his hair? Maybe it’s short; he is a soldier of a sort. It’s more sensible to have short hair, isn’t it?

Lance thinks he has dark eyes. He doesn’t know why, it just seems right. Maybe they get all crinkly when he smiles. Maybe he smiles all the time. Or, maybe he doesn’t, but Lance likes to think that he does. Oh, he hopes he does. He hopes that Keith has a reason to smile, even lost in space or wherever the hell he is.

His eyes flutter to a close and he takes a deep breath. He wants to ask about Keith, but the thought of everyone else realizing that he remembers something of a boy they all thought he didn’t like while nothing of them sounds terrible enough in his head. Lance can’t stand the idea of looking at Hunk - Best Bro Hunk - and telling him that his long-time friendship couldn’t withstand death while feelings for his apparent rival had burned a mark onto his soul. It seems cruel.

And it is cruel.

The way he loves Keith is nothing short of agony.

He has to wonder if he had felt this way before he died. If Keith’s absence was truly this painful or if losing all memories of how Keith looks, how he smiles, how he laughs, how he sounds when he says Lance’s name has made this loneliness worse. God, he’d better be okay. If he never comes back...if he never comes back…

Lance swallows. He turns over on his side to face the wall and pulls his sheets in around his chin, his heart tight against his ribcage. He can’t think about that.

He won’t.

He won’t .

*

Lance spends a good two days avoiding everyone while he attempts to collect himself after the announcement of Keith’s disappearance and his subsequent epiphany regarding his feelings. He doesn’t feel as bad about it as he probably should, but Red is better company because there’s no expectations there; just a shared longing and a love of flying. Damn, even the training bots are easier to talk to.

It doesn’t stop Hunk from bringing him meals or Pidge from keeping him updated on her progress with trying to squeeze his memories out of thin air. Even Allura, as busy as she is these days, makes a point to check in on him.

On the second night, after writing in his notebook, he tries his hardest to fall asleep with his blankets yanked up over his head as if they could drown out the noise of his thoughts. He keeps reminding himself - unhelpfully - that Keith’s old room is next door and some dumbass nosey part of his brain won’t let him give up the idea of sneaking in and looking around.

So, he tries to sleep, really he does, but his mind is loud and his heart is louder.

With a groan of frustration, he throws his blankets off of him and sits up, swinging his legs around to rest his feet against the floor. His breath hitches because this is just ridiculous. Like. This is creepy, right? Breaking into a room that belongs to a person who might not even like him. Snooping around in their belongings, trying to sniff out clues. Is this really what he’s come to? Ridiculous. Pathetic. He curls his fists into the sheets and scrunches his nose up in disappointment.

It doesn’t stop him from going, though. Within that same minute, he’s stepping into Keith’s room, the door whooshing shut quietly behind him as he flips the light switch. His stupid throat constricts with emotion and like, that’s when he knows he’s well and truly fucked. It’s one thing to have a breakdown over bad news regarding the object of your affections. It’s another entirely to feel one coming on just from being in a space that was - is - theirs.

Lance scrubs at the heat building up in his eyes and forces the emotions away as best as he can. If he wanted to cry some more, he shouldn’t have left his room. Should have stayed buried underneath his own blankets. Right now, this is about satiating his curiosity.

He takes note of the room and a frown quickly deepens on his face when the only thing hanging up on the wall is a red jacket. There is a small, folded pile of clothes on the end of the bed, but even a quick cursory glance of the closet reveals that either Keith had taken most of his clothes with him when he left, or he didn’t have anything more than two pairs of pants and a black shirt.

Lance meticulously picks over the rest of the room with growing disappointment. There are no answers here; no hidden notebooks stashed under the bed or photographs pinned to the walls. No skeletons - literal or otherwise - in the closet. It seems like Keith hadn’t spent any time in here except to sleep. Every inch of this room is cold and impersonal and distant. Just another of a thousand unused rooms in the castle, covered in dust, long forgotten.

But it had still belonged to Keith. Just as Red did.

So Lance spends the next few minutes cleaning, stripping the bed of its musty sheets and shaking out the clothes before refolding them. He doesn’t have anything to help clean up the dust, so he pulls his own shirt off and wipes the surfaces clean without thinking about it. It’s strange that he doesn’t feel foolish or embarrassed for the desire to reset the space. He actually feels incredibly at peace as he wads up his dirty shirt and slips into the black t-shirt folded on the edge of the bare mattress.

It’s a little tight in the shoulders and sits awkwardly at his hips, but it’s soft against his skin as though it has been well-worn. Suddenly, his heart leaps into his throat as he smooths his hands over the fabric on his sides with deliberate slowness as the realization comes to him.

Keith is shorter than him.

He collapses backwards on the bed clumsily and runs a hand along the collar of the shirt at his neck, repeating the revelation like a prayer, a lifeline. Keith is shorter than him. Not even by a lot, really, just enough to take notice. It’s the dumbest, silliest thing to cling to but it’s concrete and it’s real. It’s proof that Keith isn’t just some ghost that exists in his head or in his heart. It’s real. Keith is real . Lance laughs and throws an arm over his eyes, even though no one is around to see the tears that roll over his cheeks and into his hair.

“God,” he whispers softly, reverently, as if Keith can hear him now. “I can’t wait to meet you.”

Lance lays there for a long time, giddy, trying to decide whether Keith has dark or light hair, but eventually his eyes grow heavy and he can feel the late hour dragging at his body. He gathers up the pile of dirty sheets and his own soiled shirt and then hesitates at the door, staring at the jacket hanging there on a hook. There’s no reason for him to take it, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching out and throwing it over his shoulder.

He turns the light off and then returns to his own room, dumping his armload into a pile of laundry in the corner. Lance lets his fingers run over the soft seams of the leather jacket as he hangs it up in his closet, and he curiously fishes around in the pockets to see if anything else got left behind.

It did. A pair of fingerless, black gloves.

Lance shoves them back into the pockets so he won’t lose them and then closes his closet door. It crosses his mind briefly that he should change shirts, but he pretends to forget that he thought it. He turns off the lights and crawls back into bed and sleep welcomes him easily.

*

Lance nearly, actually, forgets to change shirts in the morning and fights a mild swell of panic as he darts back inside his room to change. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t want anyone to know, only that there’s a visceral desire to keep his feelings absolutely secret from the team. They are his feelings; they belong only to him and to Keith, and if anyone should hear it first, it should be Keith. Getting caught strutting around in a shirt that clearly is not apart of Lance’s wardrobe would be about as obvious as painting the confession in neon letters on his forehead.

When he does he arrive at breakfast, it’s awkward as hell . Clearly, everyone has noticed his weird mood the past few days and they’re toeing around him like he’s shattered glass and they’re all barefoot. Lance feels at least three pairs of eyes on him as he slinks over to grab his helping of food goo and then sits at the table next to Hunk. It’s so quiet and glaringly obvious that everyone had stopped eating and talking as soon as he walked into the room. Is it too late to go back to bed?

“Hey, buddy,” Hunk says, breaking the silence. “You feelin’ better?”

Lance in on cloud nine actually, choosing to find joy in what he discovered last night over the despair of the MIA status. Keith is shorter than him. “Yeah.”

The room seems to lighten and everyone murmurs over each other in relief, but there’s still distance there, which Lance feels is normal anyway. At least to him. Everyone else wants to be close again, he thinks, but this space is good, for now. He smiles as Pidge leans towards him across the table.

“I wanna try some stuff out with the data I was able to rip from Red yesterday,” she says enthusiastically. “Do you think you’d be up for helping me out?”

He’s wary, but fuck, if the thought of remembering anything again doesn’t sound just heavenly right now. “Sure, I can help. What do you need me to do?”

She points at his bowl. “Just focus on eating for now; we’ll get to that.”

Conversation falls over the table after that and as Lance laughs at a joke that Coran makes that he actually understands, he wonders if this is what it had been like. He wonders what it would be like if Keith were here. Would he laugh at Coran’s jokes too? His eyes flutter closed for a moment as he imagines it, but there isn’t enough information to get a clear picture.

Coran follows when Allura leaves the table first, saying that she has some work to do with Lotor in one of the hangars. She pats Lance’s shoulder affectionately on her way out and he smiles up at her, and then both Alteans leave the room in conversation. Shiro finishes up and says something about the black lion before exiting after them. Confusion crashes through Lance as Hunk and Pidge both start smirking now that it’s the three of them.

“What?” he asks.

“You had a big fat crush on Allura,” Pidge tells him, leaning onto the table and cupping her chin in her hand. “It’s weird not to see you go ga ga over a shoulder touch.”

Lance inhales so sharply in surprise that he chokes because what? He coughs viciously around the food goo sliding painfully down his throat, thumping his hand against his chest as his eyes sting with tears from the force of it.

Hunk laughs and pats him on the back. “Whoa, dude, take it easy.”

Lance struggles for air. “Are you--” he coughs again and looks up at Pidge’s amused expression. “Are you messing with me?”

“Hell no I’m not,” she declares, adjusting her glasses on her nose, and Hunk laughs again. “You never stopped talking about her. It was obnoxious how much you liked her.”

Lance just stares at her, his mouth gaping open as his blank mind tries to make sense of what she’s saying. “No? I...I didn’t?” He couldn’t have. There’s no way.

Pidge laughs. “It’s true, Lance. You were constantly flirting with her.”

Lance feels his face catch fire as Hunk pulls his hand away. “Yeah, dude, you weren’t afraid to put it all out there. It was kind of admirable, actually.”

He drops his gaze to the table. “I...I didn’t,” he says again, softer this time. His thoughts aren’t in working order, but all he can think is that it’s just not possible.

Pidge snorts. “I think we know what you did or did not do more than you, Lance.”

He hardens at that and he knows they all feel it. It is a low blow, but however he had acted around Allura in the past just wasn’t the truth of him. Not when he can feel Keith in every beat of his heart without remembering. “I didn’t like Allura,” he says, his voice sharp and pointed as a blade as he looks up at her. “I couldn’t have.”

She holds up her hands in surrender, eyes wide. “Yeesh, Lance, calm down.”

Hunk stands up with his empty bowl abruptly, his chair squealing against the floor in his haste. “Alright...I think it’s time to move on, yeah? Let’s get cleaned up and we can check out what Pidge picked up through Red and forget this whole uncomfortable conversation even happened.”

Lance silently agrees and makes his way to the kitchen without sparing another glance in Pidge’s direction. Hunk follows him in, taking Lance’s bowl from him and washing them himself. Lance leans against the counter, eyebrows furrowed and arms crossed over his chest as he tries to push the sourness away.

“Hey, she didn’t mean it like that,” Hunk murmurs, sudsing up the bowls with a drop of soap.

“I get it,” Lance says briskly, tone bitter. “Forgetting my memories has made everyone but me an expert on me.”

Hunk is quiet for a moment. “We’re just trying to help.”

Lance sighs but doesn’t respond. He feels a little guilty for it, but he’s sick of feeling guilty for being pushed into a mold that will never fit him again.

“If it makes you feel better, you haven’t really made any moves on Allura in almost a year.” Hunk doesn’t look at him, just concentrates on scrubbing the bowls with a sponge. “After Shiro went missing, you helped pull the team together more than anyone. I think you were more concerned about being a good friend for Allura while she learned how to pilot her lion and stuff. And, I dunno, once we got adjusted, you just...weren’t really looking anymore, I guess.”

Lance nods after a moment, but still doesn’t say anything. This, at least, makes more sense than the idea of him blatantly flirting with Allura mere weeks ago. He can’t help but wonder where Keith falls into the equation. The red lion told him that he accepted Keith as his leader...had he liked Keith then?

God, this would be easier if he wasn’t so afraid to ask questions. A part of him is starting to think they wouldn’t believe he liked Keith anyway.

Pidge enters the room then, looking slightly sheepish, but she doesn’t apologize either as she places her bowl in the sink.

“Okay, Lance. Let’s see about getting your memories back,” she says.

Lance gives her a long look, meeting her gaze, and then nods. “Sure.”

Hunk finishes up the dishes and wipes his hands on a nearby hand towel. “I’m gonna go see if Allura and Lotor need any help today and then I think Coran wanted my opinion on something; ping me on the comm if you guys find anything, okay?”

Lance almost begs him to stay, but Hunk waves, exchanges a glance with Pidge that he thinks he wasn’t supposed to notice, and then it’s just him and Pidge alone in the kitchen. She heaves a sigh that seems too big for her body and then jabs her thumb over her shoulder.

“Alright, I got us set up in a corner of the training room.”

He looks at her quizzically as he follows her from the kitchen. “The training room?”

“Yeah, there are some mind-link devices there that I can hook up to my computer and Coran for whatever reason won’t let me take them out of the training room,” she replies with a touch of humor. “He insists that they need to stay there because they are important training tools, but I just think he thinks I’ll lose it or something.”

He finds himself letting go of his anger with every passing step, reminds himself that she is doing this for him, and that she cares about him. “Do you lose things often?”

She peeks sideways at him, her lips twitching. “I like to study things so I know how they work; I never lose them, I just keep them.”

He chuckles at that and then Pidge starts prattling off about some fancy science behind this mind-link thing and the red lion and how she decided to meld the data together and she could be speaking an alien language for as much as he understands of it. Lance nods politely and hmms and ahhs at the appropriate times. It seems to be enough for her that he’s just willing to listen, and he’s feeling much more at ease now that they’ve reached the training room and the excitement is bright on her face.

She leads him to the corner, practically vibrating as she drops to the floor, staring at her laptop screen as she thrusts a crown-shaped thing in his general direction.

“Put this on your head. I’m going to connect the frequency and patch over the data I was able to extract from Red. If it works - when it works - a little screen will pop up in front of you with your visual memories on them, okay?”

Lance does as she says and then sits cross-legged on the floor with his back to the wall. While her fingers are flying across her keyboard, he tilts his head back and studies the high ceilings, trying to clamp down hard on the hope of seeing anything, of triggering his memory. He reaches into the pocket of his green jacket and thumbs the letter, eased immediately by the comfort it brings him. It’s almost a good thing that Lance before had been such a coward; he doesn’t know how he’d cope without this piece of paper grounding him in every situation that threatens emotional turmoil.

“Okay, I’m ready. Are you ready?”

He looks up to see Pidge staring at him, her eyes glittering as her finger hovers over a key.

He takes a deep breath, tucks the letter into his concealed hand, and then nods. “Yeah. Ready.”

She presses down. He waits with quickened heartbeats for something, anything, to happen, but the crown only buzzes against his head, giving him a tinny, empty mockery of the red lion’s sizzling energy. He closes his eyes in acceptance at that. There is no screen that pops up, and Lance can feel the way his stomach drops despite desperately telling himself not to expect anything.

Still, of all the reasons he’s cried lately, this one hardly feels like a reason at all. He already lost his memories; it’s not like he’s lost them again.

He opens his eyes to see Pidge frowning. “It’s not working?” she says.

“I think you just decrypted the red lion’s energy signature,” he tells her. “It’s like feeling Red through the wall or something.”

She snaps the laptop screen closed with a huff. “Damn, I thought I had it.”

Lance removes the crown from his head and places it on the floor. “Hey, it’s fine--”

“It’s not fine, Lance. I’ve been working on this for over a week and I’ve got nothing to show for it.” She scowls. “I even asked for Matt’s advice on this and I’ve got nothing .”

“It’s not like it’s for anything life or death,” he says. “It has nothing to do with defending the universe or whatever. It’s fine.”

“I have to keep trying,” she mumbles, averting her eyes to stare at a spot on the floor with frustration. “I’ll rework the codes or something. Maybe there is an indicator in Red’s tech that I missed.”

Her voice echoes in the room, her words hanging there between them, and Lance quietly thinks to himself that he’s tired. He doesn’t want to hope. He won’t string himself along like this.

“No,” he says.

She looks at him in shock. “No?”

“No.”

“Why the fuck not?” Her shock melts away, her irritation returning. “I can do this, Lance, I can--”

“No,” he says, trying to keep his voice from shaking as he stands up. “Maybe you’re good with this because it’s a challenge or whatever, but I can’t do it. I don’t want to be optimistic about this. It hurts, okay.”

She rises to her feet too, her voice swelling in volume. “Then you’re an idiot! I can get your memories back; you can be yourself again. I just need time!”

“Ugh, stop, just stop!” Lance yells, running his hands harshly over his face in frustration.

Pidge glowers at him. “I’m just trying to help you! Why won’t you let me help you?!”

“Because you act like I’m broken,” he hisses. “All of you do. I’m not who I was and I’m sorry I can’t be that person anymore. And yeah, it sucks not knowing shit, but that doesn’t mean that who I am now is temporary. I’m still me even if I’m not the me you want me to be. You can’t just force me to be okay again, Pidge! You can’t just erase the fact that I died and lost everything by bringing some of it back!”

“I’m not trying to erase it--”

He pushes a hand through his hair, ruffling it as he looks away. “God, yes you are! Fuck, just because I don’t flirt with Allura and make dumb jokes at breakfast doesn’t mean I’m wrong . You just said it yourself. ‘ You can be yourself again. ’” He rolls his eyes and his voice quickly delves into something darker and more bitter. “I am myself now .”

She stares at him with angry incredulity. “Don’t you want to remember us? What about your family? Or Earth? Doesn’t any of that matter?”

He all but growls at that, deeply insulted, and his eyes are hot and prickly with aggravation. “Of course it does! But I died! I have this dark wall in my head and it doesn’t budge; I can’t see anything past when I woke up in Red with Allura hovering over me. My memories are gone. They’re just fucking gone . Don’t make me hold out hope for something that I know isn’t there anymore.”

“Lance--”

He cuts her off and shoves away from the wall, stomping towards the doors. “I have to go. I can’t do this right now. Thanks for trying, really, but I’d really like to just--Forget.” He takes a deep breath. “Just let me forget.”

She makes a sound of total and utter frustration behind him but he doesn’t turn around. Lance storms out of the room and makes a brisk beeline for his room.

After making sure that his door is locked, he kicks out of his shoes and climbs into bed, collapsing face first down into his pillow. He’s too keyed up to cry about it, but he does groan dramatically and yank the hood of his jacket up over the back of his head. With some patience, he’s able to regain control of his quick breathing and eventually he rolls over onto his side to stare at the wall.

He never should have let Pidge put that stupid thing on his head to begin with. Deep down, Lance knew it wouldn’t work. He knew it, and still, he had let himself hope. Even just that little bit had wounded him painfully, had made his guilt for not remembering worse. He can’t bring himself to regret anything he said to Pidge, even if the tone of his voice had been nasty. He kind of wishes everyone had heard him say it.

This sucks. God, this just really sucks. And to think he’d been in such a good mood this morning. He tugs his hood in closer around him, staring hard at a spot on his pillow, one arm tucked up to cradle his head. His heart feels heavy, upset that Pidge’s solution didn’t work at all, upset that he didn’t get to see his family or...or Keith. A sigh settles weighted in his chest, dense as a fog.

His eyes sting again. They’re in a perpetual state of near-tears pretty much at all times these days and he hates it, but there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He wonders how different his memory loss would have been if Keith had been here when he woke up. He wishes that’s how it would have been, opening his eyes to see Keith, his heart knowing instantly. Would the fear and confusion be easier to swallow? He thinks so. Everything would have been easier.

Lance rubs his face with the sleeve of his jacket, his breath hiccuping in his throat.

God, if he could--if he could just know what Keith looks like, it would be enough.

*

It takes him two whole weeks after the failed memory retrieval to ask. Keith is still missing and Pidge won’t talk to Lance and he is trying not to feel so sorry for himself but it’s not working. He hasn’t seen Allura in days - always so preoccupied with that ship she’s building with Lotor - and Shiro is just as distant as he is. He’s had one or two nice conversations with Coran about some cool planets in faraway galaxies but it doesn’t erase how shitty everything else has been. Even the one impromptu mission they pulled off in Voltron - which was relatively peaceful, and Lance was able to follow all of the orders he got seamlessly - couldn’t make Lance feel anything.

He’s sitting on the observation deck, Hunk beside him, talking on and on about tiny details of a thousand Earth things. Lance is trying his best to pay attention, but his thoughts are drawn to Keith like a moth to a flame and he has his hand clenched around the letter in his pocket.

“What does Keith look like?” he asks, staring straight ahead into the vast, dark expanse of space. No one has even so much as said Keith’s name in days and Lance feels breakable from the lack of presence that Keith has in everyone else’s lives when he’s always on Lance’s mind. He thinks somewhere in the back of his head that he’s probably being rude for interrupting Hunk, who is talking about Earth for Lance’s benefit, but he needs to know. He needs to hear Hunk talk about Keith like he meant something to him, too.

Hunk stops mid-sentence and turns to look at Lance with wide surprise. “What?”

Lance keeps his gaze on the stars. “Keith. What does he look like?” He wonders if his voice really sounds that vulnerable or if that’s just the raw feeling of exposing something he’s been holding in captive silence for a long time.

Hunk sounds like he’s still trying to catch up, like he got whiplash from Lance’s question. “Keith? Why? ”

Lance shrugs as Hunk’s gaze burns curiously against the side of his face. “Why not.” He deserves some kind of award for the nonchalance he pulls off there. His stomach is fluttering, his heart climbing up this throat. “You’ve told me everything else about everyone else on this ship. Why not Keith, too?”

“It’s just...weird,” Hunk admits after a brief pause between them. “I mean, Keith left and you didn’t care. You explained very loudly how much you didn’t care like, all the time.”

I cared , Lance thinks painfully. “Well, I forgot,” he says instead and Hunk winces. Finally, he looks away from the windows with an expression that is immovable. “I’m not that person anymore. I want to know now.”

Hunk’s eyebrows furrow slightly, but he slowly nods and leans back on his hands. “Yeah… okay. Alright, uh, you want to know what he looks like, specifically?”

Lance has to fight really hard not to blush as he looks back out the window. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Hunk clears his throat, still very clearly confused, but he’s never denied Lance the chance to learn anything about his past and he doesn’t hesitate now, either. “Keith is half-Galra, but he still looks human, you know, so of course none of us knew he was a literal alien for a while. The Blade of Marmora guys actually helped him figure that one out, but that’s a different story I can tell you about later if you’d like.”

Half-Galra? Holy shit. Lance shivers at the sudden deluge of information, his mind going blank in an attempt to soak it all up like a goddamn sponge. He’s going to write every word meticulously down in his notebook as soon as he possibly can.

Hunk continues. “Um...he’s kind of short, I guess? Shorter than both of us, at least. He has dark hair that’s kind of long in the back. You always teased him by calling it a mullet, which he didn’t really like. He doesn’t smile a lot, or anything; he’s kind of intense I guess? So, not prone to smiling. He’s more of sarcastic smirker type, which I do recall pissed you off. I think his favorite color must be black, because that’s like, all he ever wears.”

Lance feels emotion getting the better of him and he doesn’t want Hunk to see. He hugs his knees close against his chest and then buries his face in his arms, overwhelmed by the image of Keith he’s able to conjure up in his head. Half-formed and still too blurry, but he has a basic idea and it’s a lot to process. He forces himself to count his heartbeats in an attempt to slow his breaths.

“Uh...Lance? You okay, buddy?” Hunk asks, sounding bewildered.

“‘M fine,” Lance mumbles.

“Are you getting tired?” It’s a sensitive question, which speaks to Hunk’s kindness. He’s always really perceptive on when he should stop talking about the past, when it becomes too much for Lance to handle, and Lance has never been able to voice how much he appreciates it, but he does.

He lifts his head slightly so he won’t be so muffled. “No...sorry I interrupted you. What was rain like again?”

*

There are more bad days than good days, but Shiro manages to tell a story about Keith from when he was in the Garrison over dinner one night, which makes everyone laugh. Lance thinks about it for a week straight and it never fails to make him smile, a temporary cure for his sadness.

Sometimes, he wears Keith’s jacket when he’s alone in his room just for the hell of it. Sometimes, he puts it on and sneaks to the red lion’s hangar in the dead of night and falls asleep in the cockpit with his legs draped over the armrest. Sometimes, he goes full nights without sleeping because his life is a fucking mess and he’s in a weird place and no one looks at him like a normal person and Keith is still missing .

The unwritten letter is nearly falling apart at the creases, heavily damaged and crumpled, but he can’t throw it away so it slowly deteriorates under the weight of his anxious hand deep in the pocket of his green jacket. It makes him want to cry, and sometimes he does.

Eventually, he gets around to re-making Keith’s bed with clean sheets and places Keith’s freshly washed and folded clothes on top of the dresser in his room. Lance accidentally falls asleep in there on several occasions until he admits to himself that it’s not an accident anymore. It’s not like the room is distinct; the only thing in there that had any personal meaning were the clothes. But it was still Keith’s and Lance is far past the point of caring what is creepy and what isn’t.

He just misses him.

He misses Keith so badly that every drag of breath in his lungs and every beat of his heart feels like a hot knife in his ribcage. He can’t even wish that he didn’t remember Keith like this, because that would mean not remembering Keith at all, and that thought is agony to him. Knowing Keith feels more like a necessity than a desire, an integral part of Lance, no matter who he was or who he is or who he will be in the future.

So he wears Keith’s jacket in secret and visits Red for 3am conversations and continues to pour his thoughts out onto notebook paper.

Lance is trying really hard to be okay, but it’s impossible to heal in the dark void of Keith’s absence.

*

Allura and Lotor finish building their ship two months after Lance dies. He and Pidge are finally on speaking terms again and his relationship with Shiro has become somewhat less awkward and he actually understands what Coran is saying 72% of the time. So, he’s not okay, but at least there’s progress in some aspect of his life.

Hunk has basically told him everything there is to know about Earth and Lance’s family, and Lance’s notebook is nearly full. He’s taken to rereading it sometimes when he can’t sleep. It’s almost embarrassing how many times Keith’s name pops up, or, it would be if Lance felt any shame at all. And he doesn’t, not where Keith is concerned.

Everyone is dressed for battle in their armor on the flight deck while they all watch Allura and Lotor disappear into the rift in their fancy new ship. No one really has a good feeling about it, but this is what they built that ship for. Something about quintessence and universal balance and other space mumbo jumbo that Lance still doesn’t quite get.

He ought to be more present but it’s difficult to focus on the discussion that’s happening between the rest of the team still on deck. He didn’t get much sleep last night and he feels dumb for being stressed over the fact he didn’t have a pocket on his flight suit to stick the letter in. Despite the fact it’s fallen into three pieces, it continues to bring him comfort and not having it on him leaves him twitchy and anxious.

“Why are you so freaked out?” Lance looks over to see Pidge staring at him with a raised eyebrow. “Things are gonna be fine.”

Lance runs a hand over the chest plate of his armor and gives her an unsure, crooked smile. “I trust your math, but this is just the riskiest thing we’ve done since I lost my memories.” He should have just worn his jacket over his armor. Is it too late to go grab it? It’s not like they’re doing anything but waiting around.

He stands up and turns to Shiro. “I...I need to go get something. Is that cool?”

Shiro gives him a strange look and then nods. “Alright, but be quick.”

Lance hurries from the room at a run, and makes quick work of snatching his jacket from its hook just inside the door of his bedroom before turning around and heading back. He immediately feels calmer once he’s slipped it on and shoved his hand in his pocket to feel the paper beneath the tight fabric of his gloved hand.

If holding onto a tattered letter is all it takes to give him the strength and courage to push on, then where is the harm in that, anyway? He pulls his hood up over the back of his head and finds that he already feels better.

The doors to the flight deck whoosh open and Lance reenters to find the entire team with their backs to him, their attention diverted to the screen with a chorus of exclamations. He looks up to see what’s going on and--

Lance stops in his tracks with a sharp inhale. His eyes grow wide as he greedily drinks in the video feed towering over them on the castle screen. Dark hair, dark eyes, severe expression. A voice, deep and edged with something dangerous, words snapping across the room like a bolt of lightning. Lance feels it. He’s never felt anything so fucking much in all his life than the way he feels this voice in his chest, resonating deeply within him.

He grips the letter in his pocket so hard that it crumbles into his fist and his stomach swoops low, his throat clenching with hot emotion. Even if Hunk hadn’t told Lance what he looked like, Lance would have known upon sight. He can feel it now, how the world tilts, how it brightens, how breathing is suddenly so much easier than it ever has been before.

The tears come quick, sliding over the curves of his cheeks, but it’s relief that fills his mouth, fills his eyes and spills over. He drops to his knees slowly and with control as he stares up at the boy addressing Shiro.

It’s Keith.

Chapter Text

“It’s me, Keith.”

Shiro answers, his voice ringing out over the exclamations from the others. “Keith, where have you been? The Blade said--”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Lance can’t move, hands at his side, the rush of blood loud in his ears, relief still sweet on his tongue.

Keith is alive. He’s alive.

“What’s going on?” Shiro asks, concern creased in his voice, easily picking up on Keith’s distress.

Keith is barely even looking at his screen, his hands clenched around the controls of whatever spacecraft he’s flying. He’s wearing a dark suit, the lights of the control panel laying softly over the sharp cut of his jaw and the length of his neck. Everything about his complexion promises perfect health. Lance stares and devours these little details like a dying man at his last meal. “I’ll explain when I get there,” Keith says briskly. “Coran--”

“Hangar is already open,” Coran supplies immediately, voice more serious than Lance has ever heard it before.

Keith nods tersely and then the video feed cuts out. Lance is left feeling like he’s just experienced a severe case of whiplash, and he quickly wipes the tears from his face before the rest of the team at the front of the room turn around and begin walking towards him. Confusion crinkles their expressions as they register him kneeling on the floor.

“Lance?” Hunk says worriedly. “Are you okay?”

Keith’s alive.

Pidge’s eyes are wide as they all approach with quick steps. “Man, you must be really nervous. Calm down, dude, we’re fine right now.”

He’s alive.

Even Shiro sounds concerned as they stop in front of him. “Lance?”

He’s alive.

He’s coming back.

It’s only through sheer will that he’s able to lift himself up from the floor. Hunk reaches out to steady him, throwing him a questioning glance, but Lance shakes him off.

“Where is he?” he asks, his voice rough and deep and it’s so unlike any other sound that has ever come out of his mouth that he almost doesn’t realize the words belong to him. His skin feels hot and tight, stretched too thin, left too close to the fire.

A line creases between Shiro’s eyebrows. “Keith? He’s in an Altean pod on his way here.”

“No--which hangar?” Lance asks as he brushes the hood of his jacket off of his head, half-turned to the doors behind him. His voice is still unkempt and everyone - including Coran - is staring at him like they’ve never seen him before. Like he’s grown an extra head and started speaking an alien language.

“ Which hangar? ” Lance demands more forcefully when no one answers, frustration leaking into his voice as his strength returns to him tenfold.

“He’ll be docking in the big one,” Coran finally supplies with a blink of surprise. “Where we have our own--”

Lance is moving before Coran finishes speaking. He doesn’t even think about it. He’s not thinking about anything but that he needs to be in that hangar right now .

“Lan--Lance?” Hunk says, voice littered with confusion, and Lance can hear the pitter patter of footsteps as they jerk into action after him. Coran says something about staying behind, but it’s lost in the haze of his one-track mind. “Dude--”

“Someone should be there,” Lance says without turning around. I should be there. I need to be there.

“What the hell has your panties in a twist?” Pidge asks in her pointed way, as she is wont to do, and Lance is so caught up in the moment that it doesn’t even bite into him as it normally would. “It’s just Keith? Lance?” He ignores her entirely, his long gait determined and precise as he makes his way towards the elevators, and they fall behind.

Lance can feel their confusion pressing against him like a fine mist, can feel their eyes searing holes into his back, and he ignores it. It doesn’t matter right now, that he’s being transparent. It doesn’t matter that he’s suddenly showing all of his cards when he’s been playing them so close to his body. It doesn’t matter that he’s ripped his chest wide, wide open to expose his whole entire heart.

Keith is alive. That is the only thing that matters right now.

“Lance...are you sure you’re okay?” Pidge’s voice is the only one that speaks when they all cram into the elevator. Lance doesn’t look at her, won’t look at her. It doesn’t matter. He’s too scrambled, too overwhelmed, to try and make this not weird. He taps his fingers against his thigh impatiently; has the elevator always been so slow?

“Never better,” he says in a voice full of pockmarks - and it’s the goddamn truth - hands restless, pulse loud in his ears. The center of his chest feels bright, like a whole sun has been born there, and it’s so warm.

The following silence is oppressive. Maybe no one is convinced, but no one would understand either. His behavior is erratic because they don’t know him anymore and part of that is Lance’s fault but--

Lance doesn’t care. It’s calloused, maybe, but he just doesn’t care. For the first time since he woke up, he doesn’t feel lost or afraid or unsure. He didn’t realize how much he doubted or understand how deeply he’d woven that doubt into the fabric of his new world. He hadn’t realized just how much of his isolation and loneliness was his own forced certainty that he’d never be able to meet Keith, no matter how badly he’d wanted it.

On top of forgetting everything that had ever defined Lance as a person before, he had been faced with this reality where the only person he held in his heart was dead. His misery makes sense, thinking back on it like that. He’d been definite that his lifeline was cut off. He’s never been so happy to be so utterly, incomprehensibly wrong.

Even if Keith is just a friend or a teammate, even if he’s just a rival , it’s okay. It’s okay because he’s here and he’s alive and that’s all that Lance has ever wanted, anyway. How he feels is not conditional on the basis of Keith’s feelings for him. Not by a long shot. It doesn’t change anything for Lance; it will never change anything for Lance

The elevator seems to take forever to make it to the higher level and Lance is shouldering his way out of the doors before they are fully opened once it finally reaches its destination. He can hear everyone else’s feet close behind him as he makes his way down the hall at a brisk pace. His heart is pressing against his ribcage, threatening to sprout wings and fly away, far away. He almost wishes that it would just so it wouldn’t feel like he was choking on it with every step he takes.

He reaches the hangar a few minutes later, and his hand shakes when he passes it in front of the sensor to open the door. Behind him, Hunk is saying something to Shiro, and Lance hears his name but he ignores it. The hangar door whooshes open and his eyes are drawn immediately to movement down at the end of the room.

The team falls hurries towards a newly docked Altean pod where it settled in an open parking space. Lance can’t believe this is happening; his tongue is thick and clumsy, tied in knots, emotion squeezing around him like an unforgiving fist. Despite the strength he’s found to move with purpose, his knees are beginning to feel as though they have the same consistency as food goo.

The door on the side of the pod slides open and Lance jerks to a stop before anyone else and they brush past him. His eyes are wide, unblinking, and the world fades, his heart calms, his breath deepens at the sight of a boy climbing from the cockpit of the pod.

It’s Keith.

Lance’s blood turns to wine, hot and thick and slow in his veins, and it makes his mouth go desert-dry. The flush on his skin becomes hotter, a fire so intense, so warm, that he forgets how cold space itself is supposed to be. Even from the distance between them, Lance can feel his presence like a very tangible, physical thing, pressed against his skin and its dangerous, somehow, even through all the layers of his armor. The wide, cool well of relief deep inside of his stomach evaporates into steam and Lance clutches at the hem of his jacket with a mixture of surprise and a sweet starburst of euphoria.

His breath catches, just so, on a controlled inhale. The rapid heartbeat, the light-headed joy, the desperate desire just to see were what he expected. This slow, easy feeling? The gentleness in his heart? The rightness of it all, how perfectly it encompasses him? It’s soft and surprising, but wholly welcomed. Though there is nothing threatening nearby to contrast it, he still feels inexplicably safe in a way that he didn’t know he could.

Millions and billions of miles away from home, head empty of all his previous experiences and yet, somehow, the sight of Keith triggers an immediate sense of safety. His knees are starting to feel weak again.

Keith greets Shiro, Pidge and Hunk collectively, his expression firm, even though the edges of his mouth seem softer. Lance admires the rushed reunion from a few feet behind them, unable to move. He had never given much thought to whether or not Keith would be attractive - it had hardly mattered - so he certainly hadn’t expected him to be so beautiful it hurts to look at him. Lance grips the edges of his jacket more fiercely and reminds himself to breathe.

Keith glances up and his gaze snags on Lance set apart from the others. And it’s so sudden, it’s happening all too fast but their eyes meet. The moment can’t last longer than a second but Keith’s eyes linger and Lance doesn’t want to look away. The electricity in that exchange travels to the very pit of Lance’s stomach and his ears go hot at the zing and the low swoop. Lance should say something, but he doesn’t even know Keith, and the moment passes too soon.

“It’s great to see you guys again, but we need to talk to Allura,” Keith says, and the way he drags his attention to Shiro is laborious. Lance notes the reluctance with interest and files it away to write down in his notebook later. He steps up closer to the rest of the team, and slowly, carefully, slips his hands into the pockets of his jacket, feeling the crumpled ball of the unwritten letter against his palm. His eyes are still intensely trained on Keith. “We found something.”

“We?” Shiro asks.

Keith gestures to a figure behind him and Lance can feel his own reluctance as he looks away to examine the person behind Keith and--is that a wolf back there, too? “This is Krolia. She’s my...my mother.” She’s tall and Galra, with an expression that is smoothed into sharp attention. Lance can immediately see the resemblance in the eyes. He has enough presence of mind to be glad that he’s not the only one meeting her for the first time.

“Your mother ?” Pidge asks incredulously, her voice raising an octave.

“Hello,” Krolia says, her voice unexpectedly soft, a vast contrast to the intensity in her eyes.

“It’s so good to meet you,” Shiro says, though his voice betrays shared surprise. “I’m Shiro.”

Krolia extends her hand towards him, thanks him for raising Keith and then her gaze flickers over the rest of the group as they say their names in a quick introduction.

“And I’m Lance,” Lance says lastly and his voice sounds weak. He hadn’t realized that the jelly in his knees would wobble in his throat, too. It’s the most embarrassed he’s ever felt in the whole scope of his current memory and his entire face starts to burn all the way to the tips of his ears. He holds it all at bay with a smile.

“Allura?” Keith prompts, and Lance finds his eyes drawn back to him, so easily persuaded.

“She’s in the quintessence field with Lotor; we can’t reach her while she’s in there,” Shiro tells him, the excited air of reunion dwindling away in the face of Keith’s cut-to-the-chase attitude.

“What about Coran?”

Lance’s heart thuds hard against his chest twice when Keith glances at him and away again.

“He hung back on the flight deck in case Allura comm’d in,” Pidge says.

“Let’s go; he should hear this, too, then.”

Everyone begins towards the hallway and elevators at a quick pace and Lance must be moving at a much slower rate, too stunned, too caught up in the flurry of whatever the hell is going on in his head, but he’s so grateful for it. He’s so fucking grateful that he’s a dysfunctional idiot, because as everyone else moves past, Keith slows at Lance’s side and assesses him with those dark eyes of his.

“Is there a problem?” he asks, and the timbre of his voice rumbles in Lance’s chest.

“W-What?” Lance stutters unintelligibly, his stomach dropping out from under him.

“You keep staring at me.”

He’s clenching his hands so tightly in his pockets that his knuckles have to be white. His chest aches, suddenly, at the proximity and he can’t even stop staring. “N-No. It’s just--I haven’t--.”

Keith’s tense expression is unreadable, but there is something almost searching in his gaze and Lance can’t help but wonder what it is he’s looking for. “Spit it out. I don’t have time for this, Lance.”

Oh god, he said his name -- Lance stumbles, nearly tumbling to the ground with a yelp but Keith catches him by the arm. If he was more aware of his surroundings, he might have noticed the look Hunk and Pidge throw over their shoulders but Lance is too busy dying a second time. The firm grip around his bicep is nothing short of a goddamn religious experience and it’s the only thing keeping him on his feet as it drags him along.

“What is wrong with you?” Keith asks, arching an eyebrow.

Lance can’t look away even now, his blood thick and sweet in his veins, heart sitting at the top of his throat. “I...”

He wants Keith to keep looking at him with familiarity. No one has looked at him like this ever, not since he lost his memories. He remembers that Keith doesn’t know. He doesn’t know that Lance forgot. Lance doesn’t want him to know.

They’re close, so close, closer than is actually healthy for Lance, who is quickly coming to the realization he needs at least ten feet of space between him and this boy to have his brain at full working capacity. He stares at Keith’s dark eyelashes, the distracting slant of his thick eyebrows, the way his hair falls over his forehead, the straight slope of his nose, and he loves .

“It’s just--” his voice is feather soft, words caught on the end of a breath. “You’re here .”

Keith releases Lance’s arm slowly. The expression on his face is all tempered bewilderment, his eyebrows pinched in the middle. Lance watches in wide-eyed fascination as the confusion plays across Keith’s face, reveling in it. “Yeah…?” It comes out awkward and stilted, void entirely of that firm confidence in every other thing he has said. Lance sears it into his memory with crystal clarity.

“I-I thought you were...that you were...” Lance trails off when his voice cracks. His heart panics at the vulnerable sound and he desperately wants to turn away and hide his face, but he can’t stop looking at Keith. It is physically impossible, no matter how much he wishes he could.

Keith searches his expression thoroughly and he’s so close and it’s too much. Oh my god, it’s too much. Lance can feel the heat prickling at his eyes.

“S-Sorry,” he mumbles, furrowing his own eyebrows. He doesn’t know why he’s apologizing. Maybe it’s because the feelings inside of him are so intense and loud and he can’t articulate them. Maybe it’s because Keith, who had been nearly presumed dead, is finally home and all Lance can do is stutter and stare, making him uncomfortable. Whatever it is, it sucks.

Keith’s eyes lingers on him for a moment longer before he turns away. “No...I’m sorry. I didn’t even--I can explain it when we get to the flight deck.” His face scrunches up and then without warning, his steps quicken and he surges forward, leaving Lance behind.

Oddly enough, Lance isn’t offended at all, the warmth in his chest growing warmer and brighter, as he reaches up to scrub at his eyes again before anyone else can see the emotion on his face. He watches Keith sidle up to Shiro as they all cram into the elevator and...and there’s a dog? Or something like it. It’s presses against Lance’s leg as the doors close and he looks down at it as it inspects him in return with shrewd eyes.

Hunk seems to be in his head because he asks, “So, like, where did you guys get a giant space wolf with blue fur?”

Krolia answers, “He crashed onto the back of a space whale in the quantum abyss and took a liking to Keith.”

Hunk is silent for a moment. “ Dude. ”

“That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard,” Pidge agrees.

The elevator ride seems much shorter this time and Lance finds himself looking at Keith again, painstakingly trying to memorize him from every angle. Making up for what he has lost, in a way. Keith meets his gaze once, but turns away, and avoids eye contact after that. And even though it should make things feel awkward, Lance thinks that there is more to it than awkwardness and it stems from the familiarity that Keith had fixed on him.

He wishes there was a way for Keith to remain clueless to Lance’s memory loss.

*

Allura had returned with Lotor without a hitch in the middle of Keith’s winded explanation about his mission and how he’d found a facility on a hidden moon full of Alteans being drained of their quintessence. Lotor had excused himself at the end of the story, something about some duties he had to attend to, and he disappeared hastily.

The call that they then made to the Blade of Marmora seemed to last hours as Keith and Krolia relayed every detail of their mission. It had sounded long and dangerous and Lance hadn’t been able to wrap his head around it, just as he was still trying to figure out how large a scale this universe-saving robot thing is that he’d stumbled into. Half of the words that they said were still quite foreign to him as he tried to piece them together into sentences, but he was distracted, anyway, and that didn’t help.

He could only think that he needed to talk to Keith.

He has so many questions and...and he knows that Keith is the answer to everything.

Kolivan thanked Keith for the information and then set up a time within the next several vargas to brainstorm a plan with Shiro and Allura. It was strangely mundane after that; too quiet. Dinner was an awkward affair and Lance still hadn’t been able to stop staring at Keith, who spent the whole time making conversation with Shiro and Krolia.

Lance finds himself standing outside of Keith’s bedroom after he’s sure that everyone is asleep late that night. He stares at the seam in the door, hand half-raised as if to knock, but despite not being able to think of anything else all night, he abruptly has no idea what he is going to say.

“Hey, I died a couple months ago and Allura was able to bring me back but I lost my memories and the only thing I remember is that I’m in love with you” is definitely way too much. Especially after the distance in Keith’s demeanor, the confusion he displayed in the wake of Lance’s obvious distress. Even thinking it to himself seems like a lot to take in and he’s not even on the receiving end of that sort of confession.

His heart aches, suddenly, at the knowledge that Keith is just on the other side of this damned door. He could be sleeping, but Lance can’t explain why he thinks that Keith is awake. He unfurls his poised fist and flattens his palm to the seam and then rests his forehead there, reveling in the cool material against his heated face. His eyes flutter closed as his breath burns and he shoves his other hand into his pocket to grip the crumpled letter.

Would...would Keith even want to talk to him? Honestly? Keith left the team a long time ago, and from Hunk and Pidge’s accounts, it didn’t sound like he and Keith had even been that close. It felt like there could have been something in Keith’s gaze earlier, but what if Lance is just reading into it because that’s what he wants? That seems more realistic than anything else and it stings. The feeling in his heart threatens to tear him in half - rough and jagged and painful - and he leans more heavily against the door as heat constricts in his throat.

He isn’t entirely surprised when the tears start blurring his vision with the letter tucked tightly into his fist. His desire to see Keith and talk to Keith and know Keith is suddenly being upended violently by his own terrifying vulnerability. He remembers all too well how he hadn’t been able to hide from Keith earlier under that dark gaze and that had been too much after weeks of hiding so easily from everyone else. Too, too much.

“Lance?”

Every inch of Lance’s body freezes for one shocking, bitter winter of a moment and then bursts into hot, blistering summer. He jerks himself away from the door and swivels around wildly to see Keith standing there in the dim hallway, his hair sticking to his forehead, the ends of it curled around his neck, dressed in the clothes that Lance washed and folded weeks ago. Lance’s heart hammers viciously in his chest and he feels the warm trail of a tear slide down his cheek.

Immediately, Keith’s wary demeanor changes into concern. He takes several steps forward, his eyebrows furrowed, mouth twisted into a frown. “Hey, are you okay? Lance? What’s wrong?”

Lance doesn’t make the conscious decision to move, and he doesn’t realize what he’s doing until he’s already done it. Keith’s expression blurs and smears through the tears and Lance hears the sound of his shoes scuffling against the hard floors as he surges forward, head ducked, and wraps his arms tightly around Keith’s shoulders.

Keith goes rigid beneath him, letting out a little sound of surprise, and Lance buries his face into the side of Keith’s neck, holding tight. His own shoulders tremble as he holds back a sob out of sheer will, desperate not to scare Keith off despite his overwhelming need to be close to him. His heart aches as his fist clenches around the letter with a death grip and there is warmth between the press of their chests that envelopes him completely.

He can’t believe this is real. It feels like a dream, that Keith is here. This can’t possibly be real.

“Lance?” Keith says his name softly even though they’re the only two people awake at this hour. His breath tickles Lance’s ear and he feels, suddenly, like no one else in the universe even exists. Because this is real. Keith is warm beneath him and he has a voice that strikes Lance to the core with every word and Lance can feel him. He can finally feel him.

