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It happens a year and a half after they’d gotten into Blue and flown away from Earth, smack into the middle of an intergalactic war.
Lance is telling Coran a story about one of his siblings at lunch, involving a frisbee, a dog, and a broken nose. Coran looks equal amounts horrified and intrigued. It happens right as he shovels a spoonful of food goo into his mouth, impatiently speaking with his mouth full even as Pidge wrinkles her nose in disgust next to him.
“And this is the best part,” he swallows, “my little cousin—” he stops abruptly, spoon poised in midair, halfway to his mouth. He can't remember the name of his cousin. His favorite cousin that he’d grown up with, spent endless summers with. His mind has gone blank, and he feels like he’s grasping at air, trying to pull a name out, one that sits on the tip of his tongue, but refuses to come forward.
He feels sick, his stomach churning unpleasantly. His hand goes limp, and the spoon in his hand clatters onto his plate loudly. Lance stares at his plate of food goo, unblinking. The contents of his stomach threaten to spill out into the open, and he feels his lungs squeeze painfully inside his chest, constricting his airways.
“—ance!” Someone says, laying a hand on his shoulder, and the world shifts back into focus. It's Hunk, and he’s peering into his eyes worriedly. “You okay man? You look like you’re about to be sick.” Right. He’s still in the middle of lunch.
“Yea—” his voice cracks, he clears his throat, but there’s still a lump stuck in his throat, and it’s pressing painfully against his windpipe. He inhales shakily, and the breath rattles around in his lungs. “Yeah. I’m fine, just felt sick for a second, I must've eaten too fast,” he lies, raising his hand to rub sheepishly at the back of his neck. "I’m okay though, it’s cool," he tries for a smile, but it strains his lips and it feels wobbly and crooked, and as he brings his hand down onto his lap, he realizes that it’s shaking with small tremors. In fact, his entire body is trembling.
He turns forward and sees Keith staring at him, sitting on the other side of Coran, with his usual frown on his face. But his eyes are roaming around Lance’s face, inspecting him. His eyebrows are pinched together, but in a way that makes him look worried more than it does annoyed. Lance looks away, feeling exposed under his gaze.
“You look pale. Are you coming down with something?” says Pidge, from his other side, invading his space to squint closely at him.
“No, I feel fine,” he waves her away with a shaky hand. “You worry too much Pidgey.” The way they’re all fretting over him reminds him too much of his mother, and he doesn’t think he could stay here for another second longer without being reduced to a puddle of tears. He needs to get out of here.
“Think I’m gonna head back to my room,” he says in a rush, pushing his chair back abruptly with a screech against the floor, and walks out of the dining room hurriedly, without looking back.
When he gets to his room and the doors slide shut behind him, Lance slumps against the side wall, letting out a shaky exhale and sliding down the wall. He feels his eyes prickle with tears, the lump in his throat coming back bigger than before, and struggles to swallow through the pain. He leans his elbows against his knees, and digs the heels of his palms against his eyes until stars explode behind his eyelids.
He can’t believe it, he’d forgotten the name of his cousin. He’d forgotten Alejandro’s name.
This is the second incident now. The other day he had forgotten what his Abuela looked like. The edges of his memories faded with time, hazy and indistinguishable, and it scared him so much that he was left frozen for five minutes.
He looks across the room to where his bed is, where a small pocket-sized picture of his family is plastered onto the wall. It was taken on Lance’s birthday, right before he’d left for the Garrison, and it’s one of the fondest memories he has, and he holds it close to his heart.
He looks at it every night before going to bed, and every morning when he wakes up, and still, he forgot his own grandmother’s face. He thinks about her now, the smile wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, the mole above her eyebrow, and her kind, kind smile. Thinks about her making turrones for his birthday every year, and her safe hugs, engulfing him in her arms.
He feels his heart crack at the edges, widening bit by bit with the unbearable weight of being away from home, from his family. Homesickness surges up in a wave inside him, threatening to drown him in loneliness.
He springs to his feet suddenly, scrambling for the small notebook on his desk and grabbing a pen from the drawer beneath it. He sits down on the edge of his chair and starts to write down on it frantically.
Andrea and Carlos, his grandparents. Laritza and Ricardo, his mamá and papá. Marco, Luis, Veronica, and Rachel, his siblings. Lisa, his sister-in-law. Nadia and Sylvio, his niece and nephew. Alejandro, Benedict, Maricela, and Evelyn, his cousins.
Lance writes and writes, until he fills two pages with the names of his family, and extended family, creating a family tree that spans across the pages. Writes until the blurred faces of his family come back to him slowly, until the weight pressing on his chest eases slightly, and makes it easier for him to breathe.
__________
Keith pads across the hallway quietly. The castle is silent except for the gentle hum of its engines. Everyone is asleep right now, except Keith himself, who had been trying his hardest to get some rest. No matter how tired his body is, sleep decides to evade him.
He debates on going to the training deck and training until he can’t stand on his own two feet, but he’s pretty tired out already and the thought doesn’t seem that appealing. He wanders around the castle aimlessly, letting his feet take him wherever they please. His only source of light is the clusters of stars that surround the ship.
As he rounds the corner into the hallway leading to the observation deck, Keith hears a sound. He turns around, hands clenched tightly at his side. He’d left his knife in his room, and he curses under his breath because now he’s left defenseless. He hears another soft ding and a whirr of metal against metal that sounds familiar. He peers into the hallway, and at the very end, the sign above the doors of the elevator is lit up, indicating that it’s in use.
Keith frowns, and debates on going to wake up Shiro or Allura in case of an intruder. He decides against it, after all, it could be one of the Paladins sleepwalking, but if it is an intruder, Keith is more than capable of fighting them off with his fists. He walks to the elevator, and sees that whoever is in it is going to the top floor. That’s where the cargo hold is, and the swimming pool.
He turns back to the hallway, checking behind him.
