Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Should Lance have told the team earlier?

Yeah, probably. But he didn’t, so it was moot point. It was too late, now — at this point, he feels like it would be almost insulting.

Like, how the fuck is he supposed to say ‘ hey, y’all. Y’know how we pilot a mecha mind-meld robot lion together? And we’re supposed to trust each other implicitly? Well! You see, twelve years ago, me and my dumbass sisters went on an adventure in a little moonpool we found. This pool happened to be magic, and now whenever I touch water I grow a fucking tail. ’

Yeah. No.

Lance had the perfect opportunity to say something after the real life, genuine, actual occurrence of a mermaid planet he rescued came up in conversation. He could have dropped the bomb then. Hell, he could have removed a glove or something while he was down there and then at least Hunk would have seen!

But alas, Lance had been a bit preoccupied with, y’know, freeing a race of enslaved, brainwashed alien mermaids to be thinking that far ahead. He feels like he has an excuse for that one.

His excuse for his continued silence on the matter?

Well. He has anxiety . Also, he’s a chronic people-pleaser. He’s a little freaked about the reactions forthcoming for keeping such a huge secret, as well, so he feels like he’s trapped in a feedback loop from hell.

On top of that, the explanation of the mermaid incident is objectively humiliating. He can’t even blame genetics or a curse or anything. He just shares one brain cell with his sisters, and unfortunately they left it at home one night and were turned into creatures of myth.

All this is to say that yes, Lance fully understands that his current situation is 100% on him (well, 99% on him. Maria gets 1% of the blame for all eternity as jumping into the moonpool was her dumbass decision). Lance looks up to where Keith is standing, slack-jawed, towel dropped to the floor, staring at what is unmistakably a giant tail in place of Lance’s legs. He has not blinked in several minutes.

“Would you believe that you’re sleep deprived and this is a dream brought to you by your unyielding lust and thirst for my otherworldly form?” Lance tries.

“You’re a fish,” Keith breathes after several minutes of stunned silence.

Lance can’t help the haughty snoot, as ridiculous as he knows he’s being. “ Half fish,” he corrects. “I am still very much half god of sexy. You know what, I don’t even have this thing —” he flips his tail, causing Keith to jump, which makes Lance smirk despite himself and the situation — “all the time, so technically I’m only a quarter fish. An eighth, maybe.”

“Why the fuck are you a fish?!”

Keith’s tone has quickly shifted from one of bewildered and unbelieving astonishment to one of alarm. Perhaps the movement startled his caveman brain.

“Perhaps your caveman brain was startled by the sudden movement,” Lance says out loud, fully aware he’s being a dick. “But I don’t believe that’s any of your business. I can be half fish if I so please, and you can’t stop me. Maybe I want to be half bird, next! Or half butterfly!”

“Lance, what the fuck are you talking about?”

Lance throws his hands up, and allows himself to feel some of the panic he feels brewing in his chest. “I don’t know! I’m stressed out! You weren’t supposed to be in here! I was supposed to be able to dry off before anyone saw me! I think I’m allowed to be a little nonsensical for a while!”

Lance can feel the burn of tears in his eyes, and is humiliated to feel himself begin to cry. Aw, man, fuck, is the mermaid thing not bad enough? Does he really have to fucking cry in front of his esteemed rival?

“Please don’t cry,” Keith says, visibly panicked.

Lance sobs, which prompts Keith to surge forward.

Keith carefully kneels down next to him, giving the tail a wide berth, and and hesitantly pats Lance on the shoulder. “Uh, there there?”

Lance wails harder. Oh, why couldn’t Hunk have found him? Or Coran? Or even Pidge ! Why did he have to get stuck with the one who handles emotional people the way one might handle a particularly volatile and rabid squirrel?

“Uh, it’s all going to be good!” Keith tries again, increasingly frantic. “I’m not mad! Just a little surprised! I didn’t know you were a mermaid, so I think that’s justified a little! Sorry! Please stop sobbing!”

Despite the misery of the situation at large, Lance feels laughter bubbling up his throat. Maybe it’s hysteria, maybe it’s the overwhelming emotion. Maybe it’s the fact that Keith’s panicked face is always funny. Regardless, he knows that if he starts laughing right now, his tears and snot still running down his face, Keith will absolutely freak out and go get backup, and Lance would like to keep this clusterfuck of a situation on a need-to-know basis, thanks.

He takes a deep breath, and then another, trying to get his emotions under control.

Fine. This is fine. All he has to do is convince Keith to keep his mouth shut, and then he can continue to be devoured by guilt and plagued with the burdens of secrets for the rest of his time in space, which could be decades. All is well.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Lance begs the second he has the tears mostly under control.

“Why?” Keith responds automatically.

Lance blinks at him, incredulous.

“Uh, I mean, sure. I’ll keep your gigantic secret for you. No problem. I love lying to people, especially about the fact that mermaids exist on Earth. This is fine and good.”

Lance rolls his eyes, dragging a hand down his face. “Look,” he says carefully, “this is a… perilous situation. I understand that me keeping a big secret is not great. But… I’ve grown up knowing that this is a secret that could get me killed, or hurt, or worse, even.” Lance ignores Keith’s mutter of “ What the fuck is worse than killed or hurt? ”, continuing on his tirade.  “I’m not ashamed or anything, and it’s not that I don’t trust you guys, but this is kind of a huge deal. I’ve never had to tell anyone about this before, I don’t even know where to start. Hell, I didn’t even know if anyone would’ve believed me —”

“I would’ve,” Keith interjects. At Lance’s look of confusion, he clears his throat, glancing down. “Believed you, that is. I would’ve believed you.”

“Oh,” Lance says. He doesn’t really know what to make of that, or the weird feeling it brings him. “Thanks, I guess.” That feels inadequate, somehow, but he’s not sure how else to respond.

He coughs, running a hand down his scales. “Oh, I’m almost dry,” he comments.

Now Keith is the one looking at him in confusion.

“Watch,” Lance says, and in seconds, Lance closes his eyes as he feels the familiar, tingly feeling of his body turning back human.

When he opens them again, Keith’s jaw is dropped, and he looks almost as shocked as he did walking into the pool and seeing the… situation for the first time.

“I’m only a mermaid when I’m wet, Lance explains.

Keith snaps his jaw shut, shaking his head. “I guess it can’t get any weirder,” he says idly.

Lance snorts. “Just you wait until I tell you how I got into this stupid conundrum.”