Lance smothers his forehead in closer. “I thought you were dead,” he whispers, his throat thick with his relief, his loneliness, his fear.

Finally, Keith softens under him and Lance’s heart leaps into his throat when a pair of warm hands find his waist. The touch is light, but the pressure is almost enough to bring Lance to his knees.  “I’m...I’m really sorry,” Keith tells him after a long pause. “I didn’t realize--I’m sorry.” He cuts off abruptly, awkwardly, at a loss for words.

It’s okay. I’m sorry, too. I missed you. I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet you. Lance wishes he wasn’t afraid to say it, but he still doesn’t want Keith to know about his lost memories. His nose presses against the inside of Keith’s throat and he can smell the sweat on his skin, can feel the uneven pulse of blood there. Lance’s tears run heavier and this time, the sob can’t be smothered back.

Keith sounds utterly distressed. “Lance…” Slowly, slowly, the hands on Lance’s waist move until fingertips are laid gently against his spine in the dip of his lower back. “Hey. Talk to me.”

“Sorry,” Lance mumbles, voice twisted into something is not his voice at all, hitched and wrecked and thin. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

The gentleness that answers him, the slide of a hand up to his shoulder blade and back down, almost immediately calms the quaking under the surface of his skin. “It’s alright, I just don’t know how to help. Should I go get someone else?”

Lance shakes his head, rubbing his face against Keith’s neck. “No.” He grits his teeth, wondering what kind of asshole he had to have been before, to make Keith feel like he wasn’t enough for Lance, even in the context of a sobfest. “I don’t--I don’t want anyone else.”

Lance hears the sharp little inhale right there next to his ear. Did he say something wrong? He can’t bring himself to care - what he said is the truth.

“Okay,” Keith breathes out, half-stunned.

Lance sighs and then nods and the tension in his shoulders leaves him a little bit. The tears are slowing down, but they are still thick in his eyes.

“Please talk to me,” Keith says after a few, long moments. Another unsure pass of his hand travels from spine to shoulder blade and back down. The motion soothes Lance so much that he finds himself leaning more heavily against Keith, aching for more contact. All of the bone-deep sorrow now eases from crippling to manageable and Lance has to wonder if Keith has any idea - any idea at all - how important he is to him.

They probably should talk, but Lance doesn’t know what to say. He can’t remember their past and he shouldn’t lie to Keith but this familiarity is potent and heady and Lance wants it. “I--I can’t,” he mumbles, drawing in a shuddering breath.

Lance half-expects Keith to pull away when silence falls, but instead the hands press against his waist, guiding him back towards Keith’s bedroom door. He hears the sound of the door opening and then Keith steps him backwards until they are concealed by even more shadows, enough that Lance can barely see the fabric of Keith’s shirt this close to his face. He tucks in closer and sighs.

The door closes behind them quietly, but the sound echoes in the stillness of the room. Even though it’s just as deserted and empty as the hallway, the room is more enclosed, more intimate. It makes Lance shiver at the privacy.

“Should I be worried?” Keith asks quietly, rubbing his back again with slow, gentle movements. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“I thought you were dead,” Lance repeats from before, this time as an explanation and not as an answer. His voice still sounds ridiculously stressed - ruined and pocked with emotion - but at least words come to him now without the threat of a violent sob cutting him off. “Everyone else said you’d be fine but I--” He cuts off and takes a deep breath.

Keith pats his side. “I’m not dead.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Lance adjusts, then, sliding his arms from around Keith’s shoulders to under his arms, holding on tight to the back of Keith’s sweat-damp shirt. He’s still holding onto that stupid letter and he doesn’t know why.

Keith makes a gruff, dazed sound, frozen, and Lance memorizes the way it shivers across his skin. “Stop apologizing. You did nothing wrong.”

“I’m sorry.”

Keith sighs and then goes quiet for a moment as he resumes rubbing Lance’s back in a unhurried, feather-light path up and down. “It’s fine,” he says slowly and Lance can easily hear the confusion still strong in his voice. So...that’s not something he would have said before, apparently. Noted. “You’re acting so weird.”

“That’s pretty normal these days,” Lance mutters, revelling in the closeness of his face to Keith’s neck. He takes a deep breath after that, steadying his heart and a question rips from him without proper reflection and without proper warning. “H-How long have you been gone?”

Keith stiffens slightly. “What?”

Lance grips the letter in his fist tighter and his voice grows rougher, more breakable as he plows ahead. “How long?”

Warily, Keith pauses, as if thinking over his words carefully. “That’s...how did you know?”

“Know what?” He just wants a timeline, and he feels safer asking Keith these questions than anyone else, despite him not yet knowing about Lance’s memory. He should….he should probably tell Keith about that.

Keith responds slowly. “About the time discrepancies in the quantum abyss. I don’t think we mentioned it earlier.”

Lance feels himself go cold even under the warm weight of Keith’s hand. His stomach rolls with anxiety. He doesn’t speak, waiting for an explanation because what the hell does that mean? Time discrepancies?

Keith adds, “I guess it’s been a little over two years, for me. It’s...kind of strange to be back, honestly.”

The ache in Lance’s heart opens wide and swallows him whole and he has to tighten his hold to keep himself upright as the horror of it comes crashing down on him. No wonder Keith is so awkward. Maybe he doesn’t remember Lance anymore, either. His breath hitches, his heart thrumming and hurting and the tears come back with all the force of a hurricane.

“That’s a long time,” Lance says softly through trembling lips.

Keith’s voice is quiet when he responds moments later. “It was, but I was lucky to have Krolia with me.”

There’s a little shimmer in his voice, almost undetectable because of the low volume, but it travels straight through to Lance like an arrow. It dawns on him that he might not be the only one struggling right now, suddenly, and he feels selfish for not being more perceptive, even though he couldn’t have known. “You don’t have to pretend like it was okay,” he says with a tight throat, curling in impossibly closer. His desire to know everything about Keith floods into him with more force than ever before. “It’s not okay.”

“It’s going to have to be.” Keith’s hands still against his back. “Kolivan will probably want me to lead an expedition back to that moon since I’ve been there before.”

Lance goes rigid. “Y-You’re not seriously going to go back, are you?”

Keith must hear the frost in Lance’s voice, because his own becomes defensive. “I will if that’s where I’m needed. As long as our ship doesn’t crash like last time, it should be relatively easy. There weren’t even any droids or Galra stationed there.”

“You crashed last time. You could--you could lose even more time,” Lance says, feeling panic rising up in his chest like a tsunami. He thinks about Keith leaving again and is nearly sick on the spot.

“This is a war, Lance, the mission is bigger than just me.”

Lance pulls away slowly and shakes his head vehemently, his voice going rough again in a touch of answering anger, his tears hot against his cheeks. Whoever he was before must have accepted a life like this, where kids their age are expected to fight in a war, but Lance isn’t that person anymore and he wants to be selfish if it means that he’ll never have to live without Keith again. “Fuck the mission.”

“Excuse me?” Keith looks as though he can’t decide whether he’s pissed or absolutely gobsmacked.

“You heard me,” Lance says, his voice fracturing.

Keith is rendered speechless by that. His dark eyes examine Lance’s expression thoroughly, searching and searching. Lance can no longer feel the terror of being vulnerable under the heat of his desperation to keep Keith here . He meets his gaze firmly, unwilling to bend, even as a swell of bottomless fear threatens to wash over him and pull him under.

Finally, Keith finds his voice, his confusion still evident. “Your place is here with Voltron--”

Lance is unyielding. Unshakeable. What had threatened to break him before has hardened under the very real possibility of losing Keith again and he can’t. He can’t. He won’t. He’d rather die. “My place is wherever the hell I want it to be.”

Keith bristles, something in his voice harsh and guarded, all growly and mean . “And what? You want it to be with me?”

Lance doesn’t answer - the surprise is punched out of him in a violent little sound and that somehow seems louder than if he had used words. Keith’s ferocity quiets and his eyes become more focused than they’ve ever been, piercing right through to Lance and pinning him solidly to where he stands. It’s almost violent, the way his heart seizes. Lance struggles, suddenly, for breath.

“I-I think I should--I should go now,” he says abruptly and his voice cracks again.

Keith’s expression is intense, burning and unreadable.

Lance backs up quickly, hating that he still can’t look away from Keith, even now on the cusp of a breakdown. Everything inside of him is screaming to tell Keith the truth, to spill his heart out and explain that he doesn’t remember who he was and that he can’t help but feel this way now, even if it is repulsive to Keith. Tears blur his vision again and he grits his teeth.

“Lance.”

His back presses to the door and he fumbles desperately for the sensor to make it open. “I’m sorry,” Lance says, voice distorted by emotion.

Keith’s hands are curled into fists at his sides, but he can’t see anything else beyond that. “Lance.”

The door opens behind him and he stumbles back. A shuddering breath leaves him when it shuts, cutting him off from Keith entirely. It’s so fucking stupid that he feels at a loss without Keith there in front of him after that scathing expression that Lance couldn’t understand. He finds his back to the wall on the opposite side of the door and his heart drops to his feet when it opens and Keith is standing there with the same look on his face as before and Lance can’t take it. He slides to the floor, burying his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs, shaking and shaking and shaking.

“Lance, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I’m--I’m really freaked out, okay?” Keith approaches him quickly, his voice thin and stressed and Lance flinches when his hand comes down on his shoulder, gripping it more tightly and with more sureness than every touch before. “I don’t know--I don’t know how to help you and I don’t know what’s going on and you won’t talk to me. What can I do?”

“I don’t know how to tell you,” Lance admits brokenly, rubbing at his face, trying his hardest to get himself under control.

“Then just tell me ,” Keith demands, voice bordering on a hard edge.

“I can’t!” Lance wants to launch himself at Keith but he can barely tell what’s up and down in the muddled mess of his head. Nothing is certain but his tears and his pain and he hates it. It’s not fair to him and especially not to Keith, which only makes him feel worse. Was he this much of a mess before he forgot everything?

“ Why? ”

The door beside Keith’s suddenly opens and Hunk is standing there with sleep still on his face. Lance stills and Keith’s hand goes lax on his shoulder.

“Is everything okay out here?” Hunk asks as though he already knows that the answer is a blatant and resounding no .

Keith is silent but Lance takes this chance to escape. He shrugs the hand off his shoulder and uses the wall as leverage to stand. He doesn’t even acknowledge Hunk before he’s taking off down the hall at a near sprint, running fast enough that no one follows him.

He only knows he stops when he’s in Red’s cockpit, knees curled to his chest, hair disheveled from the pull of anxious fingers. The red light that had once been so frightening to him is soothing now, as is the distant rumble of Red’s presence fluttering over his skin. Lance has his face - dried, void of tears - buried against his folded arms, the letter crumpled in the palm of one hand and he tries very, very hard not to think.

Chapter Text

There is a crick in Lance’s neck the next morning when he wakes up in an awkward position, his long legs and arms draped and caught haphazardly against the pilot’s chair. He’s disoriented for a moment, mouth turned down in a frown as he rubs the sore spot as the top of his spine, until everything comes into laser-sharp focus. His stomach drops like a rock.

Keith.

He groans and turns his head to bury his face against the backrest of the chair.

Keith. God, he’s home. He’s safe and alive and he’s home ...

And how is Lance going to look at him after last night? He cried so much all over the front of Keith’s shirt, and then he hid his condition, even when there were so many openings to bring it up. Is he an idiot, truly? The longer he drags this out, the worse it will be, so why? Why does he want to do this to himself? To Keith? It’s not fair. It’s not fair. He knows that.

But...

He thinks about the way Keith had looked at him. As if he knew him, as if there was a history there, long and pitted with trials, but there. Even with two years of absence on Keith’s end, he’d still held so much knowing in his gaze. After months of wishing that the rest of the team wouldn’t act as though Lance wasn’t different, that he would never be the same after his death, here he is. Desperately clinging to a ghost of himself just to keep Keith’s familiarity. It’s hypocritical and wrong.

He groans again, louder this time and presses his face further into the chair. The worst part of last night is that he learned so much about who he had been before just by the way Keith reacted.

That Lance had been madly in love with Keith but he hadn’t breathed a word of it. Not ever. Not ever . He’d hidden those feelings to the point of keeping Keith at an arm’s length, as though getting close to him had been terrifying. That Lance had put up walls and only opened himself up when he was alone, pen in hand, unable to write more than just Keith’s name before it had been too much. Lance now can understand that reaction intimately; the fear of losing Keith far outweighs the desire to let his feelings be known.

However, after his pitiful display last night, Lance is starting to think that his only option is to tell Keith. Once Keith knows that Lance doesn’t remember him, he’s going to want to know why Lance had clung to him like a lifeline. He has no hope that Keith can possibly feel the same way - shutting Keith out and then Keith’s two year absence are probably enough to erase most of Lance from his memory. But it’s the right thing to do. It is.

His dumb heart skips a beat as it remembers the way it had felt to see Keith’s face for the first time, and then the way it had felt to hold him close. It was like coming home; like, when Keith had been gone, so had Lance. It had felt so good. Like everything in his whole life was just leading up to the moment that Keith would come back, and the fact that he had a second chance to live suddenly had meaning.

Despite the way everything had turned out last night, the ache to see Keith again is so potent that it almost hurts. It prickles in his chest like heat in his eyes before crying, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. He looks down to his lap and unfolds the crumpled paper, letting his eyes roam over Keith’s name in the corner.

Hunk probably told Keith about his memory loss. There’s no way around that one. Hunk had caught Lance in the middle of a breakdown - something he had desperately tried to hide from everyone on the ship for months - and Keith had been bent over him with a steely expression, just barely concealing the panic that was evident in his voice. Keith had to have had questions and Hunk had most of the answers.

Lance groans again. One last time, for good measure. He can’t hide forever, whatever the outcome from last night is, because it’s not realistic and also...because he really does want to see Keith again. Didn’t know he had a masochistic streak, but Keith has a way of bringing to light all of Lance’s long buried tendencies. He’s not surprised, really.

With that, he folds the letter up nicely and tucks it into his pocket and then heaves himself reluctantly out of the pilot’s chair. Red’s presence hums comfortingly against his skin, privy to his thoughts and hesitations, and Lance lets it rush over him. He takes a deep breath, stowing all of his runaway emotions from last night into a little capsule in his heart, and then makes his way out of his lion.

He doesn’t run into anyone on his way back to his room to take a shower and he’s so fucking grateful for that. His stomach is alight with nerves and the comfort from Red’s purr has faded against the harsh edges of the Altean architecture. His footsteps sound way too loud, but he’s walking quick enough without running, not wanting to draw attention to himself in case he happens to pass by a room that they might be in.

Lance should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

Hunk is sitting on his bed when he enters his room. His friend looks up from some sort of manual in his lap as Lance freezes in the doorway, eyes wide, heart hammering uncomfortably. The door slides shut behind him with a quiet little whoosh and Lance wants to hide, he wants to run because he knows how exposed he is right now. It was so much darker, easier, even though his tears last night, when the hallway was only lit with that dim, Altean energy.

Now, it’s stark. Leaves no room to pretend like something isn’t totally and utterly wrong.

Hunk sees it all.

“I was hoping you’d come back,” Hunk says mildly as he dog ears the page he’s on and sets the text aside. His expression is calm, and Lance can feel his figurative hackles raised defensively, ready to deflect any sort of accusation that Hunk throws at him, but they never come. “Where were you?”

Lance doesn’t really want to give his hiding spot away if no one had been able to guess, but… “Red,” he says simply, and his goddamn voice cracks. God.

Hunk nods at that and then after a pause, he pats the space beside him on Lance’s bed. “Let’s talk, yeah?”

He doesn’t really have a choice, does he? Lance hesitates for just a moment and then sighs and it’s shaky and unsure and this awful vulnerability only gapes wider inside of him and he hates it. But he can’t run away; he already told himself he wasn’t going to run away. So he sits.

“What’s up?” Lance asks, trying for nonchalance, like he doesn’t fucking know. It’s probably the stupidest thing he’s ever said in his living memory and he winces, but it’s out there now. No do-overs on that one.

Hunk gives him a look that might be amused. “I don’t know, you tell me?”

Lance’s breath leaves him quietly and slowly, still trembling, but he can feel some of the tension leave his shoulders as he realizes that Hunk is giving him space within the walls of this conversation. Letting him take it at his own pace and, wow, Lance really doesn’t know why Hunk is so nice to him. He probably doesn’t deserve it.

“What...do you want to know?” Lance asks softly, looking at an empty corner of the room very intently, gaze downcast, hands flat against his knees.

“Maybe you could start with what I walked in on last night?” Hunk suggests, carefully though, and he’s not requiring an answer at all. “‘Cuz I don’t know if I should be more or less confused than Keith was.”

Lance feels a terrible swoop in his stomach and his breath hitches. His chest hurts. He thinks of Keith’s expression - first full of something dark and unreadable and then the poorly hidden bewilderment. He thinks of Keith and his eyebrows and the gentleness in his voice, the tender, unsure flutter of his hands against Lance’s back and he thinks, for a moment, that he might cry again.

God he’s really...he’s really a mess, isn’t he?

“Did you tell him?” his voice is suddenly taught. Intense. Quiet.

Hunk goes still beside him, hearing the immediate change. “Are you talking about your memories?” he clarifies, even though he knows that’s exactly what Lance is talking about.

Lance forces himself to breath steadily. In and out. “Yes.”

The silence that passes between them seems to last an eternity and Lance hangs on it with dreaded anticipation, knowing that whatever Hunk says is going to kickstart a whirl of emotions in him that he’s just...not fully prepared to handle. His heart is beating a mile a second in his chest, too fast, too fast, and he is starting to feel a little lightheaded. It’s stupid. He thought he’d slept this off last night.

“No,” Hunk finally says, even though it can’t be more than a moment later. The hideous relief washes over Lance like a tsunami and somehow, he’s drowning and ultimately breathing again all at the same time, pressing one hand to his chest as his shoulders slump. Oh, hell. Fuck. His thoughts are so scattered - so, so scattered - but that terrible lump in his throat eases and it’s okay for now.

“I…” Hunk trails off and then squares his shoulders in Lance’s direction, tugging at Lance’s attention until the focus is on Hunk and only Hunk. “Look, Lance, if something is wrong, you can tell me. I get that things are different now but, like, last night wasn’t normal for you, you know? Not before you died and definitely not after. And I guess...I’m worried about you? If that’s okay?”

Lance looks at him, and the earnest sincerity on Hunk’s face immediately makes his heart sick with guilt. He swallows it down, eyebrows creasing. “Y-Yeah,” he mumbles. “Yeah. It’s...it’s okay.”

Hunk nods, but there’s relief on his expression, settling around his kind eyes. “Okay, good. I just want you to know that I’m here for you. I’m not gonna make you talk but something is clearly going on and...like you, really don’t have to talk to me, but I think you should talk to Keith. You know. Tell him? You freaked him out last night.”

The guilt. Pressing against his ribcage painfully. He can’t stand it. “Why didn’t you tell him?” Lance asks.

Hunk thinks on it for a moment before responding. “Well, I think he should hear it from you, I guess. I dunno. It felt...it felt like it would be wrong of me to say it?”

Lance closes his eyes at that. “Why?”

“He tried running after you, you know.”

His eyes snap open and his heart, still heavy, flips in his chest like a peppy little cheerleader. “What?”

Hunk catalogues that reaction with obvious interest, quirking an eyebrow. “Yeah...I told him to give you some space. Was I wrong?”

“No,” Lance says, but holy shit. That does shit to his heart. It keeps turning over and over and over. “No, I needed some space.”

“Okay, good.” Hunk looks relieved at that. “My point is, you need to talk to him. I can’t promise that he won’t find out from someone else and I really, really think he should hear it from you.” Especially after last night. He doesn’t say it, but Lance can hear it anyway, unspoken in the air between them. “You’re lucky it hasn’t slipped yet.”

Lance nods, “I will. I…” He manages a smile. “Thank you, Hunk.”

Hunks waves him off. “Nahhh, no reason to thank me, dude.”

“No, you...you’ve been really great,” Lance murmurs, folding his hands together on his lap. “I know I’ve been--” Difficult, he thinks, but that word is sour on his tongue because he hates how accurate it is, “--distant. And I--I know that it can’t be easy, to look at your best friend and like, know that he doesn’t remember you, but you’ve been really great.” Lance takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, a-and...and thank you.”

Hunk slings an unexpected arm over Lance’s shoulders and pulls him in for a side hug. Lance stiffens for a moment, but he finds himself smiling as Hunk grins from ear to ear. “Dude, like I said. You don’t have to thank me. I’m always gonna be here for you, Lance. What are best bros for, anyways?”

Lance pulls away slowly, and his smile really is effortless.

Hunk stands up, his book in hand. “Alright, I’ll leave you alone for now.” He takes a step and then turns around. “Remember what I said about coming to talk to me if you need me.”

Lance nods his head. “Yeah. I’ll remember.”

“Cool.” Hunk takes another couple of steps, almost to the door, before he turns again, finger pointed in the air. “And talk to Keith.”

Lance’s heart thuds. “I will.”

“Like, today. Right now.”

Lance rolls his eyes playfully. “Yeah, I got it, Hunk. Thank you.”

Hunk nods, satisfied and then gives him a wave. “Good. See ya.”

And then he’s alone and his thoughts push towards Keith and the fact that he tried to run after Lance last night, but Lance shoves it away.

“Shower first,” he says out loud, mumbling, patting his knees as he stands up. “Shower first, shower first, shower first.”

It’s not like it’s a hard decision. He’ll do anything to prolong the inevitable, even if... god , even if he misses Keith.

He really, really misses Keith. He saw him last night, held him last night and he still misses him as keenly as he had once Lance learned of his existence and his subsequent absence. As Lance ducks under the hot spray of water, he wonders if that will ever go away. If it will ever feel less . His thoughts say that it would be nice to have a break, but his heart, despite the pain, wants it. He wants it bad.

He spends longer in the shower than necessary, working out different scenarios in his head. He thinks about what he’ll say because there’s really no easy way around it, but nothing sounds good enough. Anxiety settles into a hard little knot in his stomach, rolling around in there like a freaking ping pong ball. What if Keith is angry? Or offended? Or worse...what if he’s repulsed?

That would...like, Lance doesn’t need the feelings reciprocated, really, but that would kill him.

He stays until the water runs cold and then he leaves reluctantly, towelling off and slipping into clothes. He stares for a minute at Keith’s jacket, hanging up in his closet where he’s hidden it, touching the sleeve gently, wondering if he should give it back. Well, he should definitely give it back, but maybe not...now. Lance closes the closet door with heat high in his cheeks. Yeah. Later.

Lance finds himself fixing his hair in the mirror on the wall, straightening out his clothes so they fall just right and he feels kind of silly. But he was such a mess last night; is it a crime to want to look good after that? Even though it’s inevitable that he’s going to be a mess again, he wants...He stares at the mirror, at the flush in his face, at the brightness of his eyes even underneath the furrow of his brows. Okay, he feels really silly. Like. What would Keith even know, anyway?

This is all so stupid. He’s stalling and he knows it.

That doesn’t stop him from adjusting the hood of his jacket a million times or combing his hands through his hair until it looks properly disheveled. Eventually, he’s satisfied with what he sees, even if he can’t totally get rid of the anxiety lingering around his eyes. There’s really nothing he can do about that.

His breaths are a little shallower as he leaves his room and goes in search of Keith, relief warring with disappointment as he checks all of the common rooms and doesn’t find him anywhere. He does run into Shiro, though, who is taking a rare break with Coran in the lounge.

“Lance?” Shiro says, eyes catching on him before he can dart away unnoticed. “You looking for something?”

Lance hesitates in the doorway. “Uh…”

“Allura and Hunk are in the kitchen, and I think Pidge said something about the green lion,” Shiro supplies.

“Uh….Keith?” he says, sounding strangled. Christ.

Both of Shiro’s eyebrows threaten to kiss his hairline. “Keith?”

“Training room, I believe,” Coran pipes up. “I saw him in there when I passed by not to long ago.”

Lance gives a thin smile and makes to leave. “Thanks, Coran.”

Shiro sits up straighter, easily picking up on Lance’s flighty vibes. “Are you okay?”

“Fine!” Lance says, probably too quickly. “I--uh, I don’t know Keith, I guess? S-So I thought I’d introduce myself…you know...again...” He trails off, wondering if it sounds stupid. But Shiro’s face lights up as it clicks into place.

“Oh, right. He doesn’t know yet, does he?”

It’s obvious he’s talking about Lance’s memories. Lance’s death. Lance shakes his head. “Ah, no…”

“Good idea, Lance,” Coran says, and nothing either of them have said helps Lance figure out what Keith’s reaction might be like.

Lance nods, gives a little two finger salute and then awkwardly slips away, cringing to himself. Damn, like he still has no idea how to interact with Shiro. What the fuck is it about Shiro that makes him so off-center? Lance shakes his head, shakes his thoughts and sets a course for the training room. Shiro isn’t the important thing right now; he needs to find Keith before he finds out. Or before Hunk finds out that Lance hasn’t talked to him yet.

The doors of the training room are closed when he finally reaches them and his hand shakes as he passes it in front of the sensor, steeling himself for what he might find. He thinks maybe Keith might be going over strategies or something. Observing. Maybe using that mind-link thing that Lance has adamantly avoided for the past several weeks.

What he doesn’t expect to see is Keith languidly darting away from the swift end of a staff wielded by Krolia, who cuts towards him with lethal precision. Lance’s heart fucking stops, drops, and rolls as fire bursts to life inside of him, making his face feel like a sunburn and his chest like a furnace. His hands curl into fists at his sides to try and quell the trembling and Lance thinks he should come back later, later, but then Krolia’s gaze is snapping to him and she’s disengaging from the fight.

That’s when Keith follows her eyes and Lance, he--fuck, he thought he was gonna be prepared for how it feels to have Keith looking at him but he isn’t. He really, really isn’t. His heart keeps rolling. Trying to put out the fire, trying to avoid the smoke that is the caught words in his throat but it’s useless.

“Hey,” Keith says, and his voice is guarded and out of breath, but there’s something else on his face that Lance can’t really read. He only knows that it puts him just a little more at ease, even with Krolia staring him down, eyes unblinking, expression neutral. He’s so...he’s so beautiful. Oh my god . “Can...I help you?”

Lance tells himself he doesn’t feel the shiver of it down his spine. That it doesn’t stick to his chest like a stubborn wad of gum. “I…”

Keith’s eyebrows furrow, but Krolia is the one who speaks.

“I think I will take Hunk up on his offer of lunch after all,” she says, making her way over to deposit the staff against the wall.

“Krolia--” Keith says, and there’s another something that Lance doesn’t quite read.

“I am hungry,” she says. She levels Lance with another long look and then she’s walking out the door and it shuts behind her, leaving him and Keith alone. Lance can feel that immediately, the aloneness, and it’s really scary. Terrifying. He bites at his bottom lip nervously, itching to grip the letter in his pocket for comfort but he doesn’t move an inch.

Keith’s starting to get a better handle on his breathing as the sword in his hand morphs into a smaller dagger and he tucks it into place behind his back. Lance has to force himself to blink and lessen the force of his stare as Keith wipes the sweat from his face with the hem of his shirt and approaches a bench where he’s left a water bottle. And a very large space wolf.

After taking a drink of his water, Keith gives him a lifted eyebrow look and props one hand on his hip. “...Lance?”

The sound of his name has the same effect as being sucked out of an airlock. Lance feels his breaths sharply in his chest, more keenly aware of them than ever before. “Hi,” he manages. Stupidly. Sounding far more winded than the boy who was just trading heavy blows with a much larger opponent for who knows how long. How, how , had Lance ever been able to hide his feelings when they were like this?

Despite the short, out of place greeting, Keith’s mouth twitches and Lance can see it clearly in the harsh lighting, leaving no room to wonder if it was just a trick of his eyes or not. “Hi,” Keith replies, but that’s it, seemingly out of place. Totally lost.

Lance swallows back his trepidation and steps forward, finding that each moment he’s closer to Keith, the better and easier it feels to be here right now. He stops when he’s only a few feet away, resisting the overwhelming urge to launch himself at Keith and not let go. “I just--I, uh, I wanted to apologize,” he says, stilted, haltingly. “For last night.”

Keith’s almost amused expression gentles, and Lance watches as the concern flashes in his eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. I’m not...good at that stuff, you know?”

No. Lance does not know, but he files it away to write down in his notebook later. “No, no, no, no, no,” he says and he has to cut himself off or risk repeating that word for all of eternity, his brain scrambled by Keith standing here, listening to him, attention undivided. “No. You did nothing wrong. I-- I’m at fault here.”

And Lance has to wonder if Keith remembers any of those words with as much crystal clarity as he does.

My place is wherever the hell I want it to be.

And what? You want it to be with me?

Lance shivers and tells himself he’s not going to cry.

Keith’s expression eases. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I just--.” He runs a hand through his hair and, oh, Lance wants him to do that again. “You were acting so weird.”

And it’s now or never. His chance to explain. To come clean. To start over. He hates it. He immediately mourns the loss of familiarity, before it’s even gone. It’s only the tightly closed fists at his side that help ground him and keep the sting from his eyes or the wobble from his throat. God, how he hates this.

“I died,” Lance says. Matter-of-fact. His heart breaks.

Keith goes very, very still, dropping his hand back to his side and the frozen look on his face is absolutely unreadable. There is an extremely pregnant silence as Lance watches Keith through eyes that remain miraculously tear-free, the tension so thick it could be snapped in half over a knee easily. His nails bite into the skin of his palms, his knuckles aching.

“What?” Keith asks, his voice insanely calm, but Lance can feel more behind it. It sounds dangerous, like the awful, hair-raising moment before being struck by a bolt of lightning

He blinks and takes a shuddering breath. “I...I died.”

Keith’s gaze is hardened, the tilt of his mouth firm. “I don’t understand.”

Lance nods, wishing he could look away so he wouldn’t find himself trying to decipher what Keith is thinking but he can’t. “We were fixing a Galra base, and I--I shoved Allura out of danger and I got--I got hit.” Their eyes remain locked. Lance’s hands begin to shake more violently at his sides. “I died.”

Keith looks him over slowly, taking another step closer. “But you’re here.”

Lance’s heart jumps at that, at the proximity. He’s too close. “Sort of,” he murmurs.

Keith is crossing his arms over his chest as the dark look on his face starts to turn into a scowl. “What does that mean?”

Lance clears his aching throat. “Allura--A-Allura saved me. Retained my quintessence or whatever after I got hit and was able to put it back into my body, but--.” He can feel a panic rising up in his chest, but he won’t run away again, not again.

“ Lance. ” Keith says his name sharply, too loud.

Now or never.

“I lost my memories,” he blurts out.

His heart breaks.

Keith visibly closes in on himself. “You lost your memories.” The words sound heavy, loaded, on his tongue. He’s trying them out, maybe even trying to believe it.

“Y-Yes,” Lance mumbles and he finally, finally, is able to drag his eyes away to stare at the ground. Still, his eyes remain dry, even if they do sting. He doesn’t want to look back up because when he does, Keith won’t look at him the way he’d looked at him last night and it’s going to hurt. If he doesn’t see it, maybe it doesn’t have to be real.

“You don’t remember anything?” Keith asks, and his voice is quieter now. No longer distracted by his expression, Lance is able to pick up on the note of anguish in his voice, barely there, so subtle, but it hits Lance in the chest like a fucking arrow. He didn’t know how badly he never wanted Keith to sound like that ever until just right now.

Lance’s voice shakes. “I didn’t remember my own name when I woke up,” he says. “I didn’t know anyone on the team, either.” He takes a deep breath and he wants so badly to lie but he can’t. He can’t. It’s not fair and he can’t. Not when Keith sounds like that . “But I heard your name and I missed you.” Slowly, Lance runs a hand over his chest, over his heart, remembering the first swoop of his stomach, the flutter, and then the pain. “I missed you so much.”

It goes quiet again for too long, far too long, before Keith speaks.

“You missed me?”

“I’m sorry,” Lance whispers. “It’s--it’s weird, yeah? I die and I wake up and I know nothing - I don’t even know what you look like or who you are at all - but I--I--” He bites down on his tongue and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“I should have been there.”

The words are quiet and so, so unexpected that Lance finds himself looking up against his better judgment.

“What?”

Keith is looking away, face pinched with a dark expression that is entirely new to Lance. “I should have been there.”

He’s...still confused. “Been where?”

Keith’s shoulders scrunch higher, his voice louder and full of ugly self-depreciation. “If I’d never left the team--if I had just--if I had just been there, then--”

Hold on.

“No.”

“I could have--”

“No.” Lance’s voice is firm and hard. He’s never spoken a word with more conviction.

Keith falls silent. Still doesn’t look up, his face mostly hidden by the fringe of his dark hair.

“You better not be blaming yourself,” Lance says and that anger from last night comes back with heat.

Keith’s voice is growly when he responds and his dark eyes - Lance still can’t tell just what color they are, but they are vibrant despite their depth and they pin Lance where he stands - are on him again violently. “You died. You fucking--you died and I wasn’t--I-I wasn’t there! Lance-- fuck! ” He runs both hands through his hair now with tense fingers.

It strikes Lance a little odd that he’s stuck on the death part because it’s not like it matters much now. It’s his memories that are gone, everything he ever was, everything that Keith ever knew about him, no longer exists...and the thing that has Keith’s blood boiling is the brief and ultimately non-issue fact of his death?

“I’m not dead now,” Lance finds himself strangely repeating some of Keith’s exact words from the night before. Some of the anger has left him as unexpectedly as it came. This...this isn’t at all what he braced himself for. He’s--he’s confused as hell and he needs to go back and reevaluate everything he thought he knew because what the fuck is happening right now and why is Keith, of all people, someone who wasn’t even there what the fuck --why is Keith blaming himself?

Keith sits down heavily on the bench, propping his elbows up on his knees and dropping his head into his hands. “Fuck,” he whispers and then his shoulders shake once with a deep breath.

“Hey, man,” Lance murmurs now after a long pause, totally unsure of what to do as he takes a hesitant seat on the other side of the bench. Is this how Keith had felt last night? What a bizarre change of pace. “I’m...I’m sorry.”

Keith laughs bitterly and its angry and Lance’s heart hurts. “What the fuck are you sorry for? Dying?”

“For everything,” Lance says. “I didn’t--I just didn’t want you to not know.” He bites his lip, worries it between his teeth. “I thought you might be mad that I can’t remember. Not that I died.”

Keith’s voice is calmer now. “Why would I be mad about that?”

“Because…?” What the fuck is going on? “I don’t remember you? And last night--”

Keith’s shoulders move with another breath and then he’s straightening out and his eyes are back on Lance and it’s harder to breathe again. “Lance, I don’t give a shit whether or not you remember me.”

Lance recoils and rises to his feet. He knew it was going to hurt but, like, not that much. The blow is harder that it should have been and there’s the prickle of heat in his eyes as his throat swells with emotion. He feels like one big open wound that’s just been covered in salt. “Okay, well, then, I guess--”

But Keith is grabbing his wrist, and his expression has opened a little bit. “No, shit, no, Lance that’s not--that’s not what I meant.”

Lance stares down at him, feeling fragile. “What did you mean, then?”

Keith releases his grip as if Lance is too hot to touch but Lance is the one that feels burned. “Just--dying is a lot worse.” He turns his face away. “It’s so much worse. I should have been there.”

Lance stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Yeah? Well, I’m glad you weren’t,” he says and it’s true and not true. Because yeah, it would have been nice to wake up seeing Keith but god, if Keith had tried to--if it had been him --

“Look.” He clears his throat. “You don’t have to feel guilty or whatever, and you definitely don’t have to pity me because I’m fine . It happened and it’s over and it’s shitty, but I’m fine. Stop beating yourself up about it, and don’t--don’t you dare blame yourself. Because that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Keith lets out a long, low breath after a long silence and sneaks a glance at Lance from the corner of his eye. Something very warm blooms in Lance’s chest when he sees the slight smile there, hiding at the corner of Keith’s pretty mouth. “I never would have guessed you lost your memories,” he says.

“I don’t believe you.” Lance doesn’t know why he says it. Probably because it doesn’t make sense and he has had to spend months watching the people who had been closest to him give him side eyes when he did something that the old Lance wouldn’t have done. It seems so unlikely that Keith would have been an exception and Lance can’t believe it. Won’t believe it, honestly, because...that shit is dangerous.

Keith turns his face away again and then reaches over to pat the wolf, who has sat calmly beneath the bench the whole time. “It’s true. ‘I’m fine’...Lance, I’m not an idiot. I was there last night.”

Lance almost snaps that it hadn’t been about his memories. That had been exclusively about Keith. He somehow finds the self-control to stop the words before they slip out, but his blood spikes anyway.

My place is wherever the hell I want it to be.

And what? You want it to be with me?

Did Keith just...block most of their conversation out? Every bit of it seems so incriminating when Lance thinks back but maybe it hadn’t been as romantically charged as it felt in his own chest. That’s both immensely relieving and...kind of a let down. Wow. He really can’t have it both ways and yet.

“Yeah, well. I’m working on it,” he finally decides on, curling his hand around the letter in his pocket.

And for the first time, Lance isn’t overwhelmed with emotions. He’s not speechless or unbearably vulnerable. He’s not terrified out of his mind that Keith will reject every single thing about him. He’s breathing and Keith is still sitting here after hearing the truth and Lance doesn’t have to confess the depth of his emotions because it’s too soon and that’s fine. Lance doesn’t know him and Keith has been gone for two years but now…

Now this is out in the open. The facts. The reality of it all. And they’re both here and they’re both alive and they can start over. There’s hope and peace in that, settling around him pleasantly like a warm bath. He basks in it, allows the tension to seep from his body, to be replaced by light and the very real proximity he has to Keith, who is no longer making him so nervous that he can’t function. It feels good. It feels right.

For the first time since he woke up all those months ago, Lance feels happy. Really, truly, incandescently happy.

“Thanks for hearing me out,” Lance says, and even he can hear the difference in his voice. Can taste the love in his mouth. God, he’s so transparent. So fucking loud. How does no one know? How can they not hear or see or feel it when it’s so much that it spills over like that?

Keith looks up at that, searching Lance’s face as he does, before responding. Quiet. Subdued. Still a little anger in the tilt of his mouth but it’s not for Lance. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Do you want me to send Krolia back in?” Lance asks.

“Nah.” Keith shakes his head, gives the wolf another pat, and then rises to his feet, too. “Thanks, though.”

“Sure.”

It’s a little awkward. But, only a little.

“I’m...gonna head to the kitchen,” Lance says, one of his hands coming up to scratch the back of his neck. “‘M hungry. You wanna come with?”

Keith looks at him for a long time. Everything about him is so dark and hard to read, but it has Lance’s heart doing double-time regardless. He imprints the way Keith is looking at him right now into his very soul. If he were to die and be revived again, he’d remember this. There’s no way he could forget this. “You missed me,” Keith says, his voice a little rough around the edges.

Fuck. Lance thought he’d forgotten that little tidbit. His face goes hot but he still maintains eye contact. “Uh...yeah.”

Keith smiles and it’s still small, still not quite happy, but it’s the biggest smile Lance has seen on him yet and it’s enough for now. “I guess I could eat something.”

Lance smiles back as his stomach swoops big and low. A thrill races up his spine. “That’s great, because Hunk is a crazy good cook and Shiro told me he’s in the kitchen with Allura. I guess...you probably already knew that about Hunk, huh?”

Keith gathers the sweat towel and the water bottle. Takes another long drink, and then shrugs. “I’ve been gone for a long time. At least, to me, it’s been a long time. I’d kill for just about anything Hunk makes, though.”

Lance makes a face as they begin walking towards the door. “Oh yeah...what were you eating for food on the back of a--of a space whale?”

Keith’s expression turns into a bit of a smirk. “You don’t wanna know.”

Lance admires that look - loves that look, is sure he’d say anything to see that look again - and thinks that yes . Yes, he does.

Chapter Text

The naive solution that everything is really going to be okay shatters all too quickly.

Kolivan comms in during dinner that night.

It has been a ticking time bomb all day, waiting for the call, but Lance is no less prepared for it. The dread weighs on him like molten iron, all hot and heavy and far too malleable. Easily formed into terror or pain or anger. He pretends that he doesn’t feel it, and it dismays him how easy it is to pretend. That’s all he ever does, isn’t it? Pretend?

The team is forced to leave the dining hall to convene on the flight deck for the meeting and Lance feels sick to his stomach; each step he takes is like trying to walk through quicksand. He doesn’t want to hear what Kolivan has to say. He’s afraid of it. He’s tired of pretending that he’s not.

After coming clean to Keith about his memories in the training room early that afternoon, they’d gone to get lunch together. They hadn’t said much. Keith still seemed to be brewing in the aftermath of the confession and Lance was a little too nervous to try and talk for fear of admitting the depth of his feelings. They were on the tip of his tongue after all of that and it was too much, too soon.

Hunk had sidled up to Lance once Keith had left to talk to Shiro.

“So?” Hunk said with one raised eyebrow as he scrubbed a plate down in the sink.

“He knows,” Lance replied simply, drying a bowl with a hand towel.

Lance had then spent the afternoon with Hunk and Pidge, which meant he observed more than contributed to the conversation, but that was okay. He had a lot on his mind anyway, and he spent half of the time wishing he was somewhere else but not knowing if it was okay to be there.

Dinner was the first time that he saw Keith since that afternoon and it’s stupid how much it felt like the first time. He entered the dining room in his dark clothes with Krolia at his side, almost smiling when Pidge commented on how happy she was that Keith was back, even for a little bit, and Lance felt briefly like he was being punched in the stomach. He remembered how his very first sight of Keith had brought him to his knees and he thinks that it hadn’t been an over-exaggeration in the least.

Now, as they’re filing onto the flight deck, Lance is desperately trying not to feel the anxiety rolling around in his stomach, but his gaze has, as usual, found and stuck itself to Keith. He wants to stand beside him, to close this distance, but no amount of proximity will quell the fact that Keith will leave. Lance can feel it in his gut that Keith will leave. He hadn’t gotten much out of Hunk before about Keith’s habits, but Keith, he thinks certainly, has a habit of leaving. He can feel the truth of it like a hot fire poker in his chest.

It’s why he missed Keith so much when he woke up and didn’t know any better. Because Keith wasn’t there; because Keith had left.

Kolivan will probably want me to lead an expedition back to that moon since I’ve been there before.

This is a war, Lance, the mission is bigger than just me.

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slow and shaky. The threat of never seeing Keith again is too real and he doesn’t want to accept it. Lance knows that he can’t go through that. Not again.The only thing he has left, the only thing that matters to him, is Keith. He’s so viscerally attached. One-sided, maybe, but soul-bound all the same. He doesn’t even want to stop looking at him; how could he ever hope to watch him leave with the pressing chance that he might never come back?

God-- fuck , he can’t do this.

“Hello, Kolivan,” Shiro greets, taking up the front position in the room, Allura flanking him on one side, Keith and Krolia on the other, while Pidge and Hunk stand in their own group with Coran just a few steps in front of Lance. Lance forces himself to look up at the screen, knowing that Kolivan won’t look at him but still hoping that he can pull off focused and attentive without giving away that he feels like throwing up. His eyebrows are sharp over his eyes, his mouth a hard line. His heart is vibrating against the hard fist clenched around it.

“We’ve been discussing our next steps since we last spoke yesterday,” Kolivan says after his own greeting. “Keith, Krolia, you will need to report back to base as soon as possible. We’ll need you both to head up this mission. Your familiarity and expertise will make this successful.”

Keith.

Lance closes his eyes and forces the steady breaths to remain steady through his trembling lips.

Fuck, he can’t do this.

Even knowing that it was coming, he can’t do this.

Despite the violent tempest of despair suddenly tearing him apart from the inside, he’s able to retain control of his presentation. He leans heavily against the chair at his side, though, clutching the backrest for support as he opens his eyes and finds his gaze immediately - immediately, as though he’d already been looking, sought out unconsciously - drawn to Keith’s back.

“When do we leave?” Krolia asks, her voice sounding very far away.

“Immediately,” Kolivan tells her.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Allura asks, because this is about a whole group of her own people that no one knew about, but Lance isn’t really paying attention anymore to the rest of the conversation as he loses grip of his mask. The panic he thought he’d finally pushed away comes swooping back in with a vengeance and the anxiety opens up like a gaping chasm. That moment of happiness with Keith in the training room earlier today seems so far away, dream-like, a fantasy bubble too good for reality and maybe it’s selfish, but he can’t do this.

“I’m coming, too.”

His voice is rough, making him sound aged, but loud enough that every single pair of eyes in the room turn to him where he’s tried to disguise his leaning position as something casual. Keith’s gaze lands on him heavily, his expression dark, eyebrows furrowed, and Lance returns it for one long, stubborn moment, before Shiro pulls his attention away.

“Lance, we have Voltron to think about,” he says in a voice that is both stern and betrays his confusion to Lance’s sudden outburst. “We need you here in case something happens.”

Lance pushes away from the chair, miraculously finding strength in his stubbornness. Keith’s eyes burn into him, heavy as a touch, unwavering. “The red lion is heavily armored and it’s quick,” Lance argues firmly. “The trip would be safer if I were to take the Blades in Red. In the two months since my death, we’ve only needed Voltron, like, once. You don’t need me that bad, Shiro.”

Allura speaks up. “We do have the ship I’ve worked on with Lotor running at full capacity now,” she says slowly, but there’s confusion on her face, too. “The universe wouldn’t be without protection.”

“We don’t need extra armor or speed,” Keith speaks up and everyone has turned to look at him now. “There’s no reason to put Voltron at jeopardy needlessly.”

He can see that Keith is remembering, so clearly, on a face that is still so unfamiliar to him. He wears the same hard expression from last night, the burning something that Lance cannot understand. The intensity is terrifying and beautiful all at once, and it threatens to make Lance respond the same way he had before, with tears and a litany of apologies.

My place is wherever the hell I want it to be.

And what? You want it to be with me?

Lance looks away. He’s already admitted to missing Keith, already shown his fear of losing him. He doesn’t want to be that person anymore, who can only cry and wait . Not anymore, not now when he knows he has the means to protect and defend. Not when Keith is finally here and he’s alive and Lance can do something to make sure he stays that way: here and alive . He refuses to feel embarrassed for that, to be sorry for that.

“I’m going,” he says in a voice that is so resolute it makes his own heart go still. Everyone is looking at him again, he can feel it, but he stares hard at a dark panel of the floor and lets his expression speak for itself. “I haven’t had a single choice of my own since I woke up like this. I want to help; I know I can.” He glances up to meet Keith’s stare. “This kind of job is what Red was made for and if you weren’t so stuck on Voltron, you’d remember that.”