He clicks on the button taking him to the ground floor and waits for the doors to open. Once he’s on the ground floor, Keith heads to the cargo hold through the dark hallway. He rounds the corner, treading carefully using his hands to guide him through the bumps and ridges of the hallway.
He reaches the end of the hallway, and halts. The doors are locked, and no lights are on to indicate somebody had been here. Keith frowns, his hands dropping from the door handle. The only other possibility is that someone had gone to the swimming pool, but Keith doubts that an intruder has time to take a swim if they’re trying to infiltrate the Castle of Lions.
Keith makes his way towards the swimming pool, and knows that logically, only one of the paladins would be out at this hour roaming the castle. But he also knows that only one other paladin frequently visits the swimming pool other than himself. Lance.
The cold air around him makes him shiver, and Keith regrets not bringing his jacket with him as he walks through the doors. The pool is lit up, and the water shimmers as the overhead lights catch onto it, rippling out along the surface.
As Keith had suspected, Lance is in here. He’s sitting on the side of the pool with only his legs dipped into the water, jeans rolled up to his knees. His shoes and jacket lay discarded behind him.
He’s leaning forward on his arms, a faraway look in his eyes as he watches the water beneath him, and he’s so deep in his thoughts that he doesn’t hear Keith enter.
He looks so small in this giant room, huddled into himself.
“Hey,” Keith calls out. Lance looks up then, startled out of his thoughts.
He offers Keith a small smile, one that disappears as soon as it comes. Keith makes his way towards Lance, settling down at the edge of the pool beside him.
“Hey,” Lance replies, swinging his legs in the water.
They sit in silence for a moment, until Keith speaks up. “Can’t sleep?” Lance shakes his head.
“You?” Keith removes his boots, rolling up his own trousers up to the knee. The water is cold against his warm legs as he dips his feet in the pool.
“Nah,” Keith replies. He watches Lance. The dim light casts shadows across the planes of his face, and he looks tired. He knows that kind of tiredness, the bone-deep exhaustion that doesn’t go away no matter how many hours of sleep Keith has caught up on.
His eyebrows are pinched together in a frown, creasing the smooth skin of his forehead. Keith wants to reach out and smoothen out his frown lines, to pull his lips into a smile and wipe away the sadness that lingers in his eyes.
Keith’s fingers twitch with want, and he curls his hand into a fist by his side, turning back to watching the water ripple around their feet.
They sit in comfortable silence, feet swaying in tandem and letting the water glide around their feet. Lance’s foot touches his own beneath the water, jostling it playfully. The touch sends shivers running up Keith’s leg and he resolutely ignores it, instead kicking Lance’s leg back gently, and watches as a grin splits across Lance’s face, illuminating his face.
Keith feels the knot in his chest unravel at the sight of Lance’s smile, and feels his own lips pulling up into a smile against his will, mirroring Lance. He thinks that Lance’s smile might be one of the seven wonders of the world, and making him beam like that, unguarded and unrestrained, makes Keith feel like he’s the luckiest person alive.
Water splashes onto Keith’s pants, staining the fabric with dark splotches. He feels tiny droplets flick onto his cheek, and he stares at Lance with his mouth agape, and Lance laughs when he sees Keith’s expression. Keith bends down, running his fingers through the cold water before flicking it towards Lance. Lance yelps, bringing his arms up to shield his face, and the water lands on his shirt.
“Oh mullet, now it's war,” Lance says with that mischievous glint in his eye, and ah. There he is, the Lance he knows. His eyes have been cold and distant these past couple of days, but now that familiar determined look is back in his eyes, the one that’s always riling Keith up, and Keith feels like a piece of him has finally clicked into its rightful place.
Lance dips his arm into the water, summoning a small surge of water beneath his hands, and splashes it at Keith. It drenches him from head to toe, even while he’s sitting on the edge of the pool. Lance laughs, a deep and husky sound that spills from his lips and reverberates off the walls surrounding them. It warms Keith from the inside out.
“Dude! You play dirty,” Keith says, before plunging his own arm in the water and splattering Lance with water. Lance yelps and scowls down at the wet patches on his clothes. Water drips down from his hair when he looks up at Keith, and Keith snickers.
He stands to his feet then, and it takes a moment for Keith to register that Lance is stripping in front of him. He whips his head around as he hears the sound of the buckle of Lance’s belt hitting the floor, feeling heat crawl up his neck. He reckons he should get in the water too, and removes his jacket just as Lance jumps into the pool, and the water sprays everywhere.
Keith sits on the ledge, watching Lance swim, moving freely underwater. He glides along, letting the water dance alongside him, caressing his limbs tenderly. He’s mesmerizing.
Lance breaks through the surface for air, pushing his hair back and wiping the water off his hair. He swims towards Keith, and heaves himself up onto the ledge. The muscles of his forearms tense and settle as he pushes himself up off the water, and Keith swallows, willing himself to tear his eyes away before he gets caught gaping at Lance like a creep.
But Lance is like a magnet, and Keith can't help but be pulled towards him, inevitably caught up in his orbit. But Keith isn't complaining, not if it means he can watch Lance from this close; within arms reach, but simultaneously oceans away.
Lance settles down beside him, and Keith watches the water droplets drip down from his hair. Keith’s eyes follow as it travels down his temple and slides along the smooth skin of his face and down, down, down, until it merges with others in its path.
It glides over a long, slender neck and past the ridges of Lance’s protruding collarbones, and down the tan skin of his chest that melts into the firm muscles of his abdomen.
Keith’s eyes zero in on the sprinkling of freckles on his broad shoulders, and over his muscled back. They’re sprawled gratuitously all over him, and Keith wants nothing more than to run his fingers over the smooth skin, and map those freckles like they’re constellations.
“Like what you see?” Lance says, breaking Keith out of his daze. Keith flushes, embarrassed at being caught staring at him so obviously. He’s smirking, lips sloping upwards and forming the dimple that rests on his left cheek. Keith's heart kicks into overdrive.
