Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Lance and Allura break up, it’s quiet.

Allura calls all the Paladins together on an unassuming day six months after the fall of Honevera. Keith arrives on Atlas last, even though he does not have the farthest to travel - that honor belongs to Hunk, who has been planet-hopping for months around the battered Coalition, picking up new recipes and eager chefs at each stop. Keith knows, from late-night comms and the constant news cycle dedicated to the former Paladins, that Allura has spent at least half of her time on the newly-restored Altea, coaxing her few remaining people to reform the government and social services, while Lance, Shiro, and Pidge have gotten involved in the reconstruction of Earth. And Keith -

Well.

He’s hoping no one thinks to ask why it took so little time for him to come back from his latest relief mission for the Blade. At least, not until he’s thought of a convincing lie.

When he reaches the briefing room, he barely has time to blink before Hunk lifts him off his feet in a hug. “Hunk, I need to breathe,” he gasps, half-serious. As soon as Hunk sets him down, Pidge nearly tackles him. Over her shoulder, Shiro is smiling warmly at him. He’s seen Shiro more than anyone else, his brother having insisted upon regular check-ins, but he hasn’t seen anyone else in two months. He looks around for Lance and Allura.

He finds Allura quickly, talking to Coran across the room. He looks behind her for Lance, but he isn’t there. At last he sees him leaning against the wall to the back of the group. When Keith catches his eye, he grins and pushes off towards him. “Hey, drifter,” he says, and claps Keith’s back as he goes in for a hug. Keith returns it easily. He’s missed this, he realizes as Lance pulls away. He’s missed the easy affection that had become commonplace as his friends determinedly, painstakingly broke down his resistance to physical contact over the last several years. Lance had been at the forefront of that, dragging Keith into movie and game nights and group hugs and complicated six-way handshakes. In the last few weeks of the war, as the days and nights blurred indistinctly into each other and Voltron was needed in what felt like every part of the world at once, the Paladins had slept in a more or less permanent cuddle pile in the rec room, taking comfort in each other’s presence during those too-short hours of rest.

Once Lance retreats, Allura is there, holding out her arms. Keith accepts a quick hug, grunting as Allura inevitably tightens her grip too hard. She releases him and steps away. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Paladins,” she says.

It’s the signal to begin. The Paladins all straighten, coming to relaxed attention around her. Lance takes up a position just behind and to the right of Keith, to Keith’s surprise - Lance hasn’t stood there with any regularity since he was Keith’s literal right hand, and certainly never since he began dating Allura. Keith glances back at him, only to be brought up short by the utter blank wall of Lance’s face. Lance doesn’t even notice Keith is looking at him, or if he does, he doesn’t react. It’s so unlike Lance that Keith’s spine prickles with apprehension, the lurking sense of uneasiness at being called back so unexpectedly flaring into life. Of anyone, Lance is the most likely to know why they’ve been called here, given how he splits his time entirely between his family and Allura. His eyes narrow, and he fixes Allura with more intensity than he had planned on.

“There’s no threat, don’t worry,” says Allura, correctly interpreting his face. “In fact, it’s the opposite. The Blade of Marmora has reported that the last few Galran planets still in resistance have surrendered. The Blade have established a provisional government and are trying to rebuild on their own homeworld. I’ve called you here because Voltron is officially retired.”

There is a moment of silence, and then everyone starts talking at once, even Keith. He doesn’t even know what he wants to say, except that the very notion seems impossible. Even now, everyone has showed up in their armor. The thought that they might not be needed anymore makes the ground feel unstable under his feet.

“What about our Lions?” a voice asks, louder than all the rest. Keith realizes with a shock that it’s his own. Everyone quiets down, and Keith sees the same apprehension on all of his teammates’ faces. Pidge looks angry, Hunk worried, and Lance…

Keith is trying very hard to conceal how desperately he is awaiting Allura’s answer, but even so - Lance looks odd. His face isn’t right, and neither is his reaction. Everyone else looks worried, but Lance just looks - blank.

“The Lions will stay with their Paladins,” answers Allura. “Even if Voltron is not needed, the bond between Lion and Paladin is important. They will remain with you until such a day comes that they need to choose another.”

Relief breaks over Keith, bright and cool like clean water. The room breathes out, a collective exhale that sets them all laughing at each other. The thought of losing their lions -

Keith has lived his entire life on the razor edge of sacrifice, believing beyond thought or breath that his happiness comes second to necessity, but just the suggestion of sacrificing Red had opened a black hole in his chest that made him struggle to breathe. Allura smiles at them all with an echo of the same relief that Keith feels, and Keith thinks, Of course she wouldn’t. He shouldn’t have worried. Allura is a Paladin too.

Allura surprises Keith then by clearing her throat. He had assumed that her speech was over. “I also have something else to tell you.” Allura clasps her hands in front of her, and Keith stares as her knuckles turn white. Beside him, Lance tenses all over. “Now that Voltron is no longer needed, I will not be remaining here on Earth, even part-time. At the end of the phoeb, I will move permanently to New Altea.”

Silence follows her announcement. Keith feels stunned, then angry with himself. He should have expected this. If he had thought about it, he would have realized that Allura would never stay on Earth. He turns his eyes to Lance, who is still expressionless. No wonder, he thinks. No wonder Lance is so upset, if he’s having to tell everyone that he’s leaving them behind.

It’s strangely disconcerting to imagine Lance leaving Earth. It had always been Lance who missed home the most, who talked about it endlessly, who compared each planet they saved unfavorably to his favorite haunts in Cuba or at the Garrison. If Keith had been in the position to place bets on it, he would have put all his money on Lance refusing to leave his family home for more than an hour for at least the next decade or so. Apparently, he would have been wrong.

Shiro breaks the silence, pulling a smile from the depths of his leadership abilities that looks only a little wobbly. “Well, we certainly understand wanting to be home with your people. But we’ll miss you, Allura.”

His words unfreeze the other Paladins. Keith gets a little lost in all the noise as everyone attempts to hug Allura at once, to tell her how much they will miss her. He manages to hug her once and duck out before getting caught in Hunk’s mighty grip for a second time, sliding to the back of their circle with little grace. He winds up next to Lance, who alone has stayed free of the circle of hugs. He still looks entirely unlike himself, and Keith’s gut twists as he watches him. No one else seems to realize yet that they’ll have to say goodbye to Lance as well. The knowledge sits heavy in his stomach, weighing him down.

Just as he thinks this, though, Hunk releases Allura and turns around, tears already cascading down his cheeks, until his gaze lights on Lance and Keith near the back. He surges forward and hugs Lance as well. “I can’t believe it. We’re a team, and I know it’s good to be with your people, but I’m going to miss you so much, Allura. And Lance, buddy, how am I supposed to handle not seeing you all the time?”

Keith can hardly see Lance over Hunk’s enveloping arms, but Lance’s smile still reads all wrong to him. He can’t figure out why until Lance speaks. “Aw, Hunk. As flattered as I am that you’d miss me that much, you won’t have to. I’m staying here.”

Silence again. This one is much more awkward. Hunk looks from Lance, still in his arms, to Allura without comprehension. “But - Allura - and you -”

“Not so much Allura and me,” says Lance, still with that same false smile. “No need to worry, Hunk.”

“Lance and I have decided that it is for the best that we go our separate ways,” says Allura, in case anyone has missed the obvious. “We care for each other very much, of course, as we do for all of you. Just - not romantically, any longer.”

Hunk finally lets go of Lance, hand going to the back of his head in embarrassment. No one seems to know where to look. Allura stands tall, regal and deliberate like the royalty she is, but they have all learned to read her by now, and her discomfort and sadness radiate from her like a beacon. In contrast, Lance won’t meet anyone’s eyes, slumped against the wall in a parody of relaxation that fools exactly no one.

“No worries, guys,” he says, in a very poor approximation of a carefree tone. “We’re still friends. Voltron is still one big happy family. Just a less incestous one now.”

Pidge and Hunk groan, and Shiro rubs the bridge of his nose in a gesture that makes him look far more like a Dad than any of them can manage. The room relaxes, and once again people can move freely - talking quietly to Allura or Coran, trading hugs and promises to call, enjoying what may be one of the last times they are all together on Atlas.

Everyone except Keith.

He can’t move past the revelation that Lance isn’t leaving. That Lance, who had been in love with Allura for so long it had become a joke, then an assurance, and finally a long awaited reality, would not be going with her. It has to have been Allura’s decision to leave that ended their relationship - has to be, because any other explanation is impossible. Lance loves her. And Allura loves Lance; Keith knows that. She must.

Keith looks around. No one else seems to be having a crisis. No one else seems to notice that the universe has been turned upside down.

The meeting comes to a close fairly quickly after that. Everyone hugs Allura one last time, then disperse to go home (Shiro and Lance) or bother Atlas’s R&D department (Hunk and Pidge). Keith finds himself trailing after Lance, no real purpose in his head.

Eventually, they end up on the observation deck. Lance stares out the big picture window at the mountains beyond the Garrison, his eyes distant. Neither of them speak.

