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Lance was sitting at his new favorite spot since he had moved there. Two years and a half had passed since the war, since the end of his space adventures, since his heart was left broken into pieces. At first, he felt guilty. He thought he was being selfish with his choice to stay behind, but he really needed it. He needed to rest, to put his life together, to stay away for a while to clarify his mind.
Farmer life wasn’t that calm to be honest, he remembered something about growing plants, random things here and there, taught mostly by his abuela, but he hadn’t imagine the amount of work needed to actually manage a functioning farming business. He even had to get a calendar with the moon cycle on it, apparently that was important.
Altean plants were different though, they aren’t regulated by earthling rules and he had to figure out by himself the best way to cultivate them. He had the technique highly improved to this point.
After about six months living with his family, he started to feel better. The recovery was hard, he knew it would be, but living back home surrounded by his family and closest friends was a really big support for him to be back on his feet. Once he considered himself strong enough to be more independent, he moved to a house near his mother’s. It was still close enough to his family (and his mother’s cooking), but it was time to grow up by himself. However, he never missed lunchtime at McClain’s.
Today was a light day at work. He had finished seeding the new harvest for the next season the day before, and that day was just checking around everything was in place.
“I kinda deserve it”, he said to himself. With that, he left early and went home after lunchtime at his mom’s to pick his guitar and started walking to his favorite spot.
Near his house there was a path frequented by many people: neigbours, runners, people walking dogs, bikers, etc. He knew pretty well that if you took that path and walk about two miles, right after reaching a big rock on the right side, you have to walk through the field at your left (he didn’t bother to know if that bit of land had an owner), and twenty minutes later there it was.
The sea wasn’t far from his home, but he couldn’t see it from his side of the village. But there, there was the best view of the world.
It was a cliff heading right into the Caribbean. It wasn’t impressively high, but that piece of land was a cape that had nothing to the right and nothing to the left, so if you sit in the border of the cliff, there was nothing but you and the ocean.
El mar de los cinco colores was that zone called. The sea of the five colors. The sun reflected on the water in some specific way around the sundown that any person looking at that particular point of the ocean would perfectly differentiate all the colors: green, yellow, purple, red and blue.
The sight of that ocean had deeper meanings that the view itself, and Lance found himself feeling a wide range of emotions just from being there.
Today wasn’t different, he had arrived early than usual, but he had planned to be there until the sunset. With nobody around, it was the best place to resume his guitar practice.
A couple of hours into his private rehearsal, his fingers started to hurt out of his lack of practice, so he leaned back and rested looking at the sky. There were some clouds there and he decide to entertain himself looking for the ones with recognizable shapes.
After the third shark-shaped cloud, he heard some steps getting closer. Awww men, I thought nobody esle knew this place, he cursed.
He didn’t turn his head, hoping the stranger would walk away, but what he didn’t expect was that familiar face that was now in the middle of his field of view, hovering over his own head.
“Keith!”
The other man smiled. “You surely are hard to find when you want to”.
“What are you doing here?”, Lance asked, sitting up again with his feet hanging at the border of the cliff.
Keith mirrored Lance’s position and sat by his left side. “I was looking for you”. He rubbed Lance’s back with his hand to get rid of the dirt on it, “there you are”.
“Thanks”, Lance’s eyes were still in shock with the unexpected visitor. “How did you get here?”
“I went to your mom’s house after looking at yours and she gave me indications. It wasn’t easy thought.”
“That’s the point of coming here, I don’t think this place is known by many people”.
“It’s beautiful”, he looked away from Lance’s direction to focus directly on the ocean, “I get why you like it here”.
“Yeah, and it will get better in an hour or so, just when the sun goes down. I always come here to see the sunset”.
“I have pretty high standards for sunsets, so it better be good”, he teased.
“Oh it’s much better than the desert, just you wait”.
“Don’t you dare, I liked it there.”
“I know”, said Lance with a soft smile. “That was the last sunset we watched together, wasn’t it?”
“Mmhh”, nodded Keith.
“Those were… complicated times”.
“You were so nervous about your date with Allura”. Keith face was soft but his heart couldn’t help but hurt a little at the memory.
“I couldn’t believe she actually said yes”, he chuckled.