“Maybe,” he says, as nonchalantly as possible, tearing his eyes away from Lance’s own with great difficulty. Lance chuckles lightly next to him and Keith resists the urge to turn back and engrave that laugh onto the back of his eyelids.
They sit in silence, watching the water ripple around their feet. The castle is quiet, except for the sound of their gentle breathing, and water swirling around their legs.
Lance sighs, his shoulder sagging with the weight of it, and now that Keith is this close to him, he can see the dark circles that hang heavily beneath his blue eyes.
“You tired?” Keith knocks his shoulder against Lance’s lightly. Lance turns to him, looking at him for a moment, and Keith resists the urge to squirm under his heavy gaze.
Lance looks away, sighing again. “Yeah man, haven't been sleeping well.”
“No?” Keith frowns, because out of the entire team, Keith had figured that Lance was the one that had managed to stick to a somewhat firm routine. He was the one that had his shit together, at least that's what Keith had thought. Lance shakes his head.
“Something up?” Keith asks, as gently as possible and it almost sounds like a whisper to his ears, a secret shared only between the two of them. Keith panics then, certain that he’s given himself away—because how could Lance not know when Keith talks to him like that. How could he not know when Keith keeps seeking him out; his eyes across the room, his hands when they’re in close proximity, seeking him, pulled into his orbit, hovering around him like Lance is the center of his universe.
He waits with a halted breath for that question, the one that will tip their balance over the edge, but it doesn't come. Instead, Lance hums to himself, but does not offer anything else.
“Kinda. I guess,” Lance says, staring up at the far wall opposite them. His Adam's apple bobs as he speaks. “It’s stupid. Forget about it,” he laughs it off, waving his hand in dismissal.
“Promise I’ll laugh if it’s stupid,” Keith teases, despite knowing that whatever it is, it must be serious because Lance would rather dismiss his own feelings than to trouble anyone else with his thoughts. But Keith would listen to every single one of his thoughts, stupid or not, because it’s Lance, and he wants to swallow down every minuscule thing about Lance like a starving man, and keep it tucked away inside him so that it can warm him up on cold nights.
Lance doesn't reply, and instead, he looks down at his hands, calloused from battle. Keith wonders what they would feel like against his own. He wonders if he’s overstepped, laughed about something that isn't in his place to laugh about, and feels guilt seeping into his gut.
“I just—” Lance begins. “I just miss home, you know? I miss it real bad,” he says quietly, and Keith feels the guilt increase tenfold.
“Yeah, I know,” Keith offers unhelpfully. He doesn't know, because unlike Lance with his big family, all Keith’s had his entire life was his father, and even he was cruelly ripped away from Keith. “You miss your family.”
“Yeah. I miss them,” Lance says, voice heavy with the weight of the universe on his shoulders. His eyelashes cling together with wetness, and Keith isn’t sure if it's from the water droplets still dripping down his face or the tears he’s trying to hold back. “Sorry,” Lance apologizes, fiddling with his hands. “I know you don’t wanna hear me complain about missing my family. Plus it's no good, it’s not gonna help Voltron anyways.”
Keith frowns, wondering who has made this boy so self-conscious of taking up too much space, too much time, that he now apologizes for simply existing. It makes Keith want to hurt whoever has shunned Lance into keeping everything to himself.
“Stop apologizing. You have nothing to be sorry about,” Keith says, far too quick and a little too angry. He lowers his voice into something more calmer. “You know you're allowed to miss them right?” Keith waits until Lance nods.
“I mean, we were kinda just thrown into space without a warning and none of us exactly had a chance to say goodbye,” Keith continues, desperate to reassure Lance.
“It's only natural that you miss them and want to see them again. There's nothing wrong with that. Stop beating yourself up over something so—so natural,” he finishes. Lance is watching him with something akin to bemusement, and Keith isn’t really surprised, because whenever he’s within close proximity of Lance, his mouth can’t seem to shut up. “Plus... I like hearing about your family. It's nice. I've never really had much anyway,” he adds, unable to reel in his thoughts before they’re rushing past his lips, and watches as Lance’s brows shoot up in surprise.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Keith nods. “Tell me about them,” he coaxes gently and watches happily as Lance’s eyes begin to glint with excitement under the dim lights.
“Okay!” Lance exclaims, sitting up a little taller. “Wow! Where do I start? Okay so my mamá—her name is Laritza by the way—she's the best person in the world. She's basically my best friend. Like, I know that sounds corny but she really is,” he says wistfully. “I miss her hugs. I could really use one right about now.”
“And my papá—Ricardo—he's the coolest person I know. He’s basically a superhero in my eyes. He can do anything and everything, and he's so smart and philosophical and just—he makes me wanna make the world a better place. You know?” Keith hums next to him. This is one thing that Keith understands, because his own father was a superhero in Keith’s eyes, always putting others before himself, which in the end, cost him his own life.
“And my siblings as well, I miss them all. I miss celebrating birthdays and holidays. It's when everyone came together. I mean like my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. It was crazy. I used to get overwhelmed back then, but now I would give an arm and a leg to be there with everyone,” Lance says, shaking his head and smiling fondly.
“We would all go to the beach every summer. And I’m talking like almost thirty of us, at the beach every summer. And my little nieces and nephews would be screaming bloody murder because “the water tried to eat them,”” he says, laughing lightly. He’s engrossed in his memories now, and Keith stays quiet, drinking in Lance and his thoughts.
Keith feels privileged almost, to witness Lance let down his walls in the dead of the night, and for Keith to lend a listening ear. It’s pathetic , Keith thinks, how he gets all happy and dumb when he gets to have Lance all to himself for little periods of time. Keith should just jump into the pool with bricks in his pockets. He wants to.
“I miss the beach so fucking much, man. Like, it’s making me insane,” Lance groans, head falling into his hands.
Keith figures there’s no better way to tell him this. He needs to rip off the bandaid and expose it in all its glory.
Keith clears his throat.
“I've uh—I've never been to the beach,” he blurts out.
Lance’s head whips around so fast that Keith thinks he hears a crack.
“What?”