As Keith stands silently next to Lance, he finally identifies the emotion that has him buzzing, sick and hot beneath his skin. He hadn’t wanted Lance to go. As Blue to his Red, Red to his Black, Lance has been the solid and sure foundation of Keith’s nascent sense of belonging. Next to Shiro, who is his brother in all the ways that matter, Keith has no better friend than Lance. The very thought that Lance might move to New Altea left him with a lurching, dislocated feeling in his gut. Hearing that Lance would stay…

He’s happy about it. He’s grateful. And Keith knows he is the worst friend in the world, because Lance is quietly devastated behind his mask, and no one should feel this pleased that their best friend is unhappy.

“Do you want to go see the Grand Canyon?” Keith asks, instead of saying any of that.

Lance jerks his gaze upwards. “What?”

“I have some time off,” Keith says. He hesitates, wondering if he can get away with leaving it at that. Lance stares at him incredulously.

“Time off - from the Blade?”

He crosses his arms and looks down. “Kolivan stood me down,” he mutters.

“What?”

“He stood me down,” Keith repeats, louder this time. “He said no one could fix the damage of six thousand years in only six months and that I had to go home until I figured that out. I’m on indefinite suspension.”

“Kolivan. Mr. Mission,” Lance says flatly. “What did you do? Stop sleeping? Try to single-handedly liberate one of the Galran holdouts?”

“Anyway,” Keith says loudly, over Lance’s “Quiznak, you did!”. “I have some time off and I haven’t ever been to the Grand Canyon.”

“Don’t think I’m letting this go,” Lance warns him.”I will find out what you did.” Keith says nothing. Lance shakes a finger at him, then subsides. He huffs a little, a quiet attempt at a laugh. “I’m fine, Keith. I don’t need a pity outing to vent about Allura. I’ve known this was coming for a while.”

He has? Keith certainly hadn’t known this was coming. He had thought of Lance and Allura as a constant, a sure thing that had outlasted the war and would surely outlast the peace to come. If Lance had seen it coming, then why hadn’t Keith? If Lance had seen it coming, why hadn’t he stopped it?

“It’s not a pity outing,” says Keith. “I want to go. I’d like company.”

Lance snorts. “You, company?” Then he makes a face. “Sorry.”

Keith waves the apology away. There was a point in his life where Lance’s question would have been entirely justified. But now he rather likes company, as long as it’s people he has chosen. Having his friends around is no longer a burden. “So? Do you want to come?”

Lance looks out to the desert again, then back at Keith. “Sure,” he says at last. “Okay. Why not?”

***

One week later, Keith stands with Lance on the ridge of the Grand Canyon and stares out to the opposite side. He has seen it in pictures, but they hadn’t captured the sheer scale of it - the incredible depth, the rich colors, the way the shadows obscure its depths. The two Paladins stand in silence for a while.

“Okay, can I say something?” Lance says all at once. “Is it terrible that I really don’t find this all that impressive after the Balmera?”

“I was just thinking -”

“I mean, it’s big and pretty and all, but it’s not like it’s secretly an entire living organism that sustains the population of an entire planet, you know? I’m just saying, I’ve seen more impressive rock formations.”

“Yes,” Keith says fervently. “I’m glad it’s not just me.”

Lance looks up and down the canyon. “I always wanted to see this place.”

“Me too,” says Keith, when the silence starts to get to him. He doesn’t like the tone in Lance’s voice, but he can’t figure out where he has gone wrong.

“I wonder how many other places on Earth just won’t be that exciting now.” The wistfulness in Lance’s voice registers like nails on a chalkboard in Keith’s brain.

“We could find out,” his mouth says, entirely without the permission of his brain.

Lance frowns at him, startled out of his contemplation of the canyon.

“We could find out. I’ve never been anywhere besides the continental United States. I used to hear people talking all the time about places they’d been or wanted to go. We could go see them.”

Lance is looking at him now rather like he’s lost his mind, and Keith can’t blame him. Keith knows that the other Paladins have been meeting up regularly on Earth, while he has spent nearly all his time running relief missions with the Blade. He’s been on Earth perhaps four weeks total of the last six months. That doesn’t seem important right now. Of far more importance is finding a way to make Lance’s voice stop sounding like that.

“I can’t just check out on my work at the Garrison,” Lance says at last, but slowly. Slowly enough that Keith knows he’s thinking about it.

Ever one to press an advantage, Keith continues, “Just on weekends, then. Once or twice a month. We pick a place, and we go. See what the place we saved really has to offer.”

“Who chooses?”

“We can take turns,” says Keith promptly, having not considered the issue at all.

Lance is quiet for long enough that Keith is sure he’s looking for a polite way to turn him down. The strength of his disappointment surprises him. He’s become incredibly attached to a plan he pulled out of his ass all of five minutes ago.

“Yeah, okay.”

“What?”

“I said, okay. Let’s do it. Let’s roll. Lance and Keith’s epic adventure. The incredible journey. The Odyssey of the Paladins Red and Blue -”

“I regret this already,” Keith informs him. Lance’s answering grin lights up Keith’s bones.

“Too late to back out now,” Lance taunts. “And I get to pick the next place. Just you wait, Kogane - my choice is going to smoke yours.”

“You wish!” For a second, Keith feels like he’s been transported back to the beginning of the war - young, filled with adrenaline, and with no other desire than to beat Lance into the ground at whatever challenge he offered. They grin at each other for a long moment.

“Two weeks?” Lance asks. “I have to run a simulator class next weekend, but the one after is free.”

“Sure. Two weeks. Meet at your place?”

“You got it. Do you even have a place yet?”

Keith shrugs. “I’m working on it.” Lance suddenly looks sad again, and Keith curses internally to see it. He doesn’t even know what he has done wrong this time.

“Okay. My place, then. I’ll see you Saturday morning.”

Keith nods, and Lance grins at him again, his smile twisted a little with something Keith can’t identify. “Hasta la later, Keith.”

Lance climbs into Blue, then takes off. Keith means to follow, but instead he finds himself staring out across the canyon. The sun tracks slowly across the sky, deepening the sunset colors in the rock, then fades, leaving the sky a deep, dark blue before it settles into night.

***

Looking back, Keith supposes it was inevitable that their trip turn into a competition.

“Ehhh, it’s all right, I guess,” says Lance.

Keith turns away from the light of the setting sun over the crystalline water and stares at Lance incredulously. Lance’s expression as he looks out over the spectacular scene is, at best, bored.

Lance looks back at him and shrugs. “Look, I’m sorry, man, but Cuba has the best sunsets in the entire world; I don’t make the rules.”

“It’s Hawaii!” Keith gestures emphatically. “Everyone loves Hawaii!”

“Well, everyone hasn’t been to my Pop-Pop’s house, so they don’t know what they’re missing,” Lance retorts. “Also, “everyone” is probably a lot of people who live so tragically inland that this is the first beach they’ve ever seen, and they’ve sunk so much money into the trip that they’d say they loved it no matter what happened. Sunk cost fallacy; it’s a thing.”

“You’re impossible!”

“I’ve just seen a beach before!”

The light reflects off Lance’s hair, making it throw shades of red and gold among the brown. His blue eyes nearly glow in contrast. Keith grits his teeth. He had been sure he could impress Lance this time, given how much he missed the beach while they were in space, but clearly he has chosen the wrong tack with this one. It is especially frustrating given that Keith had been entirely unable to hide how much he loved their last location, as Lance rented them hoverbikes at the rainbow striped mountain of Vinicunca.

“Fine. You know what? Take me to this better beach of yours.”

“What?”

“Your grandfather’s house, right? You think you can do better than this, prove it.”

“Ah - you mean now? Okay, okay,” Lance says hastily as Keith glares at him. “Follow me; I’ll call him on the way.”

It only occurs to Keith that going to Lance’s grandfather’s house means meeting his grandfather when Lance heads toward a beach that has a small crowd of people clumped together, watching the skies. When Keith focuses Red’s cameras that direction, he sees how they all point at the approaching Lions, then begin to wave and shout things that are inaudible at this distance.

“Should we land somewhere else?” Keith comms Lance to ask. “Big civilian crowd on that beach.”

Lance’s face stares at him incredulously from the monitor, and then he starts to laugh. “Keith, amigo, we could run but we can’t hide. That’s my family,” he explains, when it’s obvious Keith doesn’t understand.

“What, all of them?” Keith says. There’s at least thirty people down there already.

“Yeah. Everyone else should be coming in by tonight. I told you I called ahead; what did you think was going to happen?”

“You mean that isn’t everyone?”

Lance flashes him a smirk. “Not too late to back down, Keithy-boy.”

“I’m not backing down,” Keith growls. “You still haven’t proven to me this is a better beach.”

“I will. Just you wait.”

Lance lands first, and plunges from his Lion into the waiting arms of the crowd as if he’s diving into a pool. From Keith’s angle, it seems like everyone is talking at once, trying to hug Lance at once, and Lance is laughing and exchanging hugs, back slaps, and cheek and forehead kisses with so many people that Keith is dizzy just watching it.

