Work Text:
How many Earth months had passed since Lance had left it? Since he’d watched his home world fade into a blue dot as he flew inside the Blue Lion towards a wormhole that would whisk him away to a new life.
He’d grown a lot since then. Since he’d dropped out of the Garrison so he could search for clues to find his mentor who had gone missing on the Kerberos mission. Since his instincts had pulled him out to the desert and into a cave where he’d fallen into a secret chamber to discover the hiding place of the Blue Lion. Since he’d taught himself to fly that Lion in order to rescue his mentor, Shiro from Garrison quarantine. Since he found himself face to face with his furious sister, his former classmate Hunk, and a small cadet named Pidge who had been watching the rescue from the Garrison roof.
In some ways it felt like just yesterday when Veronica had dropped herself into the pilot seat of Blue and flown the group of them to planet Arus where they met the slumbering Princess Allura and Coran. It wasn’t surprising that his older sister had once again stolen something of his and claimed it was hers, but this time it was a flying robot lion! But that was okay, because Allura had told Lance it was his destiny to become the Paladin of the Red Lion instead.
Red was fast and fiery and powerful. More importantly it was the only Lion capable of flying to the secret Blade of Marmora base. The Blades were not the immediate allies Shiro had assumed they’d be. Lance was surprised when the Blades chose him to represent the Paladins in a battle with one of their finest warriors. “Prove yourself worthy of answers,” the stoic faced leader, Kolivan had told Lance.
“Lance, you don’t have to do this,” warned Shiro.
“Naw, it’s fine,” said Lance, putting back on his Paladin helmet and letting one of the Blade members escort him to the battle chamber. “I got this. How tough could this Bladey guy be?”
Lance definitely felt pretty confident when his opponent rose from the floor and happened to be the smollest Galran Lance had ever seen. He was even shorter than Lance!
Lance shouldn’t have been so cocky. The guy was amazing and it was clear he’d been training to fight his whole life while Lance had been a warrior… what? Two months tops? The guy was relentless and Lance was quickly overpowered and suddenly had a terrible feeling that he’d actually agreed to a fight to the death based on the fact that his continued cries of “I give up!” were met with more swipes of that blade of his.
In a last ditch effort, with a knife to his throat, Lance whipped off his helmet so the guy could hear him clearly when he begged for his life, but he froze the moment Lance’s helmet was lost. Even though he’d been in the middle of kicking Lance’s legs out from under him. He caught him like that, holding him there with Lance’s hands out in surrender and his very sensitive throat exposed to that very big knife.
The knife shrunk in the guy’s hands and his hood was pulled back as his mask disintegrated. Lance was left looking into the face of the most gorgeous HUMAN boy he’d ever seen.
Black locks hung low over piercing grey eyes, his face mere inches from Lance’s as he held him in a stance that could just as easily be two dancers dipping mid-tango as two warriors paused in battle. Lance was blushing so hard he was sure this beautiful boy could feel the heat radiating off his cheeks.
“Your face,” said the boy, speaking for the first time. His voice was surprisingly soft, but raspy. It matched his delicate features.
“Yeah?” said Lance, encouraged by the boy’s matching focus on Lance’s facial features. This was definitely love at first sight.
“Why does it look like that?”
“Huh?” gasped Lance, confused.
The boy set him to standing then shoved him back out of his personal space. Holding out the point of his knife he said, “What are you?”
“The name's Lance. I’m the Paladin of the Red Lion,” he answered, holding up his hands since those grey eyes were writing threatening checks that knife could definitely cash.
“Not your title. What species are you? What is your homeworld?”
“Oh, well I’m human,” said Lance, “You know… from Earth… Like you I’m guessing.”
“Liar,” said the boy. “The Zarkon Empire destroyed Planet Earth.”
“What? When?” gasped Lance. He was immediately thrown into a panic.
“Ages ago. How long have you been off planet?” demanded the boy.
“Two months maybe?”
“What’s a month?”
“Crap… what do aliens call a month?” muttered Lance. “Phoebs! Two phoebs!”
“Lies,” spat the boy. “Earth was destroyed when I was a cub.”
“Does that mean baby?” asked Lance. “You look like my age. Earth is still there. Last I checked. Man… I really wanna check again.”
Without another word, the boy tucked away his knife and marched out.