Chapter Text

Their relationship only improves after the Incident. Keith finds it’s hard to call someone whose secret you’re guarding your rival, so. Friends it is. (In all honesty, he really likes being friends with Lance. He’s sweet and thoughtful and genuinely really funny, especially when Keith’s no longer the punchline. He also gives really excellent hugs, although Keith will never say this to his face. Another cool thing is the fact that Keith is now friends with a literal mermaid. A mermaid . He’s always been a bit of a cryptid hunter, and now he gets to see all the cool shit up close and personal! Like, Lance is incredibly fast underwater. Wicked fast, really. He’s like a torpedo . The first time Keith convinced him to go swimming (and hadn’t that taken forever), he’d had to take Lance in the dead of night, after assuring him no one else was awake. They’d dragged a huge wardrobe all the way to the pool so they could place it in front of the door, along with locking it. Lance had still been pretty nervous, so Keith had challenged him to a race to cheer him up. Lance had made it to the other end of the enormous Altean swimming pool so fast Keith had been convinced teleportation was one of his powers. It wasn’t, but that was the day that Keith found out that Lance did, however, have other water related powers — the bitch could waterbend . For real . To say Keith geeked out about it was an understatement. He and Lance had played in the pool until the wee hours of the morning, pretending to be soldiers from the water tribe in ATLA. It had been a blast. Genuinely the most fun Keith had had in years, but hanging out with Lance is kinda just like that. He’s a fun guy.)

As Lance’s friend and secret-keeper, it is now Keith’s job to come up with a decent excuse whenever Lance has to swiftly leave the room for mermaid-related catastrophes.

It is not an easy job.

Last week, for example, it had been Pidge’s turn on dishes after supper. Lance was keeping her company, sitting on the counter and telling some wild story about him and his sisters. (Keith used to think these stories were fabricated, but after hearing about how Lance and his sisters literally became mermaids because they were dicking around a haunted moonpool on Halloween, he’s certain the McClains are just as wild as Lance says they are. Like, Keith is 76% certain no one else on Earth has simply become a mermaid from making an impulsive decision. That has to be a McClain thing.)

Keith was drawing on the kitchen table, listening to their conversation but not participating, because he always wants to hang out with people and never wants to admit it. (Lance likes to say he’s like a cat, which is regrettably pretty accurate.)

Lance had made some silly joke, Keith doesn’t remember what, and Pidge had rolled her eyes and splashed him playfully. Lance had froze, motionless and terrified, pupils so wide they looked black instead of their usual warm brown. He positively fled the room in visible panic.

Pidge had turned to Keith, pretty panicked herself. “What did I do? Is he okay?”

Keith froze, completely blanked on what to say, but then it came to him: “He has explosive diarrhea,” he blurted, and immediately hated himself for it. 

Hoo, boy, Lance was gonna whoop his ass.

Pidge wrinkled her nose, turning back to her dishes. 

“Ew. I mean, I hope he’s okay, but ew.”

And that had been that. Not fucking easy. 

(And yeah. Lance had been mad. He’d been so mad that Keith wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam coming out of his ears as Lance yelled, but in the middle of his sentence — “Fucking explosive diarrhea ? Really, Keith? That’s the best you could come up with?” — he’d interrupted himself with a laugh so strong he’d doubled over, tears coming to his eyes. Keith figured he was forgiven. It was kind of funny, after all.)

As more time goes on, though, Keith finds himself having an easier time covering for Lance. It almost becomes second nature. He also becomes excellent at preventing incidents before they happen — if Lance and water are in the same room, Keith notices, and plants himself in between them. It’s become almost subconscious, at this point. Like, yesterday, they were visiting some planet, and they entered this grand hall for a meeting, and there was this massive waterfall cascading on the left side. Keith literally grabbed Lance’s arm and moved him to the side. Lance had smiled all big and squinty at him, hip-checking him in thanks.

It was a nice feeling.

Unfortunately, his newfound closeness with Lance did not escape the others’ notice. Shiro, in particular, was a giant pain in the ass about it.

“You and Lance seemed to enjoy each other’s company today,” he’d tease frequently. There were only so many times Keith could tell him to fuck off without sounding ridiculous, and Keith was rapidly approaching that limit.

Stupid older brothers. So annoying.

It’s pretty dope, though, all in all. The main downside is really only the toll it seems to take on Lance. He isn’t big on lying, and every time they lie to the team he looks more and more sad, which Keith hates. If you went back in time and told him he’d debase himself to telling Shiro’s horrible dad jokes to make Lance McClain laugh and smile again, he’d direct you to the nearest hospital.

But look at him now.

Now, he feels like he’d do anything to keep Lance happy, which is embarrassing but not something he knows how to fix. Honestly, his main solution is to convince Lance to tell the rest of the team his big fishy secret, but even the thought terrifies him. He’s convinced he’ll be kicked off the team. Keith doesn’t know how to explain to  him that the team would literally fall to pieces without him.

For now, though, he works on building their relationship. So long as he and Lance are friends, Lance will trust him, and maybe then he can convince Lance to trust the rest of the team, too.

Chapter Text

Lance has never had someone be so… protective of him.

His older sisters were protective, of course. But they were all protecting the same secret. And Lance and his sisters are all pretty close in age, so youngest or no, he wasn’t really the baby of the family unless he was being teased. They mostly spent their time showing how much they loved each other by seeing just how far they could push until they went insane. And as much as Lance doesn’t miss Maria taunting him about every crush he’s ever had, or Lucía cutting off the power while he’s in the washroom, or Aleja stealing all his lotions, or even Ines’ regular tackles down the hallway, he does miss them, and the way they never hesitated to cover for each other.

Keith, though, is different.

Keith has no stake in Lance’s secret. If anything, it only makes life harder for him. But he’s determined to do whatever he can to make sure Lance feels safe, and it’s… different. A new feeling.

God, Lance is so glad they’re finally friends. Even, of course, if being friends means he has to answer all of Keith’s dumbass, cryptid-obsessed questions.

“Do you ever want to eat people?”

Exhibit A.

Lance glares at the dumbass in question, flicking his tail so he gets pelted with a high-pressured splash of pool water.

“Only annoying boys with mullets who ask a lot of stupid questions,” he snarks, once Keith has stopped sputtering long enough to hear him.

“You got water up my nose,” Keith complains, voice nasally because of all the water that was presumably shoved through his nostrils. Lance smiles smugly.

“Serves you right.”

“I was just asking a question!”

“Yeah, a stupid question. Ask me intelligent questions, or sit in ignorance. God, it’s so tiring being the smartest person in the room all the time.”

“Right,” Keith says drily. “I bow to you, Mr. Ten Thousand Is A Thousand Plus Ten.”

“Fuck off! That was a translation issue!”

“It was not . You had a brain fart. Admit it.”

“Absolutely not. Only one of us has a skull that’s full of hot air, and it’s certainly not me.”

“Is so.”

“Is not.”

“Is so.”

“Is not .”

“Is s —”

Lance tenses his tail again, narrowing his eyes. “Keith, I swear to God, if you don’t cut that shit out I am going to drown you for real.”

“See! Look at that! Murderous tendencies! My eating people question was totally valid!”

Lance rolls his eyes, and then opens his mouth as wide as it will go so Keith can see his teeth.

“Look” he says, voice muffled over the stretch of his mouth. “No fangs. I told you, my upper body pretty much stays the same. I mean, I get a pretty intense craving for sushi every once in a while, but I don’t want to eat people. I couldn’t if I tried, I don’t have the teeth for it.”

Keith shrugs, stubborn as a goddamn ox. “I mean, just ‘cause you don’t have fangs doesn’t mean you don’t eat people. Cannibals eat people with regular teeth.”