Lance is magnetic, like this. Keith hovers over the controls to open Red’s mouth and just watches. Lance is lit up from the inside, spilling over with light and joy, and Keith has never felt more profoundly out of place, not even when the Garrison threw him out and he faced homelessness with his only family lost in space.

He’s a half second from turning Red and hightailing it out of there, competition be damned, when Lance lifts his head and stares straight through Red’s visor, nearly making eye contact despite the fact that there is no way he can actually see him. He hears Lance’s voice through his helmet while watching his emphatic gestures. “Come on, Mullet-man, get out here! Unless you’ve chickened out?”

Keith is out of his seat in an instant. One day that isn’t going to work, he tells himself as he runs for Red’s mouth. He doesn’t really believe it, though.

The next ten minutes are a blur. Lance’s family - mother, father, siblings, two sets of grandparents, endless aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws - pass before him in an indistinguishable sea of shouted greetings and introductions. He is passed from person to person like a casserole dish, each one giving him a hug and a five-second rundown of their relation to Lance before handing him off to the next. Everyone is happy to see him. Everyone wants to know why he hasn’t visited before, “when Lance has told us so much about you.”

He is surrounded by people with various shades of Lance’s skin, Lance’s eyes, Lance’s smile and laugh and exaggerated mannerisms and dramatic voice, and in another minute he is going to collapse under the weight of them or else lose his grip entirely and make a break for the treeline -

“Whoa there!” And suddenly the Lance lookalikes are replaced by the real thing, and Lance has his hand under his arm, tugging him back and away from the crowd. “Everyone, you can manhandle Keith later, give him some space!”

There’s some pushback, but Lance doesn’t stop until Keith has a safe three feet of distance between him and everyone else, and then he stays there, just on the edges of Keith’s personal space, and keeps everyone else out of it. Keith breathes and tries to remember how to line up thoughts one after the other.

It takes five minutes before he can speak again. “Thanks,” he mutters.

Lance smiles ruefully at him, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I should have told them not to do that. I’ll remember for next time.” Keith’s eyes widen, and Lance adds, quickly - “if there is a next time. Once may be enough, we’re a lot, I get it. Allura said -”

His smile fades suddenly, and Keith’s anger, never far from the surface, sends up a flare. “Said what?” he prompts when it looks like Lance is lost in thought.

Lance startles. “She said that she required at least a two week warning before I ever subjected to her to the entire family at once again. Mental preparation time, she said. Couldn’t tell she needed it at the time, though. That princess training really paid off.”

Unlike him, Keith understands. It’s surely obvious to Lance’s whole family that Keith doesn’t handle crowds well. Everyone has backed off to converse among themselves, leaving an obvious person-free radius around the two of them as Keith comes back to himself. It’s a kindness, one he should have expected from a family that raised Lance, but one that suddenly irritates him.

“So I’m a step down from a princess, right?” he says, because he has never been able to resist pressing on a bruise.

Lance bursts into startled laughter. It sounds odd, too loud and too surprised, but it knocks the lingering sadness from his expression so Keith will take it as a win. “No, man,” he says when he catches his breath. “You’re a legend. Everyone here has definitely been waiting to meet you for way longer.”

“What?” That doesn’t make sense.

Lance brings two fingers together in front of his eyes. “It’s possible I may have talked about you a liiiiit-tle bit while we were both at the Garrison.”

“You - what?” Now it’s Keith’s turn to be shocked.

“You were my rival, man!” Lance exclaims. “Every time I called home, I told my mama how I was going to beat you next time. It became kind of a thing.”

Keith shakes his head. It’s not as though he forgot that Lance knew him long before he knew about Lance - a fact that can still produce a frisson of shame if sprung upon him without warning- but he had never considered the fact that that might mean that all these people might already know him, or at least some idea of him. “Does this mean I need to watch my back?”

Lance laughs again. “Not even, dude. My siblings thought it was hilarious. My mama was just after me to be nice to you. She thought I should be friends with you instead.” He grins at Keith. “She’s never going to let it go that she was right, you know.”

A strange shiver goes up Keith’s spine. He knocks Lance on the shoulder, trying to make the feeling go away. “So your mom has sense. Do you take after your dad?”

“Hey!”

Lance tackles him, and for a few moments they roughhouse on the edge of the treeline. Keith feels better almost immediately.

When Lance lets go, he smiles. “Ready to go try again?”

Keith squares his shoulders. “Ready.”

The rest of the night passes like a dream.

Keith knows, in the same way he knows that water is wet or the sky is blue, that he did not have a typical childhood. He knows that his associations with the word family are not even remotely the same as someone else’s. But most of the time, that knowledge is unimportant - foundational, sure, but not something that needs to be thought about every day.

But he thinks that even someone who did grow up with a normal family would find Lance’s version of it ridiculous.

There are just - so many people, and they all keep wanting to talk to him. Aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings weave in and out all night long, stopping to introduce themselves or beg for a story about Voltron. At one point he finds himself deeply involved in a passionate debate with two of Lance’s aunts, his older sister Veronica, and three cousins about the merits of different models of hoverbike. At another, a good half dozen children hang on or around him as he narrates the final battle with Honerva. Lance’s grandmother stops by every half hour or so to press more food into his hands and talk to him in Spanish, which he doesn’t understand, so he shakes his head and smiles in gratitude.

No one tells him to be quiet, or conversely, tells him he has to speak up. He becomes so incensed at Lance’s brother Marco because of his criminally wrong opinions about spacecraft that he starts shouting, and instead of getting angry or backing away, Marco laughs and then gives as good as he got, while two uncles egg him on. When an aunt tells him stories about Lance’s childhood, he nods and laughs and doesn’t say much of anything, and that’s okay too.

All night long, Lance is with him. He flits from relative to relative and back to Keith again, never straying too far. It’s as if Lance is a moth and Keith is a porch light, as Lance is drawn to bump up against Keith again and again, endlessly drawn back into his orbit.

It’s nearly dawn before he leaves. He crashes into his bed and does not dream.

***

“Come on. Eat it.”

Keith stares at the thing on the end of his stick. The grasshopper stares back.

“Eat it, eat it, eat it,” Lance chants. He holds another grasshopper on a stick of his own. “What are you, a spacechick-”

Keith straightens up, raises his stick, and shoves the entire grasshopper in his mouth. He chews, then swallows. “Crunchy,” he says.

Lance gapes at him. “You - what -”

Keith gestures. “You want yours?”

“You - no!” Lance glares, then bites down on his own grasshopper. His eyes bulge out. Keith covers his mouth to hide his laughter as Lance makes himself swallow. “Huh. It is crunchy.”

Lance’s surprise breaks Keith’s composure, and he laughs at the expression on his face. “Told you.”

“You’ve had these before,” Lance accuses.

“Nope.” Keith shrugs. “But there isn’t much to eat in the Quantum Abyss. After two years, I learned not to be picky. Didn’t you learn the same at all those Coalition events?”

“It’s different when it’s alien food. Then all of it’s weird. This is a bug!”

“And a tasty one.”

“Just you wait,” Lance vows. “I’m gonna find something even you won’t eat someday.” Keith grins. Lance can try.

As they leave the food cart, Keith feels eyes prickling on the back of his neck. He tries to ignore them. He and Lance have been lucky, for the most part - out of their Paladin armor, they are far less recognizable, and the people who have recognized them have mostly been polite about it. Bangkok is the first city they have visited, though, after Lance declared he wanted a break from “Keith’s call of the wild, come on, let’s go somewhere we don’t have to shit in the woods.” He knows Shiro has gotten mobbed on press tours. He does not want to deal with that today.

After a few more blocks, it seems like he may have to. The stares have gotten worse, and now people are murmuring, pointing. He steps closer to Lance. “Want to head somewhere else?”

“That sounds like a good idea.” Lance has a smile on his face, but it no longer looks natural. Keith tries not to glare at the people around them. His last lecture from the Garrison PR department about how “cameras are everywhere” still blisters his ears.

They turn around together. They’ll have to triangulate a path back to the Lions, Keith thinks. Heading straight back the way they came would be a mistake. After a few paces, he realizes that Lance has taken up a position just back and to his right, where he won’t be in the way if Keith needs to hit someone. He’s scanning the crowd, just like Keith is, looking for trouble.

When it comes, it isn’t in any form Keith could have anticipated. They pass by a wall of screens overlooking the marketplace, where various news channels blare whatever fluff fills the time in off-peak hour. A name catches his attention.

“...the Princess Allura of Altea, former Blue Paladin of Voltron and current provisional head of the Altean government, was spotted out to lunch with this handsome stranger.”

Keith stops without consciously relating the command to his feet. In one corner, a celebrity gossip show displays a picture of Allura, sitting at a cafe on Altea. There is indeed a man with her, even though nothing about the situation reads as romantic to Keith. They look more like they are arguing.

Beside him, Lance snorts quietly. “Allura hates that guy. He’s been trying to insist that only families descended from former noble houses on Altea should have representation in the new government.”