Keith’s eyebrows are sharp and distracting over his keen eyes, so dark Lance thinks he could fall into them and disappear entirely. “It’s not my decision to make,” Keith finally says, each word distinct, acknowledging the dig. He glances sideways. “Shiro? Allura?”

Allura answers first. “I don’t see why he can’t go...Lance is right about the lion, and I know that I’d feel better knowing that you were safe with him. The red lion can absolutely withstand more damage than any other ship that would otherwise be torn apart in a quantum abyss.”

Shiro furrows his eyebrows. “I’m not sure it’s the best idea, but if Allura thinks it will be okay, that’s good enough for me. Just come back as quickly as you can. I don’t feel comfortable having Voltron out of commission if we can help it.”

Krolia turns her attention back to Kolivan on the screen. “We’ll leave within the next varga.”

“See to it that you do,” Kolivan replies. “We need to move on this as soon as possible in case someone is privy to your previous presence there. We’ll talk details once you arrive; brief the paladin on our policies. We operate on a different scale than he is used to.” He very pointedly makes eye contact with Lance and then the call cuts out, leaving the screen dark and the sudden silence heavy as a blanket on the entire room.

“Well,” Krolia says, being the first to speak up, “I think I’ll begin preparing for departure. Are there any supplies or provisions you’d be willing to part with?”

Allura is the first to reply. “Yes, I think we have some to spare. Come with me.” As she’s passing Lance on her way out, she smiles at him warmly with zero doubts in her eyes and it makes him feel like his stubbornness is being validated somehow. Like his hidden, selfish reasons aren’t the only reasons that he would be a good fit for a job like this.

Shiro is suddenly there in front of Lance, blocking his view of everyone else in the room and Lance is taking a step back as apprehension clutches at the nape of his neck and makes the hair on his arms stand on end. It’s such a bizarre reaction, but so instinctual that he follows through on it anyway.

“Are you sure about this, Lance?” Shiro asks, and his voice is full of concern but it still makes Lance feel unsettled. “You’ve only flown your lion a handful of times and your memory is still missing.”

Missing. As if it was just waiting around somewhere in some lost and found pile. His memories are long gone at this point; they shouldn’t still be regarding him as something that still needs to be fixed. And Shiro probably doesn’t mean it like that, probably , but it hurts. Rubs him the wrong way. Makes him desperate to get off of this ship and away from these people who don’t think he’s capable of doing anything but waiting for his past to come back to him.

Lance furrows his eyebrows and crosses his arms over his chest. “I can handle it,” Lance tells him slowly, surely. “I want to help. I can’t just sit around in the castle doing nothing all day anymore. What kind of great universe defender would I be if I didn’t help where I can?”

Pidge sidles up, fixing the tilt of her glasses, her honeyed eyes exposing her concern. “Should maybe one of us go, too?” she asks and Shiro replies that being down one paladin is already one paladin too many. “Feels weird to be sending off Lance alone with people he doesn’t know, though. Are you gonna be okay with that, Lance?” Her voice is genuine, but Hunk meets Lance’s gaze over the top of her head and he immediately turns his face away. Because Hunk knows that it’s gonna be more than okay.

“I’ll be fine. Keith used to be one of us, right? C-Can’t be that weird.”

As he says it, Keith appears from behind Shiro. His expression is as indecipherable as always and Lance feels a shiver travel down his spine from the fix of it, although for different reasons than his earlier precaution. “We need to talk,” he says as though no one else is there but Lance.

Lance’s heart climbs into his throat, startled by the dark tone of Keith’s voice. “Y-Yeah. Okay.”

“We’ll come see you guys off in Red’s hangar in a little bit,” Hunk says as Lance casts the other paladins a glance before following Keith from the room.

Keith waits til they’re down the hall and around the corner before speaking. “What the hell was that?” he asks, his voice almost deadly quiet and it strikes Lance for the first time that he’s angry .

“What?” Lance knows that playing dumb won’t work because he’s already been too vulnerable around Keith, but it’s worth a shot. “Where are we going?”

Keith huffs. “To get my armor. Don’t do that.”

Lance tries to regulate his heartbeats again with even breaths, but it’s not working. He goes for innocence. “Do what?”

“ That. ” Keith comes to an abrupt stop and swings in Lance’s direction. “What the hell was that?”

Lance feels pinned under his gaze, as he normally does, but they’re so alone and Keith is so handsome it hurts, his pale skin a stark contrast against the dark of his eyes and hair. Lance wants to look at him forever, even like this, with his thick eyebrows furrowed and his mouth slanted in discontent. The air feels thick between them. “I was just--just being reasonable,” Lance says and he hates the way his throat catches on his words because it’s far too telling. What is it about Keith that strips him down like this? “Allura even agreed with me.”

Keith narrows his eyes at him, searching his expression intently. “I don’t want you to come,” he says pointedly. “You should stay with your team.”

Lance has to bite his tongue from saying something he’ll regret. The emotion that fills him to bursting makes his eyes prickle with heat and he clenches his fists at his sides. “If this is about me being some sort of liability, don’t worry,” Lance mutters, dropping his gaze to the floor just in case Keith might be able to see the glossy shine in his eyes. God, he feels so pathetic for being near tears; he hates how easy emotion can get the better of him. “I’m a good pilot and I can hold my own in battle. I’m not going to fuck up your mission or whatever. I just want to help.”

Keith lets out a sharp breath. “This isn’t about your skills, Lance,” he says. “I know you’re good at what you do.”

Lance’s heart clenches at that. His breath hitches, but he keeps his face turned away, even as his mouth drops into a confused frown. “Then what’s your problem?”

“I told you not to do that,” Keith nearly snaps. “You know what my problem is.”

“I really don’t.” Lance snaps his head back towards Keith.

Keith crosses his arms over his chest, his dark hair falling just so over his forehead, obscuring part of his vision. His bottomless gaze is accusatory and wary. “You were a fucking mess last night.”

Last night.

My place is wherever the hell I want it to be.

And what? You want it to be with me?

“So?” Lance asks, but it’s shaky. Instead of filling up behind his eyes, the heat blossoms this time in his face.

“So, you thought this was a terrible idea.” Keith says it like he can’t understand why Lance, who after understanding the dangers of this mission, would want to put himself at risk.

Lance stares at him, and he feels like he’s just figured out who Keith is. Just a little bit, maybe. The tiniest sliver. Enough to feel himself falling again, tripping through thin air over his own heart. “Of course I did,” he says.

“And I don’t want you to come.”

“Well, I don’t want you to go.”

He didn’t mean to say it out loud, not like that, even though it’s true. The heat quickly gathers in scope as it spreads down the length of his neck and Keith goes very still, his gaze growing heavier and more intent at the admission, like he is starting to figure some things out, too. Lance wishes he could hide his face but he can’t stop looking.

“Because you missed me.” Keith says it so factually that Lance almost wishes the floor would open up and swallow him whole. The words bludgeon him with both embarrassment and exposure, leave him too raw. Too vulnerable, especially in light of Keith’s impassable expressions.

“Y-Yeah,” Lance replies softly, swallowing. “I...I mean, that’s a big part of it.”

“What else is there?” Keith asks and...there’s gentleness now, almost. Curiosity.

Lance takes a deep breath and stares very hard at a spot on the ground, ripping his gaze away to steady himself. “Like...the fact it’s not safe and that you lost two years of your life to this same mission but you don’t seem to care even though it’s a big deal? Like the fact that I don’t know the first thing about you and I want to, but you’re leaving before we can even have a real conversation that isn’t all fucked up?” He wonders if this is too much, too.

“What if I promise to come back?” The way he speaks reminds Lance of last night, how his confusion had mellowed out his intensity and made him softer around the edges in the dark.

Lance clenches his fists at his sides. “I’m still coming. You won’t change my mind.”

Keith sighs deeply.

“I’m sorry,” Lance says quietly, feeling the disappointment rolling off of Keith. “I know you don’t want me around.”

“Lance, it’s just not--it’s not safe .” Lance looks up at Keith when he stumbles, fixing his words sloppily. When Keith speaks, it’s always very direct, words purposeful and never stuttered or unsure. Everything he says is full of confidence. So the hurried, near desperate tone of his voice stirs something in Lance and when he finds Keith’s face now, it’s carefully blank, hiding everything that lies in his voice.

“You died,” Keith says after a long moment, still firm, still hitching on something very nearly desolate. “And I should have been there, but I wasn’t. This-- this is an unnecessary risk and you just got your life back. This is not the time for you to waste your second chance.”

“You’re such a hypocrite. Weren’t you the one who said that this was a war?” Lance finds himself searching Keith’s face this time, looking for a crack in his blank expression. “That the mission is bigger than just one person?”

“I said that before I knew you had died.” Keith doesn’t even sound regretful or ashamed. So straightforward and honest, even when Lance has no idea what he’s thinking. How is that fair? “You told me you don’t remember anything from before your death, right? Don’t you want to maximize the chances of you going home? Of seeing your family again?” Keith stares at him, takes an earnest step forward. “Lance, you were always talking about your family and you missed them so much. You-- Lance --”

He cuts off abruptly, his expression tightening as his empty hands turn into fists at his sides.

There are still so many things that need to be said. Questions that Lance has about whatever past they have because even with the obvious distance between them, Keith’s fixation on his death - on his safety - goes so far above and beyond anything Lance has ever known. He feels like he’s drowning in it, even as he doesn’t understand, as he can’t possibly hope to decipher Keith’s expressions or the intent behind his words.

And it hurts. It aches. It aches just as terribly as the agony of missing him, but different in it’s own way. Full and hot and wanting. Desire so strong it burns through him like alcohol. Lance wraps his arms around himself to keep from reaching out, to ground himself and he leans back against the wall, cool against his heated body, drawing in breaths that aren’t riddled with nearly enough oxygen.

“Of course I want to go home to them. To meet them again. I-I love them. I'm--I'm sure I do. But...I thought you were dead,” Lance tells him, even as his heart is vibrating in his chest, even as his knees wobble under the sincere press of Keith’s gaze. He shakes his head, swallows a lump of emotion, feels the burn of tears again behind his eyes. “You have--you have no idea what that was like for me.”

Keith doesn’t say anything after that. He doesn’t have to. Lance has just offered up another little thing that he should have kept close to his heart, but couldn’t. He’s starting to think that everything that belongs to him also belongs to Keith. His thoughts, his feelings, the thread of his life - it’s all Keith’s. And maybe Keith would understand why Lance can’t bear to let him leave again if Lance could just say it out loud, but that’s hard, and it’s too much.

Keith has been gone for years, and his relationship with Lance before had been that of a teammate. Sometimes, unfriendly teammates. Rivals. Love like this, breath-stealing and death-defying, is just too much right now. Even though it’s there on Lance’s tongue. Even though its at the tips of his fingers and in the heat behind his eyes. Resting there at the corner of his mouth. It’s just too much.

Lance’s fingers dig painfully into his own waist. “I’m sorry.” His voice is thick; it betrays his emotion and sends his heart into a frenzy as he tries to reclaim better control.

Keith shakes his head slowly. “What the hell are you sorry for?”

He swallows. “For--for being a lot .”

A pause, and then, “Lance, you were always a lot.”

That brings him up short. “What?”

“You have always been big and loud and a lot ,” Keith reiterates solidly and the way he says it makes it sound like a good thing. Like it’s a thing that Keith maybe even likes about him. “Don’t be sorry.”

It’s so different from all of the things Pidge and Hunk have said about who Lance was before. Their words made him feel prone to isolation and guilt and sometimes even anger but...but it’s because they were always talking about how different he has become. He hated disappointing them, and he hated that he was expected to be someone he didn’t know, couldn’t know, after death.

But with Keith...this is the second time that he has picked out things in Lance that are familiar to him. Familiar, even though he’s been gone for years and despite the many differences that he could name. Familiar, like they are a grounding point for him .

Lance softens under that, his fingers gentling against his sides as a warm tide of fondness rushes over him. The burn of his tears and his shame lessens and he stares at Keith who so sure of himself and everything that he’s saying.

He is so close, Lance thinks slowly through a measured blink. When did he get so close and--and, was he always this tall? It’s when Lance notices that the black shirt he wears is nearly too short for him, stretched tight across his broad shoulders, fitting him more snugly than when Lance had worn it weeks and weeks ago. He can--oh, he can smell Keith’s shampoo. It’s a clean scent, nothing exotic about it, but the fact that he’s close enough for Lance to smell is enough to short-circuit his brain.

Keith has no idea that Lance is a hair's breadth away from the shatter of control. He clings to it desperately. It would do no good to kiss him now.

“We should probably get going,” Keith says, conversationally, unaware. “We need to leave soon.”

“We?” Lance murmurs and it’s kind of embarrassing how low his voice is now, but he isn’t feeling so drunk off the proximity anymore. The words splash against him like cold water to his face.

Keith sighs but the sound is warm. “Yes, we. I wasn’t trying to fight with you, I just want to make sure you know your options. Optimize your chance to go home.”

Home , Lance thinks as he looks away from the width of Keith’s shoulders to see Keith still watching him with his dark eyes. He nearly smiles, one corner of his mouth twitching, his gaze lingering for one more moment and then he steps back, putting a wider distance between them. He begins walking again with a measured gait down the hall and Lance falls into step beside him, immediately mourning that bubble of closeness.

“For the record,” Keith says after a moment,  “you’ve always been this stubborn. Just in case no one has told you that, yet.”

Is that a dig at him? Sounds like it. “ For the record , I don’t see why you think it’s okay to take risks you don’t want anyone else taking,” Lance parries back, even though Keith’s words satisfy him, somehow. The way Keith talks to him is so plain and simple compared to the uncertainty he’s used to dealing with from everyone else. Is it the distance of Keith’s two missing years and Lance’s lost memories that make it so much easier? It’s the only thing that makes sense. “And, for the record , that makes you an idiot.”

At that, Keith smiles crookedly, showing the sharp edge of a tooth.

And Lance, he falls.

Literally.

He trips over his own feet and goes down ungracefully with a loud yelp, slapping against the floor in a terrible impression of a belly flop. It seems to happen in slow motion, especially the way the horror encapsulates him completely from head to toe. The hot wash of humiliation is instant and it should be deadly. He should have died on impact. His heart crawls into his throat, desperate to escape this embarrassing husk of a body.

Keith makes a sound of surprise, pausing a few steps in front of him. “Are you okay? Lance?”

Lance groans as he covers his face with his hands. “ Nooo, ” he laments with a touch of melodrama. Christ, he’s gonna have bruises. This is so fucking embarrassing; it wasn’t even a full smile. He saw maybe, like, two teeth. What the hell.

There’s amusement in Keith’s response. “Get up.”

“Don’t look at me,” Lance begs, voice muffled into his palms.

Keith sighs, but there’s a shuffle of feet as he turns away and shifts his weight.

Lance hopes that the burn of his blush isn’t stoplight obvious as he rolls back to his feet.

*

Blessedly, Keith doesn’t say anything else, not until after Lance has donned his paladin armor and he’s dressed back up in his Marmorite suit and they’re headed towards the red lion’s hangar. While Lance is confident in his own skills in battle due to his diligence and training with both Red and on the training deck, the armor makes him feel like he’s playing dress up. No matter what he does and how many times he goes through the same things, it still feels like a crazy proposition to call him a soldier. He doesn’t feel like one.

“The Blades put the mission above everything,” Keith says, his voice bouncing around the corridor as they walk.

Lance startles a bit at the unexpected break in the silence, pulling him from his thoughts, but the words make sense. That’s basically what Keith said yesterday about this mission in particular. That it is bigger than him. He learned this from the Blade of Marmora. Lance has to wonder if Keith had the same beliefs before, too, or if it was just him leaving that lead him to believe he just wasn’t important in the grand scheme of a war.

“They’d die for the mission,” Keith adds when Lance remains quiet. “They will leave people behind.”

“Okay?”

“So don’t fall behind.”

Oh. “Got it.”

Keith nods and then they’re entering the hangar and Lance doesn’t realize that Keith has stopped until he glances over and there’s no one beside him. He slows, looks over his shoulder, finds Keith looking up at the red lion with an expression that - big surprise - Lance can’t quite read. But he can feel Red’s hum in the air, waking up, registering not only Lance’s presence, but Keith’s too. And then he is battered with sudden longing that brings him back to those 3am nights where he wore Keith’s jacket in the cockpit and cried himself to sleep.

“Red’s missed you,” he says, feeling the bittersweet purr tickling his skin, even here outside of the lion.

“It’s been a long time,” Keith murmurs, half to himself, his eyes flickering from the lion to Lance. And Lance thinks that he misses Keith, too, even right now, standing right here. He lets Red’s longing become his own and it fills him up to the brim, making it nearly impossible to say or do anything else but just feel. If he was braver, he’d cross the space between them and ask for a hug, but after last night, he’s too afraid to show outward physical affection. Afraid that, again, it’ll be too much.

He’s even more afraid that he won’t be satisfied with just a hug. Not when the burn of his desire from earlier is still simmering under the surface of his skin.

The doors behind them open up and Krolia is there with a bag tossed over her shoulder, Allura on her right and the rest of the paladins behind. Pidge is laughing at something Shiro said, but Allura is frowning. Keith’s wolf is there too, beside Krolia and Lance can feel it’s gaze shuffle over him before landing on Keith and trotting over.

“What’s wrong?” Lance asks Allura as they all come together.

She gives him a strange look. “It’s probably nothing, but I can’t seem to get a hold of Lotor.”

“It’s only been a day,” Shiro says, smiling as he turns away from Pidge. “I’m sure he’ll call when he can.”

Allura nods, but Lance can feel her uneasiness. A part of it probably has a lot to do with the fact that he’s about to go on a mission that will recover a large volume of her people, who she thought had all died ten thousand years ago but instead are being used as human batteries. He wishes he knew what to say to her, but he’s at a loss for how to comfort her.

“We should get going,” Krolia says as she comes to stand beside Keith.

Keith gives his wolf a pat on the head and nods in agreement, glancing over at Lance briefly before looking back to the rest of their teammates in front of them. “If everything goes smoothly, we shouldn’t be gone long. A day, maybe.”

Goodbyes are exchanged then between them all. Hunk sweeps Lance up into his arms like a ragdoll, grinning and looking totally at ease with Lance’s decision to leave. It’s another boost of confidence, and it makes him feel good. Hunk is such a good friend, such a good friend. He’s going to have to spend his whole life making it up to him.

Allura is the last person to say goodbye to Lance, and she holds him a little tighter than necessary. “Come back safely,” she says into his ear, just a light whisper meant for him. He nods into her shoulder and pats her back and he knows that she’s thinking of the moment she saved him. How lucky he was that she had been there to give him a second shot at life.

“I will,” he murmurs.

She steps back with a smile and looks over at Krolia and Keith. “Please, let me know what you find. If there’s a chance that any of these Alteans are still alive, they are to be welcomed to the Castle without any hesitations. Coran is seeing to preparations right now, just in case.”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Keith assures her.

There’s one last round of goodbyes and then the red lion is bowing its head, its jaw falling open to grant entry. Lance enters first with the others close behind and this feels right. Being here right now, heading out on this particular mission with Keith instead of watching him leave--Lance is exactly where he is supposed to be.

He can hear the way Keith takes a deep breath behind him once they’re all in the cockpit. He turns around just in time to see him run his hand over one of the faceless panels, his mouth twitching with some fond memory.

Krolia places the bag of provisions on the floor in the corner. “I’ve got our coordinates, paladin.”

Lance spins in her direction and finds her staring at him, notes that she has very clearly observed him watching Keith. He pops his helmet on quickly in the hopes that the visor can hide the burn of his blush. “Uh, just Lance is fine. And sweet, let me just--” He sits down in the pilot’s chair quickly and takes the controls in his hands and the interior becomes bathed in a red light.

Red hums against his skin as he takes Krolia’s coordinates and enters them. The silence would be oppressing if there weren’t those collected thoughts in his head that weren’t quite his, the overwhelming delight that Keith is standing there that belongs to both Red and Lance. He hopes that no one else can feel it, but knowing how connected Keith had been to the lion probably means that Red is talking to him, too. Just….hopefully not about Lance.

The trip to the Marmorite base goes by quietly and smoothly. Krolia and Keith exchange some low words that Lance can’t quite make out once they’re clear of the castle hangar, but Keith’s wolf sits directly in front of Lance and stares at him until Lance musters up the courage to reach forward and pet him.

He finds himself smiling as the wolf leans into his touch and then Keith’s voice is there beside him. “He likes you.”

“Does he have a name?” Lance asks, scratching his fingers behind the wolf’s ear. He shuffles forward and then drops his head into Lance’s lap, to encourage the continued attention.

“Not yet,” Keith hedges.

“He thinks the wolf will reveal his name in time,” Krolia speaks up from her place in the corner, adding to the conversation with a hint of amusement to her voice.

Lance blinks in surprise and looks up at Keith, unable to help the growth of his smile. It feels good; he thinks he’s never smiled so wide before in his life but it feels good. “For real? That’s so goofy; you know it’s a dog, right? Can’t talk?”

Keith rolls his eyes, hearing the tease in his voice. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

And that’s how it goes. Light conversation, nothing deep, nothing that acknowledges all of the things they haven’t said yet, or even the things that they have, but it’s comfortable. When they reach the base, the three of them report to Kolivan briefly before they are sent back out with 5 more Blades and a few boxes of supplies for emergencies. They hole up in the belly of the lion while Lance pilots them towards the quantum abyss at Krolia’s direction.

The abyss is a tricky field once they get there, but Lance was right about the lion’s reaction time and they make it through the worst of it with ease. Keith gives a little noise of approval, possibly without meaning to, and it’s enough to fill Lance’s chest with pride. He was right to push for this. They made it through the part that Lance feared most and they’re all safe. They’re safe.

Keith is safe.

Once Lance has Red landed on the moon, a hand grips his forearm tightly. He looks up at Keith, who is staring down at him with a hard expression.

“Would you stay here, if I asked?” His voice is rough. Like he almost doesn’t want to say it.

Lance frowns at him. “No.”

Keith nods once, his eyebrows furrowing deeper, but all the same accepting that answer. “Okay. Let’s go, then.”

Lance stands up as Keith releases his arm and double checks to make sure he has his bayard before falling into step beside Keith. And it feels right.

Yeah. This is exactly where he’s supposed to be.

Chapter Text

“Clear.”

Keith’s voice comes through quietly, tinny, a buzz in his ear through the communicator lodged in Lance’s helmet. Even though he’s quiet, Lance can hear the frustration and the confusion in that single word as they scan through yet another room off of a narrow hallway that is totally and completely empty, save for the neat rows of disabled drones.

Lance lowers his bayard just slightly - a stun gun that feels heavy in his hands, the weight reassuring - and turns to look over his shoulder at Keith, his figure just a dark shadow flickering in the sickly grey light. He makes his way back over to Lance, who had been guarding the door while Keith took a quick look around. Apprehension sets off in his stomach like nausea, rolling around jerkily, a promise of foreboding lingering in its wake. Beside him, though, Keith’s wolf seems at ease and his instincts are probably sharper than Lance’s.

“We’ve got nothing here, either,” Krolia’s voice bursts into static, her dismay making her tone hard and rough. “No sign of life. Just old drones that seem to be offline.”

“Here, too,” comes the scratchy voice of a Blade member.

Keith sighs heavily and reaches up into his hood to touch something behind his ear, making his mask shimmer and fade away. He meets Lance’s stare with frustration, even though when he speaks, it’s not directed at him. The darkness of these rooms and corridors make his eyes nearly black in appearance. “How could everything in this facility just up and disappear?”

Lance drops his bayard to his side, feels it shift back into the handheld seamlessly in his grasp. He frowns because the little lines under Keith’s eyes speak of frustration and exhaustion and a concentrated amount of stress. The muscles under his armor are coiled tight, shoulders tensed, waiting for a fight that hasn’t come. Lance wishes he could do something to make him feel better, but the whole situation is pretty shitty so that’s prematurely impossible, anyway.

“Kolivan was right to be paranoid,” Krolia says through the communicator. “Whoever was harvesting Altean energy knew we were here and came back to cover their tracks. Let’s reconvene in the control room. We’ll start accessing their hard drives and see if there’s any information stored in their computers.”

Lance thinks, then, that maybe Pidge should have come. Not that her expertise would necessarily be any help; the chances that there is anything left in these databases is extremely slim. But they did come all the way out here. It would seem like such a waste to go back empty handed; Lance can’t help but hope that they find something . The lack of danger makes the whole thing feel more dangerous, somehow, and it sets him on edge.

Keith makes another noise - louder this time, and a little more indistinct - and then he’s brushing past Lance, who falls into step beside him without hesitation. The wolf follows at their heels, a reassuring presence against Lance’s back. Their footsteps are near silent, accustomed to being quiet since infiltrating this empty base, but Lance can practically feel Keith’s agitation vibrating in the air, and it’s more than enough noise to make up for the silence.

“Hey...you need to relax,” Lance says gently, and his bayard disappears the way it does into the thigh of his armor. Now that they’re side by side, the creases under Keith’s eyes look more prominent and Lance’s mouth twitches into a frown.

Keith takes a deep breath, and for a minute Lance thinks that he’s going to scowl or snap, but on the exhale, his eyebrows soften. The line of his mouth remains hard. “We were here such a short time ago. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Lance licks his lips absently, understanding his tangible frustration. “I know, but there’s no use in stressing over that. We’re gonna figure this out.”

Krolia had explained to him on their way here that time moves differently here. That even though she and Keith had been here just two days ago to them, it could have been months where they stand now in the center of the abyss. Whoever was here and moved the whole operation out could have had weeks compared to the quick turn around of their two days.

Keith nods but his mouth thins as he mulls something over with that unreadable face of his. They make their way quickly to the control room, and Lance follows Keith over to the main panel near the back upon realizing that they’re the first to make it here. Lance makes a noise of surprise when Keith slaps his hand down on the console, huffing out in frustration again when it stays dark.

He crosses his arms over his chest, back to the wall, head tipped to the ceiling, exposing the long column of his throat wrapped in the dark fabric of his suit. Did he really have to go and bare his neck like that? Lance stands beside him, trying to pretend like he’s not staring at the place where the underside of his jaw meets the clothing, soft and pale, practically begging to be touched.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, hating that his voice cracks a little at the end, praying that Keith doesn’t notice. This is not the time. Keith is frustrated and they’re in the middle of something risky and important and this is not the time. God damn it. He has spent plenty of time staring and memorizing since he returned; there’s no reason for Lance to be so transfixed now.

“It’s all Altean,” Keith says, voice rough and that doesn’t help at all. Why does he have to sound so hot when he’s disgruntled? How is that fair? How the hell had Lance coped with this before?

He painstakingly peels his eyes away from that vulnerable patch of skin only to find himself fixated on the strong set of Keith’s shoulders. His gaze traces the outline of a clavicle bone with dedicated interest. “Is that--is that bad?” he says, struggling to focus.

“It is when we’re all Galra. We don’t know anything about Altean technology; we’d need Allura or Coran for that.”

That makes sense...his gaze dips into the hollow of Keith’s throat. Lance wonders idly if who he was before had any knowledge about Altean tech after living on a castle and hanging around Pidge and Hunk for so long. “Kinda weird that it’s Altean, isn’t it?” he muses aloud absently, and he’s mostly thinking about Allura, how all of this disappointment will probably break her heart, but he’s also kind of thinking about running his hand down the front of Keith’s chest plate, itching to feel the warmth of him beneath his palm. Keith goes rigid beside him.

“What?” he asks, turning to look at Lance.

“I-I just--” Lance stutters a bit from the sudden intensity of Keith’s attention and the way it burns into him, straightening his shoulders. Oh wow. Heat sweeps over him, embarrassed to be caught with his hand in an inappropriate cookie jar, although he hopes Keith doesn’t realize it. Thank God he’s wearing a helmet. He clears his throat. “You said that the Alteans here were being drained of their quintessence. So...that means whoever is behind this is either Altean or is very familiar with Altean technology, right?”

Keith’s gaze opens up as Lance’s words sink into him. “Right.”

Lance nods, leaning against the control panel with one hand to ground himself. Keith’s mouth begins to move, continuing that train of thought, but it’s drowned out by the sudden sound of the exit doors slamming shut. Both of them tense at the movement, at the foreboding finality of it, and Lance leaps away from the panel, hands in the air.

“Okay, what’d I touch?”

Krolia’s voice comes in through the comm. “What was that?”

“The doors to the control room shut us in without prompting,” Keith responds. He steps towards the console again and begins running his hands over it, but nothing answers to his direct contact. His gaze cuts at Lance, and Lance is surprised that he’s not more worked up about being trapped without a clear path of escape. His calmer demeanor steadies him. “Lance, I don’t think it was you.” He gets the feeling that Keith is about to continue, to say something else, but then Krolia is there in the earpiece again.

“Do we know of any other Alteans besides Allura and Coran?” Krolia asks. She also seems very unconcerned.

“Not in this reality,” Keith says, and then his expression, sharp and pensive, creases. Lance can’t help but notice how attractive it is. Eyebrows shouldn’t be that distracting. That’s just--that’s ridiculous. “No, wait. That’s not true.”

Krolia asks for clarification.

“Haggar,” Keith explains at the same time that Lance says, definitively, “Lotor.”

Keith turns on him in an instant. “What?” he nearly demands, voice intense, and Lance is drawn back by that, surprised at the snap of his outburst.

“Lotor is--he’s half-Altean,” Lance says, eyes wide, and he didn’t experience this knowledge first hand, but Hunk has told him everything there is to know about their mission out here in space. That includes their involvement with Lotor. And Lance, with his habit of writing things down, remembers this bit of information with crystal clarity. “He’s obsessed with Altean culture. He and Allura were able to work out the secrets of Altean alchemy and build the ship that entered the quintessence field together.”

As hard to read as Keith is, Lance can see the way shock and understanding play across his face in the dim lighting. For all he knows, Krolia may be having the same epiphany, as silent as she is on the line.

“It’s Lotor,” Keith says with convincing finality.

“He left,” Lance says, agreeing, instantly remembering their last encounter with Lotor. “When he knew where you had been, what you saw...” The hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle as his stomach clenches with apprehension. There is too much in this revelation to think about all the implications, to think about how the entire team has been used and strung along by the current Galran emperor, to think about how Allura will suffer from this. These things are in the back of his his mind.

What Lance is thinking right now, immediately, is how much more dangerous this mission has suddenly become.

About how Keith is not safe anymore.

Krolia’s voice sounds distant even though it’s right there in his ear. “He knew we would come back.”

“We have to go,” Keith says, voice dark and urgent and when his gaze flickers towards Lance and away, it’s too quick for Lance to try and guess the meaning, or if there was something else he was trying to convey. A crackle of the same energy sizzles over his skin, though, and Keith’s urgency becomes his own.

“Are you sure?” Krolia says, a frown evident in her voice. “We haven’t--”

“This could be a trap,” Keith says, which is exactly in line with what Lance is thinking. Beside them, Keith’s wolf rumbles a low growl as if in agreement and the anxiety jittering under Lance’s skin kicks up a notch. He takes a step closer to Keith, just a small one, almost involuntary, muscles tensed for something . Keith, at least, seems oblivious, lost in his own thoughts as he continues, “The team could be in danger. They might need Lance; we have to go now. ”

He doesn’t wait for a response. Instead, he grabs Lance by his upper arm and pulls him closer. Caught off guard, Lance stumbles a bit, the heat rushing over his skin at the commanding touch and the sudden proximity, his armored shoulder pressing against the hollow of Keith’s. Krolia is saying something over the communication link again, but Lance can’t hear her; he’s watching as Keith makes eye contact with his wolf, and then the world is bathed in a bright, blinding light.

His stomach heaves, turning up on itself, disoriented as the world shifts. There’s red light and a familiar purr under his skin and he doesn’t know how he got there, but he’s kind of dizzy. His absent-minded step back is misplaced and he loses his balance. Only the hand still clenched around his bicep keeps him upright.

“W-What just--?” Lance cuts himself off, his gaze swinging around until he’s looking at Keith, who is pushing him into the pilot’s chair in Red’s cockpit and then leaning over him with a dark look in his eyes. The weight of it pins Lance down and grounds him to this very spot in this very moment.

“My wolf teleports.”

I’m sorry, what? “Your wolf…?”

“Yes. I’ll be right back,” he says, his hand still clutched tight around Lance’s upper arm. His other hand reaches up quickly to press the spot behind his ear again and then Lance is looking into the ghoulish mask of his Blade uniform, the purple eyes bright and alien.

Panic rises up in Lance and he knows he’s being transparent when he’s looking up with wide eyes. Knows that Keith can see every single fear and worry right there on his face. The visor of his helmet doesn’t do anything to impede the strain in his expression, his voice breaking. “Wait, where are you going? Don’t-- Don’t make me stay.”

Keith doesn’t move, his voice softer than before, but no less firm. “I have to get Krolia and the other Blades so we can leave, but I need you here.”

“Don’t--”

Keith squeezes his arm once, and then the second he lets go, there’s another flash of light and Lance is left alone in the cockpit. Lance doesn’t know if he should be pissed off or terrified beyond all reason, so he settles for a nasty combination of the two. Even though the contact had been through layers of armor, he can feel the weight of Keith’s hand heavy on his arm as he stands up and leans over the console to look down at the base below the lion and he hates it.

“Give me one good reason to not come back down there and kick your ass,” Lance says, and his voice isn’t strong at all, which makes the threat fall flat on its face. The only thing keeping him from flying into a million pieces right now is the fact that Red doesn’t share Lance’s panic; there is no immediate danger, no matter how much Lance feels otherwise.

Keith answers him immediately in his ear, close, like he should be, and still much too far away. “Because if you do, I’ll kick your ass,” he says, crackly in the comm link. “You’re our pilot and we need you to get us out of here. Stay there, Lance.” He says it like that should explain everything, but it just makes Lance feel more on edge. Getaway insurance is all well and good when the pilot’s mind isn’t absolutely scrambled with fear.

“Just--just hurry,” Lance grinds out. “I don’t like this.” I don’t like not seeing you.

Keith doesn’t say anything after that, and maybe he would have, but the static sound of the comm link goes dead quiet and a gnawing, ugly anxiety grows deep and wide inside of Lance. He knows that the communication signal could have been easily interrupted by anything but he just doesn’t-- he doesn’t like it. First, the doors that tried to trap them in the control room, and now being cut off from the rest of the team, from Keith, when Lotor knew they’d come back?

It’s bad. It feels really bad--really, really bad.

“Hello?” he hopes out loud. Nothing. His mouth goes dry, his panic steadily rising, especially when he notes that Red’s calm has turned into something uneasy. “ Fuck --Keith?” He runs a nervous hand over the side of his helmet the way he would his hair, staring down at the empty complex spread out on the surface of the moon.

“I fucking--ugh!” Lance throws his head back in frustration, moving his hands in a wide, irritated gesture. Every inch of him is shaking like a leaf. His voice raises, addressing Red with an angry bite. “Is this normal for him? Or am I just lucky?”

Familiarity coats over him like a second skin. A deep, knowing purr from Red. Normal, then. Doesn’t make it any better. Actually, that makes it worse, because it means that Lance had to deal with this before and he still has to deal with it now. He will continue to have to deal with it. Every version of himself will have to deal with Keith’s bullshit tendency to do everything on his own. Because apparently, that’s normal. Great.

The amount of learning he’s doing on this mission is fucking wild.

Lance collapses back into the pilot’s chair, tapping his foot furiously on the floor as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m going to lose my mind,” he mutters, mostly to himself, even though Red is listening, too. If it was up to him, he’d go after Keith right now, but without the comm link, he wouldn’t be able to find him easily and the last thing he needs to do is get lost and make things worse. Besides, Keith said he needed Lance here. Here. He’s hanging onto that self-control by the skin of his teeth.

No more than a moment later, there is a blast, a rumble, nearly too quiet and muffled by the safety of the lion, but Lance feels it more than he hears it. His heart stops dead in his chest when he leans forward to see a wing of the moon base smoking and all of his anger and fear come to a sharp and debilitating head.

Everything becomes gut-wrenching sensation. It’s calm, furious desperation so potent it chokes him, his blood pumping loud and fast and loud in his ears. His mouth tastes bitter and for one awful moment, the nausea that upturns in his stomach threatens to make him violently sick. Somehow, none of it matters, though. Outside of the white-hot terror that has consumed him, the rest of it is nothing. It’s nothing.

His eyes track the smoke and then stick to the hole that blew a far wing of the base wide open. For a split second, he’s thinking about the dizzying agony that had come over him the first time he thought Keith was dead. He’s seeing and feeling it as if from far away, far outside of his body. And it’s worse now, because Keith isn’t just a ghost haunting some echo of his past self. It’s worse now because Lance has a face to the name and it is dark eyes and thick eyebrows and a mouth that is both hard and soft. It’s wind-swept hair and calm confidence and intensity so strong it knocks the breath out of him and it’s--

He’s only had him for two days. Just two days.

It’s not enough time.

There’s another rumble and this time, he sees the explosion happening. It’s much closer, and louder, and Lance clenches his hands into tight fists against his thighs. Everything inside of him is screaming for him to go find Keith. The force and desire and terror of it is so painful that it tears at the inside of his chest with claws and teeth, making it hard to breathe. He wants to move. He has to. He has to. Every beat of his heart is telling him the same thing, with the same scalding desperation. Keith could die. Keith could be dead.

But Lance is trembling in the pilot’s chair, fighting for breath, fighting hard against the urge to step into action and throw all caution to the wind. Keith hadn’t asked him to stay because he wanted him to. He’d done that before they entered the compound, and then respected Lance’s decision to go. Him putting Lance back in the cockpit was out of necessity, because he is needed here, as the pilot. Not a request; an order.

The mission is bigger than just me , Keith had said.

Lance thinks he understands now, even though he doesn’t want to. Even though every last cell in his body is begging him not to. Everyone in the base down there is going to be counting on him to get them out alive. Keith is counting on him to get them out alive.

His breath is hot and cloying inside the helmet, making every passing second more unbearable than the last. “Keith?” he tries again, just in case he imagined the disconnect in their comms, voice hard and strained. Silence. His eyes stay trained on the base below, looking for any movement of any kind.

He swallows back against the hard emotion in his throat, his knuckles aching as he squeezes his hands into tighter fists. “ Keith. ” It’s less of a question and more of a demand. He can’t fucking breathe inside this helmet. “Please.” He whispers it like a litany of prayers. Like the sheer scope of his desire can make it come true, if he begs for it enough. “Please, please, please.” Come back. Come back. Come back.

Lance bows his head, shaking, forcing deep breaths and trying his hardest not to spiral. He flinches when the sound of another explosion mumbles through the air. Red is remarkably calm, helping to feed into Lance’s resolve to stay put, even though there is an edge to the energy flickering across his skin. The lion’s bond with Keith isn’t entirely gone, but it’s not strong enough to span any amount of distance either, so while Lance draws on the strength of the tentative serenity, he doesn’t trust it inexplicably. He has a feeling that Red isn’t so trusting of it, either.

He reaches out and clasps the controls in both hands. His breathing isn’t getting any easier, but he can’t bear the thought of the comms coming back online and not knowing, so he keeps his helmet on and secure. It’s torture. He’s suffocating. There’s no way he’s been waiting for hours, but that’s what it feels like as he tightens his hands and clamors for some semblance of control.

He tries not to focus on what he will do if Keith doesn’t come back...if he just sat here and waited for hours--waited forever --

Lance shakes his head, ridding himself of that train of thought, desperate not to wander into that dangerous territory. The panic will eat him alive and then he’ll do something that he regrets--

There’s another explosion, and this time it’s way too close, practically right on top of them. Red roars and Lance straightens, moving the lion out of the way as a crack splits open beneath them, splintering the ground of the moon in a shallow chasm that continues to grow.

“Shit,” he bites out frantically, guiding Red closer to the base and further from the crack with as much care as he can. Even where he clutches the controls, his hands are shaking, and no matter his resolve from before, Lance can’t hold out much longer--can’t wait much longer, not when the entire moon is falling to pieces. He’ll be forced to do something stupid. Fuck, he can’t breathe; it’s so hot inside of his helmet--he can’t breathe --

And just like that, there’s a flash of white coming from behind the pilot’s chair and Lance whips his head around to see the wolf tucked under a tangle of arms, two bodies sprawled on the floor and the relief is so instant and simultaneously so debilitating that the heat in his eyes spills over.

He yanks his helmet off and drops it to the floor with a loud thud, rolling away from him. The body on top shifts onto their hands and knees. His heart drops at the look on Keith’s face as he meets his eyes. His mask is gone, blood smeared across his cheek, face dirty with soot. His dark eyes burn across the space between them and it’s fire and heat. Lance has never seen anything more beautiful in all his life.

“Get us out of here, Lance,” he says, throat dry.

Without another word, he swivels back around in his chair and pushes Red into action, immediately launching them up and away from the moon just as another explosion rocks through it. “Is Krolia okay?” Lance asks and his face is wet but his voice is hard. He needs to see Keith, but this is why he’s here, to be their pilot. This is why he stayed. He can feel himself shaking; he couldn’t stop even if he tried. Not going to Keith right now in this very moment is the hardest thing he’s ever done in his entire fucking life.

“She’s fine,” Keith answers calmly enough that Lance completely believes him. He’s making sounds, rustling around, armor pieces clunking against the floor. Red’s energy feels hot and sizzling against his skin, and the wolf whines pathetically.

Lance pushes Red faster until they’re at a safe distance, safe enough that explosions can’t touch them here, and then he’s giving over autopilot and flying out of the chair, nearly tripping as he smears the tears from his cheeks. They’re both sitting up, Krolia leaned back against the wall as Keith reaches for the First Aid kit in a compartment nearby, and they look--they look fine. And Keith, he’s okay .

“What happened?” Lance asks, because he can’t not ask, and because the look on Keith’s face is as flat as it’s ever been, mouth pinched. Lance hates it.

“Clipped my shoulder when the hallway came down,” Krolia says, her voice rough with pain, eyelids heavy.

Keith doesn’t spare him a glance. “Lance, help me with this.”

Lance is already there before he even finishes asking the question. He unstraps the armor on her shoulder and peels back the suit, revealing a gash that is bleeding thick and dark and red, but not dangerously. Keith’s breath comes a little easier after that, and Lance can feel something hot and unforgiving still welling up in his chest. He can’t put a name to it, but he can at least recognize that it’s tied directly to Keith. As most of his life is.

“Are you okay?” Lance asks Keith quietly as Krolia’s eyes flutter for a moment.

“I’m fine,” Keith tells him, and even though his voice has been nothing but brisk, there’s an almost-gentleness there. “We lost one, but my wolf got the rest of the Blade safely into the cargo bay.”

It could have been Keith, Lance thinks as Keith takes to cleaning the wound. It’s a horrible thing to think, to feel the relief that if someone had to die, that it wasn’t Keith. But he feels it. It’s so strong that if he wasn’t already on his knees, he would have sank to the floor. If he hadn’t already bit back his tears, he would be crying. It could have been Keith.

As it is, his eyes are dense with heat again and he stares hard at Keith’s hands - still gloved - as the blood is wiped away. “I’m sorry,” Lance says softly.

“Don’t,” Keith says, suddenly sharp, and Lance grimaces. He waits for him to say more, but nothing else comes, leaving him to wonder if that was the wrong thing to say. Keith’s hands make quick work of bandaging the awkward wound - he’s practiced at it, Lance realizes, suddenly and intensely upset that Keith is familiar with this kind of work.

“How does that feel?” Keith murmurs, pulling away from Krolia and giving her a once over.

“Feels fine. I’ve had much worse,” she says, managing a thin smile. It’s such a fragile, tender expression on someone who Lance has only seen pull stoic faces, and it definitely isn’t something he should have seen. But her eyes turn to Lance and she’s giving him a softer look, too. “Keith twisted his ankle.”

“Krolia!” Keith nearly snaps it and it’s such a mundane little interaction that Lance almost forgets the whole situation itself. Almost. If maybe, it hadn’t meant that Keith is hurt.

He frowns and looks at Keith, who has his glare fixed on his mother. “You’re hurt?” He’s surprised by how much control he has over his words, considering how close he was to flying off the handle just minutes ago. The wolf makes a whining sound as he curls up beside Krolia and plops his dirty head into her lap, as if in answer to Lance’s question.

Keith sighs heavily, still refusing to look at Lance. “It’s just a sprain.”

“We should still wrap it,” Lance tells him, and why the hell does his voice have to wobble like that? Right now? Keith is back and he’s safe and yeah, maybe he got a little hurt, but he could have died and he didn’t so--so why does Lance still feel so breakable?

“I’m fine, Lance.”

“Please.”

That gets a look. Finally. Keith turns his gaze on Lance almost immediately at the pathetic word and he has to wonder if the wet spots on his cheek are obvious, or if he’s just painfully aware of them because they’ve left his face feeling cold. Lance does his best to keep his expression neutral to balance out the waver of his voice, but it’s impossible to tell if he’s succeeding when Keith is staring at him.

Lance meets the gaze head on, because all he’s ever been able to do is look at Keith, and nothing about that has changed. “Sorry,” he says on instinct. “Maybe...I don’t know if I’m overstepping your boundaries, and I’m sorry if I am. If--If you don’t want me to help, that’s fine, but you should take care of yourself.”

Keith’s body posture softens just a bit, even though his face remains unchanging. “Alright.”

Lance can feel how his shoulders sag and he lets out a breath, finding a smile working its way onto his face. “Okay. Okay, good.”

Keith sighs again and grabs the First Aid kit, scooting backwards until he’s leaning up against the wall on the other side of the cockpit, and then he removes his boot. He and Krolia talk about what needs to be done - they have to return to the Castle immediately, to tell everyone else about Lotor, before they can take the Blades back to their home base - but Lance is knelt on the ground staring at that ring of ugly, purple bruising on Keith’s ankle. It looks dark and painful in the red light of the lion, and Lance wonders, briefly, if there was anything he could have done to prevent Keith from getting hurt at all.

And that’s when it happens.

There’s a pulsing light that flickers over them and then Lance isn’t in the lion at all anymore. He doesn’t know where he is, and it happens so fast--he’s so confused. He’s watching Keith and Krolia bent over a fire and the wolf is small and they’re laughing about something and it happens so fast . It’s gone before he can understand what he just saw, and then he’s back in the lion, eyes wide, finding Keith across the space between them.

“Did--”

“It’s the quantum abyss,” Keith answers him before he can even ask. “The time warp can show pieces of the past and future.” His voice stops abruptly as he wraps his ankle, hiding the bruises behind a bandage so white it almost glows. He looks up at Lance. “It shows memories.”

Memories, Lance thinks blindly. Memories. “Why...why didn’t we see any on the way here?”

“Must have missed the waves,” Krolia murmurs, her hand running over the head of the wolf. “We have to be careful; they can slow our progress, and we need to get back fast.”

Keith finishes fixing up his ankle and then pops his boot back on with a wince. His exhaustion comes through in that, in the way he stays sitting there on the floor with his head tilted back against the wall. “As soon as we’re clear of the field, we can call the Castle and give Voltron a heads up. The ride back isn’t going to be any quicker than the ride in.”