“I've never been to the beach?”
“WHAT?!” Lance screeches. “How could you have possibly never been to the beach?”
“I mean—I did live in the desert for practically my whole life. There wasn't exactly a beach in my backyard.”
“This is ridiculous,” Lance says in disbelief, pointing an accusatory finger at Keith. “You are ridiculous. I cannot believe this.”
“Is it that big of a deal?” Keith chuckles.
“Is it that—Of course, it is! You have not been graced with the beauty of the ocean. This is highly disappointing Keith, even for you,” Lance exclaims, shaking his head.
Keith schools his features into something serious and somber, turning to Lance.
“I’m most terribly sorry to have let you down, your highness,” Keith deadpans, and can’t help but grin as he sees the edges of Lance’s lips twitch with a smile. Lance shakes his head again, and the water droplets clinging to the strands of his hair fly down onto Keith’s arm.
“That’s it, dude. When we go back home, the first thing I'm gonna do is take you to the beach,” Lance decides. “And not just any beach, oh no. We’re going to the one and only Varadero beach. Then you can say you’ve finally lived.”
And that is where the problem lies, because when Lance makes plans to include him, to cater to something that he’s lacking, Keith feels his heart warm over inside his chest and turn into a puddle of goo.
Keith struggles to form a coherent sentence for a few seconds, his mind racing a mile an hour.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that,” Keith says finally, a soft smile gracing his lips.
He is so completely and utterly fucked.
__________
The idea comes to Keith as he’s wandering the castle, and it sparks up inside of his head like a firework. A thrill of excitement rushes through him and he makes his way to the control room. It’s deserted at this hour, with most of the inhabitants of the ship having disappeared to their living quarters.
Keith takes a seat at his station, immediately pulling up the star map. Entire galaxies and solar systems materialize and sprawl out around him, and Keith is once again left breathless at the immense vastness of the universe, just like all those months ago when Allura had first pulled up this very map.
Keith swipes through star systems they’ve visited and liberated, ones yet to be freed. He filters through planets and moons according to their atmospheric environment and surface geology, looking for one specific thing.
There are planets with fiery lakes of lava, several moons with storms that have raged on for centuries, planets that have frozen inside out from the core, surface temperatures so low that Keith doubts even their paladin armor would be able to protect them. Clouds filled with high concentrations of carbon monoxide, mountains of diamonds, and planets in unstable orbits within their star system.
None of this is what Keith is looking for. He slumps against his seat, sighing disappointedly. He leans his head back and watches with unfocused eyes as the holographic map of the universe slides past him slowly.
The quiet hum of the ship accompanies the silence surrounding him and Keith lets his mind wander.
As always, his thoughts find Lance, and Keith thinks about Lance’s deep desire for returning home. It unsettles something inside him, as if the thought of Lance returning to his family feels like Keith is giving away a part of himself to a bunch of people that he’s never even met. It's ridiculous, this hold that Lance has on him, holding his heart in a vice grip within the palms of his hands.
He thinks about Lance in the pool, when he becomes one with the water, dancing against the small currents within the water. He thinks about Lance at Varadero beach, from the stories he’s told Keith of his time there before the Garrison, Keith has gathered that he can surf, and he has won endless competitions in both swimming and surfing.
Lance is a child of the ocean, there’s no doubt about it.
Keith thinks it must be suffocating up here in space, to be limited to a small pool when all he wants to do is be submerged within the deep ocean, to be engulfed by the waves.
A small planetary system floats in front of his face, and Keith stares at it with unblinking eyes. He enlarges it without thinking, and runs his eyes over the circular orbs of light, hung on the orbital plane.
Then, he sees it.
It's a small planet, hidden behind a gas giant. It looks similar to Earth, with swirls of blue and white and green. The familiarity of it startles him, and he thinks he’s accidentally stumbled into the Milky Way. He sits up straight, scooting further in his chair until he’s sitting on the edge.
Venetum. Terrestrial planet located within the Ariel star system.
He zooms in as much as possible, circling the planet with wide eyes. He clicks on the document with the information about the planet and begins to read through it.
Planet Venetum orbits in the habitable zone of its star, Ostrum.
The metallic core of planet Venetum is composed of the chemical element Iron. The surface of Venetum is covered with a substance composed of the chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen, and exists as a liquid state. It is harmless upon contact.
Venetum has two natural satellites orbiting the planet; Crystallos and Ardor.
Keith rereads the information provided with a halted breath, and runs his eyes over the words once again just to confirm his suspicion. He’s found what he’s been looking for.
Water. This planet has water. Pure water that’s safe to step into, unlike the toxic liquids from other planets. Hell, they can probably even drink it.
Keith lets out an incredulous laugh. His hands come up to push his hair back out of his eyes, and he slumps back into his seat with his hands interlocked behind his head.
Keith imagines the look on Lance’s face when he’s presented with an ocean safe enough to swim in, lightyears away from home. He would pay millions to see it.
Now, all he has to do is convince Shiro to let them take a little trip to Venetum.
__________
Lance is in the middle of applying toner onto his face when he hears his bedroom doors slide open. His brows crinkle in confusion, because as far as he knows, everyone had retired to their rooms a few hours ago to get some rest. He sets down the bottle of toner on his bathroom counter and peeks his head into his bedroom.
Keith stands in the middle of his room, awkwardly looking around. Lance grows even more confused, and he steps out of his bathroom.
“Keith? What’s up, man?”
Keith startles, turning around hurriedly from where he’s been staring at the picture of Lance’s family taped onto the wall.
“Hey,” he says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. He looks like he’d gotten caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.
“Hey.”
“I uh—I wanted to show you something,” Keith says, and even under the dim lights of his room, Lance can see that the tips of his ears are red.
“Uhh. At this time?”
“Yes. It’s very important.”
“Nothing is more important than my skincare routine Keith,” Lance argues, crossing his arms over his chest. “Which, by the way, you’re disrupting right now.”