“Allura has been formerly romantically linked with fellow Paladin Lance McClain,” continues the chirpy host in an insinuating tone that grates on Keith’s nerves. “Perhaps the long distance relationship has proved too much for our heroes?”

“It can’t be easy to date someone on another planet,” agrees her co-host.

Lance looks down. His smile is completely gone now. Keith clenches his jaw and looks around.

“There.” He points at a stall about fifteen feet away. “Bet you next weekend’s choice you won’t eat one of those.”

“You’re on,” Lance retorts, clearly on automatic pilot. Then he looks at the giant water bugs Keith is pointing to. “Eeeewww, Keith!”

“Unless you’re a space chicken…”

Lance stomps over to the stall, muttering imprecations under his breath and throwing glares back at Keith.

Keith follows him.

***

It isn’t until he and Lance are on their way back to Cuba - Lance’s grandmother had asked him, that first time, what he wanted for dinner when he came back next week, and after that it had become a thing - that he figures out what has been bothering him so much.

Lance had been fine, the whole day in Bangkok. He had eaten the water bug, gaining the right to choose their next destination, and done an obnoxious victory dance about it. If Keith had not been watching closely, he would never have seen how Lance’s smile was a little less bright, his wisecracks a second too late, for the rest of their afternoon.

It isn’t right, Keith thinks. If you had asked him how Lance would have acted in a break-up, he would have bet money that Lance would make high tragedy of his emotions, lament his loss so that no one could fail to miss it. Instead, Keith doesn’t know if he would have even noticed something was up with Lance if he hadn’t been told.

“Why aren’t you angry?” Keith blurts out as soon as they emerge from their Lions, interrupting Lance’s monologue on his favorite restaurant near the Garrison. Lance blinks at him.

“What, that there aren’t any curly fries? I mean, sure, they’re delicious, but tater tots are -”

“No! Not that. About Allura.” Lance’s face goes blank, and fire surges in Keith’s veins. He points at Lance accusingly. “And stop doing that! Every time anyone says her name you stop talking. If everything were fine you wouldn’t do that all the time!”

“It is fine!”

“No, it isn’t!” Keith yells.

“Yes it - I don’t want to talk about this, Keith!”

“Well, maybe you should! And if she was out with that guy-”

“I told you, she hates him-”

“-then maybe-”

“And even if she was going out with him, I still wouldn’t be mad because she hasn’t done anything wrong!” Lance yells, cutting Keith off. “She doesn’t need my permission. My love life and hers have exactly zero to do with each other now; that’s what breaking up means!”

“I know, but -”

“But what?” Lance demands.

But you’re still sad, Keith thinks. You’re sad and I don’t know how to fix it, and it isn’t fair that you’re stuck here feeling like this when she’s moving on.

“Nothing,” he says instead.

“Good,” Lance says after a pause, to see if Keith means it. He turns in the direction of Pop-Pop’s house. “Come on, my mom is making tamales.”

***

After that, it’s like an itch he can’t scratch. Everyone else is scrupulously avoiding all mention of Allura, but Keith can’t stop bringing her up whenever he can. It’s picking at a scab, even though he knows it won’t make him feel any better. He wants to know how Lance is feeling, if he still thinks about her, if he misses her. If he’s regretting his choice to stay.

Meanwhile, the epic adventure of Paladins Red and Blue continues.

Lance chooses Madagascar for their next weekend, and Keith laughs himself silly when a lemur attaches itself to Lance and won’t leave him alone the entire day. Keith takes dozens of pictures of Lance trying to pry the animal off of him, while Lance threatens to destroy his camera.

Lance gets his own back next weekend, when a bull in the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza in Seville decides that Keith’s red jacket is more interesting than the matador he’s supposed to be fighting. Keith scrambles away up the stands, hearing the click of a camera over Lance’s gleeful laughter.

Keith chooses the Taj Mahal. Lance chooses Machu Picchu. Keith picks the Kuang Si Falls, and Lance takes them to see the Northern Lights. After each trip, they inevitably wind up in Cuba, where Keith now has a permanent seat at the table, a favorite mug, and a toolbox in Pop-Pop’s garage, where he is helping Luis modify a kid-sized hovercar as a Christmas present for Sylvio and Nadia.

One night, four months into his and Lance’s Incredible Journey - Lance still hasn’t stopped coming up with new names for it - Keith stands up to stretch during a natural lull in the conversation he’s been having with Lance, Veronica, and Marco, then notices he’s out of agua fresca. He winds his way through the living room to the kitchen, steps over Nadia’s toy spaceship in the hallway, and opens the fridge to refill his cup. “Keith! Grab me a beer while you’re in there!” yells Luis. Keith gives him the finger, but he reaches for a beer anyway.

Then he freezes, half in and half out of the refrigerator.

He hadn’t even thought about it. He hadn’t asked. He just - just walked into the kitchen, like he owned it, and -

Keith delivers the beer to Luis without seeing or hearing him, then heads straight for the door. If anyone tries to talk to him, he doesn’t hear it. He leans against the porch railing, still clutching his glass, and tries to breathe without gasping.

After an indeterminable amount of time, the door opens again. He doesn’t move.

Someone settles against the railing next to him. Keith makes himself look up.

He had expected Lance. Instead, it’s Lisa.

He can’t quite contain his surprise. Lance’s sister-in-law is nice, and nearly always there when Keith is, but he hasn’t spent much time with her, and certainly not one-on-one. He knows her children far better than he does her, given how much Sylvio and Nadia love their Uncle Lance. Of all the people to come out and check on him, he would not have put her anywhere near the top of the list.

She meets his eyes and smiles wryly, like she knows what he’s thinking. Then her smile softens. “It’s a lot, isn’t it,” she says.

Keith can think of any number of things that are “a lot,” but that doesn’t tell him what Lisa is talking about. “What is,” he doesn’t quite ask.

Lisa looks down the beach, out to the water. “I don’t really have much family,” she says. “Just my mom, and she wasn’t really interested in having children. I’m not even sure where she is now.” She sounds matter-of-fact, not sad. “Marrying Luis was a shock. He has more family than any other three people I know put together. I didn’t think it was possible to even know that many people, let alone care about them. I’d never had to care about that many people in my life.”

Keith says nothing. She looks back at him, then shrugs. “Anyway. I don’t mean to ramble. I just thought you should know that you’re not alone in feeling like this. It’s a lot, realizing that they’re yours.”

Keith’s chest goes so tight he can hardly breathe. His fingers clench around the porch railing. He feels too hot, rising up from his gut, through his wordless throat to burn behind his eyes. “How do you know?” he manages.

“It was the look you had when you left. I just recognized it, that’s all.”

“No,” Keith grates. “The other thing.”

“The other - oh!” She stares at him in utter surprise. “Of course they’re yours. They love you.”

Her words have the same effect as a blow to the head. The burning in Keith’s eyes gets worse. He stares out at the ocean, blinking rapidly.

Lisa lays a cautious hand on his shoulder. “In case you’re wondering - that’s obvious, too. They’re very good at loving. Look how much practice they have.”

Keith can’t quite manage a laugh yet, but the breathless sound that escapes him is close enough. Lisa smiles at him. “Should I send Lance out?”

“No. Not now,” Keith says. “I won’t be much longer.” She nods, then returns to the house.

Keith isn’t sure how long he stands there, re-learning how to live comfortably in his body, how to breathe around the unprecedented emotions in his chest. It’s long enough, though, that by the time Lance comes out to announce that game night is starting, he lets Lance drag him back inside.

***

Five months into Keith’s suspension, Allura sends them all a request for a group holocall.

The Paladins take it on Atlas, commandeering a conference room without a qualm. At some point, the Garrison will probably start caring about things like the chain of command and how the Paladins aren’t in it,but for now they take advantage of whatever access to interplanetary communication they can get.

It’s good to see her - good, but strange. She tells them all about the slow recovery of Altea, about the restoration of the government, about how the first parliamentary elections will be held in a phoebe. They have all heard the news cycle’s endless fixation on how Allura decided to dissolve the traditional monarchy, of course, but it’s far better to hear it from Allura herself, to hear the details the reporters don’t know.

She’s happy. It’s obvious in every story she tells, in the clear pride she has in her people, in the excited way she talks about the future. She’s happy and content, half a universe away.

Finally, she says, “And there’s one more thing you should know. I wanted to tell you myself, before some gossip rag got hold of it. I’m seeing someone.”

There’s a split second of silence, and then everyone congratulates her at once, even Lance, who does a masterful job of ignoring the way everyone stares at him as he grins at the holoscreen and teases her about her new hairstyle, which is apparently in vogue on New Altea but looks faintly ridiculous by Earth standards. Only Keith says nothing, but he gets away with it because no one expects him to have much of an opinion on the matter.

That’s where they’re wrong. Keith does have an opinion, and he’s furious.

He realizes he had been waiting for one of them to change their mind. Lance would decide to travel to New Altea after all, or Allura would realize what she had given up and return to Earth, and both of them would live happily ever after. Now Allura has thrown a giant wrench in those plans.