Lance and Keith had had several conversations about mostly anything through the last two years. Allura was kind of a sensible topic at first, but step by step Lance had learned to talk about it and feel in peace with himself and with had happened.
Keith’s visits were sporadic for the first year. The humanitarian missions with the Blade took most of his time and there really was a ton of work to do. The restructure of the organization was a hard task to achieve, but once it was set into motion, the workload wasn’t that terrible. Besides, Keith was held in high esteem among the comrades, not only was he the former leader of Voltron that helped win the war and a valuable member of the Blades, he literally decline an offer to rule the galras. He could get more free time than he actually was taking, but his sense of responsibility was too high.
However, for the last year and a half, since the paladin’s first reunion in Allura’s honor, Keith was more invested in spending time with his family and loved ones than he previously had been. This meeting with his former Voltron companions made him realize how much he missed them, and although he had made some friends among the Blades, his bond with the Voltron family was somehow different.
Since that day, Keith came back to Earth more frequently. He didn’t neglect his job, of course, but he learned to delegate duties to his comrades and subordinates so he can have more time for himself.
Out of all paladins, the one he sees more is Hunk. Both of them are out in space and their current jobs makes them coincide sometimes at the planets the Blade is helping to recover.
After a mission, he usually lands at the Garrison, it was still the reference on Earth for him. There he visit the Holts and the Shiroganes (yeah, he is still adjusting to having an adopted brother in law?) and after that, he borrows a ship (some people would call that stealing, but that is just a formality) and flies to Cuba. It is like a routine now.
Each time he goes to see Lance is like a breath of fresh air, it feels like he’s recharging. He feels like he’s at home.
Lance’s recovery was slow, but every time he visits, he can tell the difference. He talks more openly about everything, about his feelings, about how he’s doing, even about the depressive stage he suffered after the war had ended. About how empty he felt. Not only the woman he fell for had sacrificed herself right in front of his eyes, the mission that had him occupied for the last years had ended and his life felt meaningless after that. He had no objective in life, and he had no one.
That wasn’t totally true, his friends and family reminded him everyday that he wasn’t alone, but the loneliness Lance was experiencing had nothing to do with the amount of people around him or the amount of love he was receiving. It was a deeper existential void that had to be healed. Of course having people around supporting him was very helpful, but he knew it was a path that had to walk by himself.
Lance’s transition to a cheerful normal Lance filled Keith’s heart with happiness as well. It had been hard for him see Lance broken like that for the first months but all the meetings and the conversations they had shared through the process had brought them closer than they ever were. Keith had stayed at Lance’s home every time he was visiting and it was starting to feel domestic. Lance even asked him to let the toothbrush there since he was coming more often.
“So, you started practicing again?”, asked Keith pointing at the guitar.
“Uhm… kinda, I’m still very out of shape. I was practicing the same song for the last week and I still don’t get all the chords right. The lyrics are good tho”.
“I’d like to hear it if you want to practice in front of an audience”.
“I don’t know, how is your Spanish?”.
“Just for your information, I’m actually using a lot that book you gave me. I think I can manage a conversation that doesn’t involve any weird words. I even had a few words with a neighbor of yours when I was looking for you”.
“It’s that so? Let’s see then”. Lance grinned and reached for his guitar abandoned at the ground.
He played a few notes to adjust the tuning and cleared his voice.
“What is it called?”, asked Keith before the song started.
“No hay manera. Ther…”
“There is no way”, finished Keith.
“Are you trying to impress me, Kogane?”
“Is it working?”, he said with a smirk.
“Kinda. Now let me do this and let’s see who is the impressed one here”.
“I thought you still didn’t get all the chords”.
“I’ll get enough for you to be impressed”.
“Alright, impress me then”. He leaned back resting on his elbows with his full attention on Lance’s expression and hands.
Lance played some of the first chords on repeating, like he was accommodating to the tune and said. “This song… this song, well, it’s a love song. The chorus mostly says ‘I can’t live without you’”. He said that last words meeting Keith’s eyes, leaving the other boy speechless at this point. The bastard was already winning. “The author said that this song was dedicated to two friends of him, a gay couple that were having a rough time when the song was composed”.
“That’s… that’s cool”, was the only thing Keith managed to reply. Lance was singing to him a song about a gay couple that apparently couldn’t live without each other. That was not good for Keith’s heart.
