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Keith and Lance were in the red lion, per usual. They never hang out, just the two of them. It’s always with Pidge or with Hunk. Lance pilots it while Keith stands near the seat. He’s talking about something stupid, like how “great” his kick was when they formed Voltron. Keith rolled his eyes, they fell when he kicked.
“How far away is this planet?”, Keith asks. Yeah, he was a little impatient. Anyone would be if they were stuck with Lance rambling for more than 10 minutes. “Relax, dude. We’re almost there..” Lance responded. They finally got to the warm planet. The planet looked pretty from the Lion's view and it had an atmosphere, shockingly, so they were able to breathe properly.
“Thank god I don’t have to wear that stupid bubble for air.” Keith joked to Lance. “C’mon, it wasn’t that bad..” Lance responded. They park the lion and talk to the civilians there. “Will the rest of Voltron be here?”, one of the children ask. Lance and Keith look at each other and Lance responds, “Sorry, little guy! Just the two of us today..! Two paladins and one lion..” To the little kid. He looks disappointed but Lance looks at Keith and tilts his head towards the planet's beach.
“You took me to this planet for a beach.” Keith deadpans. He doesn’t like the beach, hates it in fact. “Well duh. I told you to take your bathing suit and towels.” Lance says back with an attitude, “You did?? When??” Keith responds. “You’re kidding. So, you brought nothing.” It was Lance’s turn to deadpan back. “I didn’t hear you!” Keith yells back annoyed.
Lance rolls his eyes, “Ugh, this is why I don’t hang out with you... whatever, it’s fine. Nobodies at the beach anyways.” Keith scoffs and crosses his arms, like always. The sky was a beautiful mix of light green and dark purple. The “sand” wasn’t even sand, it was just chunks of rocks. Definitely not comfortable and definitely different than Earth. It was a weird sight, sure, but it was beautiful nonetheless. “Very different than Earth, that’s for sure.” Lance jokes and Keith snorts.
They walk to the beach, near the corner where a rock wall was. “This is so weird,” Keith says while looking at the water. Lance is setting up a towel and he puts his bag (well, now it’s both of their bags. Stupid Keith.) down, facing away from the water. Lance gets curious and looks at the water with Keith, “It’s pink..” He mumbles.
“Well, I guess that is pretty weird,” Lance speaks up after a few seconds of silence. Lance goes back to grab his swim trunks. Keith’s mind starts to wander. His face flushes when he realizes how romantic this is: 2 people staying at a beach at sunset when no one’s around. Yeah, that sounds like a date. Fuck. Keith thinks to himself.
“What’s the matter with you..? Did you see something?” Lance comes from behind and startles him. He flinches, “Jesus, don’t fucking do that..” Keith says before he starts laughing, Lance is so confused but just goes along with it. Lance holds his swim trunks in his hands and he starts to remove his shirt and jeans. Keith looks at him for a moment, back to the ocean, and he whips his head back to Lance.
“LANCE WHAT THE HELL???”, Keith covers his eyes with his hands while he starts to turn red. “Whhhaaattt? I need to get dressed somehow..” Lance jokes and continues, “No one even here.” Lance continues to remove his clothing and Keith can’t help but peek but it’s only because he needs to see if it’s safe to look. Totally.
“Oh my god, you’re so embarrassing. I’m right here!” Keith scolds him, “So?” Lance jokes which get Keith to stop talking. “Okay, you can look now.” Keith looks at him and Lance bursts out laughing. “What??” Keith questions. What is wrong with this guy?? “Your face is SO red!” Lance continues to laugh at him while Keith playfully shoves him.
Keith has no choice since he didn’t bring his swim trunks, but to roll up his jeans and remove his shoes and socks. Lance touches the water first with his feet and immediately regrets it. “Holy shit, that’s cold!” He yells as he runs back to Keith. “It can’t be THAT bad.” Keith walks to the water and has the same reaction as Lance. “That has to be, like, below freezing!” Lance yells while laughing.
