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There weren’t very many places left in the universe that weren’t under Galra control.
And yes, perhaps a braver person would have seen that as a reason to join the rebellion, to fight back openly, to try to push the Galra back and stop them from expanding further. But there was a fine line between bravery and foolishness, and Lotor had already tried “bravery” when he had attempted to stand up to his father and prove that the Galra methods of colonization and Quintessence harvesting were flawed. It had been the most foolish decision of his life, and it had cost far, far too much.
So, no. He would not join the rebellion and try to fight back openly. He did what he could to help the rebels in subtle ways, to slow down the empire where he could, but he knew that he needed a bigger, grander plan than cutting a few supply lines, leaking access codes to rebel forces, assassinating the occasional overzealous commander, and generally being a minor inconvenience. So far, he had… vague ideas. He had various trusted contacts scattered throughout Galra territory, there was a comet stuck in a rift deep on the edges of the known universe where Galra forces hadn’t explored yet that he could build ships out of (if only he could get it out…), he had lines of contact to all of the major rebellions, and, although he hadn’t had much of anything to do with them – he’d barely even had contact with them – since helping them establish their new home, he knew that he could most likely draw on the supplies and manpower of the hidden Alteans if absolutely necessary (only, of course, if they willingly agreed to help, knowing the risks; he would never put them danger uninformed). If the empire ever faltered, he would be able to pull on all of his resources and topple it.
But, in the meantime, any actions he took carried the strong risk of drawing the empire’s attention back to him, and whenever that happened, he could do little but hide until they decided to stop pursuing him, which was exactly what he was doing now. He’d left his four trusted generals at their secure base while he drew the Galra scouting ships away, knowing that it would be too risky to try to return anytime soon but trusting that the girls could handle operations for the time being.
Seeing as he was now on the run again, Lotor figured that this was as good of a time as any to try to find his soulmates. He had three of them, he knew, from the three little marks that had appeared on his body. The first had appeared on his chest, well over twenty decaphoebs ago, in the shape of a black, robotic right wing. The second was a glowing-hot knife surrounded by tongues of fire, and it had appeared on his right shoulder around nineteen decaphoebs ago. The last, which he could only describe as a crystalline bow, perhaps made of ice, drawn back to fire a flaming arrow, had appeared just about eighteen decaphoebs ago on his right hip. Soulmate marks grew temporarily warmer when a person drew relatively closer to the person the mark indicated, and Lotor had made a note of which quadrant of space all three of his soulmates apparently called home. Thankfully, it was one that the Galra empire had hardly touched.
It was a strange sort of game, trying to figure out what direction to go in. The marks wouldn’t stay warm if he stayed in the same location relative to his soulmates, so he had to keep moving closer to keep the marks warm. Whenever the marks grew cold, he couldn’t tell if the distance from him to them had increased or merely stayed the same. But finally, finally , he had narrowed it down to only one inhabitable planet they could be on, and he had decided to land there to try to track them down.
Landing was easier said than done. The planet had a thick atmosphere, and Lotor’s little cruiser was already not doing well in it before he had the misfortune of hitting a storm cloud. With limited control, he directed his craft to land on the coast of an island, where the wet sand would hopefully provide him the softest landing he could hope for while still having a chance to repair his craft later. The ship spluttered in jerky motions as the malfunctioning thrusters tried and failed to slow its fall. As the sight of the ground filled the cruiser’s viewscreen, Lotor closed his eyes and sat back, trying to give the safety systems the best chance of saving him from injury.
When he blinked his eyes open, he found that he could not even remember the moment of impact itself. He took a moment to assess himself – a headache and minor dizziness suggested the possibility of a mild concussion, and he was fairly certain he would end up with bruising from the emergency safety harness straps, but otherwise, he seemed uninjured. Yet as he assessed himself, he noticed that the mark on his hip was much warmer than the other two, which marked the first time the marks had not grown warm uniformly. He knew that it was merely a relative thing, of course, and running off in random directions on a strange planet he knew nothing about was a terrible idea. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder how close that particular soulmate might be.