“Yeah, regular teeth and knives , dumbass.”

“…Alright. Touché. So you don’t eat people.”

Lance flicks his tail to splash Keith again, but it’s much gentler, because he is a mature adult , and Keith is a dorky loser.

“Yeah, yeah. Now ask me a smart question or quit asking questions and let me try and catapult you across the pool. I had the angle wrong last time, I think if I sit with my back to the wall I can —”

“I have another question,” Keith says loudly, likely thinking of the last time they attempted a human catapult, which makes Lance smirk.

Pussy. Just ‘cause he went flying and nearly hit the ceiling last time doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try again.

For science , obviously. Not because Lance thinks Keith screaming is hilarious or anything.

(God, maybe he did turn into a siren. Was he always this sadistic? What’s with him obsessing over pressing Keith’s buttons all the time? It’s like he wants Keith to make that stupid face he gets when he’s all concentrated and cocky, with his narrowed eyes and haughty smirk and big attitude. That face used to piss him the hell off, he wonders why he’s so dead set on seeing it, now. Weird.)

“Does it hurt, when you transform? ‘Cause you always look a little pinched when you finally dry out.”

Lance blinks.

He got what he fuckin’ asked for, he supposes, ‘cause that’s a complicated question if he’s ever heard one. It’s not like Keith is asking maliciously, of course. They don’t really do malicious, anymore. And besides, Keith has that soft and concerned look on his face that always makes Lance’s chest feel constricted.

(He’s felt so strange around Keith, lately. It must be because there’s that new level of trust between them, now, because of how much Lance is relying on Keith to protect him and how seriously Keith takes that role.)

“The short answer is not technically,” Lance says after a moment.

“And the long answer?”

“You sure you want to hear me rambling about it?”

Keith shrugs, face still all soft and gooey or whatever. What a goober. (Lance can’t believe he used to think Keith was a hardass. He’s the softest person Lance has every met. It’s wild.)

“Wouldn’t’ve asked if I didn’t.”

“Didn’t Pidge ban you from using triple contractions, you country fucking bumpkin?”

“First of all, Pidge ain’t here, and second of all, you’re deflecting.”

Lance holds his hands up in surrender, because unfortunately Keith is correct (which is Lance’s least favourite sentence).

“Alright, alright.”

He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, the air between them growing tense and serious as Lance’s expression clouds. Keith waits patiently, letting Lance think of what he needs to say without interruptions.

(Yet another thing they’ve started to do a lot, lately. Lance has found that Keith is a great listener, and even more shockingly, Lance is also kind of a good listener. He didn’t think he would be, but he’s found himself working hard to become one. He likes it when Keith opens up to him.)

“We got transformed when I was eight. I’ve been a mermaid longer than I’ve been a real human. Or, well, a full human, I guess? Whatever. Anyways. I’ve been like this longer than I haven’t. Before that, though, I can remember a sort of… obsession, with the ocean. Beyond what I think was normal. And not just, like, a lot of geeky feelings about marine biology. I definitely have those —”

Keith grins teasingly. “Believe me, I know.”

“— but even as a kid, I can remember thinking that the ocean felt like home. I specifically remember this one time when I got the flu and was stuck in bed for a week, and I sobbed relentlessly after the first few days because it was the first time I was really away from the ocean for more than a day or two and I felt homesick. I remember crying to my mother that I just wanted to go home , even though I was sitting in the room I’d lived in my whole life. After the transformation, that — loneliness, I guess, that longing, got stronger. It’s not something I obsessed over twenty four seven, or anything, but on the rare days I went too long without going to the beach I felt restless. Antsy.”

“How come you went to the Garrison, then? Not that I don’t get it — you’re a great pilot — but, I don’t know. Why’d you go so far away from home if you knew it would hurt so bad?”

Ignoring the ridiculous and stupid flush to his cheeks that came immediately upon hearing Keith of all people — Keith, the greatest pilot of their generation — say he’s a great pilot, Lance shrugs.

“I didn’t know, I guess. I mean, I knew I’d get homesick, but I’d always felt a pull to the stars just as much as I felt a pull to the sea. I figured it would kind of even out, or something. But it didn’t. And I didn’t have anywhere to safely transform, either, which made it a million times worse.”

“Does it hurt? If you go too long without transforming?”

“It’s not, like, a physical pain, or anything, but you know that feeling you get when you’re trapped in a car or a classroom or something for too long and you feel like you’re going to explode if you don’t jump out the window immediately?”

“Yikes, yeah. How long did you feel so stuck?”

“I made it a month before I couldn’t take it anymore. I picked a random weekend and took a ten-hour bus to this water-filled sinkhole a few cities away. It was not technically accessible to the public, but I was so desperate that I just climbed my way down the rocky walls and prayed I wouldn’t fall and die.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah. But the relief I felt when I finally got in… holy shit. A truly religious experience.”

“I can imagine,” Keith says quietly. “Is that why you look so sad, when you dry off? Wistful?”

“Partially. It’s not that I would rather be permanently a mermaid or anything — I really wouldn’t, it’s honestly kind of a pain in the ass — there’s a kind of raw freedom, to swimming through the open ocean. I always miss it when I’m dry. It makes me miss my family, too.”

That last sentence hangs between them, heavy. Lance keeps his gaze trained on his pruning fingers, swallowing back the lump in his throat. Being able to share his secret with someone, swim around the pool, play in the water — it’s all great, sure, but it’s not the same. He misses being able to let loose, swim as far and fast as he can, staying underwater until his lungs burn and he absolutely has to surface. He can’t do that, anymore, not even in summers, and it sucks.

“Hey.”

Lance startles at Keith’s voice. When he looks up to face him, he almost does a double take — Keith’s got his game face on, indigo eyes narrowed and determined, 100% focused on Lance.

It’s — overwhelming, is what it is. The intensity of the stare, and the fact that Keith’s attention — which he’s always wanted, always craved, even if he had to invent a rivalry to get it — makes something squirm in Lance’s stomach, makes his palms sweat and face flush.

Like a prey animal, or something.

“You’re gonna swim in the ocean again,” Keith promises. “I can’t — I can’t get you your family back, not yet, but I can — I’ll take you out to an ocean, okay? I’ll find a way. Soon.”

Keith holds his gaze, eyes steady and increasingly intense, so sincere Lance can feel a shiver run up his spine.

“Okay,” he says, and his voice cracks so many times that it makes them both laugh immediately, and the tension breaks. They remember that they are trying to hang out , dammit, not have a heart-to-heart. They are here to play , like cool people. 

Keith is the first to speak again. 

“…If I let you try the catapult again, do you promise to keep my immediate safety in mind?”

Lance grins. He knew he’d wear him down – he knows Keith’s adrenaline junkie ass had just as much fun as Lance did. 

“Nope!”

Chapter Text

Keith takes promises very seriously.