“Does that mean I won?” asked Lance, calling after him. Who was he kidding? He was following. With a face like that, he’d probably follow this boy into a wormhole.
“Kolivan!” yelled the boy, reentering the hall with the other Blade members and Shiro. “Is it true what this Paladin says? Does Earth still stand?” The boy paused, seeing Shiro for the first time and his clearly human face. “So you lied to me?”
“It is true, Yorak. We have kept information about your home world from you,” said Kolivan sadly… or happy. Honestly, Lance couldn’t tell with that guy.
“Why?” demanded Yorak. “This whole time I’ve fought alongside you thinking I was avenging my people. What honour was there in deceiving me?”
“It was not for honour, but for protection.”
“I don’t need your protection!” yelled the gorgeous boy with the very strange name.
“Not yours, Yorak. You are very capable. It was to protect the Planet Earth. The Blue Lion remained hidden there. It’s location needed to remain secret. If we were to tell you your home world still stood, you would’ve sought it out. You may have led the Galra right to Earth’s door.”
“But you sent me in there knowing he was human,” said Yorak, pointing at Lance. Lance was thrilled to get Yorak’s attention. “What was your game?”
“The Blue Lion is no longer on Earth. Voltron had been reformed. The war that has been brewing for millennia has begun and you face a choice, Yorak.”
“What is that?”
“You have lived among us, been raised by us as your Galra legacy would have us… however, part of you belongs to another race. Are you satisfied, Yorak? Do you wish to stay with your fellow Blades?”
Yorak was quiet, shadows passing over his face as he was deep in thought. Lance thought brooding suited him.
“No,” said Yorak finally. “I wish to learn of my human heritage.”
“I anticipated this,” said Kolivan. “This is why I brought the Paladins of Voltron to you. They will be your mentors now.”
“Awesome,” said Lance. He realized he’d said that out loud when literally everyone turned to look at him. “I mean… that’s cool. We’ve got lots of rooms in the castleship so that’s…. that’s fine. Whatever. I’m chill.”
“Your face is very flushed, human,” said a Blade member nearby. “It would suggest you are overheating.”
“First lesson in human,” said Lance, directing this at Yorak, “sometimes we hot even when we cool. Ya dig?”
Yorak looked at Kolivan with concern. “I’m reconsidering…”
“Too late!” blurted Lance, running up and grabbing the boy’s arm. “No take backsies!”
“Well, this has been, uh, enlightening. Thank you,” said Shiro, awkwardly before following Lance back towards Red.
“You’re going to love the Red Lion,” said Lance, pulling the boy along. “It’s literally the coolest Voltron Lion.”
“What’s a Lion?” asked Yorak.
“I have so much Earth stuff to teach you, Yorak.”
“You should probably call me by my human name.”
“What’s that?” asked Lance.
“Keef.”
Lance paused in his step. “Keef? No, that can’t be right. I think you mean Keith.”
“My given human name is Keef,” he insisted.
“Keef isn’t a human name though. You must mean Keith.”
“I think I know my own name.”
“You don’t and I’m introducing you to the others as Keith.”
And that is how Lance got to take the boy of his dreams home with him! What he had not anticipated at all was Allura’s reaction to Keith. She did not want a Galra living among them, even accused Keith of being a spy and the Blades of working for Zarkon.
Fortunately, all the humans closed rank. The Paladins made it perfectly clear that if Keith went, so did they. He was one of them now whether Allura liked it or not.
It was Veronica that took Allura aside and had a long conversation with her that resulted in Allura giving a terse okay to Keith temporarily staying. Veronica was always the best at negotiating with Allura. She was gifted with confidence of a white cis hetero male combined with a natural easy going nature. She approached everyone as if they were her exact equal and this is why people often ended up giving Veronica exactly what she wanted.
When Lance thanked her for it later she shrugged and said, “We’re McClains. We love taking in strays.”
So with Veronica’s continued advocating, Keith kept staying and in between missions the Paladins taught him about Earth. Pidge taught him about Earth’s science and tech. Hunk taught Keith about Earth cooking and food culture. Shiro taught him Earth fighting styles such as karate. Veronica, who’d always had a memory like a iron trap, taught Keith all about Earth’s history.