It isn’t logical, but Keith finds himself thinking, how dare she. How dare she move on when we’re all still here. When Lance is still here. When he would take her back if she asked him to.

He leaves the conference room as soon as Allura hangs up, stalking back to his Lion too fast for anyone to ask him anything. He mentally calls for Red to be ready to fly. Just before he climbs into her waiting mouth, a familiar voice calls his name.

Keith supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that Shiro followed him. “Keith? Everything okay?”

“Fine,” he growls. Shiro frowns.

“Did something happen?”

Keith stares at him in disbelief. “What do you mean? You were there!”

“What - you mean Allura?” Keith had thought he couldn’t feel worse, but somehow that blank confusion from Shiro makes him feel both ten years old and boiling with anger at the same time. “What did Allura say that’s made you so angry?”

Keith can’t believe Shiro. “Didn’t you hear her? What she said about that - that guy?”

“What guy -” Shiro falls silent. Keith can feel his eyes on him. He grinds his teeth to keep from speaking.

“Keith.” Shiro’s voice is cautious now. Keith hates it. “Why are you so upset that Allura is dating someone?”

“Why am I upset? Why aren’t you? Why isn’t everyone?” Keith spins to look Shiro in the face, who, infuriatingly, looks even more confused now. “I mean, Lance was right there!”

Comprehension starts to dawn. “You’re worried Lance will be upset?”

“They broke up five months ago! That’s hardly anything! And then to just - just parade it around like that, that she’s moved on, that she doesn’t want him anymore - it isn’t fair!” Keith is breathing hard now, glaring at Shiro as if Allura’s callousness is his fault.

“What isn’t fair, Keith?” Shiro’s voice is calm, too calm, but Keith can’t make himself stop.

“He loves her! And it isn’t fair that she can just - move on, like he doesn’t matter, when she could have him back if she wanted, if she just asked! And she knows that, she has to know, they were together and she left him, and how could she do that, Shiro? How could anyone leave Lance if they had him?”

Keith finally stops talking, his heart pounding out of control, his breath harsh in the quiet hangar. Then the full weight of what he’s said presses down on him.

“Oh, Keith.”

He turns away from the awful kindness in Shiro’s voice, that terrible weight of comprehension, as if he can reject the realization itself. But it’s far, far too late to stop himself now.

Lance’s smile, too rare now, flashing in the light of a dozen different suns. His laughter, driving Keith to distraction whether it’s at him or, increasingly, with him. Lance’s eyes, blue like his Lion, like the ocean, like the deepening twilight after a desert sunset.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Shiro, fuck.”

That’s all the permission Shiro needs. His oldest friend’s arms wrap around him, and he turns his face into his chest and closes his eyes.

***

Keith spends the next few days alternating between practicing with his Mamora blade until every muscle burns and lying on the couch in his tiny rented apartment in a miserable, aching heap. The training is pointless, because the war is over and he may never need to fight with his blade again, but it’s also better than thinking. Every time he stops moving, the last few months play before his eyes in damning technicolor. Traveling the world with Lance, trying new foods, getting to know his family, staring into his stupidly blue eyes at stupid sunset - quiznak, he is such an idiot.

He wonders all of a sudden how many of Lance’s relatives know, how many have seen his giant and pathetic crush as he watches literally every move Lance makes, and he has to jump up and move into the most challenging kata he knows to keep the burning humiliation from melting his bones into charred rubble.

After a week has passed, Shiro shows up at his door.

“I covered for you to Lance,” is the first thing he says as the door opens. Then his gaze travels over Keith from top to bottom. His nose wrinkles. “When was the last time you showered?”

Keith can’t answer that question because he genuinely doesn’t know. He’s not entirely sure what day it is.

When the silence goes on too long, Shiro sighs. Then he moves, and starts towing Keith towards the back of his apartment.

Keith tries to fight him, but Shiro is using his Galra arm to restrain him, and he had plenty of time before Keith reacted to get him pinned. Shiro drops him unceremoniously in the small bathroom and shuts the door on him. “Shower and get dressed,” he orders. “In clean clothes. When you get out, I’ll have some food ready.”

Keith thinks about telling Shiro that he also can’t remember the last time he went grocery shopping, and decides against it. He’ll find out soon enough.

He takes his time in the shower. Normally, his showers are fast and efficient - habit, after long lines at the Garrison, living in a desert shack, and sharing a locker room with Lance, who sings loudly and off key when they return from missions. Keith blanches at the memory. Now even that perfectly innocent memory seems unbearably charged.

Eventually, he can’t justify staying under the water any longer. He resigns himself to facing Shiro. He dawdles over choosing his clothing, as if one black shirt is really distinguishable from another, but finally runs out of things to stall with and walks outside.

Shiro is sitting at the table with a tablet, a bag of takeout in front of him. It must have just arrived, because he can see steam still rising from the bag.

“So your plan is to avoid Lance forever? I already know you ghosted him this weekend. He was talking about it yesterday. I had to convince him both that you were sick and that you didn’t need visitors, and the second was much harder, let me tell you.”

“I just didn’t know, okay?” Keith snaps. “I’m dealing with it, but I didn’t know and I feel like an idiot!”

“I wouldn’t say idiot,” Shiro says diplomatically.

Keith gives Shiro a flat look. “I’ve been taking him to famous places around the earth and having dinner with his family for months now and I didn’t notice I wanted to date him.”

“Okay, so maybe you are an idiot. But he’s still your friend, Keith.” Shiro’s voice is soft.

“I know.” Keith takes a deep breath. Then he lets it out. He imagines his feelings for Lance sailing out with it, blowing ever farther away from him. It doesn’t help, but it’s the thought that counts.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll call him tomorrow.”

Much to Keith’s own private surprise, he does, in fact, call Lance tomorrow.

Part of it, he’ll admit, is the horrible thought of having to admit to Shiro that he chickened out. He wishes that more of it was because it was the right thing to do. But mostly - the real reason is that he misses Lance.

Lance’s face lights up when he sees Keith calling, and he readily agrees to make up their trip the next weekend. He doesn’t look even remotely suspicious that Keith isn’t sick. Keith feels like the worst person in the world.

By the time the next weekend rolls around, Keith is a little more confident. All that has happened is that he now knows a fact about himself that he hadn’t previously known. He had felt this way about Lance last week, and that hadn’t kept him from having fun. He can handle spending time with him without having some kind of meltdown.

Then Lance steps out of Blue, the wind ruffling his hair and a brilliant smile lighting up his face, and Keith’s heart tumbles to his shoes and launches back up again to lodge in his throat. He was wrong. He can’t handle this.

He’s hyper-aware of Lance the entire day, of his own reactions to him. His eyes seem to follow Lance of their own accord. He had not realized how much of their time together he has spent watching Lance’s reactions to things rather than considering his own, until now when he tries to stop doing it, and finds that he can’t.

He’s so off balance that he nearly begs off the usual visit to Cuba. He’s halfway through a half-assed excuse when Lance’s comm rings. It’s his grandmother, and she demands to be handed over to Keith, at which point she tells him in careful, practiced English that it is his turn to pick what they play for game night.

And, well, that’s a heady power for anyone. Who knows when this chance will come around again? The coveted position of game picker, says Lance, has been hoarded and traded and bargained for since time immemorial.

So Keith goes, and finds himself in a pitched battle with Marco for Australia as Veronica kicks Lance out of North America, and halfway through the loudest game of Risk he has ever experienced, he looks up at Lance’s near-apoplectic face and feels warmth settle all the way into his toes, into his fingertips. He gets to have this. No matter what else he feels, he has this.

***

A few weeks go by. Keith has almost become accustomed to the way his stomach swoops when he first sees Lance, the way he feels lit up from the inside every time he makes Lance laugh. It isn’t so different, he tells himself, and it’s almost true. He has no idea when he started feeling this way, after all. Sometimes it feels brand new, and sometimes he thinks he has loved Lance forever, for years, since before they even met. Either seems equally likely.

Keith glances at Lance from the corner of his eye. They are sitting on the beach with their Lions, just out of sight of Lance’s family home. Today had brought them to the Mendenhall Glacier, and while it was one of the most eerily beautiful places Keith has ever been, he’s glad to be back in Cuba, soaking up the last of the day’s heat. The surf crashes in, almost reaching their bare feet, then rushes back out.

The setting sun burnishes Lance’s hair and skin, making them glow. His eyes look even bluer in the reflected light off the water. He fits here, like there is nowhere else in the universe where he could be more at peace.

Perhaps Lance senses his gaze, or maybe he’s just tired of sitting in silence. He turns abruptly, and Keith freezes, feeling caught out. Lance catches his eye and smiles, soft and happy, and Keith can’t stand it, he’s going to to fly to pieces.

“Do you miss her?” his mouth says, without consulting his brain.

It’s Lance’s turn to freeze. His face changes so fast Keith can’t put a name to any of his emotions. For a moment Keith thinks he’s going to refuse to answer, change the subject like he has before. Instead, he sets his jaw. “Sometimes,” he says.