His Pa always did, growing up. So long as he had the means, when he made a promise to Keith, he damn well kept it. Up to and including taking Keith to get ice cream every couple of months, even though that was probably a little irresponsible, considering the lactose intolerance and the amount of time Keith would spend on the toilet, afterwards, but whatever. Ice cream is ice cream, and Keith’s always had a sweet tooth, and his Pa loved indulging him. Shiro kept every one of his promises, too. Even the one about never leaving Keith behind, even though that was a struggle and a half and Keith had to help him out, in the end. Shiro fought his way back, to keep his promise.

And if there’s anything Keith wants to be, it’s just like Pa and Shiro.

He didn’t technically promise Lance anything. Didn’t say the words, didn’t make an oath. But he knows himself decently well, he’d like to think, or at least he knows what he sounds like when he makes a promise — and when he looked at Lance and said ‘ I’ll take you to an ocean, okay? I’ll find a way. Soon, ’ he knows he meant what he said. He knows he has a promise to keep.

(And not just any promise. A promise to Lance . Lance who was there for him, when Keith found out who he was. Lance who squeezed Keith’s hand as he broke down on the anniversary of Pa’s death, unable to visit his gravestone for the first time ever. Lance who trusts him, with the biggest secret he has, to keep him safe and feeling safe, too. Lance has trusted Keith with a massive part of him, and Keith will do everything in his power to make sure that trust isn’t misplaced.)

He’s got an idea, of sorts.

The thing about space is that everybody’s different. Seriously. There are some similarities, from planet to planet, but every life form approached evolution in a different way. Things are just strange.

And that’s great, for Keith’s inner sci-fi nerd. Excellent.

But for finding Lance an ocean to frolic about in? Less great.

He’s accepted, at this point, that he’s not going to find a wide blue sea on a sandy beach. They’ve seen more desert planets than they could count — because that’s what the universe decided it needs, apparently, sand and heat and cacti — but really, the only aquatic planet they’ve found so far was that one mermaid planet Hunk and Lance rescued a while back.

Which. Holy irony.

That had been Keith’s plan, at first. Grab Lance and Red and make their merry way over to the mermaid planet so Lance could torpedo around in peace. That plan had a bonus of including several of Lance’s mermaid friends that he would be able to see again, which not only would make Lance happy, but would immediately place Keith as Lance’s favourite.

(Why, of course, Keith wants so badly to be Lance’s favourite, is something he refuses to think about, despite Shiro’s numerous taunts and teases about it.

Maybe Shiro should have broken his damn promise and stayed the hell away from Keith. It would certainly be more peaceful, and also less confusing for Keith’s already tangled headspace.

But nah. Not really. Unfortunately for said tangled headspace, Keith is a little bit fond of his douchebag wine-mom of an older brother.)

That plan was not to be, however. Not only were they hundreds of thousands of lightyears away from the mermaid planet, and thus unable to reach it without a wormhole that Keith unfortunately could not produce on his own (and asking Allura was not an option, because then she would have Questions and Lance would freak out), but the planet was also mostly covered in a surface of ice, which would make it kind of hard for Keith to chill on the surface while Lance went ham with the fishes, or whatever. (Or, knowing Lance, whatever flesh-eating, massive shark looks like it wants to play.)

So Keith had to do some research. He looked through a list of near-ish planets that had some sort of ocean on it. Blue, pink, sparkly, he didn’t care. Some kind of ocean, preferably not hugely poisonous or something. Then, he cross referenced that with The List.

The List is a seemingly never-ending index of planets who have expressed a desire to have a diplomatic meeting with Voltron, be it for an alliance, supplies, relief efforts, random tasks, you name it. The List is so long that if you were to print it in tiny font on receipt-sized paper, it would be long enough to wrap around two (technically) grown men in their entirety, from head to toe, like mummies. (Look, there’s only so much to do on the castleship, and Keith and Lance get bored easy.) Keith then found one of the planets on the list with an ocean, moved it up a few slots so it was next in line, and waited.

“Paladins,” Allura says at their next briefing, “the next planet up is planet Weir. It’s an interesting planet, covered in hexagonal plates of grassy islands that float over similarly hexagonal oceans.”

Lance perks up. Keith hides a grin in his hands.

Success .

“Oceans?”

“Yes, although they’re like none I’ve ever seen. An almost indigo colour. Anyway. The purpose of this mission…”

Really, Keith should be paying attention. It’s a mission briefing, after all, and it should be taken seriously. But Lance keeps smiling every few seconds, excitedly flapping his hands in between sentences of the notes he’s hastily scrawling down, and it’s just — it’s cute. It really is.

(That is everyone’s thought, okay? Seriously. Lance is the only one taking notes, everyone else is watching him with a soft smile. Even Allura can’t quite keep a neutral look on her face as she goes over the mission details, pausing every so often to shake her head with a fond grin.)

Lance is antsy the whole rest of the day. He constantly switches between worry that his cover will be blown, and unbridled excitement about being so close to an ocean again, even if the planet looks more like a giant soccer ball than Earth and the colour of said ocean won’t be the same. (Hell, it’s not even saltwater.) But still. It’s huge, that ocean, and Lance will have a chance to swim freely again.

He’s very nervous, the next morning. He wears every piece of his armour, even though the atmosphere is breathable. He tells the rest of the team he’s a little overstimulated, which they accept without question, and then whispers to Keith that he’s scared there’s enough moisture in the air to set the transformation off. It’s happened before.

But after the negotiations are over — the planet had wanted to barter some supplies for Voltron in exchange for some stationed Coalition soldiers, for added protection against a potential Galran invasion — they’re free to explore for the rest of the day and the night they’re spending planetside. 

Lance’s joy erupts through him. He keeps his armour on, but he and Hunk fawn over a local market, buying something from every individual stall. (Keith pointedly hangs out with Coran, because Coran is awesome and doesn’t make and stupid comments about how often he and Lance hang out, unlike Shiro or Pidge or even Allura, who loves gossip more than she loves Keith, apparently. Rude. Keith thought they were friends .)

There was a point where everyone was discussing hanging out by the water for the evening, until Lance started chattering excitedly about the massive, castleship-sized jellyfish that were native to the oceans, and very common. Predictably, everyone decided to watch the sunset from the shore, instead, before heading to bed.

(Jellyfish, Lance whispered to him later, who’s venom was completely harmless to humans. Keith had to hand it to him — as much as he didn’t like lying to the team, he was certainly creative in the practice of dodging the truth.)

“C’mon,” Keith says, after everyone has retreated to their rooms, pulling Lance through a series of hallways until they make it out of the hotel, and then down a dirt path. “Let’s go.”

Lance bounces on the balls of his feet. His grin lights up his whole face, even partially hidden by his helmet.

“I can’t believe you’re really taking me to the ocean!” he says, stumbling after Keith in his haste.

“‘Course I am. I promised, didn’t I?”

“I know, but still! I’m just!” He flaps his hands, wordless in his elation.

God, Keith is — he’s proud of himself. So far he’s knocked this out of the goddamn park , hell yeah for him.

Finally they made it to a reedy beach — if you can even call it a beach. The strange hexagonal shape of the landmasses means the line between land and sea is straight as an arrow, and the waves don’t soften the edge at all, somehow. Almost like the edge of a pool.