“Yeah but—You’re really gonna wanna see this,” Keith pushes, and Lance knows that whatever it is, it must be pretty important if Keith had come at this odd hour to get him.
Lance sighs, and makes his way back into the bathroom.
“At least let me moisturize first,” Lance calls over his shoulder.
“Fine, but make it quick! And change into something warm!”
“Just exactly where are you planning to take me?” Lance frowns at his reflection in the mirror, while lathering his face with his moisturizer.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“This isn’t convincing me to come with you, you know?”
“I mean, it’s your loss if you don’t.”
“How much of a loss can it be?” Lance asks, shrugging off his robe and hanging it on the hook on his bathroom door, leaving him shirtless underneath. The chill of the room hits his bare skin, and he shivers slightly.
“A really big one. Just trust me on this.”
Lance hums, walking back into his bedroom to find Keith sitting on his bed.
“I do. Pass me my clothes?” Lance asks, gesturing to the bundle of clothes folded neatly at the foot of his bed.
Keith grabs the bundle. When he turns around and makes eye contact with Lance, Keith makes a sound in his throat, something between an aborted cough and a choke.
“You good man?” Lance frowns when Keith hastily hands him his clothes and turns back around abruptly. Keith’s cheeks warm into a dark shade of red.
“Yeah,” Keith struggles out. “Yeah, I'm good. Go get changed,” he gestures towards the bathroom. Lance shrugs, heading back into the bathroom.
When Lance comes back out, Keith is laying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He turns his head when he hears Lance’s footsteps, and his hair fans out around his head, cheek squished against the mattress. Lance feels his heart squeeze tightly inside his chest.
“You ready?” Keith asks. He blinks up at him, soft and slow, his face relaxed around the edges. The hard lines of a soldier have melted away and left behind a mellow teenager in its wake, staring up at Lance sleepily. It makes something swirl at the pit of his stomach, something intangible but warm.
Lance nods, not trusting himself to speak.
They walk out quietly, weaving through dark hallways, tripping and stumbling over each other's feet in the dark, until Lance recognizes the all too familiar path towards the hangar bay.
“Keith! Where the hell are we going?” Lance hisses, grabbing Keith’s elbow and halting him in his tracks.
“Relax. We’re just taking a little trip around the galaxy,” Keith says calmly, as if he isn’t planning on sneaking out into the universe in the middle of the night.
“Buddy, I don't know if you've noticed, but we are the universe’s most wanted. We literally have a bounty on our head.”
“You're such a killjoy,” Keith says, ignoring him and walking through the hangar doors. “I thought you of all people would have a wild streak in you.”
“Not when there's an entire empire on our ass!” Lance protests, throwing his arms up in the air. “Does Shiro even know you’re sneaking out? He’s gonna have my head if his baby brother gets kidnapped by the Galra.”
“Yeah, he does actually. I asked him,” Keith says indifferently.
“What? You did? And he said yes?”
“Yeah. Now shut up and follow me.”
“I can't believe Shiro is encouraging your dumbass antics,” Lance mutters, begrudgingly trailing after Keith.
Red lights up, and she leans down when Keith gets near, opening her mouth. They climb up the ramp and into Red’s cockpit, and Lance loiters around as Kaith takes his seat and starts up her controls.
She purrs to life beneath him, and Lance holds onto Keith’s pilot seat as her fiery energy washes over him, swirling with warmth. It leaves him reeling when she pulls away, and he has to regain his footing to make sure he doesn’t topple over.
“She can be quite intense. Just give her time, she's curious,” Keith offers, not taking his eyes away from her controls.
Red gears into life, standing to her full height. The hangar doors open, and the great expanse of stars scattered amongst the darkness peeks through the gap between the doors.
“Hold on tight,” Keith warns, before Red is shooting through the hangar doors, and launching into the void of twinkling darkness.
Lance grips the headrest of Keith’s seat so tight that his knuckles turn white. His stomach swoops and drops along with Red, as Keith dips her into a head dive.
Keith punches in the coordinates to an unfamiliar planet, and Lance rakes his brain, trying to see if they’ve ever visited this sector of the galaxy they’re currently in. He comes up blank.
“Are you gonna tell me where we're going now?”
“Nope, that would ruin the surprise. Wait and see,” Keith says, turning to Lance and shooting him a smirk. Lance tries not to think about how that makes his heart stutter inside his chest, and instead looks out of the windscreen at the clusters of stars they’re surrounded by.
An asteroid belt emerges ahead of them; the ruins of destroyed planets, rubble, and comets suspended in orbit. A graveyard of life that once thrived.
Keith weaves through the asteroids, twirling and looping around the debris that looms over Red threateningly.
Lance watches Keith. The red glow of the cockpit accentuates the determined set of his jaw and paints the planes of his face with a fierce kind of concentration Lance has seen when Keith is all-consumed with flying.
It takes him back all those years ago when he’d first witnessed Keith on the flight simulator at the Garrison. He used to fly like he didn’t have a care in the world; a little unsure of what he was doing, driven only by pure instinct and raw adrenaline. Turns too sharp and shaky head dives that the Senior Flight Cadets had begrudgingly applauded because he was the only one that had the balls to disobey direct orders, and the only one able to obliterate their expectations. He was fearless and untouchable.
Now, as Lance stares at the side of Keith’s face, within reaching distance, he notices how sure he is of himself. He makes calculated turns, accounts for his safety instead of making a rash dive that could injure him. He grips the levers with firm, confident hands; a little older and a lot wiser.
“You doing okay back there?” Keith interrupts his thoughts. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“Yeah, I’m—I’m good,” Lance startles. “Focus on the road mullet, not on me,” Lance teases, pulling a chuckle from Keith.
“I am.”
“Are we close yet?”
“Yeah, we are actually,” Keith replies, nodding towards the planetary system they’re nearing.
Lance moves to stand beside Keith’s seat, his arm slung over the headrest. He cranes his neck closer to the windshield, trying to peer into the distant planets.