“I feel kinda jealous,” admitted Lance to Shiro when they had some time alone. “Everyone has gifts and knowledge to share with Keith, but I have nothing special to offer. I mean… beyond an expertise in pop culture, but he’s extremely uninterested in that.”
“We talked about this when you were in school, Lance, remember?” said Shiro, clapping a reassuring hand on Lance’s shoulder. “You’ve always been a Jack of all trades, master of none and that’s okay. You’re a little bit good at everything rather than an expert at one thing.”
“Beyond marksmanship,” countered Lance, “But he already knows how to shoot…”
“What I’m saying is if you don’t feel like you have anything to teach him, maybe there’s something you could learn from him.”
“I wanna train with you,” said Lance next time he spotted Keith.
“That’s probably a good idea,” was Keith’s response. Lance would’ve gotten defensive, but heck, Keith had nearly killed him on the Blade base... So Lance and Keith started meeting for daily fight training sessions. Lance was awful compared to Keith, but with time he really started to improve and he found himself looking forward to training more than anything.
In the meantime, Lance was finding himself disappointed in Allura as she continued to hold prejudice towards the Galra and to Keith in particular. He had a lot of tense and frustrating conversations with her about Keith. He wondered, often out loud, what Keith needed to do to prove to her that he was their ally and his blood in no way negated that.
Allura was pretty and smart and crazy strong. At first Lance had thought he’d been a bit interested in her, but honestly, ever since Shiro had encouraged him to come out as bisexual at the Garrison his very bi brain had a hard time focusing his attention on any one person in particular. First, he had boy, girls, and enbys to choose from and now that there were aliens in the mix… the universe was just too vast to settle.
Then there was Keith…
Okay, gorgeous right off the bat. Lance couldn’t have been more floored when he first laid eyes on his face. Still, he guy wasn’t exactly the talkative type so it was slow going getting to know him, but it wasn’t for lack of spending time together. When they went on mission Keith always chose to ride in the Red Lion with Lance, citing that he felt a connection with it that he didn’t feel with the other Lions. So he became Lance’s mostly silent flight partner. Between that and their daily training sessions, Lance got so used to Keith’s presence that if he looked around and didn’t see him nearby, he felt strangely empty.
Lance did eventually figure the whole conversation thing out with the guy. He realized that while the others were all telling Keith about Earth, Lance could ask him about his life and that could be his role. Keith told him about how his mother had fled Earth with him as a baby. (He now knew the Earth had not been destroyed right after that, but that is what he’d been told.) He was raised collectively by the Blades while his mother often went out on missions for phoebs at a time. Many of the main leaders in the Blade like Kolivan and Thace were like dads to him. He’d always felt like he didn’t exactly fit with the rest since he looked human, unlike the other half-breeds who usually looked more Galra than their other race, but he was never made to feel unwelcome because of it.
“I like him,” Lance admitted to his sister in the middle of a mission. “I really like him.”
“Yep. I can tell.”
“I think about him constantly,” continued Lance.
“Have you asked him out?”
“Here’s the problem,” said Lance. “I don’t know what Galra dating looks like. If they even have dating or courting or whatever.”
“Well… they continue to grow in population so there obviously is some connecting going on at some point.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t prove that same sex pairing exists,” argued Lance, “For all we know they’re a race full of homophobes.”
“I doubt that,” said Veronica, always reasonable and ready to believe the best case scenario. “Here’s a test, why not just straight up tell him that you like him?”
“I did!” whined Lance.
“And?”
“And he told me my reflexes were improving my but my knees are my weak point.”
Veronica blinked. “What?”
“At first I thought that was innuendo, but then I realized he thought we were complimenting each other as warriors.”
Veronica frowned and nodded. “What about just kissing him?”
“Shouldn’t I ask first?”
“What about just asking to kiss him?”
“Okay but… do the Galra even kiss? What if I ask and he just stares at me blankly like the time I asked him if he knew who P Diddy was?”
“Ah,” said Veronica, twisting up her mouth as she thought. “Okay. I think you need to talk to an alien expert before you proceed.”
So Lance had a long talk with Coran in which Coran detailed everything he knew about Galra courting rituals. The positive was he did confirm that Galra do have romantic same sex pairings. The bad news was Coran’s knowledge was 10,000 years out of date, not that it mattered because Lance didn’t understand a word of what the instructions meant.