And then, to his surprise, the mark got warmer. As Lotor set about trying to find a place to hide his ship from the locals (he had the ship’s cloaking device running, of course, which was the only reason why he wasn’t surrounded by a mob already, but it couldn’t run constantly), he noticed the mark becoming intermittently warmer before cooling off again. He thought little of it, however, until…
THWACK! Someone ran directly into the side of his cloaked ship. Lotor hurried out, wondering what had happened, only to lay eyes on a very pretty alien… or, well, native. It was probably fair to say at this point that Lotor was the alien in the situation, wasn’t it? But in any case, the poor darling looked a little dazed but otherwise okay as their very striking white-blue-black eyes (and wow, Lotor couldn’t remember the last time he’d met someone with eyes with white sclera) flicked up to and momentarily struggled to focus on Lotor.
“Are you alright?” Lotor asked, hoping that his universal translator wouldn’t fail him now as he reached out a hand toward them.
They looked from Lotor’s eyes to his hand and back to his eyes again, seeming too shocked for words. Finally, they blurted out, “How do you know Spanish?”
Lotor paused for a moment, wondering just how technologically primitive these natives were if they were not used to the idea of people carrying around translators. “I have a universal translator. I’m speaking Intergalactic Common, but the translator seamlessly renders my speech into the native language of the listener. If you watch my lips, you’ll notice that my lip movements likely do not line up with what you hear.”
The pretty native looked carefully at Lotor’s lips, then up at his eyes again. “Okay, yeah, I see what you mean. Follow-up question: You’re an alien.”
“That… wasn’t phrased as a question, but the answer is yes.”
“Okay, okay, third question…” They took Lotor’s still-outstretched hand, and Lotor immediately felt the mark on his hip radiate a strong, pleasant warmth. The native brought their other hand to the back of their neck, and their eyes widened while their lips parted in an expression that Lotor could only assume was disbelief. “Holy shit. You’re one of my soulmates.”
Lotor smiled, helping them up to their feet. “That also wasn’t phrased as a question, but yes, it seems so.” Even after helping them up, Lotor didn’t want to let go of their hand. “Please, tell me your name, what to call you… everything, really.”
They laughed breathlessly, like they were still processing everything. “My name’s Lance. Uh, I’m a man… both in the sense of like ‘I’m a human’ and ‘I’m a male.’ And, um… call me whatever you want, I guess?”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lance.” Lotor took Lance’s hand and brought it to his own chest in a gesture of trust, and he hoped that Lance would understand the meaning behind it well enough. “My name is Lotor, and I believe we have a lot to talk about.”
~*~*~*~
Getting an undercover identity wasn’t all that difficult. Maintaining one, however, was significantly harder. Lotor used his shapeshifting abilities – thanks to his Altean blood – to change his skin tone and eye color, and a combination of medical tape and creative hairstyles hid the points of his ears, while Lance’s makeup skills came in handy to hide the lavender Altean marks that remained on Lotor’s cheeks. It took a lot of effort, but Lotor was able to pass himself off as human and enroll in the Galaxy Garrison with Lance. After all, it would be useful for him to know Earth’s technology and scientific achievements, wouldn’t it?
The Garrison seemed to be a strange mixture of a military and civilian program, which Lotor found interesting. It was only for adults eighteen years of age or older, so Lance had only just become old enough to enroll, and Lotor passed himself off as a slightly older cadet, twenty-one years of age. One of Veronica’s acquaintances, some guy named Matt Holt, was apparently willing to help her enroll an “illegal alien” into the Garrison after she explained that the person in question was her brother’s soulmate. (The irony was not lost on any of Lance’s family, who had all found out one way or another that Lotor was a literal extraterrestrial – Lance’s and Lotor’s early attempts at disguising Lotor’s alien features were rather imperfect.)