A weird feeling swirls in his gut, like the universe is trying to tell him something. It isn’t the foreboding sense of danger, right before a disastrous battle, but rather like something is calling to him, beckoning him closer.
“Hey Keith, you sure you’re not taking me to some kind of space siren?” Lance asks, turning to look at Keith—which turns out to be a mistake, because he hadn’t realized he was leaning down so close to Keith. Lance’s breath hitches in his throat.
Keith’s face is mere inches away from his, and Lance can feel Keith’s warm breath fanning Lance’s cheeks. Keith is staring right back at him, eyes blown wide and muscles frozen. Lance can smell the distinct musky scent that belongs to Keith; a mixture of sweat and smoke, and feel the warmth radiating from him.
If he wanted to, he could count the eyelashes that frame Keith’s pretty, violet eyes. They gleam like rare diamonds, and up this close, he can see the tiny flecks of silver embedded within the violet of his eyes. It’s breathtaking. Keith is beautiful, and Lance feels winded.
Keth’s eyes flick between his, and before he can blink, they shoot down to Lance’s lips, before peering into Lance’s eyes again. Lance feels his pulse stutter and trip, and his lips tingle.
Red jolts suddenly, and Lance staggers on his feet, gripping the sides of Keith’s seat. This leaves Keith trapped against his seat, with Lance leaning into his space. He’s plastered against it, and when Lance looks down at him, his eyes are focused on Lance’s midriff, where his shirt has ridden up, exposing a tan strip of skin. Lance feels a flush creeping up his neck, and he leans back, removing his hands from the seat.
“Sorry man,” he apologizes, clearing his throat.
“It’s—it’s cool,” Keith says, voice cracking on the syllables. He pointedly does not look at Lance.
Red straightens, and from the back of his mind, he can feel a hint of smugness from her.
They fly in silence, the planets turning from dots in the distance to gigantic spheres, swirling with storms and ice.
“We’re nearly there,” Keith says quietly.
Keith circles around the planets with ease, and as Lance looks up at the planets from Red’s cockpit, he’s hit with the overwhelming realization that he is minuscule in comparison to the scale of the universe. It’s terrifying.
In front of them, a planet swirling with blue, white and green, comes into view. Lance’s breath hitches in his throat.
The familiarity of it punches Lance in the gut, winding him. His entire body freezes, muscles locking up.
“Keith,” he chokes out, surprised that his vocal cords remember how to function. “Keith... are you seeing this?”
“Yup. Bright and clear,” Keith chirps happily.
Keith begins descending Red towards the planet, and Lance keeps his eyes firmly stuck on the planet. He feels that overwhelming feeling of homesickness roar to life inside him, from where he’d pushed it down deep beneath the shadows. He suddenly feels like crying.
This planet has an ocean, an honest-to-god ocean that covers the surface of this planet, and Lance watches the large body of water ripple, turning restlessly. Something gnaws at Lance, something primal and inherent that runs through his blood. It starts just below his ribs, a small itch and it travels up and up, until it’s eating away at Lance, this need to get as close as possible to this ocean.
Keith flies closer and closer towards the surface, slowing down as they reach a black patch of land. They land with a gentle thud, and Red cranes her neck downwards and the door is opening, letting in a gust of wind.
Lance stands rooted to the spot, staring towards the sight beyond the windscreen. From his peripheral vision, he registers Keith standing from his seat and staring at him expectantly. Keith moves past him, walking towards the door.
“Lance?” Keith calls to him when he doesn’t respond. Lance turns to find Keith’s hand outstretched towards him, waiting for him to take it.
Lance moves towards him slowly, and places his hand in Keith’s. His hand is warm under Lance’s own, and his skin is soft, softer than Lance had expected.
Keith leads him down the ramp until they step foot on the clearing of sand. Lance thinks he feels his hands shaking, restless energy thrumming through his veins, but he can’t focus on anything except for the view in front of his eyes. They stand on the shoreline, hands clasped together in-between them.
The stretch of shoreline extends until it leads to jagged rocks scattered around the shore. The waves crash onto the rocks violently, shattering like glass upon impact as it rains down in heavy, frothy droplets. Further, down the shoreline, the rocks emerge into a small cliff, and it rises and rises until it towers over the beach threateningly, a mess of sharp-edged rocks that wards off unwanted visitors.
The two moons orbiting the planet hang above the horizon, one timidly peeking out from behind the other. They cast streams of moonlight down upon the waves in a shimmer of silver. The crash of the waves drowns out the thunderous beat of his heart, and Lance feels that restless gnawing crawling up his chest, burning his insides with want.
Lance takes a hesitant step forward, his hand slipping out of Keith’s hold. His shoes dig into the black sand beneath his feet, and a distant memory of his feet sinking into golden sand overtakes him, and that dam of homesickness held back inside of him, breaks apart. Lance’s eyes tear up, a lump forming in his throat, and closing up his airway.
He strides forwards purposefully, walking closer and closer to the edge of the shoreline. With each step forward, he leaves behind deep imprints on the black sand. Keith stands in front of Red, watching him carefully.
Lance stands at the edge of the shoreline, watching the water lapping lazily at the sand and ebbing away gently. He watches the waves roll sleepily in the distance, surging and waning back down restlessly. The crest of the waves crashes down, swirling the deep blue of the water with white sea foam. The cold wind carries a trace of saltiness in the air, rushing past his ears in a hurry, and Lance swears he can almost taste it on his tongue.
He bends down, kicking off his shoes and discarding his clothing frantically. Lance swallows down a gulp of cold sea breeze, and it courses through his veins in currents, filling the empty spaces of his hollow chest with warmth. His blood sings with elation and his heart beats in rhythm to the crash of the waves. He becomes one with the ocean.
Lance takes a careful step forward, his toes digging into the coal-black sand. The foamy water laves against his ankles, licking his heels in curiosity. Lance feels his skin crawl with goosebumps as the cold wind envelops him, trailing down his spine with icy fingers. He keeps his watery eyes fixated on a point beyond the horizon, where the ocean reaches up to meet the sky in a loving embrace.