“I can’t do any of that,” said Lance after Coran had shown him an intricate dance with yodeling.
“Sure you can. To summon the Galra just you… no, wait… that’s how to summon a Yelmore…” muttered Coran, scratching his chin.
“It’s hopeless,” whined Lance. “I’ll never be able to communicate that I like him and for all I know he’s trying to signal me in Galra that he likes me, but I’ll never be able to tell.”
“Why don’t you just try a human courting ritual on him?” asked Coran.
“He doesn’t know what those are!”
“He might not, but maybe some of his baser human instincts will fire. There must be a reason these rituals developed. It may speak to humans on a biological level.”
It was as good an idea as any so at the beginning of their next training session, Lance brought Keith flowers.
“Why did you uproot vegetation for me?” asked a sceptical Keith, holding the flowers at arm’s length.
“Because they’re beautiful. Like your eyes,” said Lance, using his best smoulder face.
“Is killing living organisms beautiful to humans?”
“Um… in this case, yes?” said Lance,
“As Blades, we try to preserve life.”
“We do too,” said Lance, getting defensive. “Mostly…. It’s just flowers! It’s not like they have any feelings!”
“That depends on which planet you got them from,” countered Keith.
“Keith thinks you’ve threatened his life,” said Pidge, as they passed him in the hall.
“What how?”
“You murdered flowers and hand delivered them to him.”
“Did you explain to him that I’m courting him?” groaned Lance.
“If you’re unable to make that clear to him, how do you expect me to?”
Okay. Good point. Lance tried again.
“The flowers were to say that I liked you!” yelled Lance next time he spotted Keith. “Like you like you!”
“Why are you repeating your words?” asked Keith.
“I’m courting you!” yelled Lance. “That’s what the murdered flowers meant!”
“Sorry for not deciphering your cryptic death message!” Keith yelled back.
That had gone badly. But things could be worse…
Oh, and then they got worse.
Lance found a bloody alien cattle head in his bed. From the knife wounds he was able to decipher that Keith had done it. Okay, so obviously Keith really had taken the flowers as a threat and he now was threatening Lance back… and he was way, way, way better at being frightening.
“I need to go into witness protection,” whispered Lance from underneath the dining room table.
“Why?” asked Veronica, peaking under the table.
“Don’t look at me!” scolded Lance. “Keith will know I’m under here.”
“Right, as opposed to him thinking I’m talking to a table… and the table is answering… in your voice.”
“Hey, have you met Keith? He’s a little clueless.”
“Okay, fair,” agreed Veronica. “Look, I’m going on this Weblum mission with him today. I’ll feel out the whole threatening-to-kill-you situation and try to talk him out of it.”
Honestly, Lance’s sister was the best and he knew at the very least Keith would not kill him if Veronica suggested he didn’t. Of course, he’d given up hope on dating Keith at this point, but it seemed like small potatoes when the exchange was he got to keep breathing.
So Lance went on his own mission to free this super brainiac named Slav from a Galra prison ship and he only kinda sorta maybe rescued the wrong prisoner. The upside was the Yupper was a really good listener and validated a lot of his feelings concerning Keith. Lance came out of it feeling seen and more in touch with his feelings than ever. The big shock came when they ran into the Blue Lion and saw the result of their mission.
Dragging behind Blue was the massive body of the Weblum. “Body” as in it was dead. Murdered really. Slaughtered even and if there was any doubt as to who had done such a monstrous thing, there, carved into the side in skyscraper high letters, was Lance’s name.
That… was the scariest threat he’d ever seen.
“Allura, I need a wormhole!” he barked over the comm.
“Why?” asked Allura, responding from the Castleship.
“Because you were right about the Galra being murderers and Keith is definitely about it kill me to death!”
“Wait!” said Veronica, interjecting by popping up on a video screen. “It’s not what you think.”
The problem was, she wasn’t alone. Keith was in the cockpit with her. “Hey, did you see it?”
Lance’s mouth went dry, he couldn’t form words, just nodded.
“You didn’t respond to the cattle so I killed something bigger. Do you like it?” asked Keith.
“Uh…?”
“Like it like it?”
“Why are you repeating words?” squeaked Lance.
“I thought that’s how you talked!” barked Keith, frustrated.