Before Keith can explain the last few details of his plan any further, Lance grabs him by the shoulders and crushes him in the world’s tightest hug.

“I cannot explain in words how grateful I am to you,” he whispers. “You — thank you. Thank you so much , Keith. You’ve brought me back my freedom.” Lance doesn’t move away when he pulls back, keeping both hands on Keith’s shoulders and looking at him with so much grateful affection it should be illegal. His eyes shine with it, dark brown reflective in the black of the night.

God. Keith is so fucking glad he walked in on Lance as a fish. He’s not sure who he would be, if he and Lance didn’t become friends, but he’s so glad he’ll never have to find out.

“You’re welcome,” he says softly. “Now go. We’re only here for the night, make the most of it. I’ll follow you.”

If possible, Lance lights up even more.

“You’re gonna swim with me?”

Keith snorts. “Are you kidding? I can’t even keep up with you in a pool.” He gestures to a small fishing boat tied floating at the edge of the water, tied to a tree stump, that he pulled some strings to get earlier. “I’ll hang out in the water with you, though. Duh.”

Lance hugs him again, and then wastes no more time chucking off his helmet and diving into the water like that. When he resurfaces, his torso is bare, armour disappeared, and a long, orange tail predictably flicks a wave of water in Keith’s direction. He takes off faster than Keith can blink.

Man, moonpool mermaid magic is weird . It doesn’t follow the rules of science at all, which is dope.

Keith shakes his head, laughing to himself. He picks up Lance’s forgotten helmet and tosses it in the boat, climbing in after it, then takes his time rowing out as far as he can. Lance once told him he could hold his breath for up to fifteen minutes, and Keith has seen how fast he is, so it doesn’t really matter how long it takes him to row out to sea. Lance is probably going to spend a while just exploring around before he swims back to wherever Keith ends up.

That’s cool. Keith brought a book. It’s this adorable story he will never admit to reading, about an Altean prince and the knight in charge of his protection, and their forbidden romance.

Right as he’s getting to the good part — the knight nearly died trying to protect the prince from an assassination attempt and the prince is ignoring his royal duties to wait for him outside the healing pod — Keith hears a splash, and stows the book away in his bag before it gets soaked. Because, knowing Lance, he’s about to ‘playfully’ attempt to drown Keith where he’s —

Yep. Before Keith can even finish his thought, he’s getting drenched in a wave of water so cold it might as well be ice.

“You’re a dick,” Keith says, spitting the mouthful of seawater out of his mouth. It sounds fond even to his own ears. “I take you to an ocean and this is how you repay me?”

“You’re being boring!” Lance says, laughing. “Come play with me!” He swims over and hooks his arms around the edge of his boat, resting his chin on top of them. His tail peeks up from the waves, framing the distant, bright stars in the peak between his fins. The crescent moon shines behind him, making his hair look almost white, and shrouding his face in shadows except to the gleaming whites of his eyes and the peak of his teeth through his grin.

“C’mon, Keithy-kat,” he says, much softer this time. 

Keith shivers. 

“Come swim with me. The water’s nice.”

Keith could no more say no to him than he could stop his heart from beating, which is a troubling development that he will agonize over later.

“Okay,” he whispers, and the second the word leaves his mouth Lance grabs him by the hands and hauls him into the water, face-first, with no time to hold his breath or anything.

“Not what I meant,” Keith chokes, through the water that invaded his trachea, and Lance only laughs at him.

“Try to keep up,” he says, and Keith knows it’s futile but he’s never been able to back down from a challenge.

Especially not one from Lance.

They chase each other for hours — or, rather, Keith keeps himself afloat while Lance swims circles around him so quickly that Keith’s eyes genuinely cannot keep up — until Keith gets tired, and clambers his way back into the boat. He doesn’t go back to his book, though, instead watching as Lance gleefully speeds as far as he can go, and then as deep, finding treasure in the muddy sands below.

They stay out for the rest of the night, and when the sky lightens and streaks of purple streak across it, Lance pulls Keith back into the water. They float on their backs as they watch the sun rise into the sky.

“Thank you,” Lance says again, quiet and wistful. “For taking me, and for indulging me.”

Keith hums. “‘Course. I promised.”

He can hear the smile in Lance’s voice. “Still. I’m grateful. And when — and once I tell the rest of the team, it won’t all be on you. Hopefully you’ll still come swim with me, though.”

Keith whips to face Lance and almost drowns, fully forgetting he’s in the water and inhaling a mouthful, for the third goddamn time that night.

“You — you’re telling the team?” he rasps, once his lungs work again and Lance stops cackling.

Lance hums. He looks a little apprehensive, but he no longer looks so scared by the mere idea.

“Yeah. I mean — not yet. Not, like, today or anything. But, y’know. I was thinking. You make me less afraid of it. I think it’ll — I think it’ll be okay, if I tell them. Maybe they won’t be mad.”

“They won’t be mad, Lance. Surprised, sure. But not mad. I promise.”

Lance smiles at him, a little watery. Keith reaches over and squeezes his hands.

“Yeah? That a Keith-patented promise? Those are pretty unbreakable, you know.”

Keith smiles back. “I know. Everything will turn out fine, Lance. We’re going to come out of this on top.”

“Alright. I’ll tell them soon. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks, if we don’t get a distress call.”

“Whenever you’re ready, Lance. I’ve got your back.”

Chapter Text

The distress signal they get is from a planet so like Earth that Lance aches with it. Of course, it’s not Earth, and it’s obvious if you spend more than three seconds looking at it, but it’s big and blue and teeming with life and Lance can’t help the broken gasp he lets out when he sees it. He’s not the only one looking a little homesick, but Keith puts a gentle hand on his arm anyway. Lance shoots him a watery smile. He’s grateful for the support.

“It’s a time-sensitive mission, as we discussed during the briefing,” Allura says. She, too, notices the sudden pain visible within each of the paladins, her own empathy for them making her voice shake and shoulders tense. “It is also a mission of stealth, for as long as possible. Remember to use the lion cloaks as long as you can, communicate clearly, and when the fleet discovers you, destroy them quickly.”

“Got it, Allura.” All of them speak in unison, but Hunk takes it a step further. He reaches forward, grabbing her hand, and squeezes it tightly three times in succession.

“We’ll come back, Allura.”

Allura sighs, deep and long, squeezing back. Lance understands her fear. The fleet… it’s huge. Beyond huge. It’s big and scary and insanely well-armed. And with all of this planet’s similarities to both Earth and Altea, and the plain terror in the distress call… they’re all a little tense. A little skittish.

But they have a job to do. All of them.

So Lance hurries with everyone else, running to Blue’s hangar and flying through the zipline. “Let’s go, beautiful,” he says as soon as he’s settled into her cockpit, and off they fly.