“Why did she leave?” Lance’s face hardens, and Keith says quickly, “I know you don’t want to talk about it. I just don’t understand why you broke up, that’s all.”

“It wasn’t like that,” says Lance after a brief pause. “It wasn’t just her leaving.”

“Then why?” Keith should stop. He knows he should, but he’s always been reckless, always pushed when he should wait.

“We talked about it. A lot. And we decided that we wanted different things. Too different.” He laughs without any humor. “It was a bad month.”

“A month?” The exclamation flies out before he can stop it. “I didn’t know -”

“You were busy,” Lance says. He was gone, Keith hears. Off-planet and nowhere near close enough to see Lance falling apart.

“I still can’t believe she just left,” Keith murmurs, mostly to himself.

Lance turns to face him then, anger high in his cheeks. “Stop saying that. I told you, it wasn’t like that. Stop acting like it was all her fault.”

“Well, then whose fault was it?” Keith demands.

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault! I couldn’t leave my family again, and she couldn’t stay here. What was I supposed to do? Ask her to leave being a princess, leave space, abandon the Altean colonists and stay here on an intergalactic backwater where half the politicians still want to put her in a zoo? What does she have here that can compare to what she’d lose?”

Lance is shouting now, on his feet, and so is Keith, even though he can’t recall when they started. “She had you!”

Lance recoils. Keith should care, but he’s too angry. “Well, clearly I wasn’t enough,” he says, and his voice is so tired. Keith aches at the sound of it. Then his gaze hardens. “And I shouldn’t have been. Don’t put this all on her. I didn’t exactly line up to leave for Altea either. One person isn’t enough to give up your entire life.”

“It should have been,” Keith insists, furious beyond all reason that Lance doesn’t get it. “It should have been, if she loved you. She should have stayed.”

Lance runs a hand over his face, and Keith can’t read his expression at all. He hates it. “Keith, I understand that you’re trying to be on my side right now. But telling me that Allura never loved me is really, really not doing that.”

Keith gapes at him.

“That’s not what I - shit,” he says.

Lance waits for a moment, but Keith has nothing more eloquent to say. He’s still reeling from how badly he has gotten this wrong. “Okay then. Good night.”

“Wait,” Keith blurts out. “I didn’t mean-”

“I know you didn’t mean it like that,” Lance says, and his smile is as tired as his voice. “It’s cool. See you next week.” He’s gone before Keith can pull himself together. Keith stands in the dark for a long time, thinking.

“Fuck,” he whispers, long after Lance is gone.

Next weekend, Lance seems determined to pretend nothing has happened. Keith tries to apologize once or twice, but each time Lance bulldozes over his words without acknowledging them whatsoever. Finally, Keith stops trying.

Gradually, they settle into each other again. By the trip after that, Lance is back to normal.

***

For once, Keith follows Lance back to the Garrison rather than Cuba. Lance is teaching an alien survival class in the morning, and it’s early enough that sleeping in the barracks is the best option. He doesn’t really need to follow Lance at all, except they’re holding an argument over the Lions’ frequencies, and while Keith knows they could still keep having it even from across the planet, it somehow feels like retreating to leave Blue behind. Then Lance gets out of his Lion, and it only makes sense to follow Lance back to his guest room for the night, leaping out of Red and running to catch up.

By the time they finish, Keith ultimately conceding with ill grace, three different people have stuck their heads out of their dormitories to glare, only to pop back in when they realize the people making such a fuss in the middle of the night are Paladins of Voltron. The last one is James Griffin, who doesn’t retreat in embarrassment, only gives them a look of such resigned exasperation that even Keith feels a little ashamed. Lance waves him off with an apology. Keith raises and lowers a shoulder, hoping that will suffice, and makes sure Griffin’s door closes before turning back to Lance.

Lance is leaning against his doorway and smiling at Keith. They’re nearly of a height now, following growth spurts on each side. He can look directly into Lance’s eyes without moving his head at all.

“He’s going to get his revenge on me tomorrow in training,” Lance says, at a much lower volume than their argument. “The things I suffer for you, Kogane.”

“It isn’t my fault you’re so wrong about blasters,” Keith retorts, in a similar tone. Now that his attention has been drawn to it, he realizes just how late it is, how quiet the Garrison’s hallways are. If he and Lance hadn’t woken anyone, they would be entirely alone here, with almost no chance of anyone walking the corridors here in the officers’ wing, which had private bathrooms.

“Ah, ah,” Lance warns. “Don’t start that again; you already lost.” Keith glares at him but does not respond. Silence fills the hallway, pressing down upon them like a physical weight. They’re standing close enough that Keith can feel the heat of Lance’s body against his skin. His heart rate speeds up, fingers trembling. For a moment, he swears Lance starts to lean in.

“Well, time to turn in,” Lance says, too loudly, and Keith nearly gets whiplash from how fast the mood changes. “Long day tomorrow, and you know Commander Iverson would be disappointed if I didn’t get my beauty sleep.”

“Right,” Keith says, feeling dreadfully off-kilter. “Of course.”

“Night, Keith.” Lance shoots him finger guns and slides the door shut.

Keith finds himself alone in the hallway, heart beating too fast, staring at a closed door. “Good night,” he says, too late.

***

Six months after Keith returns to Earth, he receives a message from Kolivan. There’s a mission the Blade is short-handed on, delivering relief supplies to a former enslaved Galra colony. If he’s gotten his head back on shoulders enough to not work until he literally collapses, Kolivan says, then he could use Keith’s help.

Keith watches the message all the way through three times. Then, firmly pushing aside the tangled knot that has become his insides, he calls Lance.

“...so I’ll be gone about two weeks,” he concludes, after he finishes his explanation.

Lance looks at him, pulling a long face over the comm connection. “You’ll miss our next road trip destination. I had a really good one planned, too.”

“I’m not heading out until tomorrow,” Keith points out. He feels a surge of recklessness. “Come with me until then.”

It isn’t the weekend. They don’t have anything planned. Still, Lance takes only a moment to agree. “Where?” he asks.

Keith doesn’t even have to think. “Remember where we found Blue?”

“Still hard to believe you lived out here,” Lance says, looking around, once he has found Keith. Keith and Red are sitting outside of what was once Keith’s one-room shack out in the desert. At one point, this scrutiny would have made Keith feel defensive. Now, he just smirks.

“What, not enough creature comforts for you?”

“Exactly! This is modern times, Keith. Indoor plumbing was invented for a reason.”

“Well, I found the Lions out here,” Keith says. “So it was worth it.”

“I don’t disagree,” Lance retorts, hands up in a conciliatory fashion. “I just question the implied assumption that you couldn’t have found them with running hot water and electric heat.”

“It wasn’t all bad,” said Keith. “The view was fantastic.”

Lance snorts. “Um, excuse me? We are in the middle of the desert, Keith. There is no view.”

Keith stands up immediately. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“You’re coming with me.” He turns and heads around to the back of the house.

Along the back wall, there is a shed with a biometric lock. Keith places his palm against it and throws open the door. “Oh, no. No way,” says Lance, following him in.

In the middle of the shed is an ancient motorcycle, the kind that used to run on gasoline. They had been entirely replaced by hoverbikes and small light aircraft at least fifty years ago. Keith had found this one in a scrap heap, fixed it up, and modified it to run on renewable fuel.

“I’m not getting on that,” Lance announces. “It doesn’t even have force field air bags. It barely has shock absorbers. And doesn’t it run on gasoline? Where do you even find gasoline? How do you keep it from blowing up on you?”

“Gasoline vehicles never blew up without provocation, that was just in movies,” Keith says. “And I modified it to run on solar power.” He grabs a helmet, then throws another one at Lance. He holds out a hand. “Come on,” he says. “Trust me.”

Lance groans, but he’s already moving before he says, “You know I do.”

They ride.

Keith won’t be able to say later how long the trip lasts. All he knows is that the wind is in his face, the full moon ahead of him, Lance warm against his back, his laughter ringing in Keith’s ears. He drives too recklessly and too fast, and his heart thrills not from the danger but from how Lance clutches at him, screeching wordlessly as he takes a hairpin turn through a canyon.They ride past incredible rock formations, low desert scrub, and along the edge of a giant gorge, ghostly and glowing in the light of the moon.

Some length of time later - Keith can’t even tell if it should be counted in minutes or hours - Keith finally pulls to a stop in front of their Lions again. His fingers have gone numb with the vibrations of the bike, and his whole body feel shaky, shot through with adrenaline.

Lance climbs off the bike and immediately has to grab on for support as his legs refuse to support him. “That was crazy,” he says. His voice is hoarse from screaming. “Quiznak. Keith, your piloting…” He shakes his head, awe coloring his voice. “I don’t know how we’re not dead. I think anyone but you would be.”

A year ago, that might have been something bitter, or jealous. Now Lance just sounds a little awed, and a lot fond. Keith aches to hear it.