Lance wants to sit beside him, but he doesn’t think that’s okay. He curls his hands into fists against the hard plating of armor on his thighs and then stands up and returns to the pilot’s chair with painstaking reluctance. He doesn’t expect conversation, or company, so he jumps when Keith steps into his peripheral.

“What are you doing? You should be sitting down.” Lance glances at him briefly, helpless to the magnetism that calls for his attention.

“I’m fine. The sprain isn’t even that bad.”

Lance’s heart skips a beat because he’s closer than he expected. “It looked bad.”

“Lance, are you okay?” Keith’s voice is so quiet that it brings him back to the darkness in Keith’s room, the reassuring - if awkward - hands on his back. He shivers and looks up and his first instinct is to lie. To pretend. He wonders if that is just some inherent part of who he is, deep inside, if Lance has always just been someone who couldn’t face the truth without making some sort of big deal out of it.

He opens his mouth to reply, and he doesn’t know yet, if he’s going to tell he truth and speak his mind or if he’s going to lie, but it doesn’t matter. Because there’s another pulse of light and then Lance isn’t in the cockpit anymore.

He’s in the Castle of Lions, in one of the many hallways with Shiro and Allura leading the way, and there’s the smell of smoke in the air. The scene in front of him is separate from his own body, and he knows this because he’s looking at himself. The Lance inside this memory is leaning heavily on Keith, several steps behind the other two, Lance’s head lolled onto Keith’s shoulder, eyes half-closed. He looks far too battle-worn for this to be peaceful, and Keith supports Lance’s weight with solid arms.

“Hey, you still with me, sharpshooter?” Keith is saying and the Lance that is watching this all happen almost jolts from the softness in his voice.

“We were never together, mullet,” comes a raspy reply.

“Must not be hurt that bad if you’re cracking stupid jokes.”

“No, I promise I still feel like death.”

Keith snorts what could be a laugh, but there’s a tightness to his expression, a wrongness to the tilt of his mouth. “Maybe think next time before satisfying your hero-complex?”

“You won’t be saying that when it’s your ass I’m saving.” The Lance in Keith’s embrace groans as Keith tightens his grip and pulls him in closer for better support.

“I don’t need you to save me,” Keith says.

“We’ll see about that.”

And the scene changes and Lance is looking at Keith, here, in the cockpit of Red again. Keith is staring at him, his face pinched, but his eyes are wide and there’s--there’s something about his expression that is suddenly vulnerable. The red light lays over his face gently, softening the hard edges of his jaw and the sharp angle of his nose, making his eyes darker than ever. Dark enough to fall into and disappear forever.

For the first time, Lance is seeing a crack in his armor and he takes a slow breath, desperate to wedge himself into that sliver and widen it. He wants to stick his hands inside, pry it open and understand, at last, what Keith is thinking.

“What was that?” Lance asks softly, his voice uneven, tripping horribly on the last word. He can still feel the familiarity that burned between them in that memory, the camaraderie, the overwhelming bubble of safety that it had brought. That hadn’t--it hadn’t felt like a rivalry and it’s making him so confused because that’s what he’s been told since the beginning. That he and Keith were opposites and that they rarely got along and he’s finding it so hard to believe right now.

It doesn’t help that Keith is turning away from him, casting his gaze elsewhere, running his teeth over his lower lip. “A memory,” he says after a long moment.

“Was that--was that normal, for us?” Lance asks, almost earnestly, holding back a million questions that memory conjured up alone.

Keith smiles a little bit at that, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth, and then throws him a sideways glance. “Not really.”

Not really. But it had been something. “Everyone has told me that you were--I mean, that we didn’t get along, but…” Lance trails off. How much is too much after seeing that? “Keith, that’s not true, is it?”

Keith goes very still and Lance’s heart stutters violently at the shaky sound of his sudden exhale. The crack in his mask widens even more and Lance doesn’t even know what he did to evoke this kind of reaction, but Keith is turning back to face him with an expression that he’s never worn before. It’s too alien on his face for Lance to identify it, but it continues to urge Lance’s heart into an uneven gallop.

“We didn’t, at first,” Keith says finally and his voice nearly matches the one in that memory but it’s drier somehow. Cracked. Wrecked. His gaze has opened and even the blood on his face can’t detract from how achingly handsome he is right now, in this very moment. Lance has to fight the urge to reach up and brush the hair back from where it falls delicately across the bridge of his nose. “Things changed when I became the pilot of the black lion.”

Lance’s chest feels so hot and tight and full he can hardly breathe again. “What things?”

And Keith leans against the pilot’s chair, his elbow draped over the backrest as he shifts his weight, looking down at Lance with so much intensity he doesn’t know how he’s still sitting here in one piece. “Can we talk about this later, Lance?”

He wants to say no. He wants to grab Keith by the hood of his suit and make him tell him everything about their past together. It’s occurring to him that no one knew who they were. Not apart and definitely not together. Hunk, Lance’s best friend, didn’t know how much Lance had loved Keith. Didn’t know that Lance loved him at all, so how-- how could he know anything about his relationship with Keith? How could Lance not realize before that no one could see them clearly at all?

He’s aware that they aren’t totally alone, and that they have some pretty important things to take care of as Red nears the end of the quantum field. These are the only things that stop him from pressing into Keith’s personal space and begging for answers.

“Of course,” Lance tells him.

Keith nods and then, with returning confidence, “...I wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?”

“For trusting me.” Keith mentions it as though it’s off hand and not important but the warmth from both statements smooths over Lance’s skin like honey.

“You don’t have to thank me for that. I’ve always trusted you,” Lance tells him honestly, because even without his memories, he’s sure of that much. Even when staying put in the cockpit was testing the limits of his own patience, he knew that he couldn’t leave.

Keith’s eyes flutter and he turns his face to the side as his breath comes out unsteady again just loud enough to be heard and Lance’s heart reacts in kind in exactly the same way as before. He pushes away the rising heat in his body, tries to think about anything, like about what Lotor has done or the kind of problems this is going to cause. But even when Keith goes back to sit with Krolia, and Lance is sending a quick message about what they found on the moon to the Castle, he’s still seeing Keith’s face in his mind without that mask.

His heart won’t quit.

Like...

Man, what kind of fucking rivalry was this? God damn.

Chapter Text

They’ve been gone for three days, thanks to the magic of the quantum abyss.

Despite not having slept in however many freaking vargas it’s been for him since they left, three days feels pretty accurate to Lance. His adrenaline only carries him to the medbay with the rest of the team as they lay Krolia and a few of the Blade members up in the healing pods. Then it’s Keith, explaining the finer details of what they saw and what happened and Lance leans against the wall, heavy with exhaustion.

Still, he doesn’t take his gaze off Keith once, irrationally afraid that he’ll snap out of it and find himself alone in the cockpit of the red lion back on that fucking moon again. Half-lidded eyes, arms crossed over the chestplate of his armor tightly, head resting against the wall, he watches Keith. And afterwards, when Keith is done with the explanations, Allura clears her throat, her expression hardened.

“I suppose it makes sense now why Lotor has been out of contact these past several days,” she says. There’s a sharpness to her voice that holds no malice for any of them and Lance hates that she’s in pain from all of this. “We’ll contact Kolivan at once and let him know what has happened; we need to--” Her voice shakes a little, and everyone pretends not to hear it. “We need to figure out what to do with this new information.”

Without another word, she turns and leaves the room, and Coran is quick to follow, leaving behind a silence that feels heavy and pressing. Shiro is the first to recover. He turns towards Keith first and then Lance with kindness on his face and Lance sorta feels guilty about feeling nervous around him all the time.

“You two look like you could use some rest. Why don’t you clean up and take it easy? The rest of us will take turns making sure everyone in the pods gets out alright.”

Pidge frowns. “What about Allura?”

“We’ll give her a little bit of space,” Shiro says. “This...can’t be easy for her.”

They all murmur agreement.

“I’ll make something to eat,” Hunk offers.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Shiro replies.

Lance is too tired to say anything as they all begin to disperse, but his eyes track Keith as he moves towards the door, leaning on his wolf for support as he clearly favors his hurt ankle. No one notices but Lance, which makes sense considering Keith hadn’t brought it up when Coran had asked about assessing the injuries. He frowns and shifts his body weight into motion to follow behind.

There’s a distinct line to Keith’s shoulders as they all trickle down the hall, full of tension, drawn in tight as a wire. Lance wants to...okay, so the reality of it, is that he just wants to be with Keith. Just in proximity. After what they just went through - after wondering for several, eternal moments if he was going to lose Keith again - he doesn’t want to be any further away from him than he is now. Thinking about how hard it had been to breathe, how much it had ached --

He knows that’s wanting too much. It’s way too much. Especially when Keith has clearly been avoiding all eye contact with him since they got back. It kinda stings, even though he tells himself that it shouldn’t. Keith doesn’t owe him anything at all, really. They don’t...they don’t know each other.

Lance shakes his head, feeling his mouth screwing up into a displeased grimace. Whatever that memory was, whatever sort of insight it allowed into their past relationship, it had thrown Keith off. Way off. Like, catapulted-into-a-different-galaxy off. Even Lance, who couldn’t figure him out, could see that much. It had shaken him so badly that his walls had crumbled for just a moment, leaving him open to scrutiny. He still wants to crawl in there. To coax Keith out and understand. The force of his desire to understand is blinding. Knee-shaking. Heart-gripping. Too much, too much.

He has to force himself to take a deep breath.

He has to take a moment in the hallway to press a hand against his chest and breathe .

His exhaustion should make this easier on him; his hunger should be pulling his thoughts. He shouldn’t be thinking so desperately and impulsively about Keith, even now. Not about the way his expression had said so little, despite feeling like more. That dark, brooding aura about him became unsure as he turned away. It terrified Lance, too, in a way that was distinctly not terrifying, though it felt a little like the way you might feel right before lightning strikes. Hair-raising and electric. Terrifying.

Okay.

Okay.

Breathe. Refocus.

Lance makes a direct beeline for his shower. He pretends not to notice Keith retreat into his own room, or that Hunk says something to Pidge that has both of them casting a glance at him over their shoulders. Nope. He just leaves it all behind in favor of collecting himself. Once alone in his room, he unbuckles his armor and strips out of the flight suit, leaving it all in a haphazard pile on the floor. Exhaustion drags at his body, but the water from the spray helps him feel a little more human, and a little more grounded.

He steers his thoughts towards the memory itself again, this time to indulge in it. He closes his eyes and he can see it so clearly, the way that he and Keith had held onto each other. Lance thinks that he can almost remember it from his point of view, too, even though that’s silly and impossible. His forehead pressing against the armor at Keith’s neck, Keith’s face brushing just slightly against the ends of his wild hair, the strength in Keith’s arms as he led Lance down the hallway...when he imagines it, it seems more like a dream than something that could have feasibly happened in reality.

It makes him warm. Impossibly warm.

There’s something comforting about it, like, after seeing that memory, after understanding even a snapshot of his life before, Lance can understand, maybe, why he’d fallen in love with Keith. Those arms, that voice--the way he snapped his words and still sounded like he cared. And he--he didn’t have to hold Lance that close, did he? He didn’t have to hold Lance like that . There was a strength there that he hadn’t known when Keith had hugged him the night he broke down. That had been gentle and unsure.

The big scary unknown of those 18 years seems much less daunting now, even though he still doesn’t know the details of his prior life intimately. He knew Keith then, and his heart holds Keith close now, and if that’s all Lance ever gets from his past, then that’s okay.

Is it possible, for them to be close like that again? Even if it was a special circumstance, just the way they had talked to each other in that memory is enough to make Lance’s desire stronger and more resolute. He--he wants it so bad, with Keith. To be friends, to not have this weird tension between them that seems to grow stronger with each passing glance. Friends would be good enough. Even if he does want to, like, wrap himself up in Keith’s arms. And kiss him. A lot.

Lance groans in frustration and scrubs the shampoo from his hair and then turns his thinking off. Because it’s not really helping to give him the space he decided that he needed for even a few short minutes. Instead, he dwells on the heat of the water and how good a mattress will feel under him. It’s been a long time since he’s had a good night’s sleep, and even with all of the anxieties and things on his mind, he’s really looking forward to just...turning off for a little while.

But, he has some things he’s gotta do first.

Once he’s clean, he steps out of the shower and slowly goes through the process of drying off. His eyes are heavy with sleep, but his stomach is growling loudly every couple of minutes and he thinks he’ll rest better after eating something. After dressing in old clothes that are casual and soft, he makes his way to the kitchen.

Hunk is there with Pidge. She’s sitting on the counter and he’s got something on a plate beside her and Lance has no clue what it is, but his stomach aches at the smell of it. When did he get so hungry? Christ.

“Hey guys,” he greets, even though they both stopped talking as soon as he walked in. “Hunk, is that--”

Hunk smiles. “Yeah, man. Help yourself. I was gonna bring some to your room, ‘cuz like, you look like death. No offense. Didn’t think you’d make it back out after going in.”

Lance leans against the counter and immediately reaches for one of the snacks. He’s not sure what it is, but it might as well be ambrosia for how good it tastes right now. Crumbly, with a dry texture that kinda tastes sweet. Doesn’t hurt that Hunk is a literal god when it comes to cooking. He grabs a bowl from one of the cupboards and loads it up.

“Had a headache,” he finally explains - lies - as he grabs a bag of something frozen out of the freezer and tucks it up under his arm.

Pidge says, “You should grab some medicine from the medbay for that; Coran just divvied out new doses so we don’t have to guess anymore. And drink some water. You could be dehydrated.”

Lance nods, thinking it a good idea. “Yeah, I will. Thanks.”

She nods, too, and he gathers up his stuff, pausing only at the look on her face. A look, Lance notices, is reflected in Hunk’s expression, too. The frozen bag is so cold it almost burns through the sleeve of his shirt but he feels like he’s been caught, and his heart drops when Pidge tilts her head and fixes the slide of her glasses on her nose. He closes his fist tight around the pouch of water in one hand.

“So, like, what’s the deal with you and Keith?” she asks.

Maybe if he plays it cool, if he doesn’t let his composure slip, he can get out of this without dying a second, painful death. “What do you mean?”

“Lance, it was awkward as fuck when you guys got back. He wouldn’t even look at you and it was so obvious,” she says. “Are you guys back to fighting again?” Lance breathes out an undetectable sight of relief. His heart slows, and the heat that threatened to rush to his face has dimmed.

He thinks back on everything he learned about his relationship with Keith before. The weird rivalry that cannot, no matter how he looks at it, line up with what he feels. That memory from a long enough time ago when Keith was still part of their team. Are you guys back to fighting again? It was never like that, and yet, the lie slips out so easily.  “Yeah...” The word is slow and low, his expression blank. Hunk looks entirely unconvinced, but Pidge buys it in a heartbeat. A smile splits across her face.

“Just like old times, huh?” She elbows Hunk who laughs in agreement, even though he clearly isn’t sold, if the knowing gleam in his eyes is anything to go by.

“Yeah,” Lance manages, somehow, to grin. It’s strange and it feels so fake, but Pidge chuckles anyway. It occurs to him that this is probably why no one had known before, about him. It’s so easy to lie to them. Too easy. He should stop, especially since Hunk has probably got a few things figured out, but it feels like Keith should hear Lance’s absolute truths first. Mostly because, they belong to him, just as much as they do Lance.

“Well, it’s good to feel like things are going back to normal,” she says and Hunk, still, remains quiet. “Go rest! We’ll see you later.”

Lance nods and gestures awkwardly to the bowl of snacks tucked into the arm opposite from the frozen bag. “Y-Yeah. Thanks again, Hunk. See ya guys.”

He turns and books it out of there. Before heading back to the dormitory wing, he swings by the medbay and grabs some medicine as Pidge suggested. Shiro walks by to check on the all of the Blades in the healing process; he admonishes Lance for still being up and about when he should be sleeping and Lance promises that he’s on his way back. Another lie, but at least this one is close enough to the truth. Kinda. He still has something he’s gotta do.

Every step closer to his bedroom sets his pulse rocketing higher and higher. The frozen bag has numbed half of his arm, so even though a part of him wants to drag his feet, he makes good time. Once he’s arrived, he skips clean over his own bedroom door and walks to his neighbor’s, taking a deep, steadying breath as he stands there in the dim light.

It’s stupid, he thinks, to be so nervous. What the hell does he have to be nervous about, anyway? This won’t be the first time they’ve had a private conversation. He nods to himself and straightens his posture before knocking on the door with a loud and sure fist.

There’s no response at first, and Lance wonders if maybe Keith is somewhere else. He hadn’t been in the med wing to see his mother or any of the Blades while Lance was there, but the Castle is big. He could be anywhere. Lance frowns at that thought, of Keith hobbling around on a bad ankle. Or, god, knowing him, he’s not in the training room, is he? He wouldn’t be that stupid, right? He could just have already fallen asleep in his room...

Coincidentally, at that thought, the door opens.

Lance blinks. He swore to himself, earlier, that he was finally getting it together. That just because he hadn’t seen Keith in 20 or 30 doboshes--it didn’t have to mean that he was going to lose his shit at the sight of him again. Like he has almost every time. He knows what Keith looks like now. Knows that tousled hair and those dark eyes well enough to envision him without trouble. There should be no reason that seeing Keith now - again - should leave him breathless but it does. It fucking--

It takes the breath straight out of him. Clean, like a gust of air meant to rip away his voice in a wild torrent. Like a punch to the gut, leaving him winded and hardly able to collect himself. Keith is standing there on the other side of the door, his hair wet and curling against the back of his neck. Drops of water freckling his exposed collarbone. Fresh from a shower. Lance can smell his soap lingering in the steamed air - the same exact soap that Lance uses - and for some stupid reason, it smells even better on Keith. That’s so dumb. That’s--that’s the stupidest thing in the entire world, but Lance can’t even refute the facts. He’s at their mercy, at this point.

At first glance, Keith is wearing the same dark outfit - shirt too tight, now, for his torso, pants too snug (as if Lance isn’t already suffering enough) - but his feet are bare. One leg of his pants rolled up to expose that anklet of bruises, dark and throbbing around his skin. There are a few scratches near his chin, shallow enough that they’re not really bleeding anymore, but the fact that they exist at all make Lance upset. Across the room, the wolf lounges on a messy bed as if it belonged to him.

Keith seems surprised by Lance’s presence. His eyebrows raise, opening up his expression enough that he almost looks younger. “Lance?”

Keith has said his name a hundred times, really, since Lance met him so, like, it’s also extremely stupid that he still feels it in his chest like a reverberation. Every. Time. His knees are feeling way too much like food goo for not even having engaged in the conversation yet. “Uh, hey--hey man,” Lance manages. He holds his arms up awkwardly. “I brought you some goods.”

That gets him a suspicious once over. “What?”

“You didn’t tell anyone you were hurt,” Lance says, dropping his eyes to keep from staring at the water on his clavicle. From wanting to step forward and press his face into the curve of his neck and smell the soap or reveling in the shower-warm flush of his skin. The nerves in his belly threaten to rock his voice. “And I thought you might be hungry, too. Can I...come in?”

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Keith asks, and his voice is a little more firm now. Not as susceptible to his surprise.

Lance shrugs, his tiredness all but forgotten. “I’ll get around to it.”

Keith assesses him for another moment, his eyes searching again. They must find enough, because he steps aside, favoring his bad ankle, and props a hand on his hip. Lance finds a smile curling at his mouth as satisfaction curls in his chest, and he enters the room, heading for the dresser on the far end, and plopping the things in his arms down on top of it immediately.

Even though the room is identical to his, he hasn’t been in here since the day Keith came back. Before that, he’d been in here almost every day, trying to imagine who Keith was, trying to see him in places that he didn’t exist. Lance runs his gaze over the empty room, the open bathroom, and even though he kind of misses the room for what it was to him, he doesn’t miss thinking that Keith was dead, or how lonely and cold he felt curled up in Keith’s bed.

Which Keith will never ever find out about, by the way. Yikes.

Crap, and he still has Keith’s jacket hostage in his closet.

He turns around to see that the door has closed and Keith is regarding him with another one of his trademark unreadable expressions, his arms crossed over his chest. He can’t tell if Keith is confused or if he really just doesn’t want to expose his own thoughts in any way, shape, or form. Lance briefly thinks about the familiarity they had shared in that memory he’d been gifted in the quantum abyss, and tries to channel it right here, right now.

“I don’t know how bad your ankle is hurting but it looked nasty so I got painkillers,” Lance says, holding the little capsules in the palm of his hand. Keith walks towards him and takes them after only a moment of hesitation and Lance’s smile finds its way back onto his face, bigger than before. “And--” he grabs the water pouch and thrusts it into Keith’s other hand, “--water.”

Keith eyes him again before tossing the pills back and then taking a long drink of water. Then, he sits down on the edge of his bed and looks up at Lance with a strange expression in the same sort of vein as confusion. “Thanks, Lance. You didn’t have to.”

The heat in Lance’s face is slowly becoming warmer, and more obvious. He picks up the bag of frozen something and tosses it at Keith, too. “I know but, I...thought that you wouldn’t,” he admits, and he’s proud of the way his voice doesn’t waver, even though finding the words is difficult. “So I did.”

The confusion on Keith’s face fades a little and then he smirks and that whole dark hero vibe is very nearly too much to handle. Lance feels a tremor under his skin and he does his best to subdue it by tucking his hands into the weathered pockets of his pants. The way Keith’s hair cuts across his face, the way his eyebrows slant--

“Are those for me, too?” Keith asks as he leans back against the wall near his pillows and tucks one leg up onto the bed, laying the frozen bag over his ankle. He jabs his thumb in the direction of the snack bowl with interest.

“I did say I brought food, didn’t I?” Lance grabs it and plucks one of the snacks out for himself.

Keith reaches over to pet his wolf with a gentle hand on the head, who responds with two prominent tail thumps against the mattress. “Mm.” He relaxes against the wall, settling into himself now, and pats the edge of the mattress after just a moment of hesitation, wordlessly inviting Lance to stay for a moment.

Lance grins, heart leaping into his throat, as he takes a delicate seat on the edge and extends the bowl in Keith’s direction. “Have at it.”

Keith takes one and pops it into his mouth, humming with appreciation. “Thanks.”

They sit in silence and eat for a little while, and for once, Lance’s thoughts aren’t buzzing or restless. He feels at peace here, with Keith, and he’s glad that Keith has let him stayed for even a few minutes. Even all the things he wants to ask about seem quiet in his head, letting him just exist in the moment without pressing for details. He laughs at the wolf when he low-crawls towards Lance on the bed, and ends up feeding the extremely large animal bits of the biscuit, too.

After finishing off the snacks, Lance breaks the silence, watching as Keith shifts the cold pack on his ankle. The atmosphere grows more somber, the exhaustion in his bones making itself known again. Besides bringing stuff for Keith’s ankle, this is the main reason he wanted to come here. Lance breathes in and out through his nose with control.

“I’m sorry about the mission. About losing someone.”

Keith might be shrugging, but Lance directs his attention from the ankle to the wolf, giving him scratches behind his fuzzy ears. “We all know what we’re getting into every time we go out like that,” Keith says.

“Did you know him?”

“Not very well. When we take the Blades back, Kolivan will honor him with a few nice words, but that’s it. Wish I knew him better, so I could say something, too.”

Lance nods, running his fingers through the wolf’s fur. That seems...so very Keith. “Is it bad that--that I’m glad it wasn’t you?” The words are easier to say than he thought. An admission that isn’t so big or scary after that vulnerability that had come with seeing that memory. It almost warms him; this is progress.

Keith is quiet for a moment and Lance slowly lifts his eyes to see him with his arms crossed loosely ever his chest, head tilted back against the wall, gaze directed down to watch Lance intently. Lance wonders, for just a moment, if he’ll ever find out what color those eyes are, even as he appreciates the lean, strong curve of his throat. “I’d told you I’d come back, didn’t I?”

He made that promise more than once, but it didn’t make it any easier.

“I was really scared, Keith.” Lance frowns at him and feels his own words, heavy as lead, leave his tongue and hang in the air between them. They linger there like a fog, so dense, impossible to see through, but he doesn’t want to take them back. He wants to give them to Keith--he wants to give more than that away, but this is a good place to start.

Keith’s gaze quickly darts away as his expression shifts again, almost the same way it had back in the cockpit of the red lion, too quick to tell what it means. Still enough to make Lance’s heart do cartwheels, though. “Sorry,” Keith mutters.

Lance wants to reach out and touch Keith. A hand on his knee or maybe on the back of his hand, but he doesn’t know if he can. So he just runs his fingers through the wolf’s fur again, smiling slightly when there’s another series of happy tail wags that follow. “You’re lucky all you got was a sprained ankle.”

Keith licks his lips, letting silence settle for just a moment, and then he starts to speak in a low voice that rumbles through Lance like thunder. It sounds so good that Lance wants to chase it, even though he doesn’t know what that means. “You were right about the mission from the beginning, anyway. It would have been better if we never went. I should have listened to you.”

“H-Hey, it wasn’t all a waste,” Lance reminds him earnestly, even as the timbre of Keith’s voice burrows underneath his skin and sticks to him like honey, all dark and warm. “We realized who Lotor really was. He’d still be yanking our chains around if we hadn’t gone. At least we know now, you know?” He clears his throat. “I’m sorry about your mom, too. I’m glad she’s okay.”

Keith takes a deep breath and then lets it out and Lance watches as some of the tension that had slowly built up over their conversation melts away again. His eyes flick back in Lance’s direction. He straightens up, leans slightly towards Lance, enough that it makes Lance’s heart stutter. Stupidly, because they are on near opposites of the bed, anyway.

“Me too. It would have been my shoulder if she hadn’t pushed me out of the way.”

Lance doesn’t like the sound of that at all, and his respect for Krolia grows a little bit at that. “I knew I was right to be scared.”

Keith chuckles a little, a dry thing that sounds unpracticed, but it eases the sudden anxiety that had closed around Lance’s heart. “Yeah, yeah, you’re always right. I get it.” He sighs and brushes at his bangs idly, sweeping them away from his eye. “Anyways, you should get some rest.”

The change in subject could give him whiplash. Did he overstay his welcome on accident? Say something that he shouldn’t have said? What else can he say? “R-Right. Yeah.” Lance gives the wolf another quick pat and then stands slowly and takes the bowl with him. He smiles down at Keith, wondering if it’s obvious how very badly he wishes he could stay. “See you tomorrow. Make sure to keep your foot up.”

Keith smirks again, and rolls his eyes somewhat playfully. “Yes, Doctor.”

For some hideous reason, that makes Lance’s face got hot, hot, hot with a blush. Is Keith teasing him now? Really? Lance isn’t equipped to deal with this! “I-If you don’t want me worrying over you, maybe you should learn to take care of yourself.” That really wouldn’t help, considering Lance is pretty much destined to always worry when Keith throws himself into something dangerous. He makes as though to leave, but something hot and visceral seizes him when Keith’s hand is suddenly wrapped around his wrist with a firm grip.

“Lance,” he says, and his voice is low and so sincere and his hand is so warm that the atmosphere in the room seems to fill with tension. Something is clearly on his mind, something he’s reluctant to give voice to. Lance can’t bare to look at him.

“Y-Yeah?”

A pause. Testing the words out in his head before voicing them, carefully. “Do you really not remember me?”

Lance finds himself welling with regret and self-directed frustration, his food-goo knees wobbling again. He clutches on tight to the bowl in his hands as if that will somehow keep him upright. “I want to,” he says softly, and it sounds so breakable. “I wish I did. I-I...I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s just--” Keith studies him solemnly for a few moments. “I hate that you apologize for that. I hate it, Lance. Stop. I only asked because it just seems like you do.”

His heart stops dead. “I already told you that I missed you,” he whispers, and the low quality of his voice makes it impossible to tell that it’s shaking. Those words are so incriminating. So...obvious. I missed you. It says everything there is to say. “That’s all I know.”

Keith regards him again for another long moment and then releases Lance’s wrist slowly. The way his fingertips just barely graze the back of his hand lights Lance’s skin on fire, drawing in a tight breath before quickly letting it go. “You can ask me anything,” Keith tells him. “Not now, because we should both be getting some rest but--” His eyebrows furrow, drawing Lance’s brief attention before settling back down on his gaze. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“I have a lot of questions,” Lance warns him, but his heart is practically vibrating in his chest now at Keith’s increasing gentleness. He looks less like a storm, his hair nearly dried, the pinched expression not as severe as it could be. Lance wants to sit back down on the bed and talk now , wants to close his eyes and curl up beside him, but that’s…

“I’d be worried if you didn’t.” Keith shifts on the bed, wincing as he jostles his ankle, but then his expression is warm and Lance could fall to his knees at the knowledge that Keith is willingly letting him see him like this. It’s not an accident; he hasn’t been taken by surprise. He wants to--he’s trying to be open, with Lance. “Go to bed, Lance. We’ve got time later, okay?”

“Yeah...yeah.” Lance nods and smiles down at him, his hand still tingling from the touch. “Thanks, Keith.”

Keith waves him away, but there’s almost a smile on his face, too. It feels familiar. Not like the memory, really, but sort of. It feels right. Talking to Keith like this, honestly and without fearing backlash or exposure. It’s calm and reassuring. Whatever “rivalry” they’d had, hadn’t been real. They’d been friends--they’d been really good friends.

Lance gives him a little salute and then makes his way out of the room. As soon as the door is shut behind him he leans heavily back against the wall as a smile splits across his face wide and bright and untameable. His heart thrums at a healthy pace. It’s the first conversation he’s had that didn’t feel hard and didn’t leave him floundering and it feels so good.

When he gets back to his room, he digs out the notebook and pages through the last few entries detailing Keith’s arrival, the feelings that had poured from him then, and adds a few more things. Bullet points of recent observations that he doesn’t want to forget. The mission. The quantum abyss. The memory. This last conversation. He mentions Pidge’s willful ignorance and Hunk’s intuition. He spends a few melancholy moments on Allura, and reminds himself to go and see her tomorrow, but sleep is eventually calling for him.

He puts the notebook aside when he lays down, drawing the crumpled, unwritten letter out from under his pillowcase with sleep-heavy eyes in the dark. Its so soft under his hand, creased and well-loved. He wonders how Keith would react to it, if he showed him. If he handed this worry-worn piece of paper over and explained what it was and what it meant.

Lance decides that it doesn’t matter anymore. Who he was before made the choice to hide. He kept to himself. He let the others believe he had feelings for Allura. He didn’t write the letter. As a result, his entire past is full of holes and questions that no one has a straight answer to and it sucks. He’s got to sit here and pretend like he isn’t ultimately devoted to a boy who he supposedly didn’t get along with.

Pathetic. Miserable. Why did he do that to himself?

Lance would do anything for Keith, with no reservations. No conditions.

He would confess his feelings. Make the others see him for who he is.

He would write a letter.

He just needs to make sure it won’t be too much, and then he’s there. He’s so there. He just needs a little more time.

Chapter Text

Lance sleeps like a rock. Usually, it doesn’t come so easy to him, but with all of the action going on lately, his exhaustion knocks him out for a solid, dreamless length of time. He wakes up the next morning with pillow creases on his cheek, feeling warm and heavy and at ease. With a sigh, he rolls out of bed and makes his way to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth.

His reflection in the mirror looks back at him with sleep-droopy eyes as his thoughts slowly start to turn. He goes over all of the information from the past day, re-cataloguing it in his stupor, relishing the way the minty toothpaste chases away all of the last traces of morning breath from his mouth.

It’s so...normal. For maybe the very first time since he died, he hasn’t woken up with an impending sense of dread. Instead of that awful, twisting feeling in his gut, instead of wanting to burrow back into his bed in a cocoon of blankets, Lance is looking at himself in the mirror with toothpaste at the corners of his mouth and things seem alright. Even with the new threat of Lotor hanging over the Castle, his hair is in odd angles but the bags beneath his eyes are disappearing and he can breathe easy and things are alright.

There are obvious reasons for this.

Or, rather, there is one glaringly obvious reason for this.

Lance feels delicate. Not breakable, really, in a way that he is one wrong touch from shattering into glass pieces. It’s not as extreme as that; there are no painful, jagged edges or blunt blade-tips of emotion. It’s softer. Something almost wispy, something warm. Butterflies flutter in his stomach at the memory of last night. The attempt at vulnerability. The way softness had stolen over Keith like a hazy dream. How Lance hadn’t been so nervous or unsure of himself, how Keith had grabbed his wrist, how it burned and how firm it was. A conscious choice to reach out. Deliberate.

Do you really not remember me?

I only asked because it just seems like you do.

Lance clutches at the sink with his free hand as the memory swells up in him, feeling light-headed and ridiculous for being so easily swept up in Keith’s spell. The boy isn’t even here and Lance is all but falling over at the thought of him. It’s insanity that all he has to do to feel good is think about Keith’s dark eyes and the gentler tilt of his mouth but...

He’s getting used to it; used to feeling what he feels now and accepting that no one had realized. As frustrating as it is to have two separate views of himself and no way to discern what was the entire truth, this is something he gets to discover as he learns more about Keith, because he’ll get to learn about himself, too. This is a part of him now, something that belongs to this Lance, the one that exists in this moment--and it gets to be a memory that he didn’t forget.

It seems wild that only a week ago he hadn’t known what Keith looked like at all. He can see his face so clearly now, in his mind. All dark and stormy and unpredictable. Sleep falls away from him as the heat prickles at his skin tentatively, as the tremor of anticipation rocks his spine. The blatant desire to see him again is overwhelming. This, on the other hand, is one thing he’s not sure he’ll ever adjust to.

Lance quickly finishes up his bathroom routine and stumbles back into his bedroom to change. He combs through his hair with his fingers, shoves the blank letter with Keith’s name on it into his pocket out of habit and then hastily makes his way out. He spares a long look at Keith’s door--he even takes a few steps towards it before he steadies his eagerness with a deep breath and spins on his heel to instead walk to the kitchen.

Pidge is the only one there, slumped over her computer and a bowl, shoveling food into her mouth while she scans for something on the screen. Lance pauses in the doorway briefly before she notices him. He hopes that this interaction between them won’t upturn his good mood. They never seem to see eye to eye on anything, and it can make things tense--he really doesn’t wanna deal with that today.

“Hey, Pidge,” he greets tentatively, pulling her attention.

She snaps her head up as she swallows around a mouthful of breakfast. “Lance! Hey!” She grins and some of his wariness fades away. “I was just going to come looking for you.”

He steps into the kitchen and makes a beeline for the fridge. “Me? Why?”

She adjust her glasses. “A few days before you lost your memories, some of the Castle database got wiped by a glitch. Luckily it was mostly unnecessary stuff; the files including a lot of our security footage and things like that. I didn’t wanna bring it up because...well, it was gone and I didn’t wanna upset you. None of us thought it’d change anything and I couldn’t save what we lost.”

Lance freezes and turns to look at her, appetite immediately forgotten. Security footage? They’d kept videos of things that happened in the Castle? His stomach turns over, heart clenching painfully once as a tremor rocks through him. He leans against the fridge for support as discreetly as possible, fixing his wide-eyed stare on her. “What...what are you talking about Pidge?”

She props an elbow on the counter and smiles as she leans her cheek into the cup of her hand, pushing away her bowl. “I found some of our old video logs tucked away in some really obscure file while going over something else last night. You’ve got a couple. Do you wanna watch them?”

And it occurs to him, even in the way the information punches the breath from him, his mind squealing to a deafening stop, that she’s asking what he’d like to do, regarding his memories. It’s a first for her, and the change in her approach - while probably pre-mediated - prompts him to respond earnestly, his voice hoarse. “I--wow, really?” He shakes his head minutely, blinking away the shock. “Yes. Yeah. I...I would.”

Pidge beams at him happily. “Great! I’ll send the files to your tablet and you can watch them when you’re ready.”

Lance nods and turns away from her when she ducks her head and her fingers begin clicking on her laptop. After a few more seconds, he can feel the strength back in his legs and even though he’s not hungry anymore, he opens the fridge and searches around for some leftovers to tie him over for later.

His mind has come to a devastating halt at this new discovery, dropped so casually into a morning conversation that Lance has to wonder if he’s dreaming. Even though he had closed the book on any hope he could get his memories back, it had never crossed his mind that he would be able to watch a part of his life that he doesn’t remember. No one had mentioned videos before and Lance hadn’t wanted to ask, afraid of the answer.

He doesn’t even know if he should watch them. He was getting so comfortable with the new status quo but...but there might be something about his family in them. His family, who he loved and missed and he desperately wants to know again. Maybe then the guilt wouldn’t be so potent or consuming when it throttled him. Wouldn’t that be nice? To think about a family he can’t remember and not feel like it’s somehow his fault that he forgot them?

Or...

Or--or maybe, these videos have insight to his relationship with Keith. A video log probably wouldn’t be too personal - Lance knows with some certainty that the person he’d been before death had been deeply private about his true feelings regarding a great many things -  but there might be something. A throwaway line. A passing remark. How could he pass a chance like that up?

“Should be good to go,” Pidge announces, shaking him from his stupor. He quickly grabs the first thing he sees on a shelf and closes the fridge, turning around to face her again. It’s clear he was caught staring off into space by the assessment on her face, but she softens almost immediately, and changes the subject. “Anyway, it’s a good thing you’re up. Shiro said something about calling the Blade and reporting in soon, so we should probably head down to the flight deck.”

He nods, still scattered as hell. “Thank you and...uh--yeah. Probably should.”

She snaps her laptop closed and hops off her stool, her gaze darting down to his hands. “You might want to eat something with that.”

He looks down to see a lump of butter, neatly wrapped in wax paper, clutched in his hand and feels the hot blush of embarrassment creeping up his neck. “Right.” Awkwardly, he turns back around and places the butter back in the fridge, instead pulling out some pink, alien fruit. He gives her a thin smile and bites into it, hardly tasting the cloying sweetness of it at all.

Together, he and Pidge make their way to the flight deck and Lance knows that he should be listening to her, as she talks on about something--but he’s half distracted by the thought of those video logs. And he really doesn’t want to think about that right now because for some reason, the thought of them is making him nervous. His mind threatens to wander over to Keith, as it normally does, but he knows that will induce irrational thought. He’d do something stupid like peel away from Pidge and travel back to the dorms to find him. So he switches gears to another topic that doesn’t make him anxious or impulsive.

“Have you seen Allura?” Lance asks, making conversation as he eats.

Pidge sighs, giving him a half shrug as they turn the corner at the end of the hallway. “No, but Hunk brought her breakfast a while ago and when I asked, he said she was acting like her usual self. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing.”

Lance nods solemnly, mostly to himself. On one hand, what Lotor has done is heinous and he doesn’t deserve a place in Allura’s thoughts. On the other, everyone on the ship had seen how happy she had been with him. How light on her feet she had been, how easily she had smiled. Pretending to be unaffected must mean that she’s hurting more than they’d anticipated.

And Lance might not be all that close with the princess, but when he lost his memories - when he died - she had blamed herself. Had assumed that Lance blamed and hated her for it, too. Had avoided him for two whole weeks, so sure that he didn’t want to be around her, before they could finally talk about it. So he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that even under the hurt of a more personal betrayal, she’s blaming herself for letting Lotor in. The thought makes Lance frown; he wishes he knew what he could do to help her, but he’s as helpless as the rest of the team, and twice as clueless, because he still doesn’t know her as well as they do.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Pidge says, breaking his train of thought. “She woke ten thousand years after the death of her people to lead a war without faltering at all. I’m sure this is a cakewalk compared to that.”

Lance isn’t sure what a cakewalk is, but he still finds himself frowning. Even if Allura has experienced something much worse than Lotor’s duplicity, it doesn’t make the offense less painful. “Maybe...I don’t think that will make her feel any better though.” They all rely on her being strong but...that doesn’t seem fair, to Lance.

Because he gets it. A breach of total faith and memory loss are two very different things but if what Pidge is saying is the same thing as what everyone else on this ship believes, then Lance gets it. He knows that Allura isn’t feeling very brave or strong right now, no matter how normal she is acting according to Hunk. He knows that she’s probably bitter and upset and feeling isolated and worst of all, she’s still blaming herself.

At least Lance has Keith. Whatever weird space still lies between them, Keith is the one thing that Lance is sure about. In all of the nonsense and fucked up shit that this whole “universe defending” thing entails, Keith is the answer to it all. The reason why and how, the reason for . He’d recognized that the second he’d laid eyes on Keith looming over the flight deck on the video screen.

Lance’s ability to function more normally the past few days have been because he is not being so violently tossed about in a sea of uncertainty. With Keith back, the disconnect he’s felt with the rest of the team isn’t as jarring. His skin feels warm at the thought of Keith, his heart gentle. With or without those memories, he knows he’s finally beginning to heal from that whole experience.

Allura doesn’t have a Keith, and the betrayal is still so fresh that it probably hurts terribly. And even if, somewhere deep down, she knows that the team is there for her, she deserves to have someone say it out loud. She deserves to know that she doesn’t have to be strong all the time, and that she’s allowed to take time to recover. Lance...he doesn’t want her to feel the same way that he felt those two months he spent thinking that Keith was dead. Because that’s technically what Lotor is to her, isn’t it? Dead?

“I’m just speaking logically,” Pidge says a little defensively, casting a sideways glance at him. “It’ll take time, but we’ll be there for her. She’s going to get through this.”

“Yeah,” Lance agrees this time. “Yeah.”

*

After the meeting with Kolivan and the rest of the team, Keith and Krolia are chosen to be the ones to take the freshly-healed Blade of Marmora members back to their home base, unsurprisingly. Lance busies himself with helping Hunk do a cursory check up on the Altean pod they’ll be using for the flight, trying not to let his mind wander to negative thoughts and worries.

He desperately wants to go with Keith, but he knows that’s excessive. This is a certified danger-free mission and Keith has to come back because he’s leaving his wolf behind. And he also...he told Lance that they’d get to talk, didn’t he? It doesn’t make his anxiety go away, because something could always go wrong, but there’s something so--so wonderfully strengthening about being sure . He shove one of his shaking hands deep into his pocket and holds onto the letter, taking deep breaths as he watches Krolia, Allura and Shiro talking near the pod, Keith standing beside his mother in that dark Marmora suit that makes him look so good.

Hunk and Coran have already said their goodbyes, having other tasks pull them away and Pidge is at Shiro’s elbow, looking semi-distracted, but engaging in conversation with one of the other Blade members nonetheless. She’s probably telling them about some upgrade or whatever that she installed in the pod while they were all resting last night and the thought of her being concerned enough to do that makes Lance feel a little better about this whole thing, too.

His heart jumps a little in his chest when Keith’s gaze wanders from Shiro over to him, standing several feet away with the wolf sat at his side, leaning half of it’s lean, heavy weight into him. Lance curls his fingers into the wolf’s fur, shooting Keith a tentative smile before lifting his hand and offering a little wave.

Keith’s eyebrows furrow and then he’s giving Shiro a quick hug and Pidge a pat on the shoulder and making his way to Lance. His pale skin contrasts in such a lovely way with his suit that Lance can feel it becoming harder to breathe as he moves in closer and that’s not fair at all. This was supposed to be easy not--god. The thought of Keith this morning in his bathroom was enough to make Lance wobble, there’s absolutely no reason why the sight of him dressed up in his dark armor with that intense look on his face shouldn’t absolutely do him in.

“Hey,” Lance greets as Keith steps into a reasonable talking distance. “How’s the ankle?”

Keith stops a few feet in front of him, no trace of a limp whatsoever. “Sore, but I’ll manage. Are you okay?”

The abrupt change in subject baffles Lance. “What? Dude, I’m totally fine. Why?”

The sharpness in Keith’s gaze suddenly forms a knot in Lance’s throat and he does his best to remain nonchalant as he reaches down and pets at the wolf again. “You looked upset about something.” Keith frowns.

Oh geez. Lance really needs to work on like, not broadcasting his feelings on his face every time Keith looks at him. He darts his gaze away to preserve himself. “I...I’m fine, really. I just...nevermind. It’s dumb.”

“Lance.” Keith takes a step closer. “Tell me.”

Lance flushes as his heart begins to swoon. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is if you’re really that upset.”

“I’m not that upset,” he mutters and then flicks his gaze up to Keith, his mouth going dry and his skin going hot when he sees the softened expression on his face. His heart kicks it up a notch, drumming in his chest, and the words are pulled from him without his own self-consent. “It’s just--it’s hard to watch you leave.”

The slant of Keith’s eyebrows become less severe, the tense line of his shoulders dropping. “I’m coming back,” he says.

“I know,” Lance tells him, his face on fire, knowing that there’s no turning back now. He might as well lay it all out there. “That doesn’t make it easier, though.”

“Lance.” Keith sighs his name and the way he says it--it sounds so familiar on his tongue. Lance’s knees feel weak, his head light. The only thing he’s sure that’s real and solid at this moment is his heart, thrumming and preening and falling all over the way Keith is looking at him right now. “You made the trip to the post just the other day. You know it’s safe; there’s nothing to be worried about.”

“I know,” Lance says, “but I can’t--I can’t--”

“Keith, we should get going,” Krolia says, loudly enough that her voice echoes around the hangar.

“Coming,” Keith replies without turning his eyes away. They stay on Lance, unwavering, searching his expression with his dark eyes. Something about the focus in his gaze makes Lance shiver. “Tonight--after I get back. We’ll talk, okay?”

And for some reason, that makes him feel a little bit better. He knows that the hope on his face is apparent and with the way Keith is looking at him anyway, he doesn’t really want to hide it. “Yeah? You’ll--you won’t be tired?”

Keith shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter. I want to talk to you, too.”

Lance isn’t fucking prepared for that. The clear confidence in the cadence of Keith’s voice, present in pretty much all of their interactions so far, really just has a way of shutting every functioning thought in Lance’s brain down. He finds himself leaning back into the wolf for support, his skin hot and tight, his stomach burning and flipping and fluttering.

“Keith!” Krolia calls again, sounding a little exasperated through the pulse of his own heartbeat.

Keith reaches out to pet his wolf, who thumps his tail at the attention, and then begins to move backwards, still looking at Lance. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Lance is present enough to give him a nod. “Okay,” he says, and his voice cracks. It’d be embarrassing if anyone else heard, but he’s lost his composure so many times in front of Keith that it doesn’t bother him anymore. He watches Keith turn and make his way back to the pod, climbing into the pilot’s seat beside Krolia. He’s vaguely aware of Shiro ushering him and Pidge out of the hangar, the wolf at his heels, but it takes a moment for his thoughts to pull away from that conversation with Keith.

“That was interesting,” Pidge says once they’re in the hallway and the doors have shut behind them.

That brings Lance back real quick. “Huh?”

“Here I thought all this weird tension between you guys was just you fighting again but that was definitely not, uh, fighting.”