Flying cloaked is always strange — since he and Blue are connected by their very quintessence, flying with her essentially melds her body to his. He becomes a giant metal flying lion, and she becomes her pilot. They’re one and the same. So there’s always a sort of cognitive dissonance, flying invisible, of looking down and expecting to see his limbs and seeing empty space instead. It’s something he’s not yet used to, and not sure he ever will be. (It does make his job even easier, though. Sniping always carries an element of pseudo-invisibility, being the one who is felt but not seen or heard, so quietly taking out Empire warships and fighters is as familiar as it is foreign.)

“Check in, everybody,” comes Shiro’s voice from the comms.

One by one they all sound off, confirming their positions.

“Okay, good. Remember — stay cloaked as long as you can. Do some damage and move away, until you’re in a position where stealth is no longer an option, and then just go ham. End goal is to drive this fleet away from the planet, we don’t need to eliminate every fighter. Check in with each other, keep yourselves updated. Most importantly: stay safe. Love you guys. Be careful.”

“Love you too, Dad,” Lance teases, to try and lighten the mood, and it must work because Shiro snorts as everyone else repeats it.

“Yeah, yeah, you little twerps. Get moving.”

They do. Lance takes a deep, meditative breath, melding with Blue until he’s sitting heavily on the astral plane. It’s a new thing they’ve been working on — the astral plane is, obviously, very different from the physical plane. He can sense where everyone else is, even with their cloaking on, and can even sense the ships of the Galran fleet that are dishing the most damage. This way, he can keep tabs on everyone else, on top of dealing as much damage as he can from the background. It’s an excellent strategy. It’s also, unfortunately, incredibly draining, pulling energy directly from his quintessence at extreme rates. He’ll only be able to hold it for so long. Hopefully, by then, they’ll cut the cloaking and get right to demolishing every bit of this fleet, so this planet — the one that looks so much like home — will be safe.

“Oh — fuck,” someone curses, and Lance blinks back into the physical plane with a gasp.

That sounded bad.

“What’s going on?”

“I think I — double fuck,” Pidge says. “I’ve been running my scanners while I was attacking and I have some news.”

“Good news first?” Hunk tries.

“It’s unfortunately bad news and worse news, buddy.”

Keith snorts. “Wish I could say I was surprised.”

“Mhm. Bad news is that we’re going to have to drop the cloaks — scanners were running and I got sloppy so they realised I was watching them. My bad. They know we’re here now. Worse news is that they’ve got an ion cannon charged and ready on the ship in the middle.”

“Could these bitches get any more crusty,” Shiro mutters, and he’s the first to drop his cloak so the fighters he’s facing can feel proper fear before Black just fucking eats the ship.

“...That was kinda hot,” Lance says, and he can feel Keith scowling at him as Shiro laughs.

“Why, thank you, Lance,” Shiro says.

“How about we focus on the fucking mission,” Keith snaps, voice all gruff, and he’s the next to uncloak, shooting a harmless laser in Black directly before demolishing his own fighter.

“Hey!”

“Shut up, Shiro.”

“Someone’s moody,” Pidge teases. Lance grins, shaking his head as he drops his own cloaking. God, he loves his team. Everyone is such a loser. It’s great.

(Because, of course, his brain is mean to him and has a personal problem every time he feels even one iota of joy, a traitorous voice in the back of his mind asks him how he thinks the team will feel once Lance finally comes clean about who he is. How betrayed , it whispers, do you think they will feel when they find out you’ve kept such a big secret from them?

Lance scowls and tells the voice to shut the fuck up. He’s busy, and has no time for negativity right now.)

The team spends the next several minutes — or longer, time gets kinda iffy mid-battle — shooting the shit out of several dozen fighter jets, before the big game starts: the giant commander ship slowly turns to face Yellow, ion cannon aiming right for the lion.

“Team, to Hunk and Yellow now! They won’t be able to deflect an ion blast on their own. Form Voltron!”

Wordlessly, they all fly full-speed to follow orders, seamlessly falling into formation, Pidge holding up their shield mere seconds before the massive ion blast hits them. The blast deflects off the shield and right back to the commanding ship, but the force of the blast sends them spinning.

“Is it just me, or did that feel more powerful than usual?” Hunk asks.

“Why can’t even one thing go right,” Lance laments, because Hunk’s right. There’s definitely something special about this cannon, because of course there is.

“Let’s try to take the ship out before the canon recharges,” Keith suggests.

“Good plan. Pull up the sword, we’ll get closer and see just how many pieces we can hack the ship into.”

Gleefully — and that’s a fact, Lance can feel his emotions directly when they’re formed like this — Keith does, and they carve into the ship like a goddamn thanksgiving turkey.

(Not that Lance would know a damn thing about thanksgiving turkeys. Thanksgiving is a shitty holiday, and turkey tastes like napkins. The McClains have sopa marinera instead, like cool people. But still. Metaphors, and all that.)

A good chunk into their attack, however, the stupid cannon does recharge, because of course it does. This time, Voltron is much closer to the business end of the beefed-up cannon, which is not ideal for their health and well-being.

“I’ve had better plans,” Keith comments, as they all stare into the barrel of doom.

“Have you?” Pidge snarks, because of who she is as a person.

“I didn’t hear you coming up with anything better!”

“I never said I was the plan-person!”

“Then cool it with the comments!”

“Um, guys, if we’re about to die via canon evisceration, could we maybe stop bickering?”

“No one is going to die,” Shiro assures. “But, uh, I did not foresee an extra-strong canon, and I’m short on alternative plans. Any ideas?”

Lance does, in fact, have an idea, although it’s not one of his best.

“In terms of great plans, this would not be one of them.”

“Anything you have is better than what we’re currently doing, Lance.”

“Alrighty, then. Hunk, you remember that shoulder-cannon thing you summoned a while ago?”

“Yeah, but it’s not as strong as an ion cannon.”

“No, but I imagine it would do some pretty catastrophic damage if you were to shoot it directly at the barrel of the cannon, right as the ion cannon charges up to shoot. I imagine that would make a lovely explosion.”

“…You imagine correctly. Shiro?”

“Good job, Lance. It is risky, though. Timing will be rough. We might get hit by an ion blast anyway.”

Before they have the chance to come up with anything better, the ion cannon glows purple, charged and ready to blast.

“No time for better planning! Hunk, cannon!”

“Aye aye!”

Hunk slams his bayard into his port, and they shoot off a blast the exact same second the ion cannon shoots at them.

As expected, the second their blast touches the ion cannon, the whole ship explodes.

Also as expected, the ion blast hits Voltron square in the chest, knocking the power out of the lions and forcing them apart. Completely powerless and reeling from the force of the blast, the lions go hurtling towards the planet. Lance desperately tries to wake Blue up, get the comms going, but it’s futile — she’s completely offline, and so is everyone else.

He forces himself to take a deep breath, and hurriedly engages the emergency controls — he won’t be able to stop himself from crash landing, but he can maybe make it a little less violent, and maybe not die on impact.

He hopes everyone else will be okay, too.

Chapter Text

Keith blinks awake to frantic banging noises.

It takes a moment for him to situate himself, to remember what the shit is going on, but the panic immediately sets in as soon as he has his bearings: he’s crash landed on a beach of some kind, and his lion isn’t responding.

