Chapter Text
Part one: repercussions
If someone had told Keith two years ago that he’d be here today he would have thought they were fucking with him, well actually he probably would have just punched them because that’s who he was back then. Or maybe it’s who he still is… the truth is when he’s on his own the lines get blurry between who he was and who he is. Keith thinks that this might be because on the outside, he’s the same.
“Keith,” Shiro’s voice snapped Keith back into reality “are you paying attention?”
“Yes,” Keith said quickly trying to look focused.
Shiro sighed “This is important Keith, if you don’t pay attention to the plan then we’ll be unprepared when we get there, I swear you’re as bad as Lance.”
“Hey!” Lance protested with his usual drama, but Keith could hear the hollowness in his words that no one else did.
“I am not,” Keith muttered angrily because that’s what he was supposed to do.
“I was the one paying attention!” Lance said to Shiro hotly.
“Yeah, right.” Keith scoffed “You’re always off in your world!”
Lance turned to Keith crossing his arms defensively but as their eyes met Keith felt no anger, no vicious need to argue bubbling under his skin. Instead, he just remembered a night not so long ago when Keith had said the exact same thing to Lance.
“You’re always off in your own little world,” Keith had whispered, his breath on Lance’s skin as he pressed soft kisses down Lance’s throat.
“Hm?” Lance had hummed softly not opening his eyes as Keith’s kisses moved up his jaw.
“What do you think about?”
Lance opened his eyes lazily gazing down at Keith. “You,” he smiled gently.
Keith rolled his eyes “Sure you do,”
“I’m serious,” Lance poked Keith’s shoulder leaning in closer, “I think about you. Your eyes, the stupid things you say, your hair. Mostly your smile though, because it’s so rare and special that I just like to remember it.” Lance smiled reaching out to cup Keith’s face, softly tracing his lips. “I always used to think of home, now I do sometimes, but mostly I think of you.”
Keith let out a low chuckle “Is this the part where you tell me that I’m your home?”
“Do I need to?”
He paused cocking his head to the side “No, I guess not.”
Keith blinked back in the present where Lance was scowling at him “Well maybe my own world is just better than the one here that has your stupid face in it!” Lance said.
Keith mentally shook his head trying to clear his thoughts, it was always a bit of a shock going from the Lance Keith knew to the one everyone else did. Keith opened his mouth to reply but before he could Shiro cut in.
“Quit it,” He said sharply glaring at the two of them he then turned to Lance “Lance, why must you always antagonize Keith? This is an important mission and if you can’t work with the team then you can stay in the castle.”
“B-but,” Lance sputtered “Keith was the one who wasn’t even paying attention—”
“Lance!” Shio cut in “that’s it you’re staying.”
“What? No!”
“Yes, you can leave now Lance, we don’t need you here.”
Lance rolled his eyes sighing dramatically “Fine,” he huffed but Keith could hear the hurt in his voice.
“I wasn’t even paying attention,” Keith said quickly “I antagonized Lance just as much as he did me. I can stay too.”
“No, no, Keith.” Shiro said his tone softening slightly “No need to feel guilty because Lance is in trouble, it’s not your fault.”
“Okay…” Keith said trying to hide his frown because it kind of was Keith’s fault too “but I’ll stay.”
“No, you won’t.” Shiro said firmly “You’re too valuable to leave behind.”
Keith met Lance’s eyes across the control room as he headed towards the door, Lance gave a small, barely noticeable shake of his head. Keith knew what that meant, let it go. Keith’s first instinct was to fight for Lance, Lance knew that. He shot a pointed look at Keith.
Keith let him go disappearing into the dark halls of the castle.
“Okay,” He agreed simply as the doors slid shut behind Lance. He wanted so badly to turn to Shiro and demand he apologize to Lance, to make him see how talented, selfless, and amazing Lance really was, but he knew he couldn’t. He let Shiro turn to the rest of the team and go back to covering their mission without a word,
Keith never said a word.
Sometimes he wondered how the hell he’d ended up here.
--
Keith heard the familiar sound of his door opening and he quickly exited his bathroom half out of his armor.
“Hey,” Lance smiled tiredly taking in Keith’s disheveled appearance and state of undress. “Need help with that?” He gestured to Keith’s armor.
Of course he didn’t.
On any given day, they put their paladin suits and took them off multiple times by themselves. In the beginning, it was difficult but now it was as easy as flying, ingrained in their minds.
But still, Keith nodded. He always did.
Lance came closer and began to remove the armor piece by piece until he got down to the black skin-tight suit underneath. Keith let Lance turn him around and pull down the zipper on the back, he leaned in gently pressing a kiss to Keith’s now exposed shoulder.
“How’d the mission go?” Lance whispered his breath hot on Keith’s skin.
“Would have been better with you,” Keith murmured.
“Yeah, right,” Lance said quietly.
Keith turned around flight suit hanging down his torso “Right,” he said seriously “we were caught in there for a while, no way out. We were able to fight through the Galra eventually but if we’d had a sniper there watching our backs we would have been out much less of a risk.”
“But you were fine.” Lance pointed out “You didn’t need me.”
“We did need you,” Keith said fiercely grabbing his lover’s shoulder. “you should have been there.”
“Well,” Lance said with a humorless chuckle “Shiro and Allura are never going to let me shoot again, so I wouldn’t dwell on it.”
“They’ll come around eventually,” Keith said earnestly.