After some seconds, Lance closed his eyes and started singing.
Llevas años enredada en mis manos (You have been tangled in my hands,)
En mi pelo, en mi cabeza (In my hair, in my head for a lot of years)
Y no puedo más, no puedo más (And I cannot stand it anymore, anymore)
Debería estar cansado de tus manos (I should be tired of your hands,)
De tu pelo, de tus rarezas (Of your hair, of your quirks,)
Pero quiero más, yo quiero más (But I want more, I want more)
No puedo vivir sin ti (I cannot live without you,)
No hay manera (There is no way)
No puedo estar sin ti (I cannot be without you,)
No hay manera (There is no way)
Me dijiste que te irías (You told me you would leave)
Pero llevas en mi casa toda la vida (But you have been in my house all life long)
Sé que no te irás, tú no te irás (I know you will not leave, you will not leave)
Has colgado tu bandera, traspasado la frontera (You have hanged your flag, gone beyond the border,)
Eres la reina (You are the queen)
Siempre reinarás, siempre reinarás (You will always reign, will always reign)
No puedo vivir sin ti (I cannot live without you,)
No hay manera (There is no way)
No puedo estar sin ti (I cannot be without you,)
No hay manera (There is no way)
Y ahora estoy aquí esperando a que vengan a buscarme (And here I am, now, waiting for them to look for me)
Tú no te muevas (Don’t move,)
No me encontrarán, no me encontrarán (They will not find me, will not find me)
Yo me quedo para siempre con mi reina y su bandera (I will always stay with my queen and her flag,)
Ya no hay fronteras (There are no borders)
Me dejaré llevar a ningún lugar (I will let myself go nowhere)
No puedo vivir sin ti (I cannot live without you,)
No hay manera (There is no way)
No puedo estar sin ti (I cannot be without you,)
No hay manera (There is no way)
No puedo vivir sin ti (I cannot live without you,)
No hay manera (There is no way)
No puedo estar sin ti (I cannot be without you,)
No hay manera (There is no way)
The last chords of the song resonated for a couple of seconds and Lance finally opened his eyes, looking at the sky with a smile. Keith was inevitably staring at him, his gaze couldn’t leave Lance for a single second through the whole song.
Lance finally lowered his head and met Keith’s wide eyes. “So, how was that?”
“It was…”, Keith sat up again and tried to form anything coherent.
“Impressive?”, Lance beamed with a raised eyebrow.
“I was gonna say beautiful but yeah, it was impressive”, Keith admitted with his hands up. “Don’t get used to it”.
“To what, to your compliments?”, he moved himself nearer to Keith with a shit eating grin.
“Shut up”, Keith rolled his eyes and looked away. “I didn’t know you could sing like that”.
“Yeah well, I don’t usually get in this all serious singer mode in front of people, it’s like… a private thing”.
“Oh. Thanks for singing it for me then”.
“You… are not like most people, so I wanted to do it”. He looked down at his left hand with a painful gesture, “The strings are killing me tho, my fingers are a chord away from bleeding”.
“Let me see”. Keith grabbed Lance’s hand with his own and brought it next to him to take a better look. “That looks painful”. Lance’s hand was resting in Keith’s left palm while the other one was over it. Without putting much thought into it, Keith begun to gently touch Lance’s damaged fingertips with his own. The grooves left by the strings were still visible, and palpable.
Lance’s hand remained still under Keith’s touch, until he moved his little finger around Keith’s. The other boy stopped his caressing and for a couple of seconds neither of them moved an inch. After a moment, Keith somehow found the courage to tangle the rest of his fingers around Lance’s until their hands were laced together.
Keith was motionless, breathless and his brain was probably out of business too. He could only feel the warm felling emanating from Lance’s hand, with his thumb making slow circles around his knuckle.
“The sun is near the horizon”, reminded Lance as he rested his head on Keith’s shoulder. “The five colors are almost showing”.
“This is dangerously becoming my favorite sunset. I might have to come watch it from time to time”.
“You could always stay for dinner after, you know, when you’re around… because of the sunset”.
“Yeah, dinner sounds great”.
Keith put a light kiss on Lance’s head before resting his cheek on it, watching the sun getting swallowed by the horizon over an ocean full of colors with their hands intertwined.
Of course, for the both of them, that one became their favorite sunset.