“Red? Dude? You in there? C’mon, buddy, up you get. I need your help. Red —”

“Keith! Keith, are you good?”

Well, that’s certainly not Red. Keith scrambles to unbuckle himself from the pilot’s chair, wincing as numerous bruises across his skin make themselves known. He hurriedly makes his way to the source of the banging, which must be Lance at Red’s emergency exit hatch.

“Oh my God you’re okay,” Lance rushes out the second Keith gets the hatch open. The relief is evident in his voice and his expression.

“Is everyone else okay?”

Lance shakes his head frantically. “No. Shiro and Hunk are banged up pretty heavily — they crashed into each other and then the shore — and Pidge and Green hit the water. They sunk.”

“Fuck!”

Keith sprints after Lance to the other crashed lions, where Shiro and Hunk are sitting, agitated and panicked.

“How long was I out?”

“We crashed eight minutes ago.”

“Is that how long Pidge has been sinking?”

“Yes. I don’t know if Green is airtight. I doubt it. And I doubt Pidge is conscious, either, so the longer we wait for backup the more danger she’s in.”

“Well, then what the hell are we waiting for?”

“We’ve got no way to get to her,” Shiro says softly. His voice shakes. “Me and Hunk — we’re injured. Hunk’s got a wicked concussion, I can barely move my leg. You’ve been out for long enough to give me worry. All the lions are down, so we can’t comm Allura or Coran — and even if we could, they’re likely busy dealing with the rest of the fleet since we crashed. We’re out of options.”

Hunk has started to cry. Keith is so scared and frustrated that he’s not far behind. “Well, there has to be something we could do! We can’t just leave her to sink!”

Lance fidgets nervously. “I could get her.”

“You can’t,” Hunk whispers, sniffling. “She’s been sinking for nine minutes now, in a giant mecha lion. You’re a good swimmer, Lance, but you’re not that fast, and there’s no possible way you could hold your breath that long. Besides, you haven’t been swimming in years.”

But Lance isn’t looking at Hunk. He’s looking at Keith. Hesitant, but determined.

“Do you think you can make it?” Keith says quietly.

“Hunk just said it was impossible,” Shiro says, pained, but Keith ignores him.

“I don’t know,” Lance replies, just as quiet. “It’s — I’ve only managed fifteen minutes before. But I have to try.”

Keith swallows. He knows Lance’s limits as well as Lance does. Pidge has been sinking rapidly for ten minutes — even if Lance manages to get to her in that time, he’ll still have to make it all the way back up, and that’s not counting the time it will take to free her. Lance may have a tail, but his lungs are as human as ever. And they don’t know anything about this planet’s oceans — it might look like Earth’s, sure, but who knows what lies beneath?

But they can’t lose Pidge.

And they’re out of options.

“I trust you.”

Lance takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Lance, you can’t —”

“It’s impossible, don’t —”

Lance ignores them, quickly throwing off his helmet and sprinting for the waves. Keith starts counting down in his head — when Lance touches the water, he has ten seconds to transform.

Nine.

“Lance, stop it! I can’t lose both of you! We’ll find another way!”

Eight.

Shiro moves to try and stop him himself, but the second he puts weight on his leg it buckles.

Seven.

“Lance, I order you to stop where you are —”

Six.

Hunk sobs. He tries to get up, too, but he’s concussed and concussed badly. It’s unlikely that he can even see straight.

Five.

“Keith, stop him, please,” Hunk begs.

Four.

Keith swallows.

Three.

“Have some faith.”

Two.

“Faith?! In what? He’s only fucking human! I trust Lance as much as you do, but that doesn’t mean he can change nature!”

One .

Lance’s rapidly shrinking figure — the whole time they’ve been arguing, he’s been sprinting into the waves — shimmers with fluid, blue light, and in the next second, he’s transformed.

In the place of white and blue armoured legs is a long, orange tail. Without looking back, Lance takes a huge, deep breath, and dives under the waves. His tail flicks up behind him before he disappears in the depths.

Behind him, Shiro and Hunk are silent.

Stunned.

“You knew,” Shiro says quietly. Keith turns to face them.

He nods.

“I did.”

“How?”

Hunk sounds — hurt. There’s pain in his expression. He looks at Keith almost warily. Keith can read between the lines.

How did you know, and I didn’t? He’s my best friend. You were his rival . Why did he tell you and not me?

Keith sighs, and walks back over to them. He drops down, poking at the sand to avoid their eyes. This is going to be rough — it isn’t really his story to tell, but he can’t very well say nothing.

“I wasn’t supposed to find out,” he starts.

“Find out — find out that Lance is a fucking mermaid ?”

Shiro looks beyond bewildered, and Keith can’t blame him.

“That was my reaction, too. I walked in on him drying off in the pool room. It was — uh, it was certainly an experience.”

“Back up,” Hunk says, making a T with his hands. “I’m so confused. Just — in general, but by this specifically. What do you mean, drying off?”

“Lance only transforms when he touches water,” Keith explains. “When he’s dry, he’s a regular human. I caught him after a swim.”

“Is he — has he always — when —” Shiro struggles to form a sentence. After a minute or so of trying, he just kind of throws his hands up and looks at Keith in exasperation. “Was he — born like this?”

“No way. I would’ve known,” Hunk insists. “When I say we grew up together, I mean it. Our mothers were best friends. We took fuckin’ baths together as kids. I would’ve seen it.” He hesitates. “Uh, don’t tell him I told you that.”

Keith cracks a grin. “I won’t.”

“Good. Even though he kept this massive and awesome secret from me, I am cool like that.”

“Right,” Keith says rolling his eyes, before he schools his expression into something more serious. “I get that you’re upset, but maybe don’t tell him that? He already feels intensely guilty about lying. He’s worried he’s going to get kicked off the team. I’ve tried to assure him that no one’s going to be mad at him, but you know how he is. Gets all in his head.”

“God, it’s so weird how close you two are now,” Shiro says, because apparently even amidst life threatening situations he has to be an asshole. “I mean, I know why, but still.”

“Feel free to piss off,” Keith says pleasantly.

“Can we focus,” Hunk says. “My best friend has a tail , and somehow I did not notice.”

Keith shakes his head, shooting one last glare at his douchebag older brother — who sticks his tongue out like a toddler before getting serious again — and goes back to his story.

“Right, sorry. Um, it’s kind of a weird story? I didn’t believe it, at first, if I’m being honest.”

“Keith, I just watched Lance grow a mermaid tail . Get to the goddamn point.”

“Jeez, okay. He and his sisters were dicking around some caves on Halloween, when he was around eight. They found this glowing moonpool and decided to jump in. The next day, they were half fish.”

“ That’s what it was!” Hunk cries, which Keith can safely say was not his expectation. “I knew they were acting all fishy after that! I didn’t know they were actually fishy! How come he didn’t tell me?”

“I imagine they’d be pretty scared to tell anyone,” Shiro says, voice low and eyes averted. “When I was diagnosed, I didn’t — I wouldn’t even tell my mother. I was so scared. I figured it was best to just — shut up and handle it myself. And I did.”