There’s something different about the way he laughs. Keith just.. admires Lance for a moment before he finds himself laughing. His laugh was contagious, that’s for sure. “Let's go together, no running out of the water..” Lance tells Keith and he nods. They both walk towards the water again, both of them holding their breath from the cold water. Lance jumps. Like, physically jumps. He’s about to run out of the water before Keith grabs his arm and pushes him into the water.
The water near the shore is deep and Keith did push him pretty hard, so Lance stayed in the water for a few seconds before popping out. “HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT WAS THAT FOR,” Lance shouts, his teeth chattering. Keith’s eyes are watering from how hard he was laughing. He was slightly bent over while holding his stomach and his eyes were squeezed shut, smiling wide, and his eyebrows were furrowed.
Even though Lance was freezing, it was his turn to admire Keith for a few seconds. Lance saw the way his gums showed when he laughed, the way his eyes crinkled when they squeezed shut, the way his eyebrows creased and furrowed, he noticed it all in a matter of seconds. He then snapped back into reality and splashed water at Keith. The ocean wasn’t cold anymore, his body got used to it. But not Keith’s.
“Lance, STOP!” Keith squealed, running out of the water as the bottom of his jeans and his shirt were soaked. Lance emerged from the water and chased Keith back to their towel laying on the ground. Lance ran up to him and hugged him, getting the cold water on Keith. He picked up Keith and started spinning around. They were both laughing and screaming.
The laughing came to an end as Lance put Keith down but didn’t let go. His cold arms wrapped around Keith’s upper back, bear-hugging him, while Keith’s arms were at his sides. They looked at each other for a bit. Keith’s dark purple eyes looked up slightly at Lance’s lighter blue eyes. Keith felt the tension grow and gave him a hard shove, his face turning pink.
Lance snorted and Keith swore he saw a small blush on his cheeks as well. At this point, the sun was setting over the pink ocean. Without the sun, the water turned into a dark purple color. The sky was more purple now, still with light green hints here and there. Lance just watched Keith, he say his eyes sparkle when he looked at the sunset and how he nervously picked at his fingers. Lance found himself staring at Keith more than the beautiful scenery right in front of them.
Keith suddenly turned his head to face Lance, “You hungry?” And Lance felt himself snap out of it. “Oh yeah, kinda.. I think there’s some kinda restaurant here..” “Do we have to eat alien food? The food goo from the castle is already weird enough..” Keith complained. He hated trying new things, especially if it was from a whole other planet. “Oh cmon, it won’t be that bad!” Lance reassures him.
Although they talk about food and being hungry, none of them get up and actually get their stuff ready to go. Instead, they sit on the towel, next to each other, admiring the sunset for the next 15 minutes. No talking, no laughing, just comfortable silence. Once the sun had finally set, Lance was dry and he put on his old clothes, “Ew. Even you’re underwear?” Keith gave a genuine look of disgust as Lance scoffed, “Well I didn’t bring any! At least I even brought a swimsuit..” He joked.
They both get the towel and the bag. They leave the beach and find a restaurant not too far away. The people on that planet were extremely civilized and even had better technology than on Earth! Still, there was a language barrier between the paladins and the older aliens who lived there. They walk together for another 15 minutes while talking and joking about their old missions and whatnot. They make it to the restaurant, “Ughhh, finally. My legs were starting to hurt.” Lance whined, “Do you ever stop complaining?” Keith teased to which Lance gave him a dirty look.
It was one of those restaurants that were both a bar and a dinner. There are mostly adult aliens and the lighting was dim. “Wanna get drinks instead?” Lance proposes the idea, “What, alcohol?” Keith teases and Lance rolls his eyes. “Oh, I have an idea. Let’s order for each other!” Lance whispers. Keith agrees to the little game. Lance orders a pink drink that looked like a strawberry ice cream. Keith ordered a black and gray drink, he thought it looked like wet cement so obviously he had to give it to Lance. The drinks come around and Keith is surprised that his looks edible. Lance, on the other hand, is disgusted.