The hot blush crashes over Lance like a wave. He tenses up, immediately irritated. “You ever think that maybe there was more to our relationship than just fighting? Is it so hard to believe that we were friends, too?” he asks, knowing that he’s being too defensive, but unable to help the dramatic tone of his voice. “We were trapped in a giant floating castle in space for two years together and you think that all we did was fight? You’ve got a big brain, Pidge. Try using it.”

Her eyebrows shoot up in shock and Shiro, after a moment of pregnant silence, unexpectedly laughs. The sound diffuses the sudden tension in the room and some of Lance’s embarrassment ebbs, soothing his irritation despite his general unease around Shiro. Pidge continues to stare at Lance and it’s only when Shiro claps a hand on both of their shoulders with a “Come on, you two, we’ve got stuff to do,” that she snaps out of it.

“I can’t believe you just insulted my logic and I’m not offended by it,” she says. “You don’t even remember him.”

Lance snorts. “I didn’t have to remember you to be friends with you.”

She goes quiet and Lance knows it’s because she hates when she’s wrong.

*

He spends the day doing various chores with Keith’s wolf following closely at his heels. It’s been a long time since they’ve cleaned the castle, so Coran sets up a chart of to-dos that should be done before dinner as long as everyone gets to it. Allura remains solemn and quiet as they break off into groups to tackle the tasks, but before he leaves the room, Lance overhears her complaining to Shiro about sitting around doing nothing while Lotor is out there with hundreds of Alteans being experimented on.

He closes himself off from that quickly; with Keith out there in space right now, the threat of Lotor is the last thing he wants to think about. So he pushes it from his mind and heads down to the medbay to clean the healing pods with Keith’s wolf as his company.

Right now, a couple hours later, the wolf sits and watches him from the corner of the kitchen after lunch while Lance and Hunk are working. Hunk breaks the silence with a heavy sigh as though a particularly strong bout of frustration has gotten to him.

“Okay, I have a question: why do you think Keith hasn’t named his dog yet?” he asks in a rush.

Lance startles a bit at the sudden conversation but continues to scrub a rag at a stain on the counter. “He's waiting for the wolf to tell him his name.” He laughs a little. “It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”

“It’s weird!” Hunk agrees. “He needs a name! I can’t just keep calling him ‘Wolf’ or whatever.”

Lance laughs a little more at that. He knows that Keith hasn't named him on purpose, but it’s kind of funny to think that Keith isn’t here to even defend his own choices. Moving onto a stain in the sink, Lance hums. “Did you have any names in mind?”

They go back and forth like that for a while, passing the time, Hunk tossing out names that are progressively sillier and further away from the realm of something that Keith would probably name his wolf. Lance laughs more than he has ever in his entire memory and by the time the kitchen is spotless and they’re both giving the wolf ample love with pets, there’s a warmth and lightness in his chest that he didn’t expect to feel around Hunk.

Is this what it was like before? Hanging out with Hunk and being best bros or whatever? It’s nice. Hunk is nice. Lance feels a wave of gratitude for the boy that nearly bowls him over.

“Okay, no way! That one is terrible,” Lance laughs, back propped against the wall, fingers slowly running over the wolf’s head as it rests in his lap. He’ll not say it out loud, but he’s very proud of the fact that the wolf likes him and hasn’t left his side all day. He’ll also not say that it feels a bit like Keith is still with him, that his presence has done a lot to help ease Lance’s anxiety. “What--what abt that one you said earlier? Kosmo? I kinda liked that one.”

Hunk grins. “Me, too. Whatcha think, buddy?” He coos down at the wolf, and gives him a scratch on the back. “You like Kosmo?”

To be fair, the wolf probably only thumps his tail happily at the sound of his voice, but it’s enough to win both of them over.

“Kosmo it is,” Hunk announces with a pat.

Kosmo it is.

*

Lance tries not to overthink as the rest of the day slowly disappears. Late that night after dinner and a shower, he gets it in his head that he could watch those videos Pidge sent to his tablet this morning so he doesn’t have to think about Keith, but once he’s seated on his bed, Lance hesitates.

He doesn’t know why. A part of it is probably that he has no idea what he’s going to find and he’s grown so accustomed to how things are now. What if one of these stupid vlogs changes everything he thought he knew? After months of struggling to find a balance - after this past week, finally steady on his feet - he’s terrified of it all being upended again. He--man, it’s been hard to get here, but he’s starting to finally feel better about where he’s at and who he is. Even with the occasional dose of guilt.

So, after ten minutes of staring at the blank screen of the tablet, Lance pockets it and wanders out of his room, Kosmo following close behind. He thinks about going to visit Red because the lion is such a source of comfort. Maybe he’ll find the courage to watch those videos in the cockpit; it’s as good a plan as any. He’ll try anything just to keep his mind occupied.

As he’s on his way to his lion’s hangar, he passes down the hallway leading to the training deck and pauses when he hears the sound of drones being torn apart on the other side of the door. Curiosity picks at him because he knows that no one really uses that training room on off hours. He gives Kosmo a look that the wolf returns and then turns back to the door. All thoughts of his tablet disappear as he presses a hand to the door sensor.

The door slides open silently to expose Allura standing over a drone with a staff driven through its neck, panting with exertion. Immediately, Lance feels as though he’s intruding despite the deck being a public space. Her back faces the door and he can see how tense her shoulders are and even though she probably wants to be left alone, he can’t help but think of how much she’s hurting and how much he understands.

“Allura?” He makes sure to speak softly so that he won’t startle her.

She still jumps, whipping around with an unsettled look in her eyes until she recognizes Lance standing there with Kosmo just inside the doorway.

“Oh, hello Lance,” she replies after a moment. “Can I help you with something?”

He furrows his eyebrows and pockets his hands as he slowly makes his way across the room to stand near her. “No...I was just on my way to go see Red. Are you...are you okay?”

She dismisses him with a wave of her hand and turns to yank the staff out of the drone’s neck. “I’m fine. Go on ahead with Red. The importance of connecting with your lion is--”

“You can be honest,” he says, cutting her off.

She doesn’t look back up at him, the weapon clutched tightly in her hand. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He only stops once he’s close enough to take the staff out of her hand. From here, he can see how they’re shaking, even though she makes the effort to quell it by closing them into tight fists. “You don’t need to pretend around us. We’re here for you.”

Her voice is devoid of emotion when she responds. “How can you look at me, knowing what I’ve done? What I let Lotor do?”

He lowers the staff to the ground, frowning, upset that she’s blaming herself as he previously predicted she might. “It’s not your fault. He tricked all of us. If you want to take the blame for that, then we’re at fault, too.”

She gives a mirthless laugh at that. “Not you,” she says, with a bitterness that he can tell isn’t directed at him. “You didn’t like him at all.”

Lance doesn’t know how to do this. Maybe the person he used to be was better at this comforting stuff because he has no idea what he’s doing or what to say. Following his instincts, he reaches out to touch her shoulder tentatively, gently, afraid of scaring her off. “I didn’t trust anyone ,” he tells her. “Sometimes, I didn’t even trust the team.”

She doesn’t move.

“Allura, I can’t say for sure that I know what you’re going through, but I know you’re feeling angry and guilty. I felt that way a lot since I died, but it gets easier when you have something to hold onto. Let us help you.”

He can feel a shiver beneath his hand passing through her. “I just don’t know what to do.” Finally, she looks back up at him, tears in her eyes, and his heart feels sore from the terrible emotion on her face. “I can’t believe I played into his hands like that. The technology he has now, because of me...”

Lance pulls her into a hug and feels her relax into him. Besides the night he showed up and cried all over Keith, this is the most physical contact he’s had with anyone since his death. It feels kind of nice, but he wish it were happening under better circumstances. “We’ll figure it out. It’s okay.”

She nods against his shoulder.

“You’ve got all of us worried, you know,” he murmurs, hands settled gently against her back.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, softly, the end of her words breaking off a little bit.

She holds onto him tightly for a while and Lance hopes that she’s feeling a little bit better when she finally pulls away, wiping at her eyes with the back her her wrist quickly, as though she doesn’t want him to see her crying. He smiles sympathetically at her, hands falling away from her waist. “Thanks for being honest with me,” he says.

“I’m afraid I should be thanking you,” she responds softly, her eyes wide and dewy. “I haven’t allowed myself to be forgiven for what I’ve done, but I suppose that’s the only way to move on from this whole mess.”

He nods. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“What helped you?” she asks and Lance crinkles his eyebrows in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“You said it gets easier when you have something to hold onto,” she clarifies. “What helped you?”

He knows that she’s probably asking for herself, to compare it to the tools she can use to ease the burden of her guilt that isn’t entirely her fault but it’s such a personal question and he still doesn’t know how to share that part of him - the part that loves Keith - with anyone yet. He doesn’t really want to; at least, not until Keith knows.

“Just..uh, well, the team,” he says vaguely, clearly flustered and caught off guard.

She looks at him with her crystal blue eyes, the tears finally drying up, her moonlight hair framing her face gently. He remembers the first time he saw her upon waking up in the red lion, and even now, he’s struck by how beautiful she is, even as she frowns and looks right through his lie.

“I see,” she says, voice low and slow.

He smiles thinly at her. “Yeah, that’s--that’s all there is to it, really.”

He can tell she’s about to say something else, but the door to the training deck opens and then Kosmo, who had been still and silent pretty much since they entered the room, gives a sharp little yip. Lance spins around, suddenly dizzy with hope, just in time to see Kosmo teleport from his place near Lance to just in front of Keith, who stands in the doorway.

He looks windswept and tired, and so, so good in his armor, as dark and handsome as a mystery, but his expression relaxes into something more neutral as he reaches down to give Kosmo a little bit of attention before shifting the bag on his back. Lance’s heart sighs as though it’s relieved, and finds his voice, finally, as Keith actually steps into the room.

“You’re back,” Lance says, happiness bubbling in his voice, resisting the urge to make like the wolf and toss himself across the room to be closer to him. The rush of seeing Keith again is stronger than he had anticipated, and his stomach flutters when he remembers what Keith had said before he left.

“I was just returning some of the extra weapons we took with us,” he explains. “I’m sorry if I interrupted anything.”

Allura smiles. “No, I think we were actually done here, weren’t we, Lance?” She touches his shoulder briefly. “Thank you again. I should probably clean up and head to bed.”

Lance nods, only sparing her a short glance and a nod of agreement, still wholly distracted by Keith who is making his way towards the closet where all of the spare weapons are stored, very obviously avoiding eye contact as he strides with purpose. Allura turns away and begins to gather her things, ending her training session through a voice command and then makes her way to the door and quickly leaves.

Kosmo follows happily after Keith, his tail wagging, and Lance allows a smile as he leaves his spot near the center of the room and approaches them both.

“How was the trip?” he asks conversationally, tucking his hands back into his pockets. His heart leaps for no real reason when he feels the letter, smooth and worn against his fingertips.

Keith doesn’t look at him as he unloads the bag and begins placing the weapons into their rightful spots. “Fine,” he says shortly.

There’s something not quite right here and Lance doesn’t know what it is. Was the mission bad? Did he get in trouble for something, or maybe...is this about the Blade member who died? The excitement humming through his veins dulls and he feels upset with himself for no real reason other than not being able to understand what is making Keith so offstandish. “Are you okay?” he asks. “Did something happen?”

Keith doesn’t respond right away. In fact, he doesn’t respond until after everything is put away and he’s turning around to face Lance, who is standing there awkwardly, feeling more and more uneasy with every passing second.

“No,” Keith says and then lets out a long, heavy sigh. “Sorry, no.” He glances up from under the fringe of his dark hair almost apologetically. “Everything is fine.”

Unable to help himself at all, Lance reaches out and touches Keith’s wrist, searching his unreadable expression, the words pouring from him with his mounting trepidation. “Are you sure? Do you need to go to bed? Is it your ankle? Keith, if you’re tired or something--I don’t want you to feel like you have to--I mean, we can talk later if--”

“Lance.” Lance cuts off, breath seizing, when Keith smiles at him, the darkness in his expression melting away altogether, replaced with a fond look that does wicked things to his heart. “I wanna talk. It’s fine. Let me get changed and cleaned up first, okay?”

Lance nods eagerly, slipping his hand away from the rough fabric covering his wrists. “Okay,” he replies softly. “I didn’t--you really didn’t change your mind? I know--”

“Lance,” Keith’s voice softens unbearably, “I didn’t change my mind.”

“Okay.” Lance nods again. “Okay...okay.”

“I’ll meet you in your room?” Keith starts to walk back towards the door and Lance falls into step beside him easily, desperate to keep up.

“I was...well, I wanted to visit Red tonight,” Lance says, watching the floor at his feet. “I...truthfully, I’ve spent more time in Red than I have in my own room since…” He swallows, remembering Keith’s reaction to his death and deciding to gloss over the words. “Is that okay?”

They leave the room together and the door shuts behind them softly. “Sounds great, Lance,” Keith says and it’s like the more they talk, the more genuine and the more open Keith allows himself to be. Lance doesn’t know if he’ll be able to survive through this conversation if Keith is going to be all soft with him. “I’ll be there soon.”

Lance stands there in the hallway as Keith turns away with another little smile to head back to his room for a change of clothes. As cheesy and ridiculous as it is, Lance is rooted to the spot until he watches the width of Keith’s shoulders disappear around the corner at the end of the hall, Kosmo close behind him.

Then, and only then, can Lance breathe a little easier, his jelly knees trembling under him. He fingers the letter in his pocket and pats the square of his tablet in the other, and then slowly turns and begins making his way to Red’s hangar.

Chapter Text

Lance thinks he might throw up.

That...seems so dramatic but like holy shit. He’s--he knows that there’s no reason to be this fucking anxious but knowing doesn’t make it any more reasonable. He sits in the open jaw of the red lion, his legs swinging restlessly as they dangle over the edge, fingers tapping nervously against his thigh, face hot with a blush that refuses to leave him alone.

Not knowing when Keith is going to step through the door is making his stomach flip and it’s hard to concentrate on the words he needs to find to make this conversation as productive as possible. Because what he does know, is that Keith will show up in that black shirt, too tight on him. His hair is gonna be messy, like it always is, and his eyes are going to be all dark, liquid fire, like they always are. He’ll probably smile, the way he did when Lance first saw him smile - that crooked tilt to his mouth, the brilliant flash of white teeth - and Lance’s heart will shoot straight up into his throat and he’ll choke and die. Probably.

Lance runs his teeth over his bottom lip and watches the door, his heart already beating too fast in his chest from the sheer anticipation of it all. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes it so hard for him to talk when he’s around Keith, so he takes a deep breath, and lets his eyes slide closed.

Immediately, his anxiety kicks down a notch, still thrumming through him like a vibration, but at a much more manageable rate as he tries to slow his heart with deep, even breaths.

Okay. As scary as this whole thing is - as breath-stealing and heart-shaking as he already knows it to be - it’s just Keith. Lance is overthinking this. It’s just Keith. The same Keith that he’s sought out on several occasions now; the same one who let him hold onto him and cry, the same one who offered comfort, who blamed himself for Lance’s death, who trusted Lance with his life.

That helps. His heart is less erratic now, breaths easier to fill his lungs with. Eyes still closed, he thinks about what he could say to start. What are the things he most desperately wants to know? Keith said he’d answer any questions he had. Lance finds himself smiling at the thought, nearly snorting with amusement as it occurs to him. If there’s one thing he’s determined to find out, it’s where the hell everyone got this “rivalry” impression from.

Yeah, that’s a good place to start, isn’t it? Safe, easy, concealing. He can work up to his complicated feelings and all of the confusion from there. Slowly, slowly, knowing already that it will be too easy to spill little truths if Keith looks at him with his thick, slanted eyebrows all crinkled with undivided attention.

He’s afraid of telling the truth, or at least they unedited version of it, even though he wants to. But maybe, because it’s Keith--

The sound of the door swooshes, echoing in the cavernous hangar and Lance’s heart seizes violently in his chest as he opens his eyes wide and searching.

Keith is there. Is here . He’s wearing that stupid shirt, his gait matched with purpose and confidence and when he smiles, Lance can see it all the way over here, a perfect sliver of white that still makes his knees weak, even though he’s sitting down.

He suddenly can’t remember what he’d been so nervous about in the first place.

“Hey,” Keith says as he strides up, his expression relaxed, shoulders at ease. His voice is soft in timbre and it settles into Lance’s chest like it lives there.

Lance looks down at him from his perch, pulling his legs up to cross them, his face blooming with heat. “Hey.” He chews on his lip for a moment as Keith comes to a stop in front of him. “Thank you for coming.”

Keith’s eyebrows immediately slant at that, something uncatchable flickering across his expression and Lance’s stomach clenches in response. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

“No, no! I hoped you would--I wanted you to come. I never doubted you or anything, but just…” He looks away from Keith’s focused gaze. “You’re taking time out of your own day or whatever and this...it’s important to me. So...so thank you.” His eyes find his hands, now in his lap, wringing his fingers together as some of those nerves come creeping back in, the vulnerability leaving him feeling a little cold despite the hot blush on his face. “I-I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

Keith doesn’t say anything, but Lance can see him in his periphery as he places his hands on the jaw of the lion and hefts himself up, the muscles in his arms straining against the already tight fabric of his shirt. The blush on Lance’s face deepens as the temperature in the room seems to skyrocket and he quickly jerks his attention onto the loose thread at the hem of his shirt. He stares hard at the thread, tugs at it a little bit, as Keith shifts into a sitting position beside him, far enough away that his proximity won’t muddle Lance’s thoughts.

“You’ve been waiting for me,” Keith murmurs after a long, quiet moment, as though he’s working through Lance’s words with attentive dedication, picking out what’s been left unsaid.

Lance shivers and hopes that it’s not obvious. “Yeah.”

Another pause. The length between responses is nerve-wracking, and gives Lance too much time to wonder if he said something wrong, but he still feels too fragile, his emotions so close to the surface, to look at Keith again. “Why? Did no one else answer your questions?”

“No, they did.” Lance smiles a little to himself. “Hunk was really great about it, actually. Thanks to him, I know about my family and about the things I liked on Earth. Pidge was...very determined to tell me what I did and did not do, so I guess I probably know more than I even need to in some ways. I think she’s still secretly looking for ways to restore my memory.”

Keith waits silently, hearing the way Lance’s voice hangs unfinished in the air, splintered. His anxiety trembles again and he can feel Red stir enough to try and soothe him as he searches desperately for his courage.

He tightens his hands into fists in his lap and takes a shaky breath. “The one thing no one could really tell me about,” Lance finally says, “was you.”

Keith’s voice opens up a little bit at that after just the length of a heartbeat. “Well, you can’t blame them for that,” he says, and something about the tone of his voice coaxes Lance away from his fear long enough to encourage him to look at Keith, who is looking straight ahead. “I don’t share much.”

Lance nods, thinking about all of his own secrets. That isn’t quite what he was talking about, but it also makes sense. “I get that.”

Keith’s mouth twitches and then he turns his head the fix Lance with his dark gaze. “I’ll make an exception for you.”

Dear god. The breath in Lance’s lungs turns hot and heavy, dragging against his throat almost painfully as he exhales. There is absolutely nothing in the way that Keith is looking at him that should make his mouth so dry or his skin so tight and warm. He resists the sudden urge to lick his lips and scoots back a little from the edge.

“T-Thanks,” he manages, albeit, unevenly. He glances away again. “You wanna go sit inside to talk? It’s--i-it’s a bit warmer. And I grabbed some snacks from the kitchen. I don’t know if you’ve had anything to eat lately, but I thought, just in case. Comin’ in off a big mission and all, haha! I don’t know if--but I mean, if you’d rather sit out here, we can--”

Keith cuts him off and Lance’s heart does a little somersault when he hears the smile in his voice. “Yeah, we can go inside.”

“Great!” That’s way too much enthusiasm, oh my god, he needs to play it a little cooler than that! Calm down!

Lance gets to his feet and ducks inside the lion, feeling Keith’s eyes on him the whole way. Once he’s reached the cockpit, he stops and stares down at the blanket and the pillows spread out behind the pilot’s chair and feels his stomach squeeze, second guessing himself. Is this too much? He just wanted Keith to be comfortable and there’s only one chair--it’s not like he snagged the stuff from a spare closet in the castle; they’re just the emergency supplies from Red’s hull. A last minute thought, not premeditated at all or anything.

He spins around to face Keith who is standing in the doorway of the cockpit, eyes sliding over the interior much the way they did the first time Keith had been inside of Red. He must feel Lance’s gaze trained on him because his eyes slowly track over to Lance and then linger. The red light warms the pale planes of Keith’s face and darkens his hair, turning his eyes nearly black.

“Red missed you,” Lance says, shattering the bubble of silence hanging in the air. He unceremoniously plops down into the makeshift nest on the floor and curls his knees into his chest as he leans back against the pilot’s chair.

Keith’s eyes flutter, as if communicating with the lion, before stepping inside, finally, and making his way over to Lance. “Yeah. The feeling is mutual.”

“I found out about our lion switch through Red.” Lance continues on as Keith settles down into the spot beside him with crossed legs and rests against the chair, too, close now. Really, way too close. If Lance leaned just a few inches to the side, their shoulders would brush and Lance is already having a hard enough time keeping his thoughts on track as it is. He stares down at his knees. “This was one of the first places I came to after Hunk and Pidge told me about Voltron. Up until then, I’d only heard your name mentioned once but, when I came here and I was talking to Red, you popped up again.”

He turns to look at Keith, who is studying him now with a firm expression, eyebrows slightly creased. Lance can’t help but think that he looks lovely, washed red and warm under the light of the lion, so close and so steady that he could lean over and into him again if he was brave enough.

“I was so confused, because--b-because no one talked about you but every new thing I learned about myself also seemed tied to you, somehow. And you weren’t here. I thought--I thought maybe you were a ghost.” His voice shakes a little bit because of his honesty and how stripped bare he feels. He hasn’t spoken about his feelings or experience with coping over his memory loss at all out loud and now here he is, with Keith, and the words fall from him like water helpless to gravity.

“And then when I finally got the nerve to ask about you, I learned not long after that you were missing. I didn’t know better--” His voice hitches as he remembers the desolation and a shiver wracks through him as those devastated feelings well up inside, an echo of the past pain but real and heavy all the same. “I thought that maybe you were dead and I was so scared I’d never know.”

Keith frowns, looking pained. He turns his face away, hands clenched around his knees. Lance feels the sharp knot in his throat tighten at Keith’s silence but he waits because he doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t know what Keith’s reaction means and then he thinks, suddenly, that maybe he’s forcing ill-placed guilt onto him and his heart lurches, the panic swooping through him dense and thick.

“Wait, I--I’m not blaming you! Don’t--d-don’t think that I--”

“It’s okay if you do,” Keith says, then, voice low and even, and it hurts. It hurts so bad that Lance can scarcely breathe. He straightens his legs out in front of him and only barely resists the urge to reach out and touch him because he doesn’t know if that’s what Keith would want or not.

“Keith.”

There’s no response; just the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. Lance feels his eyes prickle with heat.

“Keith, please look at me.”

Keith’s shoulders stiffen, but slowly, he angles his face back towards him as though he has no other choice, eyebrows furrowed. The rest of him appears rather stoic and Lance briefly wishes he wouldn’t retreat so far into himself anymore.

“I don’t blame you.” Lance manages to get a hold of himself long enough for the words to be firm as he meets Keith’s dark gaze. “Never once have I resented you for not being here. I wanted answers but you--god, knowing that you were safe was all I really needed. Keith--” His voice catches then and he presses his hands together in his lap for something to hold onto as his chest seizes with the overwhelming nature of his emotion. “Keith, I only missed you.”

He feels the heat of the tears in his eyes spill over and he frantically reaches up to wipe them away, turning his face so that Keith won’t see them. “Sorry. Sorry, I--I’m always crying all over you. You must think I’m such a crybaby. Maybe I am. Was I like this before?” He hiccups over a sob. “Fuck, I’m sorry --”

Keith gently catches his wrist, pulling it away from his face as he shifts beside him. Red rumbles soothingly just under the surface of his skin. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to be here,” Keith murmurs, hand settling more firmly on Lance’s skin as he settles their hands on his knee. He strokes his thumb over the veiny part of his wrist tenderly. “Is this okay?”

Not trusting his voice, Lance nods, taking in a shaky breath.

Keith passes his thumb over his pulse again. “When we were on the space whale in the quantum abyss, Krolia and I were seeing those visions of the past on a regular basis. When they were memories of the whole team it felt like I was almost there again and it was easier to keep going. The journey was long, but bearable, I guess, because of them, and because my mother was there.” He pauses for a moment. “But, Lance, sometimes I just saw memories of you. Just you.”

Lance goes very still, the heat of Keith’s hand unyielding as his thumb continues to rub gently over his pulse. Keith’s voice softens and quiets, the low timbre melting into Lance like warm honey.

“When I saw you, I hated everything about my mission. I hated everything about my choices. I suddenly couldn’t remember why I was there or why I left.” The admission is so simple but so big that it threatens to swallow Lance whole. “You are my best friend, Lance. After Shiro went missing, I never felt so alone in my whole goddamn life, but you were there, even when I didn’t know that I wanted you to be.” He takes a deep, measured breath. “You’re--Lance, you’re the only person who has never left me. And then I come back only to find out that you--that you-- fuck --”

His thumb presses roughly into Lance’s wrist but Lance doesn’t jerk away. Instead, he turns his face back to Keith, cheeks damp, eyes still hot with tears. Keith’s eyes are burning, bright and alive and intense as he meets Lance’s gaze head on. Everything about him is open, from the fire in his expression, to the tilt of his shoulders and even the angle of his hips. He’s never been so vulnerable and Lance has never been more in love with him.

“So I blame myself,” Keith says, almost angrily. “Nothing you say or do will change that. I should have been here for you, like you were for me. I--I’m so fucking bad at this, Lance. Fuck , I--”

“You’re here now,” Lance says softly, voice wobbly and naked. His lower lip trembles and he looks up at Keith with wide, glassy eyes, taking in the hard look that Keith wears with both reverence and relief. Somehow without even asking any questions, Lance has learned a whole lot about his relationship with Keith. For so long, he thought that maybe everything he knew and felt was all so very one-sided. That maybe whatever they had before had just been Lance wanting more, more; always, always more.

But looking at Keith’s relentless expression now tells him that he was wrong. There had been more to it than that. Keith had cherished Lance in a way that he’s sure the Lance before didn’t even know. Best friends. Maybe it hadn’t been obvious, to that Lance, who couldn’t find the courage to ever finish his letter to Keith, but it had been real. This connection between them has always existed and Lance feels it now, more than ever.

“And I’m never leaving you again,” Keith vows fiercely.

The tears run more thickly, then and Lance doesn’t ask before he leans over and buries his face against Keith’s neck. Keith releases his wrist and then wraps his arms around Lance, pulling him in tightly, so tightly, as though he needed this, too. So unlike the first embrace they shared in the hallway outside of Keith’s room in the middle of the night. Lance curls both arms around Keith’s waist and leans into him heavily.

The position is a little awkward but he doesn’t want to move; he wants to stay there forever. He feels Keith press his face against his hair, the hold on him never loosening, only tightening, as if Keith has to remind himself that Lance is here and that he’s real. His breath is choppy as he works to quiet the sobs building in his chest, but his tears wet the skin of Keith’s neck and for the first time, he doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for it.

His hands close around fistfuls of Keith’s shirt, knuckles pressed against the strong line of his back and something about it makes Lance feel a little steadier. He doesn’t care that he doesn’t remember anything. He doesn’t care. “You’ll really answer any question?”

“Anything,” Keith promises immediately, profusely.

“Why did you leave the team?” Lance asks, voice muffled against Keith’s neck. It’s not the question he first thought of while he was waiting for Keith earlier, but it is the one pressing against him most since this whole conversation started.

Keith nuzzles his forehead to Lance’s hair and Lance feels his heart gasping for air in his own chest at the open affection, the weight and press of Keith’s hands against his shoulders heavy and wonderful all at once. “When Shiro came back, there were six of us and only five lions.” His answer is painfully direct this close to his ear. “You were going to step down and let me take back Red, so I left.”

Lance tightens his hands in Keith’s shirt as his throat closes up with the awful realization. “You left because of me?” Here Keith is blaming himself for not being around when it was Lance’s fault all along?

Keith’s voice is quiet. “I had already been accepted as a member of the Blade of Marmora, and I had a chance to help the fight against the Galra with them. I thought it was the right thing to do, but I shouldn’t have been so impulsive.” His voice is full of regret. “I’m so sorry, Lance.”

He snags on a sob and rubs his face against Keith’s neck. “S’okay, s’okay.”

Keith makes a sound of frustration, though his hands remain gentle. “It’s not.”

Lance can’t handle much more of this particular direction in the conversation without a total meltdown (especially with that heat in Keith’s voice--so sincere and all encompassing in it’s ferocity), so he switches gears as he slides into a position that is slightly more comfortable. His hold on Keith only grows tighter and he swallows the thick emotion again in his throat, and he pauses for a long, silent moment to find his composure.

Keith merely hugs him against his chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispers into Lance’s hair, over and over, like a litany, as though he can’t stop himself now that he’s opened himself up.

“S’okay,” Lance murmurs back once he’s sure that his voice isn’t going to break. “You couldn’t know. Doesn’t matter anymore.” He clings onto Keith a little tighter at that, trying to transfer the calmness that he feels in the depths of his heart despite the emotional display of tears. It seems to work.

The moments turn into minutes and they don’t move, save for the movements of their breaths. Eventually, Lance’s mind clears away from the old memory of sadness and pain and he’s able to appreciate that he’s sitting in the cockpit of the red lion with Keith and they’re alone.

He clears his throat and Keith’s hold on him lessens just a fraction, just enough so that Lance can turn his face so his forehead is pressed to the side of Keith’s neck, the bridge of his nose at his throat. “I have another question,” he says quietly.

“Ask me,” Keith says, sounding a little more composed himself.

“Why does everyone think we hate each other?” He sniffles. It had always seemed funny and strange that Hunk and Pidge had talked about his relationship with Keith like it was always so rocky, but that was before Keith had called him his best friend. Now, the notion that a majority of the team truly believed they didn’t like each other is downright ridiculous. Absolutely the most misleading thing anyone has told him since he lost his memories. He almost can’t believe how far off base they are. It makes him wonder when they were friendly, and how often they’d been alone together.

Keith sounds slightly amused, too. “You made me your rival for whatever reason. I was kind of in my own head at the Garrison so I was probably an asshole to you or something. You never gave me a real reason, though.” He pauses to laugh a little bit and Lance’s stomach jumps at the lovely sound so close to his ear. “You were always challenging me to stupid shit and I was the dumbass who always took the bait.”

“Always?”

Keith sighs. “Always.”

Even if that did make them idiots, Lance really awfully likes the sound of that. “Did we really fight a lot?”

“We bickered, but...it was fun, most of the time.” Keith sighs again and presses his cheek to the top of Lance’s head. They stay like that for a long moment as Lance allows his mind to catalogue all this new information and catch up to everything that’s happened. His eyes still feel sore with tears, swollen and red, but they’ve stopped leaking out, the skin of Keith’s neck clammy with the last remains of them.

Keith slowly begins to loosen his hold just enough to run his his hand up and down the length of Lance’s spine. It’s much more sure than that night in the hallway-- Keith is more sure. The certainty is potent, confidence in what he’s doing and what he’s said pouring off of him enough that Lance finds that he’s sure about things, too.

“What else do you want to know?” Keith asks.

Lance hesitates for a moment, but decides that Keith had promised to answer any question. He won’t press if Keith really doesn’t want to answer, but it’s worth a shot, and Lance thinks that it’s about time that he learned something trivial about this boy who holds his heart so unwillingly. “Do I really seem...the same? Does it really not bother you that I can’t--that I can’t remember?”

Keith goes still and quiet under him, his hand pausing on Lance’s back long enough that Lance pulls back until he can look Keith in the eye. Keith regards him with softened eyes and the darkness in the room seems to gentle all of his harder edges even further. For a long moment, it seems like he’s not even thinking anymore; it seems like he’s looking at Lance just to look. Lance wipes at the damp tracks on his cheeks self-consciously, thinking that he probably looks like an utter disaster.

“You say what you mean more than you used to,” Keith finally decides. “But you’re also a little more quiet. You have to remember, it’s been two years for me, Lance. As far as I would know, anything could have changed. To me, you’re the same. Same hair, same clothes.” He reaches up and cups Lance’s face with only the slightest bit of hesitancy, and the touch is so soft and gentle it almost doesn’t feel real. Keith’s thumb caresses the crest of his cheekbone with surprising tenderness. “Same eyes.”

The heat quickly swells back up into Lance’s face, probably burning against Keith’s hand. “A-And...my memories?”

Keith shifts away, dropping his hand, and Lance straightens all the way up on his own reluctantly, anxiety shuffling back into his bloodstream at the distance placed between them.

“Your memories were yours,” Keith says slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. “They weren’t mine. It’s not my place to mourn them, and it’s not fair of me to be bothered by them being gone when you’re the one that lost them. I--” He cuts off and furrows his eyebrows, leveling his gaze intensely at Lance. “I don’t care that you don’t remember. I’ll make new memories with you.”

Lance thinks that he should kiss him. He thinks, if there was ever going to be a moment when the timing was right and good and perfect, that this is it, right here.

Instead, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the letter, purely on a whim. Maybe because he wants Keith to really see, to understand. Keith watches him with curiosity, tilting his head a little when Lance presses the paper into his hand. “I found this the day I woke up.”

Keith unfolds the heavily creased paper gingerly. “What is it?”

Lance swallows. Is it strange that he feels more vulnerable now than ever before? That even the tears and the confessions were nothing compared to this--this relic, this symbol of Lance’s feelings before. It feels as fragile and sacred as his own heart and he bites his lip, chest tight, as Keith smooths the page out and looks down at it, his expression remaining unchanged.

“I think I meant to write you a letter,” Lance murmurs, watching Keith’s face intently, shyly, unable to look away even if he wanted to. “I don’t know how old it is, but when I found it, I realized for the first time that you must have been a really important person to me. It...it made you feel real.”

Keith slowly sets the letter aside and glances back up him from under the fringe of his dark hair. “It’s just my name,” he says, and his voice rumbles like thunder.

Lance nods, caught in the heat of that gaze, swept away by the promise of a storm in his voice. “Yeah,” he breathes out.

Keith leans forward then and Lance--the entire world comes screeching to a halt as his forehead finds Lance’s, their noses nearly bumping together. Lance’s eyes flutter before dropping to a close, his breathing turning heavy and labored as his heart kicks into intense overdrive. The air is thick between them, and Lance suddenly recognizes this tension from every other interaction they’ve had since their eyes first met. His blood turns to wine, dark and sweet and divine.

“Keith,” Lance whispers, voice quivering with desire. He almost can’t believe that this is really happening, that Keith is really here and really this close, that he instigated this proximity and that he lingers here now. Any minute now, he’ll wake up and be in his bed, cold and alone, the searing heat of this charged moment in time just a faded dream. He has to. He has to. There’s no way that everything Lance has ever wanted, everything that he never thought he’d have, can be this close to coming true.

Keith’s hand settles gingerly against the side of his neck, his fingers threading through the short hairs at his nape. “Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?” Keith asks softly and still somehow rough, gravelled, just a whisper in the dark.

Lance shudders, not quite brave enough to ask for the one thing that he really wants. “Pidge found old vlogs of me from before...Will you watch them with me?”

Keith nods, the movement rubbing their foreheads together. “Sure. You wanna watch them now?”

Lance can barely think this close to Keith, whose breath touches his mouth when he speaks, so he says, “No...maybe--maybe tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Keith says.

“B-But...maybe, if you’re willing, can you tell me about yourself?”

Keith moves his head then, sliding his face up so that he can press his lips to Lance’s forehead. “Yeah,” he mumbles against his skin. “I--I’ll try. I want to. What do you want to know?”

Lance sighs out at the intimate little contact, at the way the heat races across his skin and burns into him like a tattoo. The ragged draw of his breath as he breathes back in is perhaps too loud, but he’s past caring how needy he might come across when Keith is the one offering up all of this open physical affection like he’s been dying for it.

“Anything,” Lance murmurs. “Everything.”

*

The first thing Lance is aware of when he slowly comes to, is the warmth pressed along every ridge and dip of his back from the nape of his neck to the hollow behind his knees. For a moment, he’s confused on where he is before he registers the discomfort of lying on the floor and even in the near pitch darkness, he can recall that he must have dozed off in the cockpit of the red lion.

That warmth behind him--that’s Keith.

His heart does a slow somersault in his chest, but he doesn’t move, even though his hips ache from the hard floor. There is an arm wound around his waist, hand reaching up to lay against his chest, a forehead pressed to the back of his neck, fit so snugly against him that it feels like this should be normal. Like he should wake up sore on the floor every morning with Keith wrapped around him as close as possible.

For some reason, it makes Lance’s heart ache--it makes him miss Keith. He misses his eyes and his voice and the gentle fall of his hair over his face. He misses it so keenly that he doesn’t know how he survived the last two months, let alone the year before, and maybe it’s kind of fucked, but he’s glad he doesn’t remember it.

He slowly trails his fingers along the knuckles of Keith’s hand as he thinks back on last night. They’d fallen asleep talking about their first few missions and their dumb fucking rivalry, drawing quiet laughter out of both of them as they had laid here spread out on the floor. Lance wonders if he feels the way that he’d felt every morning of his life before his death. Waking up like this, knowing. Even though his re-gifted memories have been told back to him from a different point of view, he has the whole picture now.

He really hadn’t even wanted to watch those video logs anymore. What’s the point, after last night? What could he possibly need to know that he hasn’t already been told?

The arm curled around him shifts a little bit, fingertips dragging against the thin fabric of his shirt, and Lance feels each one of them very separately. 5 points of direct contact that burn into him through his clothes. He finds himself trying to steady his breath as a pair of lips press against the nape of his neck and it makes him hot, hot, hot under his skin.

“Are you awake this time?” Keith mumbles, mouth brushing him as he talks.

Lance immediately flushes at that, and he doesn’t know if its from the sexy drag of Keith’s sleep-ridden voice or if it’s from absolute mortification that he’d potentially done or said something in his sleep. “Uh...yeah. I hope I didn’t do anything embarrassing the first time?”

There’s a warmth in Keith’s response that Lance is steadily getting used to hearing. “You asked me to hold you, but you--”

“Fuck,” Lance groans, turning his head to bury it into his pillow. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

Keith hums. “It’s okay.”

The blush burning up his face seems to only grow hotter and spread down the column of his neck. “Well, maybe--”

Keith shifts then, sitting up. Lance bravely turns his face from the pillow to look up at Keith, who has the red crease of a pillow imprinted into his right cheek. His hair is a disheveled mess, still framing his face in a way that makes him achingly handsome in the dim light of the cockpit, which has started to glow red again as Red registers their movements. Those eyes of his are still so dark, but they’re gentle this morning.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” Keith asks, sounding amused when Lance doesn’t ever finish his sentence.

“You’re just--here,” Lance finishes lamely, his thoughts too big to put into words and still far too embarrassed to admit the level of his attraction to him.

But Keith seems to understand. “Yeah.”

Lance shifts until he’s sitting up too, stretching his shoulders out and rolling his neck to help ease away some of the soreness of sleeping on the floor. “I guess we should probably get back to the real world, huh?”

“Probably,” Keith replies, but then he reaches over and grabs the bag of snacks that they had rifled through last night while they’d been talking. “Breakfast first.”

Lance readily agrees and then, while they’re both eating, he thinks that now might be a good time to watch the video logs. Just to get them over with. Besides, with Lotor somewhere out there, they’ve got to be on their toes and despite not really caring what’s on them anymore, he’d rather watch them now while they have the time.

It’s super odd that he doesn’t feel anything at the prospect of watching them. Nothing at all.

Keith sits close to him as he pulls his tablet out and clicks open on the file, their shoulders nearly brushing. It’s almost distracting enough that Lance nearly misses the whole first file, just a short video meant for his family. It’s nothing revealing--it tells him nothing new. It’s a little weird since Lance doesn’t remember making it, but his face is the same and his voice hasn’t changed, so...it’s a pretty tame start to it all.

The second and third files are a little stranger. The Lance on the screen has a boisterous personality that makes Keith huff out a chuckle once or twice, yapping on and on about some cool stuff on certain missions that this Lance now has already heard about. In one of them, he mentions liking Allura which throws Lance for a whole fucking loop - because what the hell - and he’s so shocked by it that he doesn’t notice how Keith has gone a little more rigid beside him.

“Okay…” he mutters, blinking at the blank screen once it ends. He feels kind of embarrassed and--like, maybe he should apologize to Keith? One, for submitting him to that and, two, for….for what? Even if he did have a crush on Allura - and that’s a big if - it’s not like it means anything now. It’s not like--like he betrayed his love for Keith for thinking that she’s pretty. Which she is.

“Did anyone tell you about your crush on Allura?” Keith asks, voice neutral.

“Pidge and Hunk might have mentioned it,” Lance mutters, face hot with a blush again. “But I didn’t believe them.”

Embarrassed, and wanting to move on as quickly as possible, Lance presses on the last file. He expects it to be in line with the other three; a little goofy, a little heart-felt, and full of long, rambling sentences, but it’s not.

The screen opens up on the nighttime cycle in the castle, Lance sitting almost nervously on the floor of the observation deck. The tight and more serious expression on his face immediately draws Lance in.

“I don’t know who to talk to about this because I feel paranoid,” the video Lance says, glancing over his shoulder before looking straight back into the camera. “But I think I need to say it anyways, just in case it’ll help or whatever in the long run. Clean conscious and all that. Not that I’m guilty of anything.”

Beside Lance, Keith snorts and he wonders briefly if he should be offended by that.

Onscreen, Lance shakes his head. “Anyways, to the point: Shiro told me that he doesn’t feel like himself sometimes. I kind of brushed it off as a paladin thing but...I walked into the lounge the other day and he was just standing there in the middle of the room. Just staring. Mega-creepy horror movie shit, you know?

“And sometimes at dinner, he gets a really blank look on his face, like he’s not all there. Every time I ask him if he’s alright, he brushes me off, but I can’t help but feel like he’s just hiding away so he doesn’t have to talk about it.”

The atmosphere around Keith is suddenly very tense and Lance breaks away from looking at the video to examine what might be happening, only to see the way Keith has locked his jaw, eyebrows furrowed severely over his eyes.

Lance turns back to the video.

“I dunno. I guess I just think there might be something wrong with Shiro.”

Chapter Text

“I dunno. I guess I just think there might be something wrong with Shiro.” The Lance on the screen shifts a little bit, his face falling as the camera wobbles. “I don’t know what to do about it, though. I can’t just ask him. If Keith was here--” he cuts off, eyebrows pinching.

Beside the Lance here, Keith is drawn as tight as a wire, all of the previous gentleness gone. What’s left behind are sharp edges and an aura that feels like the extended moment before an explosion; bloated and tense and terrible. It twists knots into Lance’s stomach.

“Whatever,” Lance in the video says, voice a little uneven, expression smoothing out as he quickly recovers. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’ll just keep an eye on things and if it gets worse, I’ll try talking to Allura or something. She always seems to know what to do.” He startles at a sudden noise and looks over his shoulder and then the camera shakes and goes black.

He stares at the screen on his tablet for another moment, soaking in this new information, before placing it slowly down onto his lap. Then, he turns to look at Keith, who hasn’t moved an inch, and the expression on his face is closed off. Barred. Eyebrows knitted, shoulders hunched, mouth screwed into an unpleasant line. What little he can see of his eyes is clouded and distant as he processes.

Lance feels his heart break a little, and before he can stop himself, he’s placing a hand on Keith’s shoulder. A wave of guilt swells up inside of him and he can hardly place it, but he knows - as he always does - that it’s tied to forgetting. “Keith?”

Keith doesn’t respond, still as a stone beneath the hand on his shoulder.

The fissure in Lance’s heart widens, cracking open. And he knows - he knows - that he’s not at fault here, but it still hurts, that he was so close to something so personal and that the entirety of it just vanished from his memories like smoke. That there is no proof of it from then or from now; it’s just gone, like everything else. Keith’s silence cuts through him, driving the guilt deeper and he tries not to feel it sharp and pointed like a javelin in his heart but he does. “Keith, I’m sorry.”

For a moment, it seems like Keith is going to pull away. To shrug Lance off and put distance between them, setting fire to any familiarity they shared the night before. The anticipation of it hurts and sears into him so viscerally he can scarcely breathe. Keith turns on him. Lance moves his hand away in surprise, in preparation, the absence of body heat making his palm cold--

But then his wrist is being grabbed. It’s held by a firm hand as if to keep him from pulling away.

“No, Lance,” Keith says sharply, everything about him blunt and pointed, claiming Lance’s full attention.

His heart stutters. “I--”

The grip on him tightens, Keith’s eyes flashing. He’s already so on edge from watching the video that he seems half-wild with this raw display of emotion. “You’re not allowed to do that anymore, so shut up.”

Despite his tone being the opposite of gentle, it steadies Lance and he draws in a breath. “Then talk to me. I know it’s hard for you, but after...I need to know what you’re thinking.” To his surprise, his voice barely wavers.

Keith turns his face away, his expression neutral in his consideration. “I don’t know what to think.” His thumb strokes absently against Lance’s wrist the way it had last night, and every gentle drag of it sparkles with sensation, making Lance’s face feel hot.

He tries to think of other things more appropriate for the situation than leaning into Keith and asking for more of his attention. He thinks of all the things Keith told him last night about Shiro--he hadn’t realized how close the two of them had been. There had been story upon story about Keith’s life under Shiro’s gentle guidance in the Garrison, falling easier with every passing moment from Keith’s tongue as he grew comfortable with sharing these parts of himself with Lance, who soaked it all up like a dry sponge. It had quickly become extremely apparent, that Shiro is perhaps Keith’s most important person.

Lance feels almost upset with himself that he hadn’t tried to connect more with Shiro since his rebirth, but--

It hits him, all at once.

“I think I was right,” he says out loud, more to himself with a quiet sort of revelation, but it draws Keith’s attention regardless.

“What do you mean?” Keith asks, his hand still hot and heavy against Lance’s pulse.

The unease that dropped into his stomach like a rock. The slightly unhinged feeling that something wasn’t quite right whenever he was alone with Shiro. Lance frowns and meets Keith’s dark gaze, wishing he had something more substantial than half-formed feelings and gut intuition to go off of. “I know I forgot everything but sometimes, I get this weird vibe from Shiro. I--” he cuts off so he can choose his words carefully. “I don’t like being near him.”

Keith’s eyebrows furrow but he doesn’t look any more or less upset than before. “Why?”

Lance looks down at his lap where his tablet rests and runs a finger along the darkened screen. “It’s hard to explain. He hasn’t done or said anything wrong, I just--he’s very intent about things, sometimes, in the strangest way. The Shiro you told me about doesn’t really line up with the Shiro I know.” Then he realizes how terrible that sounds - like maybe he’s suggesting Shiro isn’t everything that Keith thinks he is - and immediately, it has Lance backtracking. “I didn’t mean it like that! What do I know anyway? Next to nothing, right? Like, I could just be paranoid because I don’t know how to talk to Shiro at all, which would make sense since I have trouble just--”

“Lance.”