From the moment Lance and Lotor began travelling to the Garrison, they noticed that the two marks they had in common stayed steadily warm, meaning that they were continuously getting closer and closer to their two mutual soulmates. After getting there, they often felt the marks warm up a little bit as they walked around, but with everyone in the facility walking from wing to wing for different tasks, it was impossible to zero in on any particular location. After just a few days, the warming effect stopped pretty much entirely, meaning that until Lance or Lotor happened to physically touch their soulmates or somehow spotted the marks they had in common with them, they would have no way to know who they were.
Then, one day during hand-to-hand combat training, it happened. Lance and Lotor were training alongside each other, but although it was always a nice treat to see Lance working out, Lotor was a little busy looking elsewhere. He had been assessing Keith Kogane for a little while now. He couldn’t quite say why, but something about Keith felt slightly off, and he wanted to investigate. Since Keith was currently facing away from him, he dared to sneak a longer look than usual, and as Keith lifted his hair to wipe the sweat off of the back of his neck, Lotor caught a glimpse of a familiar mark. The flash was brief, but Lotor was certain it was the mark he had spent hours gazing at after meeting Lance: a sword hovering point-down above a crown, the mark that Lance said grew warm when he and Lotor first met. Lotor was certain that the mark on the back of Keith’s neck was the same one.
He walked up behind Keith, reaching out to tap his shoulder where the tank top he was wearing for training didn’t fully cover his skin. Immediately, Keith startled and whirled around, but he brought a hand to the back of his neck just as Lotor felt the mark on his right shoulder grow warm. His grey eyes flashed with confusion and even apprehension. “What…?”
“Oh, no way,” Lance hissed as he stormed over, attracting glances from some of the other cadets, who were most likely wondering why he was suddenly abandoning the exercises. “There is no way in hell I’m soulmates with—” He poked Keith’s arm. “—someone like you .” Then, he cursed and glared accusingly at his own right shoulder, pulling up the cap-sleeve of his t-shirt to look at the mark before turning his glare on Keith. “Fuck.”
“Calm down.” Lotor put his hand on Lance’s shoulder to hold him back. “I know you haven’t gotten the best impression of him so far, but you hardly know him. There’s no need for this response.”
“Wait a second.” Keith held his hands up in a somewhat defensive gesture. “ You two are my other soulmates?”
“Yes,” Lotor answered. Then he paused. “Wait, other? So, you’ve met the one the black wing represents?”
Keith glanced furtively around the room. “Yes. But… I’ll introduce you to him later. I don’t want to talk about it where anyone could hear.”
Lotor and Lance exchanged a glance. Considering they were keeping their own secret about Lotor’s true identity, they weren’t exactly in a place to judge Keith. “Alright,” Lotor acquiesced. “We will look forward to it.”
A few hours later, Lotor and Lance followed Keith down the corridors of the Garrison. He refused to tell them where they were going or who they were meeting, so they had to follow him blindly, left to wonder what necessitated such secrecy. Finally, they came to a stop outside of the officer’s lounge, and Keith knocked on the door. He exchanged a few words with the officer who came to investigate, and then suddenly someone Lotor recognized as Takashi Shirogane stepped out into the hallway. Lance and Lotor exchanged a confused look. They knew of Shirogane, of course – pretty much everyone did – but they’d never had a reason to talk to him in person before.
“Kogane,” Officer Shirogane said, not unkindly, “what are you doing here?”
“We need to talk,” Keith stated bluntly, “…sir.”
Shirogane’s eyes shifted from Keith to Lance to Lotor and back to Keith again. “Alright. Where do you want to go?”
“Your room?” Keith asked, lowering his voice. “Private conversation.”
Though Shirogane looked somewhat troubled, he nodded and led the way to his quarters, which were larger than the cadet quarters and plenty clean enough to pass inspection. Once he’d closed the door, Shirogane asked, “Keith, what’s going on?”
Keith gestured to Lance first. “Shiro, I’d like you to meet Lance.”