“I don’t know how I’m ever going to sleep after that,” Lance says. He shakes out his arms. Keith realizes he’s still sitting on the bike and dismounts, leaning against it to hide how his own legs are shaking, a fine tremor running through his quads and down into his calves. Lance starts to walk past Keith, towards his Lion. Keith reaches out and takes his hand.

Lance stops dead. He looks at their joined hands, then at Keith’s face. Keith can’t look back at him. The tremor is moving upward now, from his legs up through his arms and into his fingers. He tugs, just strong enough that it can’t be read as an accident, and Lance moves with his tug into the cradle of Keith’s hips.

Keith is barely breathing now. Every cell is on fire, lit up by Lance’s presence. He entangles their fingers with one hand, and reaches up with the other to brush the hair back from Lance’s forehead.

He finally dares to look up. Lance’s eyes are wide and dark, staring that bare half inch up at him. Keith wants him so much it feels like he’s burning alive. He trails his fingers down his cheek, and leans in.

Lance pulls away. “Keith, I can’t.”

It takes a moment, but Keith finally processes the words. “What?” Everywhere Lance had been touching him prickles with cold, yearning for his heat. He feels lightheaded, dizzy, and very confused.

“I can’t.” Lance sounds frustrated now, even angry, which wakes Keith up a little. He stares up at Lance, taking in his enlarged pupils, his bitten lips set in an incongruous frown.

“Why not?” Keith demands. “I know you want to. And I want to,” he adds, which cuts Lance off at the knees. He’s reckless, he’s always known this; everyone who ever had a hand in raising him spoke of it like it was a bad thing. But he can’t imagine any other way of being than seeing what he wants and going for it, full speed ahead, to jump without counting the cost. Lance wants him. It’s written all over his body. He wants Lance. This doesn’t have to be complicated.

“Because you’re leaving!”

Lance looks at him like the admission has broken something in him, torn out something tender and delicate by the roots. Keith doesn’t understand. “Yeah? But not for long, the mission is only for -”

“Come on, Keith, you know I’m not talking about the mission.” Keith does not, in fact, know that. Lance seems to realize that, too, and he buries his face in his hands. Keith steps forward, hand outstretched, no real goal in mind except to do something about the pain that radiates from Lance’s entire body - but stops when Lance flinches away. It hurts, but at least it gets Lance to look at him again. “You know you aren’t staying on Earth. You hated living here even when you thought it as your only option. Now you know it isn’t. Your mom is out there, and there are thousands of places where you could go. Maybe this mission is only two weeks. But someday, it will be longer, and some day after that, you’ll find a place out there that’s wonderful enough you won’t need to come back anymore. Or maybe you’ll travel with Red forever, finding a new place every year, every month if you wanted. You could replay this roadtrip of Earth’s greatest hits we’ve been doing across the entire universe. Why would you stay here?”

“You’re here,” Keith says, but Lance is already shaking his head.

“That’s not enough. I’m not enough. And this isn’t about my ego, don’t start with me,” he warns. Keith closes his mouth. “One person can’t ever be enough to replace an entire life. If you don’t want to be on Earth, being with me won’t make it any better. You’ll hate me for it, in the end.”

“You think I could hate you?” Keith asks, honestly wounded. After Voltron, after the war, after the past six months of careful, deepening friendship, Lance believes he would just throw it all away?

“If I keep you from everything else you need to be happy? Yeah, I do.” Keith wants to argue, but Lance has his sniper’s face on, that laser focus that says he won’t stop until he has hit his target. “Just like I would resent you, if you asked me to leave my home and family forever just for you. Or if you asked me to stay here, over and over, never knowing if this was going to be the last time you came back, as the missions got longer and the calls got shorter until one day you just didn’t come back at all.”

The blow hits so hard that for a moment Keith can’t feel it, like a cut with a very sharp blade. He takes the hit, but won’t know what it means until this is over, until he can catch his breath and look down to find out whether he needs a few stitches or for someone else to haul him to a healing pod before he bleeds out. But Lance still hasn’t stopped talking.

“And I can’t do it. I won’t deny - I mean, you’re right. Of course you’re right. Quiznak.” Lance runs his hands through his hair and then shoves them in his pockets. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since Bangkok, at least.”

All blows aside, Keith’s heart soars. He knew it, he did, but it’s one thing to know and another to hear it spoken out loud. Surely, if Lance feels the same as he does...he steps in closer. “Then -”

“I want to, but I won’t. You aren’t staying, and I can’t leave. If I could, I would have done it already.”

Allura rises again like a ghost between them, and for a blazing moment Keith hates her, hates that they can’t move past this, that she wounded Lance so deeply that she haunts him even now. An instant later he’s ashamed, a sick feeling joining all the others pulsing in his throat, but he can’t deal with that right now.

“So what, then?” Keith crosses his arms, glaring up at Lance as if he could change his mind by sheer force of will. “That’s it? You tell me you want to kiss me, and you already know I want to kiss you, and instead we both do nothing until we die?”

Lance’s breathing stutters for a moment when Keith says “I want to kiss you,” and for a moment Keith allows himself to hope. But then Lance smiles at him, and Keith’s heart plummets at the way it looks almost convincing. “We’re friends, Keith. That will never change, no matter where you go or for how long. You can always come back here. But I can’t do this with you if you aren’t going to stay, and I can’t ask you to do that, not just for me. I won’t.”

“All right then. Got it,” says Keith, after the pause has gone on long enough to tell him Lance has actually finished this time. “Good talk.”

He turns and walks away. He refuses to acknowledge how much he wants Lance to stop him until he’s in his Lion and her radar lets him know that Lance isn’t following.

***

The next day, Keith leaves. There’s a message on his comm telling him that Lance had put his bike away. He doesn’t answer.

The Blade keeps him too busy to think, as always. It’s a relief. Even now that peace has been declared and the last planets in revolt have surrendered, there is plenty to do for the now-public Galran freedom fighters. New laws and governments need to be drafted, ratified, and grafted onto the new Galran Republic - or not, as the case may be. Many of the newly liberated planets are choosing to remain independent, which, while understandable, creates its own snarls of problems. The Galran Empire was vast - so much so that it could afford to be wasteful, so much that it did not need to concern itself with sustainable planets. Several planets’ entire economies had revolved around the production of single resources in support of the war. Now that the war is over, those economies are in total collapse. Others had imported nearly 100% of their food from other places in the Empire, and that trade has also broken down without a unified system to sustain it. Keith flies on several emergency supply relief missions, where he hands out food and medicine and puts down local toughs who think to take advantage of the chaos to extort, terrorize, and enslave on a small scale. It’s hard work, necessary work, and he falls into bed too exhausted to worry about anything else.

After the initial two weeks, Kolivan asks him when he plans to go back to Earth, and his brittle shell of avoidance crumbles into dust.

“Perhaps a rest, before you decide?” Kolivan suggests, when Keith takes far too long to answer. He smiles wryly at Keith’s look of shock. “It’s required, now. A certain number of vacation days per mission served. Your Blue Paladin suggested it.”

Keith’s emotions do something too complicated for him to even begin to parse out. “He did?”

“He did.” Kolivan’s eyes are far too keen, and Keith folds his arms and turns away before he realizes how much of a tell that is. “He said the Blade deserved time to enjoy the freedom for which they had been fighting, and that we needed time to come to grips with a world in which war was no longer inevitable. He was right. Even if it has taken all of us quite some time to appreciate it.”

Keith can’t think of anything to say, but he’s saved from having to try. “Have you seen Daibazaal?” Kolivan asks.

“What? The Galran homeworld?” Keith is startled by the question. He has never seen Daibazaal, it’s true, but he has never expected to. The Galrans’ home planet had ceased to exist millenia ago, and even now that it has been restored, it is so far within the heart of the former Empire that Keith has had no reason to go there. The final battles with Voltron had taken place almost entirely on the periphery of the Empire, as it stretched its tendrils out towards Earth. Most of the relief work is needed at the outskirts as well. After so much time, the planets near the heart of the Empire have been either thoroughly assimilated or destroyed. Either way, they don’t need Voltron.

“The very same. You are due ten days’ leave. Consider spending it there. It, too, is your homeworld.”

Kolivan says it matter-of-factly, but the idea makes Keith’s stomach lurch. He has come to terms with his Galran ancestry, but the thought that he has an entire world, an entire history somewhere out there that he is entirely ignorant of - it’s hard to swallow.

But it isn’t as if he has anywhere else to go.

“Sure,” he says. “Sounds good.”

***

To Keith’s surprise, Krolia is there to greet him when he lands at the Galran capital’s main shuttleport. “Kolivan told me you were coming,” she says in greeting.

Keith nods at her, tilting his head a little in the Galran friendly greeting. A slight baring of the neck, but not enough to indicate submission or fear. Her smile grows warmer. He had taken a lot of time to learn Galran body language, and Krolia had been his most dedicated - if not most patient - teacher. Keith can admit now that he had resisted learning out of resentment for quite some time. If she had stayed in his life as a child, he might not have needed to learn basic body mechanics from his mother as an adult.