“--talking to everyone in general. I don’t even know what to say to Hunk, of all people, half of the time. After everything you said last night, I’m sure Shiro is a great guy and it’s just that I don’t really know him. I’m probably being stupid or something; it’s possible that something got screwed up when I died, right? So--”

Keith groans out in frustration and tightens his grip on Lance’s wrist hard enough to bruise. “Lance, shut up .”

He does. Immediately. Half-embarrassed for the rambling, half-anticipating a rebuttal.

Keith sighs, but his hand remains. “You have strong instincts and you’ve always been observant in ways that the rest of the team isn’t. If you say that something doesn’t feel right, then I believe you.”

Lance stares at him, eyebrows furrowed in surprise. “Just like that?”

The corner of Keith’s mouth twitches, grip gentling. “Just like that.”

Affection spreads through Lance slowly, chasing away the lingering doubts and the fear that he’s said too much or pushed too far. The warmth of it blooms and feathers like a watercolor palette, lighting him up all candle-soft in his chest and then further down in his belly.

Keith breaks eye contact by leaning back against the chair, but his expression is more peaceful than before. “I should probably go find Shiro and talk to him. See if I can get him to tell me anything. If something is wrong, I need to fix it.”

“Let me come,” Lance says immediately, looking up again, nearly clipping Keith’s words off in his haste to get the words out.

Keith frowns, but doesn’t look at him, gaze still trained on the ceiling. “If you don’t like being around Shiro--”

“I want to be there for you.” His heart shivers a little at the honesty in his voice, but he’s not afraid of it anymore. He can still feel heat at the back of his neck where Keith had pressed his lips this morning thoughtlessly, perhaps half-asleep, can still feel the arm snug around his waist, the hand pressed against heart. He can still feel Keith against him now, here, and it’s made him bold. It’s shot color and vibrancy straight into his bloodstream.

He knows that Keith let himself be vulnerable, that he tore right through his own comfort level, so that Lance felt better. In every last moment, no matter how fleeting or prolonged they were, Keith painstakingly opened up and allowed Lance to settle into that exposed part of him. He knows that Keith didn’t have to do that, that he was under no obligation to answer questions or be there the way he slotted himself in beside Lance with unwavering steadiness, and he knows that Keith doesn’t know how to stay but he did .

Lance pulls his wrist away gently, cheeks flushing. Fairness be damned, he just wants to give back to Keith everything that he gave away. He is past the point of caring how obvious that makes him; he just wants to take care of Keith, now. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

Keith’s eyes flutter closed for a short moment, the silence between them saying something fragile that Lance can’t quite decipher yet. He only knows the warmth of it, how without even saying anything, Keith leans into the answer and accepts Lance’s earnest support without hesitation. “Yeah,” he says and there’s a stuck sound to his voice, catching in his throat. “That’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” Lance asks, clarifying, desperately not wanting to push Keith after everything he’s already done for him. “Because you can tell me to shove off. I won’t be offended or anything, I swear. I just--I mean, I know this is probably personal for you, and I’m butting in but....but if you’ll let me, I want to be there for you, Keith.”

At this point, Keith has already dropped his chin and turned his gaze to watch Lance fumble through his words, eyes dark and liquid in the warm, red light as they flicker to follow Lance while he sways and gestures. “I’d like that.”

His heart stumbles over its easy pace and presses tight to his ribcage in a fluttering, exhilarated way. Would it be weird to thank Keith for that? For letting him remain close to him? Maybe. Probably. He settles on allowing the tension to seep from his shoulders and fixing a smile in Keith’s direction. “Cool.”

*

They decide to take a pit stop at their rooms to change clothes and freshen up quick before heading to get some real food from the kitchen and then finding Shiro. Lance stands under the hot spray of his shower and scrubs roughly at his hair, his face, washing away all traces of his tears from the night before. He likes to think that maybe he’s done crying for now.

He tries to be fast with his moisturizer and skin care, with choosing the right clothes, but he’s entirely too aware that Keith will see him and it probably doesn’t matter that much. Still, Lance wants to look good. He wants Keith to stop and pause and consider and look . There his heat in is belly at the thought of it. There is a ghost of warmth along the back of his neck. It muddles his thoughts and makes him clumsy as he hurries to finish up.

Eventually, he settles on a shirt that pulls across his shoulders and sits nicely there at his hips. He throws on his jacket and briefly thinks about how he must have left the letter in Red since he can’t feel it in his pocket. Before he shuts the door of his closet, Lance eyes Keith’s jacket hanging there as though it belongs to him, the gloves bulging in one of the pockets. A shiver passes through him as he remembers the nights he would wear it and sit in Red, drawing the collar in close and holding the gloves tight in his hand as he wondered what Keith looked like. How he would slide into the sleeves and then lay on Keith’s bed to stare at the ceiling and try, futilely, not to think about him.

His heart hurts, aches, with the echo of that loneliness and he suddenly misses Keith so keenly it’s like he’s still missing. Lance feels his face crumple as he reaches out and thumbs the softened leather fabric and then, with flutter of nerves in his stomach, that knot tight in his heart, he draws his hand away and closes the door. He’s not ready to give it back. Not yet.

Keith is leaning against the wall in the hallway when he leaves his room, waiting, looking as dark and handsome as always. It’s not fair that he should look so good under the unforgiving fluorescent lights without even trying. His delightfully muscled arms are crossed over his chest, head bent as he scrolls through something on his tablet with a furrowed look that Lance is quickly coming to recognize as his normal, thinking face. The sight of him immediately eases the loneliness and he feels silly, that even though Keith is here, he still misses him like that.

Kosmo sits beside him looking spritely, tail thumping sporadically against the floor and tongue lolling out of his mouth in a lopsided way, his eyes fixed intently on Lance, who gives the wolf a smile and makes a point to kneel down and give him attention.

“Good morning, handsome,” Lance coos, feeling Keith’s gaze drawn to him as he scratches the wolf behind the ears. “Did I keep Keith all to myself last night? I did. I hope you weren’t lonely.”

“He was with Krolia. He’s fine,” Keith says with a scoff.

“You could have brought him. We bonded yesterday,” Lance tells him, giggling when Kosmo shoves his wet nose into his cheek with a funny little chuff. “We did, didn’t we? You’re a good boy. We had fun, huh?”

Kosmo’s tail wags a little faster and Lance finally looks up to say something else to Keith, only to be brought up short when he finds Keith gazing down on both of them. The look on his face is fond down to it’s very core. Warm and dark enough to melt right into, so unguarded that Lance’s belly swoops low. It reminds him of things he doesn’t even remember: thick dollops of honey, humid midsummer nights, saltwater cool around ankles. It makes the words stick in his throat for so long he forgot what he was gonna say. Heat feathers out in the crests of his cheeks as he averts his eyes back to Kosmo who is leaning into the hand Lance has idly resting above his eye.

“I’m glad he wasn’t any trouble.”

Lance shakes his head, a slow smile curling at the corners of his mouth as the warmth of his blush spreads through him gentle and slow. “Of course not. He’s good company.”

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, and Lance wonders if he’s thinking about their time in the quantum abyss. “You hungry still? I shot a text at Shiro, but he hasn’t responded yet so he could be sleeping or something. It’s pretty early.”

Kosmo noses at his cheek again and Lance gives him a kiss on the snout before standing up and turning a slightly timid expression in Keith’s direction. “I could eat.”

Keith nods down the hall and then pushes away from the wall, starting in the direction of the kitchen with Kosmo at his heels. Lance falls into step beside him, close but not too close, hand swinging by his side, debating the distance between their hands. As they make their way through the halls to the common areas, he entertains the dangerous thought of sliding his fingers against Keith’s palm. Maybe tangling their fingers together so that they fit, like puzzle pieces, or something equally cheesy. Keith touched him so many times last night that Lance knows what it feels like, but now that he’s thinking back on it, every last point of contact seems so fleeting.

To hold Keith’s hand would mean prolonged exposure, and it would be a conscious decision for both of them to keep holding on. It’s a heady and terrifying notion all at once. Part of Lance thinks that he couldn’t handle it, that his heart would explode before they got two minutes in, but another part of him bangs his fists and demands that he at least try.

Tentatively, he shuffles a little closer and lets his hand swing a little wider, jolting when Keith’s knuckles brush against his skin.

“Sorry,” Keith murmurs out, catching the way Lance jumped, completely oblivious. He steps to the side, creating more space between them once again and Lance frowns, nerves jittering under the surface of his skin as he accidentally lets loose a sound of discontent at the distance.

Keith’s steps slow at that and he turns to fix his eyes on Lance who can feel embarrassment burning at the tips of his ears. Did he really just whine? What was he, some sort of petulant baby? “What?” Keith asks, eyebrows puckered in confusion.

Lance shoves both of his hands deep into his pockets and looks away. “Nothing.”

Keith doesn’t respond to that, but when Lance glances at him from the corner of his eye a moment later, he looks deep in thought and it’s cute. It’s actually terribly endearing. Lance’s heart squeezes tight in his chest and he takes a shuddering little breath as he looks back at the floor, watching his shoes as they make their way to the kitchen.

“Keith,” Lance says quiet and earnest, still warm with his embarrassment but also warm with fondness.

“Hmm?”

“I never said thanks after last night.” Lance says it half like his own personal realization, smiling down at the ground, hands tight fists in his pockets. “I’m glad that we’re back on the same page now, after everything.”

Keith responds with something close to a laugh. “You know more now, than you did before, actually.”

Lance’s heart skips a beat. “Wait, what?” He swivels his face back in Keith’s direction to find Keith glancing at him with an expression that is almost satisfied.

“I told you things last night that you didn’t know about me,” Keith clarifies, mouth exposing a crooked little smile as though he is pleased about it. Despite his walls, maybe he likes the idea of Lance knowing him. Maybe his awkwardness has always been more about not knowing how to be vulnerable and less about not wanting to be.

There’s something brutally wonderful about the idea of him holding pieces of Keith now that he’d never had before. He didn’t know that was possible, that he would have something now that his former self didn’t. It’s...he doesn’t have words for how good it feels, or how vastly he hadn’t expected this. The words hit him like a powerful right-arm hook, an uppercut to the stomach. Emotion wells up inside of him and he reaches up to scrub at his face before the heat in his eyes can prickle and spill over.

So much for no more crying. Maybe he really is a baby.

“Why did you tell me now?” Lance asks, forcing his voice to remain neutral and failing entirely as it scrapes against his throat on the way out.

Keith shrugs, his voice gentling just a bit. “Because you asked.”

“And I never asked before?”

Keith hums with a sort of patient understanding. “No. It’s not like it’s important. I’m...my life is different since we left Earth. I’m different.”

“It’s important,” Lance tells him, still looking away, dropping his hand to his side. He takes a deep breath, in and out, slowly recollecting himself as they make their way to the kitchen. He thinks of the unfinished letter and he knows with certainty that his old self had wanted to know these things about Keith, even if he hadn’t ever found the courage to ask. “It was always important, Keith. You know before that—you know that I—“ He breaks off, struggling, not knowing how to get across what he means without confessing every last coveted secret in his heart.

Keith takes his hand unexpectedly, easily, their palms sliding together as they stop walking in the middle of the hallway. The gesture is ridiculously casual, like Keith has done it a hundred times before. Lance cuts off abruptly to look up at him, his heart crawling into his throat, to find that Keith is looking away from him, eyebrows slanted over his midnight eyes.

Keith’s hand is warm against him, rough with callouses, and the immediate and lingering press of skin on skin has turned Lance’s brain to food goo, his mouth dry as a desert. Beneath him, his knees tremble and he’s glad they’re not walking anymore because he’d probably be on the floor if they were. The touch is so good , direct enough to suggest a similarity in their feelings, to clarify even some of the more subtle notions that had slipped out in the dark the night before. Lance can scarcely wrap his head around what that means without feeling dazed, without feeling as though he is floating outside of his body.

“This is what you wanted, right?” Keith murmurs, squeezing his hand slightly around Lance, who slowly begins to close his fingers around the width of Keith’s palm. It’s akin to electricity, the way it settles into his blood and crackles under his skin, how it scorches through him and wakes every last inch of him up like a hot summer sunrise.

Lance nods, bringing up his other hand to cover his mouth as the heat on his face turns blistering, burning from the tips of his ears down the column of his neck. Is he still dreaming? What are the chances that he’s still fast asleep in the cockpit of the red lion? Will he wake all wrapped up in Keith’s arms this time? He closes his eyes briefly, his breath hot against his hand as he takes another steadying breath.

“You just have to ask, Lance,” Keith tells him without a shred of shame. As though people say things like that all the time.

Lance responds by giving his hand a squeeze. He pulls his other hand away from his mouth to twist his fingers into Kosmo’s fur, blinking down at the floor. “I don’t want to ask too much from you.” He can’t bear the thought of unknowingly taking advantage of Keith, of taking and taking and taking and learning to expect. That’s not fair to Keith and he doesn’t—he doesn’t want to be too much to handle.

“Hey.” Keith gives his hand a tug, coaxing Lance to look at him. He’s got a serious look on his face and it’s so handsome that Lance aches, love-struck and moon-eyed. “I want you to ask.”

Lance blinks, struck by the sincerity in his voice. Struck, again, by how giving Keith has become. He’s only had him in his life for a number of days that he can count on his fingers alone, but it feels like longer than that. Even though he can’t remember anything, he thinks that there’s a ghost of Keith in the back of his mind, an unexpected tattoo, golden and permanent. “Keith, why are you so good to me?” he whispers out, awed and flustered.

Keith doesn’t respond to that at first, just fixes him with a smoldering look that ignites something hot and molten in the pit of Lance’s belly. Heat like alcohol soaks into his blood, making it thick and sweet in his veins, turning him half-drunk off of Keith’s proximity. Lance immediately has the desire to ask Keith for something more dangerous, something crazy and wild and irrevocable.

“I think you know why, Lance,” Keith says, voice rough around the edges, absolutely raw with vulnerability.

Lance shivers, is torn between closing the distance between them or widening it, and he’s not sure which one he’s gonna choose but it ends up being a moot point anyway when Komso lets out a little yip. He yanks his hand away from Keith’s with a jolt, his face on fire, just as Hunk comes around the corner, still dressed in his pajamas.

“Oh hey guys,” he says somewhat sleepily. “Glad you made it back safely, Keith.”

Keith isn’t even fazed by the whiplash of the situation and Lance doesn’t think it’s fair that he can be so chill when his tongue feels clunky and inept and dry in his own mouth, his head full of cotton as he adjusts.

“Thanks, Hunk,” Keith says with a smile. He glances briefly at Lance, as if measuring his own reaction, a little crease there between his eyebrows, but he seems to mentally move on from it quickly. Perhaps filing away their previous conversation for later.

Komso trots over to Hunk’s side, tail wagging, and plops down right in front of him, blocking the way as if requiring pets before Hunk is allowed to go any farther. “Good morning to you, too, Kosmo,” Hunk says affectionately, scratching behind the wolf’s ears.

Keith tilts his head to the side. “What did you call him?”

Lance nearly forgot. The flustered warmth inside of him dissipates all at once like being washed down a drain and he finds himself grinning as Hunk glances up at Keith, who wears confusion adorably. “Oh yeah, Lance didn’t tell you? We named Kosmo yesterday while you were gone. I couldn’t just keep calling him ‘Keith’s wolf’, dude.”

Keith frowns. “I was—“

“Waiting for him to tell you his name?” Lance prods, still with that lingering heat in his face.

Keith looks to him with a little good-natured scoff. “What about it?”

Lance’s grin widens. “It’s very generous of you to respect Kosmo as a fearsome space beast with his own agency, but he’s literally a puppy. Look at that.” He points to where Kosmo is leaning into Hunk’s hand, eagerly welcoming the attention.

It’s then that Keith rolls his eyes, but there’s also something of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth - his mouth , Lance notices, with too much focus, way too much focus. The image of Keith’s darkened expression, its lazy and wandering warmth and the confidence of that look, drift through his mind and his belly burns hot again.

When he thinks of it, Lance can still feel the very place where Keith had pressed his lips this morning to the back of his neck. He wonders if Keith would kiss him soft as rain, gentle as he had in the darkness of the red lion when he tilted his chin to reach Lance’s forehead last night. He wonders if Keith would kiss him hard and hot, with the desperate press of hands wherever he can reach. Would his blood ignite entirely, fueled by a desire that matches Lance flame for flame? Would he whisper Lance’s name against Lance’s lips like he’d die if he didn’t get the chance?

The thought of it instigates a bout of lightheadedness and Lance shakes the thought of Keith’s mouth from his thoughts as best as he can. This is inappropriate, he thinks, to be dwelling on something so fever-inducing right here in front of Hunk. Right here, when he knows that Keith is worried about Shiro. Right here, where his own stomach demands immediate sustenance and Kosmo wags his tail in blissful ignorance.

He should feel ashamed. Or, at least, embarrassed.

And yet.

I think you know why .

He doesn’t.

*

Later that afternoon, Lance is chilling with Kosmo in his room, dozing in and out of a nap, when he gets a message from Keith on his tablet that Shiro is gonna meet them on the flight deck in about a varga if Lance was still interested in coming. He probably replies with a touch too much enthusiasm, sleep falling away from him easily, and immediately rolls out of bed, leaving Kosmo to look at him with a tilted head, ears perked.

“You coming?” Lance asks, shuffling into his jacket, unable to help the bubble of excitement from fizzling up at the prospect of seeing Keith again. It’s only been a few hours since lunch, but Lance left him to spend some time with Krolia, surprised when he’d gotten to his room to find that Kosmo had followed him all the way back.

Kosmo thumps his tail once and then jumps down off the bed. Lance pats his head, ready to make his way to the door, when he’s suddenly engulfed in a bright light, a quiet sizzling sound, his skin prickling and shivering with magic. When he blinks, the strangeness remains but he’s looking at Keith, who has his hair tied back in a ponytail, a water bottle perched against his bottom lip, and his shirt is darkened with perspiration.

He should look gross. Really gross, all shiny and red-faced with exertion, his bangs stuck to his face. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple to his chin and its—really, why isn’t it gross? Lance should want to put, like, ten more feet of space between them but he feels his eyes go round at the way Keith’s arms glisten under the the harsh lighting of the room and he’s abruptly feeling like he’s the one who just exercised for two hours: out of breath and parched.

Keith’s gaze darts down to Kosmo before finding Lance again and then he pulls the bottle away from his mouth with a smile. “Hey.”

“Uhhh…” Lance blinks at him, half-dazed from both the abrupt arrival and the appearance of a sweat-soaked Keith, and his voice cracks. “...Hey?”

Keith stares for a second longer and then the twitch at the corner of his mouth gives way to a bout of laughter. The sound of it catches Lance off guard in the best possible way. Warmth suffuses in his chest and quickly swallows him entirely; he can’t help but stare, especially since the only sides of Keith he’s seen so far are the intense or serious. There’s been a smile here or there, a snicker maybe, but never a laugh, not like this.

Keith’s laughter is sorta rough, a little scratchy maybe, and the sound of it sticks in Lance’s chest, making a home out of him. To see Keith so relaxed around him, especially with this whole Shiro business on their agenda, is enough to tap into the depth of his affection. The world seems softer and kinder, and for a moment, Lance forgets that they’re in the middle of an intergalactic space war. Suddenly, if all he manages to do for the rest of his life is make Keith laugh, he would have done something right. That could be enough for him.

He can’t even bring himself to be embarrassed about how stupid he sounded. A dopey smile stretches wide across his face as the moment sinks into him and then he’s relaxing too, his hands hiding away in his pockets as his shoulders drop and he watches Keith ride out his amusement.

“Hi,” Keith snickers after the initial humor has faded.

“Hi,” Lance replies with a bit more presence of mind this time, the tone of his voice hinging on something wonderstruck and dream-like. “Where’s your mom?”

“Already left for the showers,” Keith tells him, still grinning. “Did you sleep well?”

The tenderness behind that question causes Lance’s cheeks to glow warm with a blush. “It was okay,” he says, and it’s mostly true, even though none of that time was spent deeply asleep. A majority of it had just been Lance lying there with his legs curled around Kosmo’s sleeping form at the foot of his bed, aimlessly and drowsily thinking about how much happier he is today, more than any other day in his new life. Wondering if the rest of his days will be as bright as this one.

Keith nods at that. “Good. Uh, do you mind waiting while I shower quick?”

Lance shakes his head. “Nah, go for it. Take your time.”

Keith caps his water bottle and gives another smile. He’s only gone for about ten minutes; Lance spends his time waiting sending messages back and forth with Pidge who must be bored if she’s asking him to hang out with her later. When Keith comes back into the training room with damp hair and a clean shirt, Lance’s smitten little heart skips a beat.

They make it to the flight deck before Shiro and Lance is half-tempted to go for Keith’s hand again while they’re just standing there, knowing that he’d be well-received but still feeling indescribably shy about it.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asks instead.

Keith glances at him from the corner of his eye, looking away from Kosmo who is leaning against his leg. “About what?”

“Talking to Shiro.”

“I’m not worried yet.”

Lance nods, glad to hear it. Who really knows what the whole thing is about, but if Keith feels good about it then it can’t be that bad right? Confusing, maybe, a little concerning, but the bottom line is that Shiro is here and healthy and that’s what’s most important right? They can figure out the rest, whatever happens.

Keith sighs after a moment of silence, shifting the subject. “Lance, you being here means a lot.”

Lance’s heart tries to jump right out of his goddamn mouth but he plays it nonchalant. “I could say the same thing about you.”

Without warning, Keith grabs his wrist and pulls his undivided attention in i his direction. The heat from his touch disperses over his skin quickly as though it’s following a trail of lighter fluid and Lance feels it from his wrist to his cheeks in a matter of seconds. “I’m serious,” Keith says.

Lance meets his gaze head on. “Me, too.”

There’s a bit of frustration on his face, as though he isn’t being well understood. “No, I mean—Lance, the reason I’m not worried is because you’re here. If I had to do this all on my own—“

Lance frowns. “You wouldn’t have ever been alone, Keith.”

Keith nods impatiently. “I know that.”

“Then that’s that.”

“It’s easier, with you,” Keith says, practically cutting him off before he can finish. “You...don’t remember what I was like before - and I don’t care, I don’t, I promise - but even Shiro couldn’t always be there. You—you were.” He stumbles over his words quickly and choppily, as though he’s been waiting to say them all day, reiterating on what he already shared the night before. “Lance, you don’t even remember me and you’re here .” His hand slips down into Lance’s palm for the second time that day, and it’s immediately a little bit harder to breathe. The sound of his voice is a little awed now, like he can’t quite believe it himself.

Lance stares at him, blood racing at the fragile quality to his voice, so unexpectedly emotional that it demolishes all of Lance’s inhibitions like a wrecking ball.

“Keith,” he says, gripping his hand tightly, throat thick with responding emotion. “I remember you in all the ways that matter. You—You couldn’t get rid of me even if you tried.” He laughs at a sudden thought. “I died and...a-and even that—“

Keith’s hand squeezes his tightly for a long second before loosening again. “I don’t ever want to get rid of you,” he says, warmly, firmly. He’s not even teasing; it’s a statement made with 100% seriousness and Lance doesn’t even have words for how tempestuously it washes over him. “And I told you I won’t leave again. I mean it.”

Lance shivers from the sincerity of his words and thinks about earlier, about what Keith had said this morning. And he feels the blush all the way up to his hairline as he licks his lips. “I...I know Shiro is probably gonna be here soon and everything b-but...can I...uh...”

Keith’s expression smooths over into something almost amused, but so incredibly gentle. His thumb passes over the knobs and valleys of Lance’s knuckles. “Can you what?”

Lance’s blush deepens. “C-Can I hug you?”

Keith doesn’t say anything in response. His eyes hold steady for a moment, as if processing the request, and Lance still doesn’t know what color they are, but they’re beautiful, midnight dark and starlit even under fluorescent lights. He tugs Lance closer by their joined hands until he can wrap his free arm around Lance’s shoulders and press his face deep into the crook of his neck.

Lance melts into him, feeling their chests press together like pieces of paper. His nose and mouth settle against Keith’s shoulder as he becomes pliant, leaning in and silently asking for more of this pre-mediated intimacy. Keith’s hand skates up from his palm to secure another arm around his back and this, Lance thinks as he wraps around Keith’s waist, is the only thing he’s ever going to need out of life.

Keith smells like soap, heady and clean and simple, his body hot against his. Lance closes his eyes against the sensations, feeling his way through the shared emotions through touch alone. There’s something distinctly different about this hug, though they’ve shared a few now, and Lance doesn’t know what it is, he only knows that he never wants to pull away and let go.

“God, I really missed you, Lance,” Keith murmurs against the skin of his neck. The brush of his lips when he talks electrifies him and he runs his fingers through the short ends of Lance’s hair at the nape. “You have no idea.”

Lance turns to press his forehead against the side of Keith’s neck, looking for more direct contact between them. Me either, he thinks desperately, clutching at Keith’s shirt, edging in closer as their knees knock together. He wishes that they weren’t standing in the middle of the flight deck waiting for Shiro, simply because he wants this moment to go on and on and on.

Keith shifts first, pulling away slightly, his cheek sliding against Lance’s. He’s tempted to melt even more against Keith when he feels his lips press to his temple, lingering for two seconds longer than necessary, warmer than what is fair, and the touch is so simple and straightforward that his affection for Lance is crystal clear. His hand runs through Lance’s hair again softly, as though the motion of it is something he treasures.

“There are some things you don’t even have to ask for,” he murmurs, breath kissing the tip of Lance’s ear.

“I have to make sure,” Lance mumbles back, reluctantly loosening his hold on Keith’s waist. His hands travel slowly around the width to settle on Keith’s hips, feather-light but present, his face still shoved up against his throat.

“Haven’t I made it obvious?” Keith whispers, softer than he’s ever been before.

Lance clenches his fingers around the loose fabric of the shirt at Keith’s hips, his heart hiccuping in his chest. “I don’t know,” he whispers back. “Sometimes I think that I’m still dreaming and you’re still missing. Sometimes I think that my mind is playing tricks on me or that I’m reading too much into it.” His voice cracks as Keith’s hand passes through his hair again. “Because how—Keith, how —“

The sound of the flight deck door opening is what startles them apart, in the end. Lance snaps his head up from where he’d been safely tucked away and Keith takes a step back, hands falling away, gently removing Lance’s from where they are tangled in his shirt. He gives Lance a smile, so incredibly gentle around the edges of him that Lance thinks this is who Keith must be, at the core of all those self-protective layers. Lance smiles back, the back of his throat burning a little with his unfinished words.

They both turn to see Shiro walking in, thankfully oblivious to the moment he’d walked in on. “Hey, you two. Sorry it took me so long to get away; Coran kept finding excuses for me to stay and help.”

“It’s okay,” Keith tells him. “We weren’t waiting long.”

As Shiro comes to a stop before both of them, his eyes settle on Lance, who has to repress the immediate shiver that follows. As it is, he feels as though his hair on the back of his neck is standing on end. “I didn’t realize you wanted to talk to me, too. What’s this about?”

Lance doesn’t know how to respond to that. He’s still shaken from how close he’d been to spilling his heart out on the floor for Keith to see. “Uh…”

Keith thankfully interjects. “It’s just been a while since we caught up,” he says with a smile. Shiro responds with a smile of his own and then they all fall into a conversation about the past few months. Lance mostly listens, watching Keith who seems so content to be where he is, feeling silly for still feeling a bit on edge with Shiro standing nearby.

It’s clear that they’re close, and Lance is beginning to relax a bit upon seeing Keith interact with Shiro. Maybe the past version of him didn’t know what he was talking about. Maybe there was a point in time when Shiro was simply sick for a week or so and that was it. There’s no reason to believe that there’s something really wrong, especially since Keith seems to be so at ease around a person he knows best in the whole universe.

It’s nearly an hour later, the three of them sitting on the floor and conversation slowly drawing to a close, when the alert comes through.

Allura and the other paladins come rushing into the flight deck moments later. Lance notes how tired she looks immediately upon her appearance and he suddenly wishes that she could be anywhere other than here.

“What’s going on?” She looks to Shiro. “Is someone calling for help?”

He shakes his head, expression reserved. “No...it’s a video message.”

“Well?” she asks.

“We didn’t open it,” Lance tells her, drawing her attention towards him. A knot in his stomach makes it hard to speak.

“Why not?”

Keith steps up beside him, also claiming her focus. “Because,” he says, “we didn’t know if you wanted to see it.”

“We can delete it,” Lance says, almost too earnestly. In the end, that’s probably what gives it away.

Her expression hardens. “Who is it from?”

Behind her, Coran enters the room, and Hunk and Pidge exchange tense glances with each other. When no one speaks up, Keith responds, his tone business-like and firm. Lance winces and watches as Allura’s face ices over like a glacier.

“It’s from Lotor.”

Chapter Text

“Do you think Lotor can really explain this whole thing away?”

Lance chews on his bottom lip briefly as he washes the onion-like juice from his hands in the kitchen sink, easily picking up on the low question Hunk asked aloud.

“I dunno,” Lance admits, glancing over his shoulder just in time to see Hunk place their dinner into the oven with a worried frown of his own. “But Allura is pissed. He’s a smart dude, Hunk, and smart dudes don’t just come crawling back to women they scorned without a really good reason.”

He’s also thinking about Allura’s face when they watched that video message this afternoon. She was pissed, to be sure, but there was also a wild look about her expression behind that cold, unfeeling wall she used to protect her image. Something about it struck Lance deep in his heart, an wave of familiarity rolling over him, casting a reflection of his own desperation from just days ago when Keith had stepped into his life, alive and perfect and real.

Lotor had said, “I understand what you must assume of me, but please, give me a chance to explain what your red paladin saw, I beg of you.” His face had been pleading, his voice open, dripping with the promise of complete honesty, and it felt like it was meant for Allura, just Allura. Lance’s heart ached for her. He knew it wasn’t easy; Lotor is her betrayer and her lover, and simplicity doesn’t have a home among those things, not when they are so cruelly intertwined.

Hunk sighs and Lance moves aside as he dries his hands with a towel so that Hunk can wash his hands off, too. “Yeah, I dunno either. What do you think she’ll decide?”

Lance already knows; it’s scary how intimately he understands - but he shrugs his shoulders anyways. Their circumstances may be vastly different, but love, in the end, has a few universal traits that are shared. It makes you stupid and strong and brave, and Allura would have to be a little bit of all three to let Lotor walk back onto this ship again. “We’ll have to see. At least talking to him would be better than Voltron-ing it up and trying to fight it out.”

Pidge snorts from where she’s sitting perched on the countertop, computer nestled into the cradle of her crossed legs. “Yeah, right. Tell that to Keith.”

Lance thins his lips into a line and doesn’t respond. He hadn’t exactly been surprised by Keith’s vehement rejection when “Do we let Lotor back in the castle?” had been proposed. It’s not like Lance trusted the guy either; especially not after everything that happened on that moon in the quantum abyss, but he doesn’t want a repeat of that whole ordeal, either.

It’s just...the less they have to fight at all, the better, the safer. As defenders of the universe, fighting is a part of the job description but the farther away reckless, selfless Keith is from the battlefield, the less anxiety sits in a tight knot at the top of Lance’s chest. Fighting to keep whole planets safe is a hell of a lot different than picking a fight with the emperor of an empire that still has extremely tentative trust with the coalition.

Hunk sighs again, heavier this time, and gets to work on another dish while dinner bakes in the oven to keep his hands busy. Lance has realized that he’s a bit of a nervous baker and despite all the current turmoil going on in the castle - with Lotor and even with Shiro, though no one besides Keith and Lance are looking into that - it feels good to notice something about his friend without having it be told to him.

Lance pitches in to help even though a part of him wants to go find Keith. After the Lotor debacle, Shiro and Keith had gotten into something of a verbal sparring match as they held opposite opinions on what to do before Allura stepped in and coolly suggested some time away from the matter. Shiro had left in a huff, and Keith had gone off in another direction soon after. Lance had nearly almost followed, but Keith had sent a message telling him he needed a little space to think.

I need to be alone for a while , he’d written, short and to the point.

Lance could respect that. He was worried, but after days of Keith giving everything of himself, alone time was the least that he could ask for. Let me know if you need anything.

Yeah. Thanks. And then, after: Wanna see you later.

That had sent Lance stumbling into a wall like an idiot. Okay had been the only lame response he could come up with, ten minutes later, but he had replied, miraculously, despite the babbling happiness that had filled his head with gleeful chatter.

Though he hates to admit it, he could use a little space, too.

His belly still burns from their earlier conversations; he’d been on the cusp of confessing and even though there’s embarrassment in that, even though the reality of it sears through him with an unexplainable heat and unexplainable weight, he’s not afraid of it anymore. Wary, perhaps, but not afraid. Not like before, when there had been terror in the idea of revealing himself, of not knowing how it would be received, of being too much. But, Keith’s hands are steady and warm, and his eyes are kind, and no matter what he feels, he wouldn’t pull away from Lance. They’re best friends; they’re lifelines.

Keith has actually been the one to pull him in.

Steady. Warm. Kind.

He feels the heat to the tips of his ears and he’s not afraid. A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth slowly as he kneads green dough beneath his fingers.

Pidge squints at him through her rounded glasses suspiciously. “What are you so happy about?”

Lance rolls his eyes and gives her a shrug. “Nothing.”

She doesn’t look very convinced, and neither does Hunk who shares a raised eyebrow look with her, but that’s the least of Lance’s concern today.

Hunk and Pidge chat aimlessly about current events and Lance falls into the conversation more and more to distract from distracting thoughts of Keith until dinner is done and lunch is prepped for, like, the next week. Hunk sends out a message telling the team that there will be food in the fridge but the only ones who actually show up to eat with the three of them is Coran and Krolia, with Kosmo in tow.

She looks like a warrior but Krolia converses easily with Coran, the warm alto of her voice gentle enough despite her hardened exterior. Her gaze lingers on Lance when he inserts himself into the conversation and her attention makes him sit a little straighter in his chair. It feels as though she can see right through him and he wonders what Keith has told her about him.

Wait, has he told her about him?

Lance shakes his head internally; that’s hardly a priority right now. What’s there to tell, anyway?

He doesn’t eat much. Just enough for Hunk not to raise an eyebrow at him and ask questions. After sneaking the rest of his food to Kosmo and washing his own dishes, Lance slips out of the room for a bit of his own peace and quiet. He sees Krolia notice him leaving, but no one else does, too caught up in talking about Allura and Lotor. He offers her a nervous half-smile, but if she responds in any way, he doesn’t see it.

About halfway down the hall, he feels a presence behind him and turns to see Kosmo following, ears perked, his intelligent eyes curious. Lance thinks he must have loved animals before, too, from the way the wolf’s attention makes him warm. He smiles and pats his hip.

“Well, come on then, handsome,” he says.

Kosmo’s tongue lolls out of his mouth and he trots to Lance’s side as they fall into step together. Lance scratches him behind his ears and grins when the wolf leans into his touch.

He doesn’t really have a plan; Lance initially intended to hit the training deck for some exercise just to work and concentrate on something other than his own swirling thoughts, but as he approaches, he can hear the sounds of someone already using it. He’s pretty sure it’s Keith, judging by the way Kosmo lingers at the door, and although every last cell in his body yearns to open that door and approach him, he really wants to respect Keith’s request for space.

So he decides instead to head to Red’s hangar. At least he knows he’ll be able to find some comfort there. Or, that’s what he thought.

What he finds instead is Allura, sitting on the red lion’s paw. Her long, moonlight hair falls over her back in messy curls, her knees drawn to her chest with her arms wrapped around them to hold them close. Her eyes flicker to him and then to Kosmo as he stops short and stares, surprised by her presence here in a space that has always felt so untouched by everyone else. A space that has always been his.

“Allura,” he says, though it sounds more like a question.

She straightens up, unfolding, her expression neutral as she looks away from him. “Lance.”

He furrows his eyebrows and walks towards her, barely aware of the dog at his side. “What are you doing here?” Why here, with Red, instead of Blue’s hangar? Lance wracks his memory for an explanation, but finds none, leaving him confused. She seemed like she wanted to be alone, so he doubts that she was trying to seek him out but he really can’t think of any other reason.

She crosses her ankles, still cool and flat and unemotional. “I suppose we haven’t told you that my father was the original red paladin of Voltron,” she says, as though to answer his thoughts. The confusion fades; Hunk had told Lance that Allura and her father were very close prior to his death. “I...wanted to speak with him, but I can’t so…”

She sounds so distant. Lance frowns as he comes to a stop in front of her and looks up. “Are you okay?”

He winces as soon as the words are out of his mouth. What a stupid question—of course she’s not okay. There’s no way in hell that she’s okay. He bites his tongue and watches as she shifts to finally turn her piercing blue eyes back in his direction, staring down at him from her perch. Despite the tone of her voice, the smooth planes of her face, her eyes are tight and war-torn.

“Lance, I don’t know what to do.” There, right there, her voice wavers. It breaks his heart a little bit, to hear her like that.

He climbs up beside her and takes a seat to be closer to her level. “I’m not your father, but I’m a great listener. Do you want to talk it out?” His voice is gentle and unassuming and still there’s this tiny piece of him in the back of his mind that just continues to nod in understanding. He doesn’t know why he feels so kindred with Allura, with her confusion and desperation, with her situation, but he does. He wants to be there for her; it’s the least he can do after she saved his life. It’s the least he can do as her friend.

“I still love him,” she admits miserably, her voice both quiet and cold. “I shouldn’t. I wish I didn’t.” She cuts off abruptly and looks away.

Lance looks down at his knees, at the little rip in his jeans, the white, fraying threads. “Loving someone doesn’t just go away overnight. You can’t blame yourself for having feelings, Allura, that’s not how it works.”

“Shouldn’t I?” she asks coolly.

“No.” He swallows. “I think...love is too constant for that.” He thinks about Keith and about how there’s no possible way that Lance couldn’t have been in love with him. It’s just irrevocable, a simple fact. It just is . The sun is hot. Water is wet. Lance loves Keith. As simple as it is, it’s also big . It’s the biggest thing in the universe—It’s the sort of love that will follow him, death after death, life after life, forever and always, and that’s—huge. Supermassive. Constant .

“Maybe it fades away, in time, but I-I don’t know. It’s not—it’s not that easy. I know it’s not.” Lance sighs and shifts under her intense gaze. “For what it’s worth, Allura, I think you—we—should hear Lotor out.”

She doesn’t say a thing, but he senses how she goes very still.

“You know I have no reason to say that; I never liked him. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t take precautions but—but I don’t want to fight if we don’t have to, and I think he’d say the same thing.”

There’s a silence that stretches between them after that. Lance feels a little vulnerable, a little nervous, like maybe he said too much and offended her, but after a moment, he feels a hand lay over his folded ones gently and he looks up to see her watching him. “You’re a good friend, Lance.”

She’s so pretty. Her dark eyelashes, damp with tears, her silver hair, the delicate slope of her eyebrows, the point of her chin. He knows that she has a lot to mull over, but he hopes she knows that she’s not alone.

“I need to think on it...consider our possibilities outside of my own desires, but I’m glad you told me.” She actually smiles, then, and though it’s fragile, it’s easy to return the gesture. “Thank you. You always know just what to say.”

He shrugs nonchalantly and flips over a hand to give hers a squeeze. “I’m getting better at it, at least.”

Her eyes crinkle a bit as her smile widens briefly, and then quiets as she pulls her hand away. “You seem so much happier lately. I’m glad.”

He blushes a little bit at that. “I am. Happier. Uh, you know, just—finding my footing with all this memory loss stuff. Yeah.”

“Good.” She leans in to give him a quick kiss on the cheek and then slides off the paw, making her way to the door and giving a wide berth to Kosmo who is still sitting on the floor as she does so. “Keith is good for you.”

Lance splutters as a blush blooms red and violent in his cheeks. “Who— who said anything about—“

She looks over her shoulder at him and raises an eyebrow, and somehow, that conveys more than any words could. His blush deepens and he cuts off, nodding along in agreement like a bobble head, his heart erratic in his chest as his hands flutter around without direction.

“Right. Yep. You’re—got it.”

“See you tomorrow, Lance.”

“Uh huh.” He blinks, nods some more, and then lays back on the paw once the door has closed behind her. After a moment, he cups his face in his hands and groans into his palms, feeling the heat of his skin beneath his fingers. He’s not—surprised, really, that she picked up on it so easily. Lance doesn’t think he’s been very subtle in a lot of ways when it comes to Keith, but still...to have her say something like that out loud…

It gives voice to his own feelings. Even if it isn’t his voice, it’s out there. More telling, maybe, simply because it came from someone outside of the vortex of his own emotional spiral. He doesn’t know how he feels about that - about being so obvious when he still can’t say it to the one person who ought to know. Those feelings belong to Keith. What he is surprised about, however, is how fluttery it makes him feel, his heart quick and flighty as a hummingbird, a little embarrassed, but in a good way, maybe? It makes him—makes him wanna see Keith. He—misses him.

There’s a flash of light on the other side of his cupped hands and when he peels them back from his face, he sees Kosmo leaning over him, tail wagging. The wolf uses the opening to lick a stripe up Lance’s chin and mouth, and Lance squeals, pushing Kosmo’s head away with a laugh.

“Dude, gross! Personal space! I’m gonna have to talk to Keith about your manners!”

The wolf chuffs, almost like he might be laughing, too, and then makes himself comfortable by laying out along Lance’s side. After wiping his mouth free from wolf slobber, Lance props his head up on Kosmo’s flank and sinks his fingers into his fur, rubbing at his belly.

“You could probably eat me in three bites,” he murmurs. “You big baby.”

Kosmo thumps his tail in reply and lays his head on top of Lance’s knee, closing his eyes. A hot well of affection surges up in Lance’s throat for the large animal laying beside him so trusting and fond, wondering how many nights Keith spent in the quantum abyss with Kosmo, just like this.

“Good boy,” Lance whispers, reaching down to gently run his hand over Kosmo’s head, the fur here finer and softer. “You’re a good boy, you know that? Keeping Keith safe while he was lost in space. He is so lucky to have a handsome boy like you on his side.”

Kosmo thumps his tail again, earning a chuckle in reply.

Lance lays there on Red’s paw with Kosmo, sharing his thoughts with Red until the gentle purring at the edges of his mind, and the oven-hot heat of the wolf beside him begin to lull him to sleep. Rather than spending a night in the hangar again, his hips - still achey from the night before - demand a soft mattress and a whole heap of blankets.

On his way back to his room, he checks his tablet to see if Keith has messaged him, but there’s still nothing. He frowns, but there’s no immediate danger, so maybe Keith just really has a lot on his mind. That’s understandable; Lance wants to pry, wants to know everything going through his head, wants to be there for him, but he’ll wait. He can be patient.

He and Kosmo both say goodnight to Hunk who they pass in the hallway on the way to his room and once there, he goes through the motions of preparing for bed. Slowly, methodically, checking his tablet every other minute to make sure he won’t miss Keith’s message. He checks, and checks, and checks, obsessively, as he changes into comfortable clothes and crawls into bed to wait, Kosmo curled up and sleeping at the foot.

Lance means to stay awake, means to wait as long as he has to for Keith to reach out to him, but it’s been a long day and sleep tries to close over him all too quickly once he’s made the mistake of snuggling in under his blankets. When he realizes he’s nodding off, he blinks his eyes open blearily and tries to focus on something on his tablet, anything, but it happens over and over, each time getting harder and harder to come back from.

It’s not until hears the sound of his door opening, a soft whoosh, that he’s pulled from sleep’s clutches just enough to make him half-lucid. He turns his face, eyes lidded, towards the door with his eyebrows furrowed at the hallway light that pours into his dimly lit room. His abandoned tablet slides off his chest and clatters to the floor as Kosmo stirs and lets out a little yip that makes him sound like a puppy.

“Hello?” he mumbles, reaching up to rub at one of his eyes sleepily.

There’s the soft patter of footsteps, the near-quiet closing of the door as they approach. “Hey. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Lance sighs, immediately at ease. “Keith.”

The bed dips as weight settles onto the side of it. He hears the tablet being placed on the nightstand, hears murmured affection for Kosmo, who then quiets, and then a hand brushes some wayward hair back from Lance’s temple, lingering around the cup of his ear and the corner of his jaw. Lance holds very still and struggles to open his eyes, but it’s too dark to make out anything but the general shape of Keith’s dark form leaning over him. “It’s me. Go back to sleep, Lance.”

“Wanted to wait for you,” he murmurs drowsily. He blinks slow and turns his face towards the hand near his ear, leaning into the contact thoughtlessly. “You okay?”

There’s fondness in Keith’s hushed voice when he responds. The darkness always had a way of making Lance’s heart beat quicker in a panic over the past few months but now it is gentle and warm; Lance wants to sink into it forever, his eyes sliding closed without his permission. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“But—“

“You can barely keep your eyes open, sweetheart. Sleep.” Keith’s fingers brush back through his hair again, a little slower this time, more for him than for Lance.

Sweetheart . The word spreads through Lance like thick, warm honey, and sticks and sticks and sticks . Lance tries to open his eyes, heart so full it almost hurts and sleep so close it fights to claim him. There’s tenderness here that has not yet been tainted by Lance’s anxiety or Keith’s guilt. It’s not been born out of the past but of the simplicity of them together in the dark.

More than ever, it makes Lance feel wanted. It makes him feel brave.

“Stay?” he asks, the word a bit slurred but no less earnest.

Keith’s fingers tremble a bit on his next pass through Lance’s hair, a brief silence following the question before he gets his answer. “Let me go change and brush my teeth first,” he says quietly, fiercely. It's almost breakable, the way he says it, the way he touches him, and Lance thinks that he'd like to see Keith's face, to read what he’s feeling, but it's too dark.

Lance blinks his eyes half-open again, frowning. “Come back.”

Keith does one last comb of his hair and Lance hears the smile in his voice more than he sees it as he pulls away. “I will.” The mattress shifts as he stands. His footsteps grow quiet as he walks away.

“Keith,” Lance whispers.

A pause as the door opens. He squints at the sudden chunk of light that spills into his room and turns on his side.

“Yeah?”

“Come back, okay.”

When Keith responds, his voice is a little deeper, and half-amused. “Give me two minutes, Lance.”

He takes a little longer than two minutes. By the sheer desire to see Keith in his bed before he actually falls asleep, Lance manages to hang onto the edge of consciousness until he hears his bedroom door open again, and the softer shuffle of footsteps approaching once again. The door slides closed as the mattress dips and Lance takes in a shaky breath, heart climbing into his throat when he feels the heat of Keith close enough to burn against his skin. Kosmo shifts, but stays at the foot of his bed after Keith whispers something low and gentle.