“Until you couldn’t anymore,” Keith whispers, thinking back to how that particular screaming match went over with Adam.

All three of them look out to the sea, grim. There’s no sign of Lance or Pidge. There’s no sign of anything.

“How long has it been?” Hunk asks quietly.

Shiro checks his watch. “Twelve minutes.”

Keith bites his lip. “Lance told me he can hold his breath for fifteen.”

None of them say anything after that. There’s not much more to say. They just watch the ocean, time ticking by, and hope that everything will turn out okay. 

Seven minutes later, someone breaks the surface with a gasp.

“Pidge!”

Keith sprints out to the waves immediately, swimming faster than he’s ever swam before to help her get to shore. Her helmet’s cracked, and she’s weak, but she’s alive and breathing.

He drags her back to shore, depositing her gently on the sand. Without wasting a second, she throws off her helmet and looks at him in panic.

“You have to go get Lance!” she shouts, voice hoarse from the choking. “He’s not — Green’s latch was stuck, he had to force it open. He was down there too long.” She begins to cry. “I didn’t — he was behind me for a while, but then I didn’t see him anymore. You have to go save him.”

Keith feels the blood drain from his face. He doesn’t even take the time to curse before he’s shoving his helmet back on — his armour is relatively intact, and hopefully so is his air tank — and diving back under the waves. The neon glow of his armour illuminates the space in front of him, but he’s not that fast of a swimmer — nothing compared to Lance — and he can’t find his damn mermaid anywhere.

“C’mon. Come on . You can’t have sunk that far. Where are you?”

He swims deeper and deeper, desperately swivelling his head around for any glimpse of brown hair or an orange tail, to no avail.

Just as he starts to lose hope, he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. When he whips around to look, he sees Lance — and his heart drops. The blue paladin is limp, unconscious and fucking drowning .

Oh, the irony.

With a burst of speed he didn’t know he was capable of, Keith darts down to where Lance is slowly slinking, wrapping a hand around his arm and yanking.

Keith feels himself start to cry. Lance is — the tail makes him heavy . Keith isn’t strong enough to pull him up to the surface, especially not with the added water pressure and the slight vacuum he can feel from Green sinking.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he begs, yanking upwards with all his might, but Lance barely moves.

He’ll never get him to air again before he drowns. Not like this. 

Fuck, what would Lance do? If Keith was the one drowning, and Lance was trying to pull him back up, what would he do? How would he pull something three times his size through meters and meters of water?

Keith blinks.

Lance would do what he always does when he’s in a rough patch — use his goddamn jetpack.

(Lance loves that thing. He’s frequently cited it as the peak of innovation, despite the fact that he has travelled through wormholes – nope. Jetpacks. Those are the best thing he’s ever seen.)

Frantically, Keith activates the jetpack, and it glows to life behind him. Finally, he starts ascending — but not nearly fast enough. It’ll take them five minutes to reach the surface at this rate.

Five minutes Lance doesn’t have.

Keith takes a long, deep breath.

Hopefully, he has five minutes.

He takes off his helmet and jams it on Lance’s head. He’s not sure it will work, but at least it won’t make things any worse. Hopefully, Lance will wake up, and then he’ll be breathing air instead of water. Hopefully, if he doesn’t wake up and start breathing, Keith will still be alive to help.

Usually, Keith is really bad with time. He gets distracted easily, and it slips away from him — he’ll be training for what he feels like is a couple hours, only for Lance to come get him and scold him for spending the whole day in the training room without taking a break.

Five minutes has never felt so long.

They’re getting closer and closer to the surface, and Lance still remains slack in Keith’s careful hold. Unconscious. Keith’s vision starts to blur.

Please, please let him survive , he prays to no one. Please. I can’t lose him. Not him. Please.

Just as he feels himself start to black out, they finally break the surface, and Keith takes several grand, gulping breaths.

“Keith!”

Before he knows it, Pidge has swum up next to him, grabbing Lance’s arm and helping pull him to shore.

“He’s not breathing,” Keith gasps, still a little breathless himself.

“I know. I know. We’re almost there.”

The second he’s close enough to stand, he does. Hunk and Shiro have limped their way over, open terror on their faces, and help pull Lance to safety as best they can. The second Lance is laid carefully on the sand, away from the water, Keith yanks his helmet off Lance’s head and starts pumping his chest.

“Please, please, please.”

After thirty pumps, he opens Lance’s mouth, breathing into his lungs.

Nothing.

He keeps the compressions going, switching back to artificial breaths every thirty pumps.

“Please.”

Nothing. Back to compressions.

“Please.”

Pidge starts to cry. Hunk, too. Shiro is on his knees, desperately praying.

“Please!”

Suddenly, Lance’s eyes shoot open, and he sputters. Keith quickly moves him so he’s upright as he hacks and coughs up several litres of water.

Once the choking sputters to a stop, and Lance is breathing again, Keith finally lets himself breath properly again.

Lance is okay. 

He’s okay .

“I take it I couldn’t quite do it on my own,” he rasps.

“You’re not funny,” Keith says, and surges forward to press his lips firmly to Lance’s. Lance startles, but after a second his hand — freezing cold, because of course it is — comes up to rest in Keith’s cheek.

Hunk clears his throat.

“I’m super happy for you guys, and everything, but maybe let’s let the guy who just drowned breathe, a little?”

…Decent point.

Keith tries to pull back, but Lance doesn’t let him go far.

“What was that about?” he whispers, brown eyes dark and half-lidded.

Keith swallows. “Uh, CPR?”

Lance cracks a grin. “I don’t think your tongue in my mouth was CPR, Mullet.”

Keith huffs a laugh. “Maybe not.”

“I didn’t… are we a thing?”

“I guess so.”

“Since when?”

“…Are you upset about it?”

“No, no. I’m just… I can’t believe I didn’t know I had a crush on you.”

“That’s because you’re a massive dumbass,” Pidge says before Keith can reply, but her desperate grip on Lance’s bicep softens her words. “For more than one reason.”

“Yeah,” Hunk says, carefully kneeling down to Lance’s level. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were a mermaid, man.”

Shiro’s next to pipe in. He pays Lance gently on the back. “Did you really think we would kick you off the team?”

Lance shrugs, eyes downcast. Keith squeezes his hands so he knows Keith’s on his side, which makes Lance smile at him gratefully.

“Um, I was getting over it, actually. I was going to tell you guys. Really. Soon, too, but the distress call came and it was pretty urgent and I didn’t want to distract anybody —”

“Hey,” Keith interrupts, leaning over to press another quick kiss to Lance’s lips because he can, now, apparently — this is something they will be doing frequently, and he’s kind of ecstatic about it — “breathe. Don’t fuck up your lungs any further.”

Lance takes a deep breath. “Right. Well, I guess you guys know, now, so. That takes care of that.”

Hunk hums. “And are you okay with that?”

It takes Lance a moment, but he smiles — first at the rest of the team, then at Keith, something secret and soft.

“Yeah,” he says, squeezing Keith’s hand. “I am.”