He walks further into the water, until it swirls around his thighs.
The ocean opens its arms for him in a warm welcome, the waves beckoning him closer, whispering, fear not my child, for you are home.
Lance goes willingly, wading through the water.
The tears clouding his eyes blur his vision, and in the echoes of his mind, he thinks he hears the cries of seagulls that fly against a pale blue sky, higher and higher till they can taste freedom.
The waves pull him under the surface, and Lance lets himself submerge, cradled safely within the strong arms of the water. He can hear the muffled ebb and flow of the waves above the surface.
Lance smiles. He is at peace.
He is finally home.
__________
Keith watches Lance. He’s sitting beside Keith, leaning back on his left arm.
The cold air rakes its fingers through Lance’s golden tinted locks, and they flutter gently with the wind. The hair at the nape of his neck curls as it dries, and Keith fights the urge to run his fingers through it and untangle them.
Lance is glowing; the blue hue of moonlight painting his face with contentment, as they spill onto the planes of his face in soft rays.
In his right hand, he scoops up black sand, letting it sift through the gaps of his fingers. He shifts then, knocking their knees together. He sits up straight, drawing his knees closer to him and laying an arm across his leg.
Keith notices the slight shiver that rakes through his frame as a gust of wind flies past them.
“Are you cold?” Keith asks.
“Kinda,” he says, shrugging.
“I told you to wear something warm,” Keith sighs.
Keith shakes his head, shrugging his warm jacket off his body. He reaches over and drapes it over Lance’s shoulders. Lance startles, staring at him wide-eyed.
Lance looks as if though he wants to say something, but he doesn’t.
“Thanks,” he says softly, and Keith almost misses it over the loud crash of the waves upon the shore.
“You’re welcome.”
Keith pretends he doesn’t see the way Lance ducks his face into his shoulder, nose pressed against the fabric of his jacket. He pretends he doesn’t feel the stutter in his pulse.
They sit in comfortable silence, watching the waves roll in and out.
Lance tilts his head up at the sky, staring at the smattering of stars that glint down on them, from beyond the atmosphere of Venetum. A muscle on his chiseled jawline jumps, and Keith thinks vaguely, that God must have really taken his time making Lance.
“Guess you took me to a beach before I got to take you to one,” Lance chuckles suddenly. Keith frowns in confusion, before he remembers the conversation they’d had a week prior.
“Yeah... I guess I did,” Keith laughs.
Lance turns to him, pinning Keith down with sapphire-blue eyes. They gleam under the moonlight, like the luminescent reflection of the stars upon the turbulent ocean. His eyes roam across Keith’s face as if trying to find something, like a missing puzzle piece needed to complete an empty gap. Keith lets him, allows him to take whatever he needs.
“How come you brought me here?” Lance asks after a moment, turning back to the ocean.
“Because,” Keith shrugs. “You said you missed the sea.”
“Yeah but—how did you even find this place?”
“On the star map,” Keith replies. He debates if he should tell Lance that he’d spent hours in the control room, swiping through entire galaxies to search for this one planet. He knows that it will lead to an insinuation that he doesn’t want to face right now. But Lance deserves to know, he deserves to know that he’s worth the hours of effort. He deserves to know that Keith would do anything if it meant that Lance would be happy. The realization terrifies him. “I looked for it on the star map,” he repeats, firmly this time, swallowing down the fear.
"Why?"
"You said you missed the sea," Keith repeats again, a little hesitant.
“You went through all that trouble just because I was homesick?” Lance asks incredulously, as if the mere idea of someone doing something thoughtful for him is unimaginable. As if he’s not worthy of it. It hurts Keith’s heart.
“It’s not any trouble,” he argues, shaking his head. “Not if it's you.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means,” Keith murmurs.
Lance doesn’t say anything. Instead, he stares at the ground in front of him, frowning, like it holds all the secrets of the universe.
“I feel like—” Lance hesitates. “I feel like you’ve been trying to tell me something. But I don’t know if I’m picking it up correctly,” Lance says quietly.
Keith feels the world being pulled under him. Panic shoots through his veins and he feels his heart pounding frantically against his ribcage, begging to be freed. He’s been caught out—of course, he has. Because apparently, he’s as transparent as clear glass when it comes to Lance, Shiro had told him as much, several times.
“I hope you are,” Keith manages weakly, his heart threatening to spill out through his mouth.
“It wouldn’t hurt to hear it from you,” Lance says, a plea hidden in his voice. He stares out towards the horizon, his brows creased slightly in apprehension.
Keith feels the cold wind glide past his face, feels the sand beneath him. He stares out towards the two moons in the distance, illuminating them with silvery-blue moonlight. They watch Keith in silence, waiting to hear the words that sprawl past his lips.
“I—” Keth croaks out. He feels himself trembling from head to toe.
I like you. I like you so much that it scares the fuck out of me.
“I love you,” Keith says with finality. His words fade away with the cold wind.
Keith reels in shock, because he hadn’t meant to say that. That was the last thing he had wanted to say. But his mouth had suddenly decided that it refuses to listen to his brain.
A weight that has been pressing down on him, however, eases with the declaration. It feels like he can stand up straight again, breathe a little easier.
He listens to Lance breathe next to him, waiting for Lance to say something, anything.
Keith stays as still as possible, listening to the waves roll lazily in and out. Lance is still beside him. Crystallos and Ardor watch them from afar, waiting with a bated breath.
When the silence stretches on for far too long, Keith risks a glance at Lance. He’s staring right back at Keith, and the intensity of his gaze leaves Keith breathless. He doesn't know when they’d moved closer to each other, but Lance is suddenly in his space, their heads bent close together.
Keith peers into Lance’s eyes, finding himself drowning in the ocean-blue of Lance’s eyes. There are flecks of gold surrounding his pupils, and they swim lazily in the pools of deep azure.
Keith finds himself leaning impossibly closer to Lance, and Lance’s eyes flit back and forth between his lips. Keith’s heart has seemed to take a perpetual residence in his throat.