Lance opens his eyes halfway and tilts his head back a little to see Keith scooting in, his hair pitch black against the slight glow of his pale skin, eyes glanced down and over to grab the blankets and peel them back slowly, as though he’s afraid of moving too quick. Lance should shift backwards towards the wall, just a little, to offer Keith more room, but he doesn’t want more room. He doesn’t...he wants—

Keith’s eyes dart toward him now and even in the dark, they’re lovely as they give him pause.

“Thought you’d be asleep by now,” he murmurs, pausing in his movements.

Lance feels his pulse strongly in his throat, druggy and slow with satisfaction. “No,” he mumbles, still staring, half of his brain cells already fast asleep. With Keith dressed down in his black T-shirt, so close and soft, almost, Lance has to think this is a dream. He curls his hands into fists at his chest, pressing his knuckles to the measured beating of his heart, bruising his rib cage from the inside out.

Keith finishes scooting in and he’s so—so close . His knees bump against Lance’s, there’s a brush of a foot at his ankle before it retreats, and when he pulls the blankets up over his hip and lays down on his side facing Lance, it’s almost too warm, too much. Lance can’t stop looking at him, blinking slow; Keith offers up a half-smile and leans into the pillow. His hair is a dark spill of ink, eyes darker, starless and searching and entirely too much . When he exhales, Lance can smell the cinnamon of his toothpaste and his heart stalls for a long minute when it’s that easy to imagine what he’d taste like if they were to kiss.

“Hey,” Keith breathes. “What’s that look for? It’s just me.”

Lance gives him a half-smile of his own, wide and sleepy. Just me . Like that somehow isn’t everything .

Keith's smile softens as he watches Lance blink at him. “Go to sleep, Lance.”

He nods, his cheek squishing against the pillow with the movement, and reluctantly lets his eyes slip closed. The proximity makes it hard for him to turn his brain off, his heart keening over when he hears and feels Keith shift a little closer to him on the bed after several still moments.

He doesn’t open his eyes again, but he lays there for a long time listening to Keith’s quiet breaths, feeling the exhale against his forehead, basking in the heat pouring off his body like a sun. A part of him can’t help but wonder if he fell asleep waiting and this is all a dream.

*

Lance wakes first early the next morning with all the urgency of a flower blooming in spring. Consciousness sinks into him so gently that even when he opens his eyes to realize that his face is tucked up against Keith’s throat, there is no thought of embarrassment or anxiety—just a simple, sleepy sense of bliss. He sighs into Keith’s skin and let’s his sleep-sticky eyes slide closed again.

The sounds of deep breathing are muffled against the fluffy crown of Lance’s head. He shifts in a little bit closer and savors the weight of the boy beneath him and against him. Half-lucid, still caught up in a dream, he remembers the kiss Keith had placed at the back of his neck the morning before, and Lance is helpless to the desire to return the favor, so he does.

He presses his mouth tentatively, gently, against Keith’s pulse and lingers for a long moment before parting. It’s the first time Lance has tried to—that Lance has kissed him and it’s so good he almost wishes it had been reciprocated. Keith doesn’t move beneath him, though, just remains still and close in his slumber. Lance makes a soft sound of content and allows his eyes to open again, drawing his face back without moving the rest of his body to take in the scene in front of him.

Keith looks younger, hair ruffled and messy against the pillow, falling over his forehead in slices to reveal his thick eyebrows and the delicate skin of his eyelids, eyelashes dark and feathered against his cheek. The gorgeous shape of his mouth is parted slightly, lips pink and teeth straight. Perfect. Lance reaches up to brush his hair back with his hand, exposing his forehead, and that’s —

Something inside of Lance trembles violently at the proximity, at the vulnerability, and he lowers his face again, overwhelmed just from the sight of Keith here and achingly handsome beneath him. How is this not a crazy daydream? How is this reality? How is Lance not going to wake up in ten seconds alone in the darkness of his own room? This is so much more than he’d ever hoped for, back before he even met Keith for the first time. He never thought he’d get this—that this could be his.

He rests his forehead against the cut of Keith’s jaw and lets his eyes flutter closed again, attempting to steady his heart with deep, calming breaths. Keith makes a little sound - something like a groan, quiet and stifled and rough in the morning silence - and he shifts, nuzzling his face back into the ridiculous tufts of Lance’s bed hair.

Lance’s face burns as he takes a shuddering breath, trying to calm his erratic heart, still. He thinks that maybe he should slip out of bed and take a shower, greet the day and all that, but it’s so warm where he’s at - glued along the length of Keith’s body, not holding on but still so intimately intertwined, somehow - and suddenly Keith is shifting closer, mouth pressed to the top of his head.

“Mornin’,” Keith mumbles sleepily, scratchy and deep. Lance feels it in his gut like a hot poker.

“Good morning,” Lance murmurs back, relaxing into the nook of Keith’s neck and shoulder shamelessly when he doesn't pull away. Keith smells so good - like the castle's musky Altean soap and boy, almost familiar, like it could almost be a memory. Lance wants to wrap it around himself like a blanket and go back to bed. “I think Kosmo left us last night.”

Keith hums. “He’s probably with Krolia.” A pause, balmy in its weight, settling between them comfortably. “You’re warm.” His voice is still so throaty and gravelled from disuse. He sounds far too sexy like that, especially lying in bed, touching him, and the words roll through Lance all hot and sticky and slow.

“Thanks to you,” Lance tells him without missing a beat, nearly a whisper. He blinks his eyes open slowly to stare down at the rise and fall of Keith’s chest as he breathes. “Did you sleep okay?”

There’s a little chuckle. A tentative hand touches the small of his back and skates upwards over his thick T-shirt to settle at the dip between his shoulder blades. “Thanks to you.”

Lance groans against Keith’s shoulder, heat blooming gently at the crests of his cheeks. “It’s too early for you to say stuff like that.”

He earns another hum in return. “You started it.”

There’s almost no awkwardness, despite Lance practically laying on top of Keith, which, to be fair, maybe makes sense after waking up yesterday morning as the little spoon, but this is—closer. Face to face. And Lance isn’t pulling away and covering his face like before; instead, he’s measuring Keith’s breaths and leaning in as Keith noses his way down to Lance’s hairline and presses his lips there like a promise.

“You’re too honest, sometimes,” Lance murmurs, thinking of his poor heart.

The hand on his back winds around until he’s being barred against Keith’s side with an arm, the silence stretching for a moment too long. Curious, Lance pulls back to look at Keith, who is staring up at the ceiling with a furrowed brow, like he’s somewhere else entirely, before he turns his head and fixes a strange look on Lance. But it’s gone before he can even process it and, besides, there’s something more pressing on his mind.

“Keith, are you okay?” he asks quietly, searching Keith’s half-sleepy expression thoroughly.

“Hmm?”

Lance’s eyebrows crease. “Last night—“

“Oh, that.”

“Yes. Can we talk about it now?” He becomes a little more desperate to know when the content look on Keith’s face vanishes and a guard goes back up, perhaps unwillingly, but it’s still there.

Keith turns his face away again, as though to hide his eyes, and Lance instinctively reaches out with a hand to touch his hip. He means for it to be reassuring, grounding, but Keith shivers beneath the contact and heat shoots up into Lance’s face like a firecracker at the response.

“Well,” Keith says roughly, affected, soldiering on, “I finally see what you mean about Shiro.”

Lance swallows, but commits to keeping his hand where it landed. “You do.”

Keith takes a deep breath. “He’s not...himself.”

“What happened?” Lance asks curiously, voice low to remain soothing as he chances a little circle of his thumb against Keith’s side.

It takes a moment for Keith to respond. Even from his side profile, Lance can see him struggling with this, that he’s a little unsteady and a little scared about being so unsure when it concerns someone who is so important to him. “It’s just this whole thing with Lotor,” he murmurs disjointedly. “Shiro would never put the team in needless jeopardy, except he is. Like...he’s more concerned about Lotor than what Lotor could do to us, if we let our guard down. And when I tried reasoning with him it was—Lance, he’s never looked at me like that before.”

Lance frowns. “There’s gotta be a reason, we just need him to open up to us. We’ll figure it out. We’ll talk to him again or something.”

Keith finally turns to look at him, but his expression isn’t convinced. “I hope so. It’s one thing to disagree, but he—for a moment it looked like he hated me.” His voice cracks but he quickly clears his throat as if to cover it up.

“Shiro doesn’t hate you, Keith,” Lance says softly, taking his hand away from Keith’s hip to reach up and brush some of his hair back from his face with gentle fingers.

“I know,” Keith says.

“He doesn’t.”

“I know.”

“He doesn’t.”

“Lance.”

“He doesn’t.”

Keith rolls his eyes a bit but the somber expression on his face breaks a little bit. “I know, Lance.”

“Good.” Lance tucks the hair back behind Keith’s ear and smiles at him patiently. “And don’t forget it. He’s the only one that ever really talked about you when you were still gone.”

That seems to smooth some of the ruffled feathers. “He talked about me?”

Lance nods, his cheek rubbing against the pillow as he withdraws his hand. “Duh, of course he did. Sometimes. Like, not enough for me to know a lot about you, but enough that everyone else understood and wished for you to come home.”

Keith’s mouth crooks up in an endearing little half-smile and he shifts a little closer. Lance inhales in surprise and his eyes flutter closed, heat immediately suffusing through him at the unexpected proximity between their faces. His hands curl into fists, trapped between them. If Lance wanted to, he could turn his palms away from himself and then he’d be touching Keith’s chest, feeling the beat of his heart beneath his hand.

“You were always good at this, you know,” Keith murmurs, wrapping another arm around him casually.

Lance keeps his eyes closed, trying to grasp the fact that he’s all gathered up against Keith’s chest in real time and not some late night fantasy. “At what?” he asks, half-distracted and a little wobbly.

“Being there. Making people feel better about the bad shit.” Keith sighs, and strokes a fond line up the covered length of Lance’s back, making his heart jump and shudder in his chest. “Being here.”

Lance endures the frantic pulsing of his heart, the rush of his blood under his skin. He blinks his eyes open slowly and looks up to see Keith studying him, gaze liquid dark and molten. The hand on his back, even though the shirt, feels scalding, the weight of the arm over his waist too much and not enough. There must be a star inside of this boy, bright and hot and young, his gravity inescapable. Love crawls up Lance’s throat and sits steady on the tip of his tongue.

“Where else would I be, Keith?” he asks honestly, feeling tender and indescribably affectionate. His words settle between them gently despite them being weighted with all of Lance’s fond regard. Keith’s eyes are dark moons, drawing him in like the tide of an ocean, an inevitable swell and ebb. There’s something familiar about it, something safe. He feels a shaky little inhale through Keith’s chest resting against the flat back of his fists and becomes hot from the inside out, unable to break eye contact, hypnotized.

“Lance,” Keith says softly, almost a whisper, almost unsure. The vulnerability there in his voice pierces into Lance like an arrow and it’s utterly and undeniably magnetic. Keith’s breath touches Lance’s mouth like a ghost of a caress and Lance nearly leans into it, chasing it, wanting it. Heat blooms deep and infectious within his belly, anticipation shivering through him like sound traveling through air. The tension is so thick that he can’t breathe .

Keith reaches up and presses Lance’s fist into his chest as though that gesture alone could say everything that could ever be said. The simplicity of it, sheer and honest and pure in its intention, has the power to crumble him. As though Keith just wants to keep him, just like this, as though Lance could be enough just by being here with him. He flips his hand over to press his palm to Keith’s shirt, the heartbeat pulsing beneath his touch uneven and frantic. It’s the only indication at all that Keith isn’t as calm as he always seems and that, somehow, makes Lance feel even closer to him. He stares at Keith and thinks that maybe Keith knows every thought that’s crossing his mind as he stares back.

“Lance,” Keith murmurs again, warmer this time, voice so thick with wanting that Lance trembles. He’s closer than before, his skin so hot it burns through his shirt and into Lance like a furnace. “There’s something I—“

Allura’s voice interrupts him suddenly over the comm, bursting their bubble so violently that Lance jerks backwards, his heart lurching. He misses what she says in its entirety in the induced panic and the only thing that pulls him out of it is the sound of Keith chuckling quietly at his expense. He swivels his attention back to Keith at once and finds himself enamored when he sees that Keith is watching him fondly. Once she cuts out, Keith gives Lance one last look, and then begins to pull away.

Lance frowns as he watches Keith slide from the bed and adjust the hem of his shirt around his hips. “What were you gonna say?” he asks, sitting up, the blankets pooling around his waist. His voice sounds wrecked, shattered, and it’s so embarrassing that all Keith did was look at him, to break him down like this.

Keith leans one knee onto the bed and takes Lance by the back of his neck, pressing a firm kiss to the ridge of his eyebrow. Lance leans into the contact with briefly closed eyes and empty hands clenched into fists in his lap, warm with yearning. “It can wait,” Keith murmurs against his skin before pulling back slightly to look down at him. “I should go get dressed. I’ll see you on the flight deck.”

Lance tilts his head to look up, rendered dizzy by the look in Keith’s dark eyes. “The flight deck?”

His confusion is rewarded with a sharp little half-smile. “Allura just called us all to the flight deck, Lance.”

Lance blinks. “Right.”

Keith doesn’t say anything else. He lingers for just a moment longer, as though taking it all in - Lance and his star-struck expression and his scruffy bed head and the blood high and hot in his cheeks - before he turns and walks away, his smile a little softer and a little wider than before. The sound the door makes as it closes behind him is muffled, the dim lighting friendly, supportive.

Lance collapses back into bed bonelessly and stares up at the ceiling as his pulse thuds away in his ears once he is alone. The entire world feels very far away; even the shift of the blankets against him is distant, somehow, like he’s there, but not quite. It all seems less important than what had just transpired between him and Keith. If he had to forget everything about him to earn this memory, it was worth it. He can still feel the heat of Keith’s breath on his mouth, the wine-dark drag of his blood through his veins, like he’d been standing on the edge of a cliff and he hadn’t been afraid to jump.

Slowly, he reaches up to touch his bottom lip, unkissed but not unaffected.

*

Lance is late to the flight deck meeting. When he does arrive, all he can do is sneak furtive glances in Keith’s direction and burn like a vibrant star on the spot.

Chapter Text

In the two days that follow, Lance gets a little lost in the shuffle. Partly because he has nothing to add to the military discussions that occur and partly because his mind is still stuck on that slow and gentle morning in bed with Keith. 

Every time he feels himself getting dragged back in by the memory - mouth tingling, heart quickening, fingers curling - he has to shake it away. He’s sure that his face has become a permanent shade of red as a result, though no one seems to notice. Not even Keith, who spends a majority of those two days too busy to linger around Lance, which is both a terrible blessing and a wonderful curse.

Allura ultimately decides that it would be best for them - and everything they’ve worked for - if they granted Lotor an audience to explain himself. It’s an unpopular decision among the team, but a necessary evil, if they want to move past this without any violence, if they want to keep the fragile peace that’s settled over the far reaches of these nearby galaxies. Allura herself seems less than thrilled with her choice which is probably why Keith trusts it, even though he’d been the most vocal about going on the offensive instead.

Her condition is to have backup. Allies, just in case something goes wrong, just in case it’s a trap. 

Since all of Lance’s second life has been spent in a time of truce between the Galra and the rest of the universe, he’s not quite sure what to expect. The Blade of Marmora takes up station in the castle, as well as a few other rebels on the Coalition’s side like Pidge’s brother, Matt. Lance knows how to fight, his aim with a gun is still impeccable, but he’s never really had to use those skills before. Not in this life. So he doesn’t quite know what’s gonna happen and he wants to be more prepared than he feels.

Whether or not the whole confrontation turns into a fight, Lance wants to be at his best for any situation. That’s how he’s going to protect himself and his team. That’s how he’s going to protect Keith. All in all, this whole thing feels more like war than it ought to.

That first day, Lance, Keith and Krolia are sequestered into a meeting with all of the Coalition’s biggest leaders - Allura and Kolivan and a couple of people in command of the largest faction of rebels. They spend hours going over every detail of what they remember about their time on the moon in the quantum abyss, which is boring as hell considering they’d seen nothing noteworthy. At least, not until the Altean technology went whack and tried to blow them up. After a while, they dismiss Lance, only Lance, and he shares one long look with Keith before leaving the room that makes him hot in his belly for hours.

The second day, Lance spends all his time on the training deck. He’s not alone—several other people that he doesn’t know are there, too; crucial to the plan but not crucial to the strategy of it. Lance feels sort of kindred with them, and he makes conversation between breaks, learning new things all the time about everything he never thought to ask upon waking up with no memories. 

Keith, as a major link between the Blade and Voltron (and as one of exactly two people who saw that moon base in all it’s true horror), is kept busy with meetings and short little side missions. Lance misses him more now than he did when he did not know Keith, and it’s really only been two days since their last lengthy conversation (mouth tingling, heart quickening, fingers curling). There is less sorrow in the longing, but the ache is real and acute and Lance has to grit his teeth and sweat profusely through a pre-programmed stint in the training deck to make it bearable. 

Both of those nights are—easier. Keith walks Lance to his room insistently, and lingers at his door, pulling details of Lance’s day out of him until there’s nothing left to be said. Or there is, but neither one of them seems brave enough to say it. It’s the most important ten minutes of the day. They catch eyes as others head to bed, but Lance pays them no mind; is almost entirely unaware of their existence as Keith leans over him in the doorway, shoulder up against the jamb, close enough to feel the heat of him in the typical chill of the castle. 

It’s the only time they have to themselves, here at Lance’s door, and Lance would ask him to come inside and stay, but Keith seems to hesitate. He’s the one who will not cross the threshold. Lance might be more concerned about it, might have more pressing questions, if Keith still didn’t look at him with those dark eyes like he’d die if he didn’t.

On the second night, Keith merely says, softly, “Shiro mentioned having a headache multiple times today. Will you keep an eye on him for me tomorrow?”

Lance frowns, hands tucked in his pockets. A part of him misses that folded letter he carried around with him for so long, but after he showed it to Keith in the red lion, he hasn’t been able to find it. It very well may be lost forever; who knows where lost things in mystical robot lions end up. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to go pick up some spare weapons from one of our closer bases.” Keith studies him in the half-dark, his eyebrows thick and low over the set of his eyes. “Should be back early.”

Lance nods, pleased that it’s another easy job. He smiles, attempting to hide the quiver in his chest that is petulant about letting Keith go again. A part of him wants to throw a stink about it but that’s—Keith wants to do this. Lance can’t be glued to his side all the time, however disappointing that might be. “Yeah, I’ll check in on Shiro. Leave it to me—Shiro will never even know what hit him.”

Keith’s mouth twists up in amusement. “You don’t have to spy on him, Lance. Or hit him, or—whatever it is you plan on doing, suddenly.”

That earns a scoff. “Okay, and where’s the fun in that? Obviously I have to do something around here tomorrow or I’m gonna lose my mind. Not all of us have super cool undercover missions to complete, Keith! Some of us get exiled to the training deck for hours on end. Hours , Keith—it’s not funny! Considering that Shiro is way busier than me most of the time, it’s not like I can just waltz into the flight deck and interrupt serious conversations to ask him how his day is going. We have Big Bad Business to get down to— seriously , why are you laughing?” He narrows his eyes up at Keith, who isn’t laughing so much as he is smiling, a flash of teeth caught in a sliver of light.

“No reason,” Keith assures him indulgently, eyes glittering in the shadows. “Please, continue.”

Lance flushes from his collarbone all the way up to his hairline. “Never mind,” he mutters, heart fluttering like a kite snagged by a particularly strong wind. “I have nothing left to say to you.”

“That’s a shame,” Keith murmurs.

Lance scoffs again, so hot beneath the collar of his shirt that he’d shed his jacket if he didn’t think Keith would track that with interest. Though Keith’s expression edges on playful, the focus is intent, and Lance is too aware of how closely he’s being watched to not pay any mind to it. “Y-You—!” he splutters inelegantly. “Keith—!”

This time, Keith actually laughs. One of those full-bellied laughs that makes the heat in Lance’s face disperse through the rest of his body, too. Lance wants to be put out by it, but he’s too dazzled, too thankful, to even pretend to be upset. When Keith quiets, his smile stays put and Lance can feel the time dragging, knows he has to get to bed, but he could stand here in his doorway all night, just like this, if Keith kept smiling.

“You better be careful what you wish for,” Lance tells him matter-of-factly. “Someday, I’ll talk until your ears bleed and then you’ll regret it.” He means to half-scold Keith for teasing him, but Keith’s eyes sharpen as the crooked slant of his mouth turns into a wistful thing. Lance feels naked, but decidedly not in a vulnerable way; his knees shake beneath him, prompting him to pull a hand from his pocket and brace himself against the wall. He refuses to break eye contact with Keith, although his poor heart might fare better if he did.

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Keith tells him.

He’s too much. Walking around all severe and stormy, and then standing here like this, looking at Lance like that, downy soft like the baby hairs on Kosmo's ears. Lance’s heart jumps violently in his chest from the absolute sincerity in Keith’s voice, his own eyes trailing the broad slope of Keith’s shoulder, the curve of the muscles in his crossed arms. He could reach out and touch Keith, if he wanted to. He could do it.

“I-I should go to bed,” Lance says, almost nervously, finally dropping his gaze to the ground as he reaches up with his other hand to tug at his jacket. “O-or I guess, maybe you should. You’ve probably gotta leave earlier than I’ve gotta wake up, right? So I shouldn’t keep you any longer; it’s probably going to be a long day for you. Wouldn’t want you to be tired when you’ve gotta stay focused on the job. I—”

“Can I see you tomorrow?” Keith asks, cutting the rambling short.

Lance blinks in surprise as he stares down at their feet. Once he’s processed the request, he runs his teeth over his bottom lip absently, considering it for a moment. “You see me every day.” He rubs the heel of his sneaker into the floor.

Keith’s counterpoint is heartwarmingly immediate. “I missed out on two years.”

He pockets his hands again, cheeks flaring hot, groaning as he shoulders up to the doorway. “I mean….yeah?”

Keith snorts, but there’s a pleased note in his voice as he leans forward a bit, closing the distance between them there in that simple threshold. “Well, I’m not going to force you. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do,” he says, teasing.

Lance looks up, his heart in his throat. He trembles and leans more heavily against the wall. “No, I...yeah. You can see me. Or—I can see you. Or something like that. We can—we can see each other.” He visibly cringes, grimacing at how stupid that sounded, but Keith perks up and suddenly he’s only half as stupid as before.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Lance sighs, aware that the sound is warm and full and fond.

Keith smiles, devastatingly crooked, and then leans in to press an unexpected kiss to Lance’s cheek. “Thank you,” he says without missing a beat. His voice is low and dark as chocolate, and half as sweet. Thanking him—Lance waits for him to pull away after the initial kiss, expecting it as equally as he dreads it, and he does, marginally, but then Keith lingers there all up in his space like he has to, like he physically can’t bring himself to leave, firm and resolute in his proximity.

Lance doesn’t dare move, his eyes fluttering closed as he struggles to breathe. Kiss me , he thinks, desperately, half-delirious, struck speechless with sudden desire. His face burns. His heart stutters. His hands shake in the cradle of his pockets. Kiss me. If he turned his head at all, their noses would brush. Their breath would mingle. He wonders what he could say or do to make Keith press him back into his room and up against a wall. He wonders why he can’t be the one to snag him by his belt and drag Keith into his personal space.

“Sweet dreams, Lance,” Keith murmurs, and then slowly, painfully, leans away. There’s an abrupt sense of loss, the tension between them fissuring like cracked glass. 

Lance’s breath breaks around a lump of emotion in his throat that he doesn’t quite understand but he nods, his eyes only opening once the space between them isn’t so weighted anymore and Keith has stepped back into the hallway. 

“Be safe out there tomorrow,” he says, his voice soft and ragged.

Keith nods at him, burning, intense. “Of course.”

Lance tucks some of the mussed hair behind his ear and gives Keith a little wave as he steps backwards into his room and closes the door, cutting their eye contact. He sucks in a wavering breath and spends the next two hours trying to fall asleep, complaining into his pillow when his heart won’t quit.

*

The next morning, he wakes up to a space wolf in his bed.

Lance blinks at Kosmo sleepily and shoves his head away when the animal low crawls towards the pillows upon Lance’s regained consciousness and licks at his chin, whining high in his throat like a puppy. His tail thwacks heavily against Lance’s ankle and even though he wants to feel annoyance for being smothered so early in the morning, Lance laughs into the affection and kisses the soft spot between the wolf’s eyes.

“Keith leave you behind again?” Lance murmurs, eyes sliding closed, throat scratchy with disuse. He runs a hand through the thick fur behind Kosmo’s ear. “Sorry, handsome.”

Kosmo chuffs and places an impatient chin on Lance’s chest, and then moves it when Lance remains utterly still under him. The wolf noses at his jaw wetly and whines again. 

Lance groans and peeks an eye back open. “Did he not feed you? What do you want from me?”

Kosmo climbs off the bed but not before putting a foot sharply into Lance’s belly in his clambering haste. His ears are tall and perked on the top of his head and his tail twitches as goes to sit by Lance’s bedroom door, turning to regard Lance with silent expectations. The level of intelligence in the animal’s eyes are both amusing and intimidating.

“Ow, shit, that hurt—Okay! I’m up, I’m up. Jesus.” Lance rubs at his stomach as he reluctantly pushes up into a sitting position and rolls out of bed. His morning routine is cut in half by the impatience of Keith’s wolf and Lance complains about it very vocally all the way to the kitchen where a large portion of the castle’s temporary residents are gathered for breakfast.

Krolia isn’t there, so Lance thinks that she must have gone with Keith which is probably why Kosmo was left behind. He doesn’t know why he leaves his wolf; he knows that there’s more than enough room for him to be included in Keith’s little missions in those Altean pods. 

Lance grabs a plate for Kosmo and then himself, and once he’s eaten most of his food in the corner of the room by himself, he types out a quick message to Keith.

You left your dog again, he sends.

Keith’s reply comes only minutes later when he’s poking at the last of his meal. He’s not annoying you, is he?

Lance looks down at Kosmo, who, now sated, lays at his feet unbothered. “Are you annoying, Kosmo?” 

When he gets no response at all, he snorts. No. He’s just clingy. Is that why you leave him behind? It’s supposed to be a joke. A simple jest. Lance has fallen into a comfortable, familiar place with Keith, where jabs come naturally and easily and settle between them with surprising grace. Keith even seems to like it, his eyes sparkling, the sharp edge of his smile wider than ever as few and far between as they are.

No, I asked him to stay with you, comes the explanation. A pause, and then, I thought he could keep you company while I’m away.

Lance stares at the text for a long moment. He stares until the words are burned into his brain and then he places his tablet face down on the table and drops his head into his arms, his face burning like the hot end of a stove top. Oh, for all that is good and lovely and true, why—dear god, why —has Lance not kissed this boy yet?

*

After breakfast, Lance wanders for a bit, looking for Shiro, and stumbles upon him and Allura sitting in one of the common rooms alone. Allura looks ragged, tired like she hasn’t slept in days, her hair pulled back tight and tucked up neatly. She leans back against the couch with a slump in her shoulders, her expression carefully neutral as Shiro speaks to her in low tones, his eyes laser focused on her.

Lance pauses awkwardly in the doorway when Allura’s eyes drift over him, wondering if he’s interrupted something he shouldn’t have. The feeling intensifies when Shiro’s gaze follows Allura’s and settles over Lance uncomfortably. He looks distant despite the way he’d been talking to Allura, like he’s seeing Lance through a wall of water and he can’t quite make out where he is.

“Uh, hey,” Lance says awkwardly, half turned toward the hallway for a quick escape should the situation call for it. He doesn’t know how fast that would be, though, with Kosmo sitting on his feet.

“Hello, Lance,” Allura says pleasantly. “Were you looking for something? Keith is still—“

Lance shakes his head, willing the heat that slides into his cheeks to go away. She knows him too well; she’s seen too much of his heart. “Ah, no, I’m—well, I just wanted to see how you were doing, Shiro?”

Immediately, the cloudy look on Shiro’s face fades and his expression creases with confusion. “Me?”

“Uh, yeah.” Lance pockets his hands and misses the letter again. “Keith mentioned that you weren’t feeling well yesterday so I just wanted to check in with you.” A highly unsettling silence falls over the room and Allura seems just as put off by it as Lance does, her gaze sliding over to Shiro who sits there looking more and more bewildered by the moment. 

“Keith must have been mistaken,” Shiro finally says slowly, rubbing at his chin as if he’s genuinely trying to recall saying something yesterday. Lance’s stomach sinks in on itself; Keith would never have been mistaken about Shiro’s health after all of the weird things going on with the black paladin. “I’ve been feeling fine.”

Allura gives him a long look. “Are you quite sure, Shiro? If you aren’t feeling well—“

“I feel fine, Princess,” Shiro says, so sharply that Kosmo stands up, his body tensing. That sends alarm bells sounding off in Lance’s head and he quickly places a hand on Kosmo’s neck, sifting his fingers through the long fur there as if to soothe. Shiro’s gaze cuts down to the wolf and then up to Lance before standing. Without turning to look at Allura, he says, “We’ll continue this later. I’m feeling hungry, now.”

Lance takes a wide step to the side to allow for Shiro to pass him, unable to break eye contact, and once he’s gone, he looks back over to find Allura watching him with a furrowed look. 

“Care to tell me what that was all about?” she asks, her firm voice demanding an explanation. She is sitting up a bit straighter on the couch now, her dangling earrings catching the light, her expression tighter and more closed off than before. Lance worries his bottom lip between his teeth before stepping into the room, Kosmo close behind like a shadow.

“Allura, have you noticed anything weird about Shiro?” Lance asks. He sees her raise an eyebrow at him and then he amends, “Besides what you just saw now.”

She stares at Lance, her eyebrows drawing in low over her jeweled eyes and then crosses her arms over her chest. “I suppose he has been slightly more unlike himself since Keith came home. Have they been having it out with each other and I don’t know about it?”

Lance takes a seat beside her on the couch. “No—it’s not like that at all. Keith is worried about him.” Kosmo scoots up close beside him and plops his chin down on Lance’s knees, his tail thumping once in approval when Lance slides his hand over his head and scratches a bit behind his pointy ears. “Shiro mentioned having headaches to Keith yesterday, and Keith thinks that him advocating for Lotor to board the castle without any reservations at all is...out of character.”

Allura purses her lips in thought. “That did seem a bit strange to me. He’s always been one to think five steps ahead with our safety in mind. As much as I wish we don’t need to worry about Lotor turning his back on us, he’s done it before.” She looks away from Lance, and clears her throat. “Why would he lie to Keith about having headaches?”

Lance shrugs and leans back against the couch, tipping his head until he’s staring at the ceiling. He curls his fingers into Kosmo’s fur absently. “Why would he lie about telling Keith that he was having headaches?”

She goes quiet for a moment and they sit there in confused, companionable silence. Kosmo leans more and more heavily into Lance’s leg, his body warm against him, and Lance is abruptly thankful that the wolf is precisely as clingy as he is. He makes for better comfort than that dreadful little letter, which serves to torture Lance when he thinks about it for far too long. It is a reminder of Keith’s absence, where Kosmo is proof of Keith’s presence. 

“I ought to tell Coran about this,” Allura murmurs after a while. “He would know if Shiro’s differences are a side effect of an ailment. Perhaps Keith and his mother brought something back from the quantum abyss without knowing it.”

Lance knows immediately that it has nothing to do with Keith. Even if that’s when things started getting weirder, there is a video log Lance made months ago dedicated to Shiro’s strange behavior. “It wasn’t Keith or Krolia,” he tells her.

“Why do you say that?”

Lance explains the video he made that Pidge found and then lolls his head to the side to look at her from this awkward angle, watching as she absorbs this new information.

“Regardless, I think we should still tell Coran.” She stares long and hard at her knees like they’ve offended her, arms still crossed severely over her chest. “You don’t think this will interfere with our plans tonight, do you, Lance?”

A shock of surprise goes through him at her question. “Our plans” being the offensive little welcome party they plan to throw for Lotor when he is granted access to the castle tonight to explain himself. Aren’t there more important people who would have a better answer to that question than him? She looks up slowly at his silence and meets his wide-eyed shock with a head tilt of her own. 

“N-No,” Lance says, straightening. “Uh, no, I don’t think—I mean, there are so many of us. Even if we needed to count Shiro out, I think we’d still be okay to go ahead with everything.” Never mind that Shiro is the leader of Voltron—Lance is still betting on Lotor being entirely, one-hundred percent cooperative. He loved Allura, too, and he thought highly enough of himself to protect his own feelings, which Lance knows included her.

She considers him seriously. “Do you think we ought to count Shiro out?”

He runs his teeth over his bottom lip again, suppressing the aftershock of surprise that follows. “I think that’s a question for Keith.”

She nods, appeased. “Right. I’ll have to ask him when he gets back from his weapons run.” Her stern gaze softens a little around the edges. “Thank you for your honesty.”

He smiles at her. “Thank you for being someone I can talk to about these things.”

An answering smile teases at the corner of her mouth. “Well, it’s only fair, isn’t it? If you have to listen to me babble about my feelings for a man who is quite possibly my worst enemy, the least I can do is hear out your concerns.” She reaches over and takes his free hand with her own. “I want you to know that I will always be here for you, Lance. As you have been for me.”

He laughs a little at her words; it’s incredible to him, that she still feels as though she owes him something when she’s done everything a person can possibly do for him. “You saved me. I think that makes us bonded for life, whether you like it or not.”

Her lips quirk and allow a glimmer of white to show. “I suppose there are worse outcomes.”

He flips his hand over, so they’re palm to palm, and gives her hand a squeeze of solidarity. Was his relationship with Allura like this before? She’s so comfortable around him, and so interested and trusting in and of his opinion. Everything he gathered about himself from before his death does not match up with this easy faith in Allura. He wishes he had the words to express his gratitude, but from the look she gives him now, he reckons that it is known and returned in droves of her own. 

She sighs and pulls her hand away after a moment. “I suspect that Keith will make a beeline for you the moment he gets back. Will you send him my way?”

Lance tightens his fingers in Kosmo’s hair at her casual words, heat cresting high in his cheeks, all red and splotchy and heinously traitorous. “You—you don’t know that he’ll find me first. What if Kolivan pulls him aside again? Or Krolia? Or what if—“

Allura, for the first time since he walked into the room, relaxes against the couch bonelessly and rolls her eyes. “Lance, please. I have eyes and a brain with at least one working brain cell. Don’t insult me.”

“Allura…” His groan falls apart inside of a chuckle of embarrassment and he covers his face with one hand, hiding as much of his eyes and burning cheeks as he can from her view.

“You ought to thank me for not pressing for details,” she says, sounding very much like a princess who is used to dictating things her way and is doling out mercy simply because it pleases her and suits her own whims. “I’ll spare you for now. But after all of this stuff blows over, I will need full disclosure. As a curious friend, of course; not as your leader.”

“You’re very kind,” he tells her dryly.

She grins, amused. “Does anyone else know?”

He pulls his hand away from his face. “There’s nothing to know. I— I don’t even know.”

She snorts. “Well, I know.”

“You’re paying too much attention.”

“It’s hardly my fault that Keith is as subtle as a rock.”

Lance thrills at that particular observation because—well, it’s true .

“Alright! I’ll tell him you’re looking for him!” He throws up his hands in surrender.

“Thank you. Was that so hard?” She pats his knee and then rises to her feet. “You can tell him I’ll be on the flight deck with Coran. I must go speak with Coran about Shiro before something else claims my attention.”

“Okay. I’ll see you later,” he says with a sigh, slumping back into the couch.

She gives him another smile and then leaves, leaving Lance with fresh thoughts about Keith. Keith, grinning in the half-lit hallway last night. Keith, holding Lance’s hand against his chest where his heart beat frantically beneath the touch, leaning in with lidded eyes. Keith, fit perfectly in his arms, broad shoulders crowding him in a lovely, belly-clenching way. His face burns with each memory, each tattooed sensation fizzing beneath the surface of his skin like champagne. It has him crossing his arms over his face and hiding in the crooks of his elbows.

Perhaps Lance lied about not knowing. 

Perhaps Keith should be the first to hear that, though.

*

A few hours later finds Lance back in his room, straightening things up while he waits for Keith to return from speaking with Allura. He wishes that he could hate that she’d been right about Keith—he’d come straight to Lance after getting back; hadn’t even stopped to change out of his Marmora suit before—but Lance is just overwhelmingly enamored with the very image in his head of Keith clamoring down the hallways hastily, all dark-eyed and sexy and windswept, cheeks flushed, just to see him again as soon as possible. 

How charming is that?

Lance isn’t quite sure how he’s still standing solidly on two feet—it had gotten a little rocky there, for a minute. All trembling knees and erratic heartbeats and hands clutching at the bed post for support. He must be getting used to this ridiculous effect Keith has on him, which is a relief. He doesn’t want to worry about whether or not one look is going to knock him flat out on his ass. 

He opens the closet door—the only place in his room he hasn’t touched—and comes face to face with Keith’s old jacket, still hanging there on the near-bare rack, pressed up against the wall on one side like a secret. Giddy, not thinking at all really, Lance runs a hand down one sleeve—soft, worn, familiar; safe immediately comes to Lance’s mind, a reminder of all the comfort it brought in Keith’s absence. It brings warmth to him; he finds himself smiling, both at the familiarity and also at the notion that he doesn’t need to curl up in it anymore when he has the real deal close enough to hug at almost any given time.

Lance is starting to think he’s probably not that subtle either. Allura had just been too kind to say it.

He pulls the jacket out of the closet and then goes to sit on the bed, laying the fabric over his knees, running his hand along the seam of the collar almost reverently. 

He thinks that it’s probably time to give it back.

It’s—honestly, it probably won’t even fit Keith anymore. Lance slides out of his own jacket and then slips into Keith’s. It stretches almost a little too much across Lance’s shoulders and Keith is slightly taller and wider than him. So—no, it won’t fit. Not at all.

It’s more about the principal of the thing, then. One of the last remaining pieces of this wall Lance has kept up when it comes to admitting to Keith just how much Lance feels for him. How much Lance remembers him, in his own way. What, exactly, is the point of holding on to all of that?

Looking back on everything now, he thinks all of his past worries and reservations are silly and unfounded. Even right here, in this very moment, he feels stupid for being so hesitant in closing what little distance remains between them. What is he so scared of? Keith won’t turn away from him. He’s sure of that. He’d stake his life on that. 

A knock on the door breaks him out of his thoughts like a bucket of ice water.

“I’m back.”

The sound of his voice, muffled through the door, makes everything feel surmountable. Lance doesn’t know how that works; doesn’t know how he can be so breakable one minute and so invincible the next, and not even know it. His breath shudders out of him, tension easing from his shoulders as he grapples to control his emotions. He hears the door open and he looks up, remembering too late that he’s not just holding Keith’s old jacket—he’s wearing it.

Keith stops short there in the doorway, dressed down now in his casual clothes, his eyebrows arching in surprise before furrowing back into their usual slant. Lance feels heat tackle him from collarbone to his hairline. Briefly he considers taking the jacket off but that damage has already been done and he doesn’t want to come across ashamed, even if he is incredibly guilty of hoarding something that very much doesn’t belong to him. 

“Hey,” Lance greets, opting to ignore his obvious blush and aim for nonchalance. He leans back on his hands and tries to smile like he hadn’t just been caught with his hand in a figurative cookie jar. “Uh—you and Allura talked?”

Keith remains still in the doorway. “Yes,” he says, voice even as can be. “You told her everything about Shiro.”

Lance shrugs one shoulder, throat trembling. “I thought she should know.”

Keith nods. He finally crosses the threshold and comes to take a seat beside Lance. His gaze drifts down over the collar of the jacket, down all the way to the hem settled against the top of Lance’s hip, and then back up, unbothered, it would seem, that Lance knows he’s taking his sweet time observing him. 

Lance’s blush burns hotter, unable to stop watching Keith watch him.

“She asked me about Shiro’s health,” Keith says after a long moment, finally meeting Lance’s eyes again. “I told her that I thought things should be okay as long as we keep an eye on him. I don’t like that Shiro said he doesn’t remember telling me about having headaches, but Allura said that maybe Coran can help.” He looks relieved in a way that Lance hadn’t really anticipated. He knew that Shiro’s behavior was bothering him, but he didn’t realize how much of that was weighing on Keith. He wishes he’d known. Wishes Keith had told him.

Lance searches his expression, some of that heat in his face ebbing away. “Is it okay that I told her about Shiro?”

Keith’s eyebrows knit together a bit at the sudden stillness in Lance’s voice. “Yeah. It’s probably what’s best for him, at this point.” He leans forward and places his elbows on his knees, looking up at Lance through the dark fringe of his hair. “So thank you.”

His body heat touches Lance across the space between their shoulders and thighs and Lance is leaning in closer without thinking about it. His throat feels hot and tight with emotion, with gratitude that he gets to be here in this moment with Keith and that he’s been able to help ease Keith’s burden without even knowing it was there. He leans, and leans, until he’s resting his head on Keith’s shoulder, half of his body weight pressed into Keith’s side, his eyes trailing down the curves of Keith’s arm to his bony wrist and the calloused tips of his fingers.

“You’re welcome,” he mumbles, Keith still and steady and warm beneath him. He reaches into the pockets of the jacket, eyes still lingering on Keith’s hands, and pulls out the gloves he’d found there so long ago. Lance holds them out tentatively, palm up, cheek smooshed into Keith’s shoulder. “These are yours.”

Surprise lights up in Keith’s voice as he looks down at Lance’s hand. “I thought I lost those.” He takes them, runs the fabric between his thumbs and fingers as if to re-memorizing their softness.

“They were in your room,” Lance tells him, feeling unexpectedly shy as he watches Keith slip the gloves on. He’d never seen Keith wear them before, but he can tell immediately that they’d been well-worn and well-loved. This is another part of his past given back to him, another piece of Keith he hadn’t known before. He takes a silent breath, drawing from deep wells of that stillness from before, and lets his eyes flutter closed.

“I never told you this,” he says, voice bordering on breakable despite his resolve, “but before I met you, I used to go to your room all the time.” He swallows around remembered emotion. “I wanted to see if I could….I wasn’t trying to remember you, really, but I was trying to figure you out.” He opens his eyes to stare at his knees. “You were this vague imprint in my head, like a shadow, only not as steady. You flickered. I thought maybe I’d find something there that gave me an idea. I wanted...I wanted to give you a more definite shape, I guess. I was tired of grasping at smoke.” 

Keith’s voice is gentle. “My gloves?”

Lance smiles briefly, remembering his mild annoyance at how empty his room had been. “You literally owned nothing else. Your clothes were folded up in this neat little pile at the end of your bed, and your jacket was hanging up by the door. I was so disappointed. The only thing I figured out was that you had been a little shorter than me, and that didn’t even turn out to be true.”

“It was, once.”

Lance nods, rubbing his cheek against Keith’s shoulder. “Yeah.”

“Can I ask about the jacket?” Keith asks softly. He does not feel the weight of Keith’s gaze burning against his skin. Lance settles in a little closer, comfortably, pressing their thighs together, and swallows the lump in his throat. 

“It was the only thing that was yours,” Lance says after taking a moment to collect the right words, speaking slow and light. Keith doesn’t move, but he’s not tense either. “I meant to—wash it. Like all of your other clothes and sheets. Um….” His voice trembles a little bit as he plows on with his deepest thoughts and secrets on full display. “I thought, if you came home, then you’d probably want clean things. I wanted to take care of that for you.

“But it was—besides that stupid letter, it was the only real proof I had that you even existed, so I wanted to keep it close. I couldn’t bring myself to put it back in your room.” He turns his face to smother himself against Keith’s shoulder now, embarrassed and fragile. “I wore it all the time.”

Keith shifts, straightening, and Lance moves with him, blood pulsing through his veins hectically as he’s coaxed out from behind his shoulder to be properly looked at for the first time since he started pouring his heart out. It takes him a moment to gather the courage to look at Keith, and when he does, his heart tries to escape by dropping out through the bottom of his stomach, screaming in his chest. The boy in front of him is so lovely and sharp and intense—not exactly what Lance had pictured when he decided to come clean. His mouth is puckered, eyebrows severe. Lance wants to kiss them both.

“I can give the jacket back, if you want it,” Lance says after a moment, his voice unexpectedly steady.

Keith stands; he sighs out harshly, almost irritated, frustrated, and runs a hand through his hair, pacing a few times before he turns a borderline desperate expression on Lance. “I have to tell you something, Lance.”

Lance’s stomach jumps, trying to figure out what the hell can make Keith fix him with a look like that. “Okay.”

“It’s about something that happened a long time ago. Before you forgot. I didn’t know how to tell you before. I wanted to, I just—you’re here, telling me this stuff and I think it’s—I think it’s okay now. To tell you.” He cuts himself off with a look of wild frustration, stopping himself several feet away, in front of Lance, forcing himself still.

Lance just stares at him; he rises to his feet to be closer to him. “Okay…?”

There’s no hesitation; that seems to be all the assurance Keith needs. He almost trips over his words in his haste to get it out. “I almost kissed you.”

Lance blinks. And blinks again. And then again, processing. His heart kicks in his chest like a war drum, fast and unattainable, quick and hard enough to bruise. Before any other thought, before anything else can shake itself into his abrupt stupor, he can taste the anticipation.

He can taste it so clearly, like a physical memory, honeyed and thick on his tongue. He can feel the heat it would bring, deep and bottomless, burning him from the inside out—it’s every daydream brought to the forefront of his mind with blistering clarity, heightened for the first time by actual possibility . Caught, suspended by the look on Keith’s face, he becomes immovable, vibrating in place as his blood begins to sing loud as a church choir in his ears, electricity surging over his skin without even the promise of a touch. 

“ Huh ?” His voice is high and thin, strangled - its more of a squeak than a word.

Keith only stares at him, gaze dark as a starless night and full of utter, crippling sincerity. His voice gentles as a bit of fondness twists at the corner of his mouth. “I almost kissed you, Lance.”

“I-I heard you the first time!” Lance nearly shouts; he shivers and the universe shudders to a devastating stand-still. There are a million things that make sense now. That letter, being the first thing that comes to mind; the longing behind it, the purpose of it’s unwritten silence. The ache in his chest the very first time he heard Keith’s name, complete and vast and still so empty. The warm familiarity that had sometimes swooped in Keith’s voice when he spoke to him, the pointed questions challenging Lance’s true memory loss. The easy intimacy that bloomed so effortlessly upon Keith’s return. All of it.

All of it.

He stares, feeling too much all at once—so much that it tangles into everything and nothing. So much that his knees shake beneath him. So much that he can almost feel a memory pressing against that darkness in the vast expanse of his mind—an impression, a feeling not easily forgotten. Keith , he thinks, as he looks at the boy standing before him with dark moons for eyes. That’s all he feels, emotion bloated in his throat and behind his sternum.