“Hold on, I can translate,” said Veronica. “Turns out Keith did get your meaning from the flowers. Unfortunately, it twisted in his brain to make him believe that humans court each other by killing things.”
“What so the alien cattle…?”
“Was his bouquet of flowers,” said Veronica. “But as it turns out he super likes you back because he straight up murdered that weblum to get your attention.”
“But it looks… so threatening with my name in it,” said Lance.
“Oh! He drew a heart on the other side. Maybe you didn’t see. I’ll pull around.”
“Wait!” said Lance, “Can I just talk to Keith again?”
“Hey,” said Keith, moving back in front of the camera. “Um so…?”
“I like it!” said Lance, suddenly gushing. “I like it so much! I can’t believe you killed something as big as a planet for me!”
That’s when Coran’s screen popped up to join the convo. “Keith you… you killed the weblum?!”
“For me,” said Lance proudly.
“But a Weblum is an ancient creature! It’s part of the ecosystem of the universe! It’s existence is integral to creating new planets!”
“If it helps,” said Keith, “when I killed it, it was very much trying to kill me first.”
“No, that doesn’t help!”
“If I can interject,” said Veronica. “I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but before I forget, when we were inside the weblum I maaaaaybe helped rescued a trapped Galra.”
“You rescued Galra?!” said Allura, appearing on video screen.
“Not all Galra are bad,” said Veronica. “Sis, we’ve been over this.”
“To be fair, we don’t really know which side that Galra was on,” said Keith.
“Dude, I defended you,” groaned Veronica. “Plus she was hot so I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“We don’t know if she was hot,” said Keith. “She had a helmet on.”
“Ummmm she was hot. She had a hot aura. I can tell these things.”
“Keith,” said Lance, wanting to draw the focus of the conversation back to him.
“Yeah?”
“Do Galra kiss?”
“Yes.”
“With… what body part… exactly?”
“The… mouth?”
“Perfect! That works out. Hold tight, I’m coming over there to kiss you.”
“Lonce, do not abandon your Lion!” ordered Allura.
“Too late, I’m already on my way,” said Lance, hoping out of his pilot chair. He needed to go kiss that gorgeous boy just as he’d been dreaming of every since he first laid eyes on him.
“Stop!” ordered Allura. “Everyone reconvene on the Castleship and Veronica, cut that quiznaking thing loose!”
“No!” whined Lance. “I wanna have it framed!”
“Lonce!!”
Lance landed his Lion in the castleship hangar, desperate to see his Galra boy. When he spotted Keith emerge from the Blue Lion, in his Blade suit, mask and all, Lance went barrelling towards him. He tossed his own helmet aside, intent on ripping Keith’s mask off and laying one on him. So it was quite confusing when Keith dodged to the side, grabbed Lance’s arm and flipped him onto his back.
“Ah! Keith! What quiznak?!” cried Lance from his spot on the floor.
“What?” said Keith, defensively as he looked down at Lance’s prostrate body. “You attacked me!”
“I was coming to kiss you as we already discussed!”
“Oh… right…” Keith reached down and grabbed Lance’s arm and yanked him up, not quite to standing. Instead he snaked his other arm around his back while Lance was tilted in a dip just like in the moment when he first saw Keith’s face.
Keith held Lance like that as his mask disintegrated. Lance was met with sparkling grey eyes before he closed his own as their lips met in a kiss. For someone so aggressive, Keith’s kisses were so tender. Lance sighed and wrapped his arms around Keith’s neck, blissed out by the experience of being kissed by the most gorgeous boy in the universe.
Much to Lance’s disappointed, Keith pulled back and set Lance upright on his feet. Lance, however, refused to stand under his own power, but kept leaning his weight onto Keith, pressing against his chest.
“Thanks for murdering a weblum for me,” said Lance, feeling as docile as a sleeping kitten.
“If I could find something bigger, I’d murder if for you.”
“This is how wars get started,” hummed Lance, stealing another soft peck from the smol Garla boy. “But I think it’s safe to say our courting period is over.”
“What do humans call it when when two people are romantically partnered?”
“Boyfriends,” said Lance with a grin.
“Wait,” said Keith, looking confused. “But we are already boys and friends.”
“Push the words together, Keith.”
“How?”
“Trust me. It works and we’re boyfriends now.” The Lance kissed him again because that’s what human and Galra boyfriends do.