Lance’s breath fans across his lips, and Keith feels the hairs at the nape of his neck stand up in anticipation. Lance draws back an inch, and Keith hears him draw in a shaky breath.
But before Keith can even blink, Lance’s lips collide onto his mercilessly, like the tide crashing onto the shore, teeth clashing and noses bumping. The sound of the waves drowns out into white noise as Lance snakes a hand up to the side of Keith’s neck, pulling him closer, and he tilts his head just right, slotting their mouths together perfectly. Their lips move like the ebb and flow of the waves, in perfect unison.
Lance pulls away, gasping a lungful of air, and the desperate hunger in his eyes has Keith’s heartbeat tripping and stumbling. Lance’s pupils are blown wide, his cheeks are flushed red and his shallow exhales of air hits Keith’s lips, making them tingle. His eyes search through Keith’s imploringly, and Keith tries as much as he can to say I want this, through his eyes alone.
His eyes dart down to Keith’s lips again, and the hunger in Lance’s eyes increases tenfold. Keith’s eyes follow the movement as Lance’s tongue darts out to lick at his bottom lip. Keith feels heat crawl up his neck, and bites down on his tongue to prevent an involuntary whimper.
Lance pulls him back in, and Keith follows him, allowing himself to be swallowed into Lance’s ocean, as he brings their lips together again. Keith rises onto his knees, desperately chasing Lance’s lips like he’s gasping for air while drowning, the sand beneath him digs into his skin through the thin fabric of his jeans, and he cages Lance between his legs. His arms loop around Lance’s neck, pressing their bodies impossibly closer.
The hand sprawled on the side of his neck glides up to his hair, combing through his raven tufts, looping them around slender fingers and tugging gently. Keith moans into his mouth, and Lance greedily swallows it down.
Keith melts under his touch, liquid fire coursing through his veins as Lance licks into his mouth, wordlessly begging for entrance. Keith grants him permission, and his legs tremble as Lance’s tongue slides along his, smooth and wet. Keith flops onto Lance’s lap in a boneless heap, straddling him, and Lance readily readjusts him, his hands coming down to grip Keith’s waist, warm palms sprawled across his hips, and long fingers digging into soft skin.
Lance hums against his lips, and the sound vibrates throughout Keith’s body in small tremors. Lance comes up for air, and he leans his forehead against Keith’s as they both pant, winded.
Their breaths mingle together in the small space between them, billowing like mist against the cold air around them. Keith’s red jacket lays crumpled on the ground, pooling around Lance’s hips.
Keith slumps against Lance, leaning all his weight onto him and resting his forehead on Lance’s shoulder, allowing Lance’s shallow breaths to fan across Keith’s collarbones, sending shivers crawling through Keith’s frame.
Lance notices this, and Keith tenses as Lance’s hands crawl up inside the thin black t-shirt he’s wearing, hands running over soft skin, and drawing out small gasps from Keith’s lips.
His other hand comes up to cup the right side of Keith’s face and Lance gently raises his chin, allowing Keith to bare his neck open to Lance. He presses gentle kisses onto Keith’s neck, making his way up until he can mouth at the corner of Keith’s jaw. Keith sighs shakily, and his arms hang limply around Lance’s neck. Lance kisses across his jawline, a gentle bush of his lips that sends the butterflies fluttering around in Keith’s stomach into a frenzy.
Keith leans back onto his lap, staring at Lance with lidded eyes, heavy with lust. Lance smiles at him, like he knows a secret that the rest of the universe doesn’t. Keith grins back, laughing a little breathlessly.
“You love me?” Lance asks after a while, his arms winding around Keith’s waist and holding him close.
“Is that what you’re focusing on right now?”
“Uh—yeah! Because you said you love me! The big L-word! That’s a pretty big deal!”
“Yeah, yeah. I love you, the sky is blue and the grass is green. Can we go back to the part where there was more kissing and less talking?” Keith rolls his eyes even as a smile fights its way across his lips.
“No, Keith! You love me! We have to talk about that!”
“I take it back. You're the worst and I hate you.”
“Nu-uh. You love me,” Lance says, dragging out the word teasingly. “Those words came out of your mouth, not mine.” Keith feels his face flush in embarrassment. “You love me,” Lance whispers after a moment, a little breathless with astonishment, like he can’t bring himself to believe that this is real.
“Yeah,” Keith whispers back in affirmation, a secret only meant for Lance’s ears. “Yeah... I love you.”
Lance’s eyes are swirling with ecstasy, and he smiles, a wide grin splitting across his face until his pearly teeth shine under the dim moonlight. The brightness of it is almost blinding.
Lance leans forward until his forehead knocks against Keith’s lightly. He breathes in deeply.
“I love you too,” Lance confesses. His arms tighten around Keith, like he’s afraid that Keith will slip out from his hold.
Keith feels his breath hitch in his throat.
“I love you,” Lance repeats again, louder and more confident this time. “Fuck. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to say that.”
Keith's brain short circuits. Because this boy—this beautiful, wonderful boy with the sun in his smile and the stars in his eyes—that has seemed unreachable and untouchable with oceans between them, is finally in his arms. Because he’s saying that the feelings that Keith has been harboring, keeping hidden at the pit of his stomach, they’re reciprocated.
Keith feels his heart swell inside his chest, threatening to topple him over with the uncontrollable emotions surging inside of him. He feels his eyes prickle with tears.
“Lance,” Keith chokes out wetly. “What the fuck. I love you so much,” he says, ducking his head into the crook of Lance’s neck. Lance presses a kiss to his cheek and his hands come up to stroke Keith’s back.
Lance waits until Keith sits up again, wiping at his eyes.
“Can I kiss you again?” Lance asks.
“Please,” Keith implores.
As Lance’s lips meet his halfway, Keith wonders if Atlas was this happy to be able to touch the heavens with his bare hands, because somehow, the universe has deemed Keith worthy enough of holding a piece of heaven in his arms.