“W-Wait,” he stammers out uncertainly, afraid to ask and desperate to know, twisting his fingers together. “I get that it happened—before. Uh, before I died, but Keith— when ?” His voice cracks. “How long did we—did we— when , Keith?”

“The day I left the team to join the Blade.” Keith answers immediately, like he’s just as eager to tell as Lance is to know. His expression is not soft, even though he is being open. “You would have let me,” he says, the words so poignant and full and honest that Lance is short of breath and he believes him. “You stopped me on my way to the hangar after I said my goodbyes to the team. It was just you. You didn’t say anything, but you didn’t have to. I think you wanted to, but you didn’t know how and I couldn’t...I couldn’t either. I knew—what you were thinking. The way you looked at me—”

“Why didn’t you.” It leaves Lance more like a demand than a question, spilling out of him before he has time to process the train wreck of his thoughts. Something hot wells up in his chest, fierce and close , dense and thick as a humid summer night. It tastes like anger in his mouth but it hurts like loneliness in his chest. “If you knew that I—if you knew how I felt then why —“

Keith is relentless. “Because I would have stayed.”

Lance falters again, his world turning on it’s side again , as he blinks, open-mouthed and gauzy with ripening understanding. 

Keith’s voice stays strong, sure. “At that point, I thought that the best thing I could do for you was leave. So I couldn’t stay.”

Lance’s mouth goes dry. “You...you should have kissed me.”

Keith shakes his head and then steps closer, and the growing proximity ignites Lance like flame to paper, all eager, licking heat, quickly devouring only to leave behind embers, his trembling heart nestled there like a newborn phoenix. His face must be red as hell. “I wanted to.”

Lance frowns but Keith’s serious expression breaks just a little, like the dawn, allowing something impossibly soft to shine through.

“You should have,” Lance murmurs, Keith’s proximity pressing on him like a weight even though they have yet to touch. He wants to look away, to catch his breath, but he can’t.

“You would have forgotten.”

Lance goes very still. 

Keith’s gaze searches Lance’s carefully. “I think about that all the time now.” He is so steady. So confident, his voice dropping into a low rumble, dry and devout. “How you would have forgotten. I don’t want you to feel guilty about it, that’s not why I’m telling you this. I—“ he breaks off briefly, stilted, “—I’m telling you because I want you to—I need —I need you to know that I wanted to. That I still want to.”

“To kiss me?” Lance whispers to confirm, voice cracking even though it is soft.

Keith’s cheeks slowly warm, the dark pools of his gaze intent as he crowds into Lance’s space earnestly. "Yes.”

I’ll make new memories with you.

Lance can’t even take a step back—doesn’t want to. He thinks again of that letter and the single word at the top of that crumpled page. His voice is uneven. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Why haven’t you kissed me yet?

Keith responds helplessly, and his expression folds as he reaches out and takes Lance’s hands carefully with his. “I didn’t want to put pressure on you. I didn’t want you to think you had to think or act a certain way just because I said something. As it was, I thought my absence was enough to erase any feelings you might have had for me, even before you died. It’s been months for you, and years for me, and—so, it would have made sense. I accepted that, I expected it, but—.”

“What about your feelings?”

Keith stills at that. “I saw you every day in the abyss.” He softens, growing quiet, his voice golden and warm like a homecoming. “I saw you every day , Lance. I only loved you more.”

Lance feels his heart split open at raw emotion on Keith’s face, his eyes prickling with tears. Everything inside of him expands, the world narrowing down to just Keith as that truth scorches the air between them like a flashover. Lance isn’t sure what to do about that; how is he supposed to respond to a truth that he did and did not know? How is he supposed to wrap his head around the word love , dropped so easily and readily and absolutely? 

A couple of big fat tears spill from the corners of his eyes as he finds his voice and rasps out, “How could you think I'd move on just like that?” It’s the first thing he can think to say, almost wounded by Keith’s disregard of his feelings for him.

“You have a big heart,” Keith tells him, running a tender thumb over the sharp crest of a knuckle, his voice bordering on broken. “You love so easily, and I know you've had feelings for Allura before. I was gone for months. I was apart from the team for over a year. Why shouldn’t you have moved on?”

Lance tilts his head, eyebrows creasing in disbelief. “Because I loved you, too, Keith,” he swears fervently, vision blurring slightly around the edges, meeting and searching Keith’s expression. "When I woke up, I only knew that I loved you.” He curls his fingers into Keith’s, holding on tight. “I—I forgot everything but that.” 

Keith drops his hands and finds Lance’s waist, pulling him flush against his chest shamelessly. Lance’s hands fly to his shoulders, a little gasp of surprise caught in his throat that quickly turns into a much more embarrassing sound when Keith’s hands grip him more firmly. Lance allows himself to burn under the smoulder of that gaze, half-lidded and ravenous. The air between them is suspended, full of tension, hanging on the precipice of an explosion. Lance wants to fall into it, wants to light that fuse, wants Keith to look at him, like this, all the time. He doesn’t want to know anything else.

Keith swallows almost imperceptibly, gaze unwavering, hands so firm Lance can feel that steadiness down to his bones and he aches for more. “Ask me.”

"Ask you what?"

"I've been waiting for you to ask me. Please."

Lance stares at him. "I thought there were some things I didn't have to ask for."

"This is different. Ask me."

" How is this different?” he murmurs it.

Keith leans in and presses his forehead against the ridge of Lance’s eyebrow, his eyes pinching shut as though he’s in pain. The way he feels things is so genuine and so honest, written on his face as plain as fact. “I want to give you everything you want, on your terms. I want to hear you say it. I don’t….Lance, I don’t—“ he cuts off abruptly.

To appease him, Lance raises his hands to Keith’s face and tries to smooth the lines in his expression with tender fingers. He lingers around the dimples near his mouth, knowing that if he just tipped his head a little to the left, there wouldn’t be any space left between them at all. Keith seems to revel in the touch, his breathing catching at the back of his throat audibly as his hands remain hot and heavy at Lance’s waist, clutching at him like a lifeline. Like he’s the one who lost everything and Lance is the one who found it again.

“Can I kiss you, Keith?” Lance whispers, feeling breakable and invincible and brave and terrified, all at once, tears rolling down his cheeks. His blood pulses beneath his skin, scalding and thick, loud in his ears, his heart pressing bruises into his rib cage from the inside. He slips his eyes closed and shivers at the feeling of Keith’s breaths brushing against the delicate skin on the inside of his wrist. 

Keith breathes out slowly, so still beneath Lance’s hands that he could be a statue. He holds himself like he’s afraid to move. Like maybe he thinks one wrong twitch of his muscle and all of this will fall apart or disappear. Lance wants to hold him closer; he wants Keith to know everything inside of his heart because he still doesn’t know how to say all of it, to take care of him and to be with him, in whatever capacity they are allowed in this war and in whatever time they have left in this life. Lance is sure that he will find Keith in the next one, too. He’s already done it once before.

“Yeah,” Keith rasps, tightening his hold on Lance’s waist.

“ Thank you ,” he says quietly, voice thick with wanting, half-delirious with it. Yes , his mind supplies with a hiss of great intensity as he drops his hands back down and his fingers curl into Keith’s shoulders. Keith tilts his head and sighs and it has the weight of a laugh in it, but Lance isn’t paying attention to that as he trembles and presses forward just a little more, tipping his own head back and—

Keith’s lips are warm as they brush against his. The first touch is tentative, gentle, asking for permission. Lance's stomach drops to his knees when Keith slowly glides a hand up his back to press him more firmly and more fully against his chest. Lance sinks into him, a tiny noise of affirmation rises in his throat, on board with all of Keith’s careful actions—the gentleness of his mouth contrasting with the unforgiving weight of his hands. It makes him want more, and more, and more. Every movement, no matter how small, seems to shake Lance apart, until he’s held together only by Keith’s lips fit perfectly to his. The jacket pulls uncomfortably at his shoulders and he burns beneath its weight, sweaty at his temples.

Lance gently pushes himself away, his voice a breathless whine. “It’s hot. ‘M sorry, it’s too hot, please don’t stop kissing me, wanted this for so long, but I gotta—“ He struggles to shrug out of the jacket but Keith is too close and he is too reluctant to step away. Without a word, Keith’s rough hands are tugging the offending article of clothing off and away, yanking at the fabric, and Lance immediately misses the weight of those hands high on his hips. He is so dizzy and drunk off that one simple touch of their mouths, so hot from that chaste kiss, and they’re so close—Lance can’t believe this is happening. 

“I can’t believe this is happening,” he whispers up against Keith’s jaw as the jacket is finally pulled free from his wrists and discarded on the bed behind them.

“It’s happening,” Keith murmurs, his eyes seem impossibly darker up close, warm with divine hunger as he tracks every little detail of Lance’s expression—flushed, mouth parted on a breath, eyes glossy with leftover tears and muddled with desire. “Fuck. It’s happening.” With that, he pulls Lance back in, descending this time with a mouth that’s less gentle and Lance thrills, his blood trilling high and static in his veins. 

Lance grips his shoulders again, fingers fiercely curling into the fabric of Keith’s shirt as he gasps into the kiss, half-surprised by the ferocity and entirely inspired by it. Keith kisses him now like he’ll never get another chance. Like, if he kisses him hard enough, then maybe it would be an impossible thing to forget. He opens his mouth against Lance’s, swipes his tongue along his bottom lip, and that’s when Lance’s knees shake violently beneath him, begging to give out under his weight. 

Keith must sense this, or feel the shift in Lance’s center of balance because his hands grasp harder at him and then Lance shudders and stutters out a tiny, little “Oh my god,” as Keith backs him into the wall for better leverage and support. Since Lance has known him, Keith has been a pinnacle of emotional restraint, holding things back unless asked for, but this Keith here—crowding up against him like he can’t get close enough, hands demanding, mouth confident and devouring—is impulsive and reckless and so full of desire that Lance can feel it in every point of contact between them. 

Despite Keith’s desperation, he is not overtly rough. His touches are sure and heavy, but tender—he touches Lance the way Lance always wanted, always hoped he would, reverent and claiming. He wraps his arms around Keith’s neck to hold himself closer, to hold Keith, and presses himself into those wet, languid kisses, matching Keith’s ardor easily. His head spins, delirious, feeling—at last—deliciously sated by this intimacy. 

After another moment, Keith’s mouth gentles a bit and he begins moving his lips up along the crest of Lance’s cheek, reaching up to push some of the wild hair back from his face. 

“You’re so beautiful, Lance,” Keith whispers, out of breath, chest heaving against his. “I always wanted to tell you that.”

Lance tilts his head to the side, shivering, threading one hand into Keith’s hair. “You’re beautiful, too,” he murmurs, all air, eyes fluttering open and then closed at the warm, slow path of Keith’s mouth. “So gorgeous it’s not fair. Could hardly breathe around you sometimes.”

Keith noses at the spot beneath his ear, a wicked smile in his voice. “Could hardly stand up straight, too.”

Lance breaks out into a fit of giggles—he’d probably be more embarrassed or outraged if Keith wasn’t currently kissing down his throat or pinning him entirely up against a wall. “I’m glad this is our first kiss, Keith,” Lance tells him, softly, shyly, opening his eyes again. Keith raises his head to meet his gaze, his dark eyes syrupy, stoking that bright wildfire under his skin. Lance touches his jaw. “I’m glad I didn’t forget this.”

“Me too,” Keith mumbles, thumbing at the crest of Lance’s cheek, searching his expression for a moment. He find something there, is enamored by it, leans in and presses a long, sweet kiss to Lance’s mouth that never ends.

And Lance burns.

Chapter Text

Lance has turned to ashes.

That’s all that’s left of him, really: a smoldering wreck, smoke in the wind—gone. His heartbeat pulses in his throat evenly, thick and delirious, honeyed with hazy satisfaction. Proper thought still hasn’t returned to him. Everything around him, everything inside of him, is just a jumble of sensations, of an afterglow of the sweetest and most unassuming kind. It wants for nothing. In this moment, he has no further desires, and no further regret. He’s never felt this good before—never dreamed that this would be possible with so many pieces of his past still missing and fractured. If it were up to him, he’d never move. He’d forget the universe again and again if he could lay here in his bed with Keith cradled between his thighs for the rest of his life. 

“We have to go back soon,” Keith murmurs, close and hot, looking down at Lance with those midnight eyes, all fire and reluctance as he runs a tender thumb back and forth against Lance’s temple. Something about his expression still burns into Lance with hunger. “Allura mentioned a briefing before we—.”

Lance reaches up and places a gentle finger against Keith’s mouth, thumbing at his lower lip. He doesn’t really know what Keith is saying, he only knows that he’s allowed to touch him like this now, and that there’s no reason that he shouldn’t be. He feels Keith’s immediate presence in the way a person might feel a new snowfall; soft and dreamlike, warm inside the winter coat of his own driftless thoughts. Keith takes Lance’s wandering hand in his and then kisses at his fingertips.

“Are you listening to me?” Keith rumbles, hot breath brushing against Lance’s skin. Lance tracks the path of Keith’s mouth as it presses to the pad of his thumb, his forefinger, his ring finger.

“Mm,” Lance mumbles, distracted, breath catching loudly when Keith grazes his teeth down over the side of his palm from the tip of his pinky to his wrist.

“I don’t think you are.” Keith kisses the inside of his wrist reverently, lingering when he meets Lance’s muddled gaze, his face flushed with warmth and tipped with heat. Lance stares because that’s all him. That blush on Keith’s face, that dark look in his eye, the focus and attention and the sure weight of his hands—all of it, it’s all Lance. No one else had done this to Keith but him.

Keith looks down at him, lips bitten red. That’s Lance, too. “You doin’ okay down there?”

That seems to break through to Lance a little more. He blinks as if coming out of a haze, finally seeming to settle back into his body. “What?” Lance whispers, wondering what will happen to the moment if he speaks any louder. 

Keith smooths his thumb against his temple again. “You’re so quiet. What are you thinking about?”

Lance leans into the touch, reveling in the unabashed affection of it as completely as he can. “Just you,” he says softly, simply. He runs his hands up Keith’s sides, up and up and up into his hair and then back down, watching the path of his own hands with quiet awe. “I’ve thought about nothing but this for months.”

Keith smiles at him, a secret shared. “This?”

Heat sweeps up into Lance’s face, but he’s done hiding things from this boy. “You,” he reiterates again, still following his hands with his eyes, but now as a reason to avoid eye contact while he rambles off the truth. “You with me. You over me, against me, kissing me.” His voice breaks from emotion, though he has no urge to cry. “Wanting me.”

Keith’s gaze stays settled on his face, but it’s a lover’s touch. Mellow and mild and sweet. There is no intensity here. “You,” he says as Lance watches his fingers slowly skim over the swell of Keith’s chest, “are all I’ve ever wanted.”

He says it with such conviction, like it has to be an absolute truth, uncontended. Lance’s heart sighs in his chest, love-struck and hopeless. It feels good to live without doubt. “I know,” he whispers, his fingertip ghosting along the seam of Keith’s neckline. “S’funny. I always knew I could live without you as long as you were safe. You never seemed like a thing I could have.” He places his hand over Keith’s heart and looks up. “But you’re mine, aren’t you?”

Keith runs a gentle hand through the locks of his short hair soothingly, eyes warm and dark. “Yes,” Keith murmurs, the confidence in his answer making Lance’s heart tremble again. He leans back down and brushes a soft kiss above Lance’s eyebrow, whispering into his forehead like a promise as Lance curls his hand into a fist around the fabric of Keith’s shirt.

Lance sighs and wraps his arm around Keith’s lower back, urging him to settle in closer, as close as he can get. His eyes flutter to a close. “I get to keep you,” he says, for his benefit more than anything else.

Keith kisses the corner of his mouth. “Yes,” he says immediately, like he is totally amenable to all of Lance’s whims; like he is inevitable and unending, and religiously his .

Lance laughs a little under his breath and peeks up at Keith through half-slit eyes. “Were you always so... so …” His voice tapers off, at a loss for the word he’s searching for, especially when Keith rolls them both onto their sides, gathering Lance up against his chest and running a hand through his hair again. He threads through the tangles to make it lay flat, over and over, and Lance’s eyes flutter at the feeling, nearly drunk from how good it is.

“Was I always, what?” Keith asks, soft as a summer breeze, curious as a cat. Lance thinks he can sense some degree of smug satisfaction there, too, but maybe Keith has every reason to be smug. He holds Keith tighter around his waist and lets his mouth linger at Keith’s jaw.

“Gentle,” Lance whispers, completing his thought. It still doesn’t seem like the right word. Even in the moments they shared so far, there was always an intensity to Keith’s gentleness, something firm that did not give. This Keith in his arms—kissed senseless, dark eyes smudged with an intoxicated sort of bliss—sways so easily, bends so easily . 

“No,” Keith tells him. “Not even with you.”

Lance noses his way down into the crook of Keith’s neck, brushing his lips against Keith’s throat. “Not with anyone?”

Keith chuckles like he finds that funny. “I had walls up all my life, Lance.”

“Until me.”

Another laugh. “Until you.”

“You’re gentle with me now, Keith.” Lance nuzzles in, runs a hand up Keith’s back. This feels good—Keith’s hand in his hair, the hot skin of his throat against Lance’s face.

“I could say the same about you,” Keith tells him and Lance leans back to get a good look at him when his voice shifts to fondness. Keith must have closed his eyes at some point because he opens them halfway to look at Lance, too, his hand still tangled up in Lance’s hair, thumb rubbing against the velvety spot behind Lance’s ear.

“Well,” Lance says offhand, like it’s obvious, like it’s an explanation. “You’re mine.”

Keith smiles at that, his teeth sharp, glinting in the lamplight. “I’m going to keep you too,” he decides, soft and hungry, conviction flaying and full of intention.

Lance fists the back of his shirt like it might pull Keith tighter to his chest. He feels, for a moment, like he’s about to lose his mind. “You’re right,” he says, unable to look away from Keith’s wolfish expression, his words and actions complete oxymorons of each other. “We do need to go soon. We have to be—“

Keith’s hands are tender as they hold Lance steady. “Few more minutes.” He presses in for another kiss, right on the lips this time. “I’ll be gentle ,” gets whispered up against Lance with a tilt of a crooked smile, and then he only knows that the quiet embers of his body are suddenly doused in kerosene, Keith’s mouth a wicked strike of a match, and he goes up in flames all over again.

Eventually, they stumble out of Lance’s room, still hazy-eyed and honey-warm, hands clasped together like two halves of a locket. They’d gone no further than kissing, but the way it had lit Lance up goes thick into his blood. He still feels it as they reluctantly make their way down the halls towards the common areas. Keith is quiet beside him, steady and silent as a mountain; it might be unnerving if Lance wasn’t still trying to gather his scrambled thoughts, too.

He glances over at Keith from the corner of his eye and instantly has to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Keith’s hair is a disaster, tugged into tangles, mussed beyond recognition. Lance’s fingers, the culprits. In the darkness of his room, he hadn’t realized how much of a mess he’d made. Further inspection reveals the edge of a hickey just peeking around the collar of Keith’s shirt. He slows to a stop and squeezes Keith’s hand, warm with satisfaction. Keith looks back, giving Lance a raised eyebrow, his thoroughly kissed mouth twitching at the corners.

“Yes?” he prompts.

Lance hesitates, feeling suddenly shy. A part of him is still deeply in awe that Keith loves him back. Not only loves him back, but that he had loved him even longer than Lance could know . There is something so powerful about that, both being loved in that way, and knowing how loved, exactly, you are. It makes Lance feel big and small and winded and lovely, all at once. 

“Your hair,” Lance says.

Keith reaches up with his free hand to brush his fingers back through the length of his hair. “What about it?”

“It’s my bad. I...uh, here.” Lance drops Keith’s hand and steps towards him, setting himself to the task of making Keith’s hair lay flat and unaffected. Keith stays utterly still, and though Lance does not make eye contact, he can feel the weight of Keith’s gaze on his face. Once he’s satisfied with his handiwork, he lets his eyes follow his hands down to the ends of Keith’s hair and then gently across his neck. The tips of his fingers linger on that one half-hidden hickey and Lance allows himself a moment to stare and remember before he glances back up.

Keith looks barely restrained, his eyes dark and unreadable, though somehow, Lance has his suspicions. His breath catches in his throat, his heart giving a startled thump in his chest.

“You have no self-awareness at all sometimes,” Keith rumbles, his hands now in fists at his sides. 

Lance blushes all the way to the tips of his ears, snatching his hand back like Keith’s skin has burned him. “Like you’re one to talk. You get to be all dark and handsome and sexy, walking around here with those eyebrows like—like—like—” He can’t come up with an appropriate metaphor, flustered beyond proper thought, and Keith’s sharp gaze is getting to him. His voice pitches upward. His hands gesture wildly. “What’s up with that, huh? Where the hell is your --”

Keith makes a rough sound in the back of his throat and closes his eyes against the scene in front of him. “Lance, shut up.”

“Or what?” Lance counters, his belly fluttering.

Keith doesn’t waver, hands still curled into fists. His eyes open into slits, emanating reproach. He doesn’t say anything, he just looks. And looks. And Lance backs down, because he doesn’t think he can keep doing this—teasing, taunting, so bold he can taste his own heartbeat on the back of his tongue—and instead, he bites his lip, reaching one hand up to mime zipping his lip and tossing away the key. He raises one eyebrow and spreads his hands out in front of him. Better?

Keith sighs and leans forward to kiss Lance’s bitten lip, chaste and quick, snagging one hand behind his neck. When he pulls back, he lingers for a moment, close enough that his exhale is still hot and damp against Lance’s mouth, and then drops in for another kiss, longer this time, like he can’t help himself, and just as Lance shifts to return the kiss, he straightens and pulls away.

“This sucks,” Lance whispers, following him just to be close, eyelashes fluttering when he lowers and rests his forehead to Keith’s jaw. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Do what?” Keith asks, hands finding Lance’s hips. They lay there gently, not taking or holding—it’s a steady touch, a helpless touch, as though its the only place for them to be.

“How am I supposed to function?” Lance says so softly, like he’s afraid it might carry down the hall and he’ll be overheard. He wants to wrap his arms around Keith but they’re out in the open, and he doesn’t want to start something that they can’t finish. “I can’t get my head on straight, I can’t stop thinking—or...or wanting—“

“Me either,” Keith says, his voice low and intimate. “It was bad timing on my part.”

“Shut up, no it wasn’t,” Lance murmurs. He considers it. “Or, maybe it was, but I don’t think there’s such a thing as perfect timing. Right now I can’t imagine not knowing.” The idea of it makes him shiver, makes his heart ache again, but he welcomes it. He’ll never forget again. “Can’t Lotor wait?? Why do we have to do this now? I just want to be with you.” 

He doesn’t mean for that to sound like a whine, but it does. He can’t help himself. 

The hands on his hips become firmer as he pushes Lance away, forcing Lance to look up at him, but also putting dreaded space between their bodies. Some of that gentleness from earlier has returned to Keith’s expression like a light refraction, soft and glimmering, but there’s amusement there, too. Like he’s enjoying Lance’s reluctance.  “You are with me.”

Lance doesn’t think that was supposed to sound romantic, but Keith has a way of making even the most factual statements come off as declarations of love. He feels his heart in his throat, halfway to swooning right into Keith’s arms. “Well,” he says around his beating pulse, “I guess that’s true.”

Keith smiles. Lance wants to paint it. He wants to spend hours painting Keith the way he sees him now. He wonders if that was an urge he always had—painting lovely things—or if Keith Kogane just makes him poetic. 

*

The moment Lotor steps aboard the ship, he is escorted to the holding cells in the belly of the castle by a handful of Blades. He goes willingly, easily, like he’d expected as much, like he has every intention in the world of being as cooperative as possible. Allura’s face is stone, hard and unmoving, throughout the transfer. She doesn’t speak to him even though Lotor watches her, and Lance doesn’t know how he feels about seeing nothing but regret and frustration in his expression. He looks one breath away from begging for her attention.

Once he’s been secured, most of the Blades and other rebels head to their stations to brace for an attack, if that’s what this is. Coran wasn’t too happy during the briefing when Allura asked him to stay on the flight deck, and Lance had never seen him look so upset or uncomfortable as long as he’d known him. The only ones left to give Lotor an audience are Kolivan, Krolia, and the rest of Team Voltron. As Pidge is tightening the security measures inside of the room, everyone else finds a spot to stand, weapons at the ready. 

Lance clutches his bayard in one hand and steps a little closer to Keith’s side, more to soothe than for the proximity himself. He can feel Keith’s tension in the air between them, the way his body is pulled in tight and drawn up like a wire with no give. 

The scowl on Keith’s face has yet to soften, or fade, and he hasn’t acknowledged Shiro since the two of them got testy with each other during the briefing before Lotor’s arrival. Lance had even had to pull Keith out of the flight deck for a few minutes to calm him down, ignoring the strange looks everyone had sent their way. All of the ease and happiness Lance had kissed into Keith is gone now, and with the heavy weight settled over the room, it sucks how much of it feels like it was all just a dream.

But they’re together, side by side, and that’s all Lance had really ever needed, anyways.

With everyone’s eyes drawn towards Lotor, Lance settles his hand briefly into the space between Keith’s armor at the inside of his elbow—it’s as close to skin to skin contact as he can get. He doesn’t know yet what his touch can offer Keith, but he knows what Keith’s does for him. He’s willing to bet that it can help.

Keith doesn’t look at him, but his shoulders loosen up, just a little, and Lance allows his hand to skate down the inside of his armor until he gets to Keith’s hand, squeezing it once with reassurance, lingering, lingering, reluctant to draw away. His heart pops up into his throat violently when Keith opens his hand up and takes Lance’s into his, keeping it. 

Shiro speaks to Lotor first, his voice hard. “So what is it that you want?”

Lotor still has a frustrated look about him, but there is no tension in his body as he sits on the edge of the bed in the cell. “I came to speak with Princess Allura.”

“Well, you’re here.” Allura’s voice sounds like the sharp end of a razor. “Speak.”

He doesn’t look away from her. He hangs on the vision of her, standing there, uncaring that there are several weapons loosely pointed in his direction. Lance understands. He gets it—he remembers what it was like to see Keith again, the way it made everything else unimportant and small. His heart hurts thinking about it, and he briefly allows himself to revel in the weight of Keith’s hand in his.

Lotor folds his hands together in front of him, leaning slightly forward. It’s maybe the first time that he looks normal, common, just a desperate man, none of the fine pride he’d always worn like a crown in sight. It’s strange, jarring, but something about it feels honest.

He clears his throat. “Just after my father destroyed your planet, I took it upon myself to gather those that had survived and bring them to a safe place where I could...well, study them.” He pauses, but then plows on ahead like he’s made up his mind already and wants to stick to it. “I want to be honest with you, Princess. I’m not proud of this, and you will hate me more for it, but you deserve to know. I have nothing to gain from telling you this truth, and everything to lose for it. I know that it is a lot to ask, but you must believe every word I say to you.”

She stares at him, long and hard, before speaking without mercy. “I’ll do my best.”

That seems to be enough for him; he nods, and continues. “As the years passed, some of my experiments went too far. I became drunk on what quintessence could offer me, if I could just learn how to cultivate and wield it. I didn’t care that I was hurting people, even the people whose culture I was so fascinated by. I’d become blind to their needs and was only focused on how I could help myself. I lied to them. Tricked them into helping me, made them believe I was their god. They worshipped me—I was their savior. I revelled in that kind of power.

“I began to desire more quintessence than they could offer. When I found out that you were still alive, I knew that I had to find you. To use you. I knew you were the key, and I was so certain that I could manipulate you and your team to get what I wanted out of you.”

The whole room is pregnant with tension, boiling with it. Lance realizes he’s not even breathing, his gut rolling with guilt and frustration, for not realizing. Keith squeezes his hand harder, shaking beside him with barely restrained rage of his own.

“So everything was a lie,” Allura says. “You wanting the universe to exist in peace, you wanting to save and preserve the Altean culture, you and me--”

Lotor cuts her off. He stands abruptly and makes his way towards the barrier, his expression torn. “It was, at first. But, Allura, your kindness touched me. Your insecurities, your strength, they gave me pause. I understood you intimately. I began to realize that all of my reasons were wrong and I’m--Allura, I am so ashamed of what I did. Of how I did it, of how many people that I have hurt. By the time I had sorted through my feelings and made a decision to change, your red paladin had already discovered my greatest regret. I knew immediately that I had to destroy my lab, to prevent it from being used by anyone else again, and to free and release the Alteans still living in those labs back to their homes on the planet I had given to them. So that’s what I did, that’s why I left.”

Allura steps closer to the cell, her hands in fists at her sides, shaking. “There are more of my people? Alive ?” Her voice cuts like a knife, sharp and loud and disbelieving.

Lotor nods eagerly. “Yes. Yes, princess. Alive and safe from those who still believe in my father’s legacy.”

Shiro cuts Allura’s next question off, and the sound of his voice makes the hair on the back of Lance’s neck stand on end. “Where are they?”

Lotor glances back at him. “I will take you to them. Of course I will.”

Keith interrupts then, at last, and Lance knew it was only a matter of time before he had something to say about this. Mention of what had happened on the moon lab nearly sends Lance into a spiraling fit of anger, too. Keith and Krolia had almost died there, and someone on the Blade did . 

“We can’t trust you to take us anywhere ,” Keith snarls out, his hand falling out of Lance’s as he takes a few steps towards the barrier, standing beside Allura who hasn’t moved an inch. Keith looks at her, eyebrows low and severe. His anger seems to make the tension in the room thicken. “He is lying, Allura.”

She doesn’t even look at Keith, but when she speaks to him, the weight of her voice says she values his opinion. “I know.” Her conviction isn’t as sure as her words. Lance can feel how she wavers, even though she remains hard-edged and emotionless. He can feel how much she wants Lotor to be telling the truth. He wishes he knew what to say, but the back of his mouth still tastes bitter and it’s impossible to remain objective right now. He thought it’d be easier, to see past his own feelings and gauge the situation without any turmoil but he was wrong. 

Lotor steps closer to the barrier. “What would I gain from lying about this, Princess?”

“Are you stupid?” Keith spits out at him at the same time that Lance interjects, venomously. “Can you honestly not see what this looks like from our side?”

The room goes quiet, and Lotor turns to look directly at Lance, who clutches his bayard rifle with both hands now, trying to quell his own shaking. 

“We have every reason to believe that this is a trap,” Lance says, neither loud nor quiet. He glares at Lotor. “You’re sick. You used and betrayed us. You made Allura care about you. And you knew we’d go back to that moon. If you are telling the truth, you’re going to have to do a whole lot better than this.”

Lotor meets Lance’s gaze without any flicker of hesitation, though it is a long moment before he speaks again. “I won’t deny it.”

Keith simmers. “You tried to kill us.”

“Now, that’s not exactly right,” Lotor admits without any emotional intonation. “I didn’t destroy my lab with the intention to harm you.”

“But it would have been really fucking convenient, wouldn’t it?” Keith snaps.

Lotor turns to look at Allura again. “I am not owed any shred of mercy, Princess. I’m only trying to make things right.”

“You’re doing a shit job of that,” Lance adds, unable to help himself.

“Keith, Lance--shut up,” Shiro says and Lance watches as Keith’s shoulders visibly stiffen, the scowl on his face deepening. Something about the command feels like it’s coming less from a place of a commanding officer and more of a place of malice. Shiro comes closer to the barrier, practically pressed up against it, the look in his eyes is wild. “Where are these Alteans, Lotor?”

“They’re in a safe place,” Lotor says. “But if you don’t mind, I’d rather only entrust the coordinates to the princess.”

Shiro scowls and Allura crosses her arms over her chest. “If we were to believe you,” she says, “what would you expect in return?”

“Nothing,” Lotor tells her, once again turning only towards her, desperation flashing in his eyes. “I’d ask nothing of you, Princess. I am at your disposal entirely, and whatever you wish to do with me, it shall be done.”

She is relentless. “And if I wanted your head?”

“I would say that I deserved nothing more.”

Lance doesn’t know if he believes him. He really doesn’t. Lotor’s words all seem sincere, but they can’t trust him ever again, no matter the amount of guilt-laden admissions he chokes up. For a moment, no one in the room says anything. Pidge is clicking away on her laptop, but Lance suspects she is recording the conversation for easy playback later. 

Despite having a literal murderer in the room, the person that gives Lance the most pause is Shiro, still pressed up against the outside of the barrier, staring through the shield with darkened eyes at Lotor like he’s been possessed. Lance goes cold at the thought. Wait --

“Where are the Alteans?” Shiro demands again, cutting through the momentary silence like a knife, gaze unmoving. 

For the first time, Allura peels her eyes away from Lotor to glance over at Shiro. “Shiro--”

“Shut up,” he hisses out without so much as a glance in her direction. His fingers claw uselessly over the barrier and a dead weight settles at the top of Lance’s belly, making him feel suddenly nauseous with unease. Shiro’s voice doesn’t even sound like Shiro anymore. “Where are they? You’ve given them freedom, left them without any protection--”

“Shiro, that’s enough. I think we have plenty to talk about,” Allura says, her voice sharper than before. She doesn’t look away from Shiro this time, her eyebrows drawing deep slants over the endless blue of her eyes. “Kolivan, please tell a few of your men to watch the prisoner.” She glances once over at Lotor again. “And if he attempts any escape at all, they have permission to do whatever it takes to make sure he doesn’t leave this brig.” 

Lotor bows his head as if in submission. 

*

“Keith, we need to talk,” Lance whispers to him as Allura and a frazzled Shiro debrief Coran and Matt on the flight deck. He and Keith are standing back from the pack, Keith’s silence and the way he didn’t tear into Shiro for the bizarre display of desperation in the prison room making Lance more on edge. He can’t get that look on Shiro’s face out of his mind--he feels like it’s only a matter of time until something really, very, extremely bad happens and he wants Keith to be on the same page as him when it does.

“Keith,” he says again, almost pained by Keith’s lack of response. 

“Okay,” Keith mutters, but doesn’t give him more than that. It is better than nothing. 

Allura says, “It’s getting late. We will come back together in the morning to make a final decision on how to best approach this. Those of you who have been assigned guard positions--get as much sleep as you can before your shift and please help yourself to the kitchen as you need.”

Lance has half a mind to go to Allura and see if she needs anything, but before he leaves the room behind Keith, he sees her turn into Coran for a hug, and figures that she will be alright. Keith walks a few steps ahead of him on the way back to their hallway, and Lance feels a little relieved when Keith marches right up to Lance’s room and lets himself in. 

Immediately, unexpectedly, as the door closes behind Lance, Keith sweeps him up into his arms and buries his face deep into the crook at Lance’s neck. The tension slips off of Keith at the contact, rolling off his shoulders like water, as though it cannot stick to him anymore as long as he is right here.

“Hey,” Lance says softly, heart leaping in his chest at the sudden proximity. He wraps his arms around Keith’s shoulders, their armor clacking in all the places they touch.

Keith doesn’t respond.

Lance doesn’t know if he does it for Keith or for himself, but he starts to run a hand through Keith’s hair. Emotion wells up in his chest and knots in his throat, an anxiety that burns his eyes and makes him feel unsteady, even though Keith is holding him so securely. He wishes they could go back to earlier in the day, when the universe seemed to exist just for them to find each other. When Keith was yielding against his touch, so sweet and so wicked with his mouth. When the only thing that mattered was that Lance finally got to whisper i love you, i love you, i love you into Keith’s skin like he could tattoo it there if he said it enough.

“We never should have left the room this afternoon,” Lance murmurs into Keith’s hair, closing his eyes like it might shut all of the bad shit out. 

Keith chuckles at that, but the sound is dry, like he’s laughing against his better judgment. It makes Lance feel a little better, though. If he can still make Keith laugh then maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem.

“If it was up to me, we wouldn’t have,” Keith tells him, making Lance warm in his belly.

“I think that this is our sign to never leave this room again.”

Keith laughs again. The emotion choking Lance eases, Keith’s arms tightening around his waist. They stay like that for a while, standing in the middle of the room. Lance continues to run his fingers through Keith’s hair, wishing he wasn’t still wearing his suit so that he could feel the softness on his skin, or Keith’s steady breaths on his neck. He is reluctant to be the first one to step away, though, so he won’t. He focuses on his own breathing, matching it to the rise and fall of Keith’s shoulders under his arm.

After several minutes of silence, there is a flash of light, sudden weight against his leg, and Lance opens his eyes to see Kosmo leaning against both of them, his chin up against Keith’s thigh. Keith sighs, but it’s light, and he pulls away from Lance to look down at his wolf. “Hey buddy.”

Kosmo whines a little, but his tail flops once in some semblance of a greeting.

Lance lets his arms slowly fall away from Keith. “Um, I’m going to change, and shower.”

Keith nods and looks back up at him. “Okay. I’ll get us something to eat.” He leans in and kisses Lance, just like that, like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and all of Lance’s internal organs turn into butterflies and flutter away. “And then we’ll talk.”

“Okay.” He flutters right back into Keith, and kisses him, too.

Lance spends his time in the bathroom slowly going through his routine with hair and skin care, replaying most of the events of the evening over in his head. It must be late now, though he hasn’t checked the time in hours, which is probably why he is so exhausted. 

Confessing to Keith earlier today had already taken such a huge emotional toll on him (no matter how fucking good it was, to say those things, and to hear them returned) that having the Lotor debacle on top of it all was almost too much to process. Everything was happening so much, so fast, all in one day. And it wasn’t just Lotor, but Shiro, too. Is this what being a paladin had always meant? Emotional turnover at a rate no one can be expected to come to terms with? A part of Lance shudders to think about the other things that had weighed so heavily on him before he lost all his memories. Another part, more selfish, thinks that maybe there is a bright side to all this forgetting.

Once he’s done he towels off his hair and dresses in a pair of soft clothing, skin still shower-warm and dewy with lotion when he emerges from the bathroom and puts his armor away. Keith is lying on the bed in casual clothes with Kosmo curled up between his legs, tapping at his tablet, but he looks up when Lance approaches, his hair brushed back from his angular face.

“I got you one of the sandwiches Hunk pre-made for us this afternoon. It’s not much, but--”

Lance quiets him by crawling into bed, leaning over, and kissing him soundly before he loses any momentum. “Thank you.”

Keith reaches up and cups Lance behind his neck to bring him back in for a longer kiss and Lance shivers because it’s so good, it’s so good , it will never stop being good. When Keith lets him go, Lance lingers for only a moment before he straightens and picks up the plate with his sandwich on the bedside table. He bites into it and gestures towards the tablet as Keith sets it aside and sits up, rearranging his legs around Kosmo to be more comfortable.

“Whatcha doin on there?” Lance asks, chewing and immediately taking another huge bite. He’s only just now realizing how hungry he is.

“I messaged Kolivan,” Keith says. “I asked him not to let Shiro anywhere near Lotor.”

Lance nods, and swallows around his food. “Probably....probably a good idea.”

“I think we should talk to Allura about it in the morning,” Keith murmurs, looking a little more put together than Lance expected he would. “Maybe we shouldn’t have let Shiro come to the meeting after all. I’m not sure we should...next time. He--I can’t even talk to him about it because every time I see him, I just get so angry.”

Lance chews on his food, trying to finish quickly. “Yeah.”

“I mean, what the hell was that in there? I know you don’t remember him, Lance, but this is…” Keith glances away. “He’s sick or something. I don’t know. I wish I knew what was happening to him so that we could figure out how to make it stop.” His voice wavers a tiny bit at the end, but he resumes composure quickly.

Lance nods again, breaking off a chunk of bread and feeding it to Kosmo. He watches as Kosmo sniffs it and then delicately takes it from him, smiling a little when Kosmo licks a big stripe up the palm of his hand as if in thanks. 

“I don’t think you’ll like what I’m about to say, Keith,” Lance whispers after eating the last of his sandwich. He sets his plate back on the nightstand and looks reluctantly to Keith, who takes one of his hands into both of his and kisses Lance’s knuckles.

“What is it?” he murmurs.

“I don’t think that person out there is Shiro.” Just saying it out loud has the hair on the back of his neck standing up again, and he hates that Keith’s expression folds gently, as if in acceptance. It’s like he knew it all along and wouldn’t let himself think it.

“I think you’re right,” he says. 

Lance’s brow crinkles with concern as he scoots closer to him. “Are you okay?”

Keith looks away from him. “I just...I can’t help but wonder if--if I hadn’t left, or if I--”

Lance crawls into Keith’s lap, straddling him, taking his face between his hands and forcing Keith to look at him. “ No . Stop it. We’ve talked about this. Stop it, Keith.”

Keith reaches up to circle Lance’s wrists with his own big hands. He doesn’t pull Lance away, he just holds on like he needs to be grounded. “If that’s not Shiro, Lance, then where is he? Why couldn’t I find him?” His voice heats with self-directed anger, trembling with grief. “He could still be out there right now, hoping, praying we’d find him and we stopped looking-- years ago, Lance, we stopped looking years ago.” Keith drops his head, voice uneven. “I failed him, I failed the whole team by not being here while Lotor...and--and you. I--Lance, I--” 

Something wet brushes against his hand and it takes a long moment of clarity before Lance realizes that Keith is crying, shaking, so stuffed full of guilt that he can’t physically hold it in anymore. Kosmo whines, nudging at Keith’s leg and nuzzling in closer. The sight of Keith so upset in front of him as Lance immediately tearing up as he works his thumbs gently against Keith’s cheeks to wipe the tears away. 

“Keith, you’re breaking my heart,” Lance says softly, throat thick again with new, blistering, unsettled emotion. “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

Keith takes a long, slow breath, the tears slipping faster down his face. 

“None of this is your fault. You told me that I have a big heart, Keith, but yours is bigger. You want to save everyone and feel personally responsible when you can’t. It’s so noble of you, but so, so stupid.” Lance crowds in closer, lowering his voice so that it doesn’t shake and tremble apart into incoherency. His hair brushes against Keith’s. “You’re so stupid, Keith. Don’t you know that you have saved me?”

Keith looks up at Lance through dark, glassy eyes, the tears still falling freely from them and Lance has never felt so special, so loved, just to witness this vulnerability. To know that Keith trusts him enough to be honest about how he feels and how hard things are for him. Lance is sure that he has never allowed anyone else to be this close to him, physically or intimately, and he wants to take care of him. Lance wants him to know that he’s enough, and that everything he does is enough. He wants him to know that sometimes things just happen and all they can do is deal with it and move on, the way he had to come to terms with losing his memories and becoming someone new. 

Lance brushes more of Keith’s tears away. 

“Lance,” Keith murmurs, thick and quiet.

He shudders with the force of keeping himself steady, the tears falling fast down his cheeks now. “When you came home to me, you saved me. When you spoke honestly with me, you saved me. When you told me you loved me--Keith, you saved me. You don’t even--how can I make you understand that?” 

Keith stares at him with wide, wet eyes, unmoving. Lance feels unspeakably tender.

“You have saved me in every way a person can be saved,” he whispers. “Can’t you see that? Can’t you?”

After a moment of silence, Keith says, “I’m starting to.”

Lance runs a hand through Keith’s hair, his other hand finding the warm skin at the crook of Keith’s neck. “And you know we are going to help Shiro, don’t you? You know that we will. You didn’t fail him, or abandon him.”

Keith’s reply is a little more subdued this time. “I...I know.”

“And nothing about this Lotor bullshit was your fault, when we were all here and didn’t see it coming. We’ll figure that out, too. But the best thing we can do right now is rest, before tomorrow.” Lance takes a deep breath, pressing his forehead to Keith’s. “You trust me, right?”

Keith’s eyes slip closed. “Of course I trust you.”

“And you believe me?”

Keith nods, his forehead rubbing against Lance’s as he does. “Yeah.”

Lance wraps both of his arms around Keith’s neck to hold him, closing his own eyes as Keith’s arms loop around his waist. “Then forgive yourself.” 

Slowly, Keith matches his breaths to Lance’s and they stay like that for a long time, just existing together in the half-light of the room, Kosmo snug against Lance’s back. He wills time to slow down just for a little bit, so that Keith can breathe his way through his distress.

As terrible as it is, it’s almost refreshing for the issues on the ship to be about something other than his lost memories. Things are so different now than they were even just two days ago. Lance isn’t that person anymore. He doesn’t even know who that person is anymore. All of that desperation, that fear, that uncertainty--it’s all been replaced by a quiet stillness, a calm confidence. He doesn’t need to remember who he was to know who he is now. 

Keith shifts in his arms, leaning more heavily into him as he drops his head to Lance’s neck and leans in, pulling Lance tighter against him without a word. Lance sighs, leaning his weight back into Keith, hoping that it will bring Keith the comfort he is seeking. He tightens his arms around Keith’s neck and buries his face into Keith’s hair. He hadn’t imagined a closeness like this before. He didn’t know that Keith would let him see so much. It makes him full of light, it makes him weightless and warm and happy, even though the situation is so confusing and overwhelming. 

“Thank you, Lance,” Keith says softly, lips brushing against his throat. Kosmo shifts at the sound of Keith’s voice, resituating himself again at the foot of the bed.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Lance tells him in a gentle whisper, running a hand over the back of his hair. 

“Are you doing okay?” Keith asks as he rubs a hand up Lance’s spine with unpracticed ease. This time he kisses at the crook of Lance’s neck deliberately, but without pulling back. “A lot happened today. I know it’s probably not easy, being here for me and trying to play catch up on everything else that you don’t remember.”

“I have you,” Lance murmurs, “so I’m okay.”

Keith sighs under him, the heat of his hand trailing back down, almost too low. Lance feels the touch in his belly and he wants to chase it, pressing back into Keith’s hand like a cat. A sound slips from Lance’s mouth accidentally--nothing obscene but it’s a little bit of a breath, a little heavier, catching in his throat, loud enough for Keith to hear.

“Jesus, Lance,” Keith says, beginning to sound like himself again. There’s strength returning to him, his usual intensity clear and earnest in the pitch of his voice. He uses his hand to dip under Lance’s shirt and grip at his hip, thumbing the smooth skin of Lance’s stomach as he finally lifts his head and looks up at him. 

Lance feels his face get hot. “You’re not allowed to touch me like that and then act all surprised when I like it.”

Keith actually smiles up at him, and he looks so genuinely happy for a moment that Lance almost forgets to be embarrassed. “You like it, huh?” 

“What do you think, smartass?”

Keith’s eyes become a little heavy lidded when he slides his palm to the small of Lance’s back. Something about the touch, skin to skin, is so good that Lance forces himself to bite back an unexpected groan, teeth pressing hard into his bottom lip. Keith seems to know anyways, seems to understand all on his own, because his eyes grow darker, more intent, the apples of his cheeks flushing, and it throws Lance right back into this afternoon, when Keith had crowded him up against the wall and devoured him.

“So now that you have me,” Keith says, “what are you going to do with me?”

Lance smiles and presses his lips down to Keith’s lovely and waiting mouth. He thinks, Let me save you, too.