“Hi. It’s nice to meet you, Shirogane.” Lance smiled nervously as he held his hand out for a handshake. “I’m Veronica’s little brother.”
“Please, just call me Shiro.” He still looked perplexed, but he obligingly accepted the handshake. “It’s a pleasure to—” He stopped suddenly, pulling his hand back to touch his right hip. “Oh.” He looked at Lance, then Lotor, with renewed interest.
Lotor took this as his cue to step forward, smiling warmly as he held his hand out to Shiro. “And I am Lotor. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Shiro mirrored Lotor’s smile as he took his hand. “I’m glad to finally meet you, too.” He moved his left hand to touch the back of his neck, while Lotor put his own left hand on his chest, feeling the warmth from Shiro’s mark.
There were a lot of things they still had to discuss – Lotor’s identity and reason for being on earth, the reasons behind why Keith and Shiro kept their status as soulmates mostly secret, how the four of them would move forward with their relationship – but although Lotor didn’t consider himself a particularly optimistic person, he had a feeling that everything would turn out alright somehow.
~*~*~*~
For their first winter holiday break together, they decided to simply take some time to relax, just the four of them alone. Lance was the only one with family to speak of to go visit anyways, and he had already dragged his three soulmates down to Cuba when they were given a break for Thanksgiving/fall holiday, so there was nothing stopping them from using the long break to have some time alone together. Shiro rented a vacation home cabin up north where they could enjoy all of the wonders of winter, since all three of his soulmates had rather limited winter experience for one reason or another.
The first morning Lotor woke up to see snow outside, he was instantly enchanted, walking outside immediately without even bothering to get dressed in anything warmer than his thin pajamas while his less-cold-resistant soulmates scrambled to throw on coats and boots. Of course, Lotor had explored far and wide and had seen entire planets of ice before, but… never could he recall seeing such fluffy and delicate snow so light that it could build up a little on top of plants without seriously harming them. The seasons on earth were really a sight to behold in general from what he had seen so far, but as he turned slowly to take in the sight of everything blanketed in shimmering white, he decided that winter had to be the most beautiful. He walked over to a tree branch, dusting some of the snow off of it to watch it fall...
And then he felt something hit his back, and he quickly spun around to see Lance snickering and holding a ball of snow. “What was that for?” Lotor demanded.
“Snowball fight!” Lance yelled, throwing his second snowball. Despite Lotor’s attempt to dodge, it hit his shoulder.
“How…?”
“Lance,” Shiro interjected, “cut him a break. You and Keith have at least had vacations up north enough to know what snow is and how to make a snowball, and I lived not too far from here for a while. Lotor has never even seen snow before.” He then turned to Lotor and demonstrated the process of making one of these “snowballs,” scooping some snow up in his hands and pressing it into a loose sphere. “Try not to make it too dense,” he warned. “You don’t want it to hurt on impact.” Then, he took aim at Keith, who was busy fumbling with the zipper of his coat, and lobbed the snowball at him, successfully catching him off guard.
“Hey!” Keith protested. “I’m not playing!”
“Come on, Keith! Join my side!” Lance called. “Let’s team up on them!”
Shiro scooped up more snow, quickly pressing it together before throwing it squarely at Lance’s chest, causing him to let out a little oof sound. Lotor mimicked the motion, trying to get the snow into something roughly resembling a sphere before tossing it at Lance as well, much to Lance’s apparent offense, if his vicious two-part counterattack was any indication. Meanwhile, Keith started building up a barrier for himself and Lance to hide behind.
By the time Lotor and Shiro finally admitted defeat – Lotor because the cold was finally catching up to him without any gear on, and Shiro because he hadn’t gotten his morning coffee yet – even Lance’s seemingly-boundless energy was flagging a little, so they all went inside and bundled up to enjoy coffees and cocoas and then eat a nice, warm breakfast. They discussed plans for the day, then got dressed properly before heading out.