Two years on the back of a space whale does tend to wear down that kind of resistance, though.

“You’ve been stationed here?” Keith falls into step with her, letting her lead the way into the crowded street.

“I live here,” she answered. Keith actually stops walking for a moment, then picks up his pace when it looks like he might lose her.

“I purchased a house six months ago,” she continues when it’s clear Keith isn’t going to explain. “It is not far. You are welcome to stay with me for the duration of your time here, if you would like.”

“Thank you,” Keith said automatically. “I had assumed I would be staying on a base.”

“The Blade bases are being repurposed, for the most part. And of course, there has never been a base here. We have been operating in the open since the restoration of Daibazaal.” Her tone implies these facts should be obvious, which Keith resents. He feels foolish, and annoyed with himself for being surprised. He should have realized there would be no need for secret bases, now that the Blade have gone public at last. Why should his mother not buy a house, if she wants to?

He has never thought of her settling down. He had pictured all the Blades being Blades forever, never setting down roots, never leaving the service. Blades died in the service of defeating the Empire and they were glad to do it. The thought of their bases lying empty, useless, makes Keith uncomfortable in a way he does not want to explore any further.

His mother’s house is small. It is also not a house, not as Keith is accustomed to thinking about them, but instead a small set of rooms in a shared living space that stretches so high into the sky that Keith can’t see the top of it. The building glows purple even in the afternoon light, and it reminds him of a honeycomb in its shape, with all the glowing lights he sees in the windows.

“Each floor forms its own miniature community,” Krolia explains. “There is common recreation space at the center, and places where meals can be shared. Everyone also has their own private sleeping and entertaining spaces.”

Keith stares around him, trying to take it all in. His mother lives in an alien co-op, he thinks with a tinge of hysteria.

Krolia greets several residents as she passes. Some, she stops, and introduces him as “my son, Keith.” He’s almost used to hearing it - or at least, used to bracing himself for hearing it - by the time they reach her front door.

He’s surprised that not all residents are Galra. He encounters at least six species he recognizes, and ten more that he doesn’t. Krolia greets all of them with the same respectful head tilt.

When he mentions it to Krolia, she looks sad. “Daibazaal used to be a place where all gathered. Now - many of these people were enslaved, elsewhere in the Empire,” she explains. “Most had nowhere to go once the war ended. The Blade has been working to return those who wish to their homeworlds, or to other planets they prefer, but…”

Keith understands all too well. Many will not have homeworlds left to return to. Many more may never have known them, having grown up in generations and generations of slavery to the Galra.

“It is not always easy to live here,” Krolia says. “But I could not go anywhere else. Many other Blades feel as I do. A large number of them have also settled on planet somewhere, although not all in the capital.”

For the next several days, Keith goes on what he assumes is the tourist circuit on Daibazaal. It’s a strange experience. The Galran Empire existed for thousands of years, but their homeworld was destroyed so long ago that most of its wealth had been located elsewhere. Now that Honevera’s sacrifice has brought the planet back, the newly-formed government has been scrambling to build housing, food distribution points, and hospitals. The sounds of construction echo through the streets, long into the night.

And yet - not everything is strictly practical. Krolia brings Keith to a public garden, laid out in an elaborate spiral that mimics the Blade’s own symbol. Even in the newest buildings, he sees a flourish of a roofline here, a multi-paned window there, that suggest an attention to beauty that surprises him. It is these, more than anything else, that tell him the war is over.

He sees quite a bit of the natural landscape, too - incredible vistas, beaches, and rock formations in colors and shapes that would be impossible on Earth, all newly restored and perfectly pristine. Krolia, staring out over one particularly stunning rocky expanse, comments that she hopes the Galra can learn to preserve this beauty as they rebuild. Keith finds he can’t say anything. Even now, imagining Galrans as environmentalists is beyond his capabilities.

He gets used to wishing Lance were there to see it with him. He gets used to not admitting it.

Krolia joins him whenever she’s not working. Seeing the planet through her eyes makes it a little better. She is so proud of the work they’ve accomplished, of the various centers for art and music that are starting up again, of the fledgling government and its representatives from across the Empire. She loves this planet, Keith realizes. She loves it, even the broken parts, even the places where it will never be as good as she dreamed it would be, not in her lifetime. Keith wakes up at night with dreams of a beach, a solid ache in his chest where his heart should be.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Krolia says, on an evening one week into Keith’s stay. She all but glows, staring down from her high window at the busy streets in which Galra walk side by side with other races, none of whom are cowering in fear.. “I never thought I would see Galra like this again. So many years of war, so much destruction...I feared sometimes that it was truly impossible. That the Blade had become just one more futile act against the inevitable. And now - Galra is free. And so is the universe.”

She and Keith stand side by side for a long moment. “It is foolish,” Krolia says abruptly. “But I wish your father were here to see it.”

For a moment, Keith is blindsided. Then he’s angry. “Dad’s not here because he died,” he snaps. “He died believing you were never coming back for him.”

“I wanted to return. But it was too great a risk. Earth might have been targeted, and I could not risk that.”

“Well, maybe if you had-”

“Yes?” Krolia interrupts him. She matches him, stare for stare. “Maybe if I had done what?”

“Then Dad could have seen this!” he says. But even as he says it, he knows he’s wrong. If she had returned, or even just not left in the first place - the Empire may well never have been defeated. This beautiful, populous city would not exist. Earth might not exist either, at least not the Earth he knows. Was one man’s happiness worth all of this?

Was one child’s?

His mother’s absence has been a hole in his heart his entire life. Not good enough to stay for, his mind had whispered when his father died. Not good enough to stay for, when Shiro left Earth and didn’t come back.

But looking at Daibazaal now - Keith is beginning to understand what she means when she says she couldn’t have stayed. She couldn’t have left the fight against Zarkon, the fight to free her people, not even for someone she loved. Not even knowing that leaving would hurt him. If she could have, she wouldn’t be herself.

A single person isn’t enough.

“I need to go home,” he says.

Krolia looks at him, and Keith realizes too late that he can hurt her, too. But she says only, “Go.”

The Earth is rebuilding, too - trying to recover from a vicious invasion, trying to come to terms with a universe that is so much bigger than it ever imagined. It needs people who have been there, who have seen what the universe has to offer and what it has to fear. Some day Earth may harbor as many sentient species as the Galran Empire. But for now, it just has one.

Or two, if Keith counts for anything.

He lands in Cuba, in the little cove that has sheltered him dozens of times. Blue is there, and she calls a greeting to him. The familiarity to it, the ease with which he guides Red down, sends a shiver through his bones. He doesn’t even have to think to arrive safely. Home. This is what it feels like to come home.

Lance was right: a single person isn’t enough. But a family might be. A family, and a purpose, and a planet that is only just now beginning to feel like his own.

When he knocks on the familiar door, Lance’s grandfather is the one to answer. He sizes Keith up for a long moment, completely and unusually silent. Keith’s lungs seize up. What if he isn’t welcome here after all?

Then Pop-Pop reaches out and claps Keith on the shoulder, pulling him in for a rough kiss on the cheek. “El es en la cocina,” he says, and gives Keith a gentle push toward the kitchen door. For a moment Keith’s eyes burn. He grabs Pop-Pop’s hand and squeezes it, wordless, then turns down the hall.

The first thing he sees is Lance’s grandmother. She is standing side-on to him, watching with a critical eye as Lance shapes dough beneath his fingers. Keith’s breath catches.

It’s been three weeks since he saw Lance in person. It feels like three years. He drinks in the sight of him, greedy for the lines of his body, the exact shade of his skin. He had tried so hard not to think of Lance while he had been gone, but Lance had always been there, hovering just below the surface, with him everywhere he went. He couldn’t have escaped him if he tried. He doesn’t want to try any longer.

Lance’s grandmother sees him first. Her teasing voice breaks off mid-stream. “Abuela, que -” Lance begins, but then he looks up and sees Keith.

Abuela says something and moves away, but Keith can’t think of anything but Lance. He has to force himself to move forward, out of the doorway, away from a potential escape.

“You’re back,” says Lance. He sounds a little stunned.

“I’m back,” Keith agrees. Then he takes one step, two, three, and Lance reaches out a hand and Keith takes it, pulls Lance in and kisses him.

It feels like flying.

When he pulls back at last, Lance’s eyes are wide open, shock and desire warring in his face. It takes all of Keith’s not-so-impressive willpower not to kiss him again. He needs to do this right this time. “Ask me to stay,” he says.

Lance gapes at him, but they’ve gone too far for misunderstanding, too far for Lance not to know exactly what Keith is asking of him. Lance searches Keith’s face, eyes wide and disbelieving and so, so brave, and Keith loves him, loves him, loves him.

“Please,” he says. Lance was right, but he was wrong, too. He can ask, and Keith can answer. “I want to stay. So please. Ask me.”

Lance swallows. Keith holds his breath, plummeting towards the earth with no instruments to warn him before he hits the ground.

“Stay with me?” Lance asks, and Keith is flying again.