Lance paused examining Keith with an expression that for once, he couldn’t read. “Of course,” Lance said eventually, but Keith could tell that Lance was simply humoring him.
Things could never go back.
--
Easy chatter filled the training room as the team milled around waiting for instruction on today’s training.
“Okay,” Shiro said clapping his hands to get their attention. “Let’s start with some hand-to-hand sparring to warm up. Who wants to pair with who? Uh, Pidge you’re first.”
“Hunk and I can go together,” Pidge offered.
“I’m cool with that,” Hunk agreed.
“Okay great, Pidge and Hunk can spar together. Who else?” He turned to the next person in line “Uh, Lance. Who wants to go with Lance?”
There was a moment of terrible awkward silence as Allura quickly down to avoid meeting Lance’s eyes and Shiro shifted slightly, uncomfortable.
“I’ll spar with Lance,” Keith spoke up unable to let Lance be subjected to the silence a moment longer.
“Oh,” Shiro said slightly taken aback “You don’t have to do that Keith,”
The way Shiro spoke like Lance wasn’t in the room made Keith's blood boil but he stayed calm “I’ll spar with Lance.” He repeated firmly.
There was a tense pause before Shiro gave a small nod “Okay, I guess that leaves me and Allura as the last pair. Find your space everyone, no dirty moves.” He eyed Lance and Keith as he said it “this is just practice, not a competition.”
Keith turned to Lance and beckoned him to follow to the farthest corner of the room away from the rest of the team.
“You okay?” Keith whispered, leaning into Lance slightly in what Keith hoped looked simply like settling into a stance to everyone else.
“Yeah,” Lance whispered back “honestly I’m used to it by now Red, there’s no need to check in on me every time it happens.”
Keith bit back the urge to argue, the training room wasn’t the place to get into it.
“Okay, okay.” Keith sighed “Just be careful, Shiro’s watching your every move.”
“I’m aware,” Lance muttered.
“Good, then let’s spar.”
--
Fighting with Lance was something that had always been easy, from the moment Lance had first insulted his hair, it was addictive. The kind of high Keith got from pushing the other boy, from always wondering how hard Lance was going to push back. It was almost as perfect as flying.
Eventually, Keith realized that there were more addictive things about Lance then just fighting with him. In the same way they had hated each other so easily they just worked. It felt like dancing, like breathing, like flying, it was just as easy to fit with Lance in other ways too. Having seamless conversations for hours, about nothing at all, working together as a team, flying together. The times when Keith just couldn’t keep his hands to himself and would roughly push Lance up against the wall and kiss him just to feel it, how well they fit. It was easy.
Sparring with Lance was easy too.
Keith knew Lance better than any other person in the universe, he knew exactly how his body moved, but most of all he knew how his mind worked. And Lance knew Keith in the same way too.
This, Keith, had found made Lance the only person who could properly keep up when they sparred. Who couldn’t just match every hit but anticipate it.
People like Shiro and Allura had raw skill sure, but even they could never beat Keith, Lance could and Keith fucking loved that.
He always got caught up in sparring with Lance, really he probably should have thought of that when he volunteered to go with Lance. But he hadn’t.
Keith lunged forward to land his hit and Lance anticipated it, dodging he moved quickly before Keith even knew what had happened his legs were swept out from under him and he hit the floor.
Lance pinned him down and Keith let out a gasp of “I Yield,”
Immediately Lance backed off holding out his hand. Keith took it letting the blue paladin haul him up.
“That was good,” Keith remarked breathlessly “You could have hit me harder though,”
“Oh, forgive me for not wanting to break your back,” Lance rolled his eyes.
“As if you could,”
“Oh yeah? Let’s go again then.” Lance raised an eyebrow and there was a familiar sparkle in his eye that Keith had forgotten how much he loved, he never saw it anymore.
“You’re on Blue,” Keith grinned.
There was a sudden cough as Shiro cleared his throat and the pair spun, caught up in their game they hadn’t even noticed that the whole room had gone silent as soon as Keith had hit the ground.
“No, I think that’s enough sparring for now, we’ll move onto some simulations,” Shiro said.
“Oh, okay.” Keith nodded
“Lance,” Shiro turned to the blue paladin, “I think Coran needs some help reconfiguring the healing pods, why don’t you call it a day and go help him out.”
It was a testament to how used to this Lance was by now that he didn’t even argue this time, he just turned and exited the training room silently. Keith resisted the urge to follow him.
He always did.
“Are you okay Keith,” Shiro asked gently as soon as Lance was out of earshot.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Okay cause Lance got you pretty hard.”
“No, he didn’t,” Keith growled turning on Voltron’s leader “He barely even hit me, and he let up as soon as I yielded. I’m fine, you hit me harder than that when we spar Shiro!”
“I don’t get it,” Shiro said throwing his arms up in the air “why do you defend him, why did you let him beat you today?”
“I didn’t let him beat me,” Keith said fiercely “he did beat me. And I defend him because somebody has to, he’s part of our team!”
“No,” Shiro said sharply “He’s no part of my team. He stopped being a part of it that day on Ajibi.”
“Well, he’s a part of mine,” Keith said simply. And before Shiro could fight him on it anymore, Keith turned and left the training room without looking back.
Shiro had no idea how much those words really meant; Lance was Keith’s team. In fact, some days it felt like Lance the only team Keith did have, he imagined for Lance it was so much worse.