They went out into town, walking instead of trying to take Shiro’s car in the snow. Lance kept running up ahead to look at stuff before running back. Keith stuffed his hands in his pocket – he had refused to wear warmer gloves, insisting that his fingerless ones would be fine, so he was now paying the price of cold fingertips – and walked at a calmer pace, looking at everything and nothing in particular. Just behind Keith, Lotor and Shiro walked hand-in-hand. Lotor looked around at all the pretty sights surrounding them, but Shiro looked mostly at his three soulmates, smiling at them whenever he caught their eyes for a moment.
They reached the town and looked around, finding that it was decorated very festively, with strings of lights practically everywhere. Lotor was rather charmed by all of the colorful decorations, so much brighter and more cheerful than anything he had grown up around.
“Ice skating!” Lance suddenly called. “Oh man, I haven’t had a chance to do that in years! ”
Lotor followed Lance’s gaze to see a little over a dozen people gliding across a sheet of ice. He watched them, perplexed but intrigued by the activity. “Is it hard?”
“It can be,” Shiro said gently, lightly squeezing Lotor’s hand. “But it can also be really fun. Do you want to try it?”
As he watched, Lotor saw someone fall down, but they quickly got back up again, laughing and looking generally unhurt. He decided that it probably wasn’t too dangerous. “Sure.”
A few minutes and four ice-skates rentals later, the young men ventured out onto the ice. Lance and Keith looked a little wobbly, likely out of practice, but Shiro was completely stable and in his element. He held his hand out to Lotor and smiled encouragingly. “Come on, I’ll help you.”
Lotor took his hand again, letting Shiro pull him out onto the ice. He felt incredibly unsteady, but Shiro’s grip stabilized him. “A-ah… Am I doing this right?”
“Yeah, you’re doing just fine.” Shiro glided forward, bringing Lotor along with him. “Try moving your feet, one at a time. Shift your weight as you glide.”
Although he was a little nervous, Lotor did as Shiro suggested. He slid one foot forward, then the other, then…
Suddenly, he slipped back, falling hard onto the ice and landing directly on his rear. “Oof… ow…” It hurt a little bit, but he felt more embarrassed than anything else.
“Not bad for a first attempt,” Shiro reassured him, pulling him back up to his feet. “I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it in no time.”
Lotor did not , in fact, get the hang of it. Lance’s muscle memory seemed to come back after a little while, and by the end of their rented time with the skates, he was gliding as easily as nearly anyone and even skating backwards. Keith seemed disinterested in tricks, but he could clearly skate, judging by how much faster he was than most of the others out on the pond. And after Lotor gave up and sat down, just a bit too sore all over from falling in various ways, Shiro went out on his own and showed them both up, skating forwards and back with ease. Although Lotor was a bit disappointed that he couldn’t get the hang of it, he was still glad to see that his soulmates were having fun.
Afterward, the others seemed to notice Lotor’s mild disappointment, so they dragged him over to a stand selling hot chocolate. The warm drink more than made up for the mild ache that had built up from falling on the ice, and Lotor savored every sip as the four of them walked around the town, simply taking in all the pretty lights and occasionally listening to carolers as they made their way around the town.
As the sun started to set, they walked back to the cabin, slipping inside just as the light faded. Keith started up a fire while Shiro set out their snow gear to dry and Lance dragged Lotor into the kitchen to make dinner. Soon enough, the four of them were sitting around the little table, eating and talking about the fun little date they’d had and what else they’d like to do before their vacation ended.
Once dinner was over and all of the dishes were cleared, the four of them piled onto the little loveseat meant for two. Shiro rested his head on Lotor’s shoulder, and Lotor rested his head on Shiro’s, while Lance and Keith curled up on their laps and Lance pulled a blanket over all four of them. Warmed by the fire and the presence of his beloveds, cozy in this tiny cabin in this remote area of this little planet in one of the far corners of the universe… Lotor couldn’t remember a time when he had ever felt more safe and secure and happy.