“You’re kidding. I get you this nice, pink, drink and you get me a drink that looks like mud!” Lance shouts while whispering as Keith snorts. “I don’t know, I thought that this is something you might like.” His voice, also a whisper, has a teasing tone to it and Lance rolls his eyes again while crossing his arms, “Nu-uh. No way. I’m not drinking this.” “Oh yes, you are.” Lance groans and they both take the drinks and clink glasses. Lance looks like he’s about to throw up while Keith is excited.
They clink and drink. Lance’s eyes close gently while Keith’s eyes widen and he spits the drink back in the cup. He gags while Lance continues drinking. He drinks half of it and puts the cup down. Keith’s eye twitches. “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU ORDER FOR ME???” Keith yells in a whisper while Lance bursts out laughing. Suddenly, Keith takes Lance’s drink and slurps some of it. His eyes widen in surprise at the taste, “I only ordered this for you ‘cause I thought it would taste bad, but this taste’s like a vanilla milkshake. How is that fair?? You get me something that tastes like ass!” Keith scolds him while Lance continues laughing at him.
“I only got you that drink ‘cause I made the mistake of getting that last time..” He says after he takes multiple breaths from laughing. Keith cocks an eyebrow at him, “You’ve been here before?? When?? With who??” Now Keith was genuinely curious while Lance shrugs it off. “Oh, well, um... I went on a date with Allura here, but you can’t tell anyone I told you that.” He says he crosses his arms. Keith’s eyes widen in surprise.. lance? On a date? With Allura??? “What?? I thought… when??” Keith questioned.
“Oh, this was, like, a loooong time ago. Like, when we first came out into space... But she wasn’t interested in me so.” Lance averted his eyes away from Keith, he looked.. regretful. Or maybe that was Keith just reading his face all wrong. “Did.. did you want to date her..?” Keith questions, sounding empathetic. He knows how much Lance liked or... likes Allura. Even though he’ll never admit it, he feels the pit in his stomach grows larger the more they talk about this. Now that he thinks about it, he gets this disgusting feeling in his stomach every time Lance brings up his crush on Allura.
“Wait, let me get this straight. You take her to this nice beach AND this restaurant, and she doesn’t go out on a second date?” Keith sounds genuinely interested. “Well, I’m not the most… interesting guy.. besides, there are a billion other aliens Allura could date so. Not really surprised that it wasn’t me. I mean.. there’s a lot of fish in the sea so..” Lance just thinks out loud. “What are you talking about? You’re a good guy, and if Allura doesn’t see that.. then maybe she doesn’t deserve you.” Keith finishes his thought and Lance looks… surprised to say the least.
“Are you kidding?! She’s a whole princess from another planet! Not to mention that she’s gorgeous, puts everyone before herself, and she’s determined. I’m just a boy from Cuba.” Lance says, but he doesn’t say it in an upset way. He says it like he’s been thinking like this for a long time, that he’s “accepted” it. Keith just looks at Lance with this heartbreaking look. He can’t stand listening to Lance talk about himself like this. He’s too distracted by the fact that Lance is talking bad about himself that he doesn’t even realize that he took Keith to the same beach and restaurant where he took Allura. On their first date.
“Anyone would be lucky to have you, Lance. You’re.. funny, caring, and a little stupid.. but, if Allura doesn’t see the good in you, someone else who’s more deserving will.” Keith reassures him. Lance looks at him with kind eyes as he smirks, “Thanks, man. That.. means a lot..” He returns back to his cocky personality instead of a more vulnerable state, “especially coming from my rival..” He jokes, easing the tension and Keith laughs a little.
Keith takes Lance’s drink and closes his eyes while sipping. Lance lets himself become more comfortable with him and he gives him a soft look. Even though Keith doesn’t see, Lance just looks at him. He rests his arms and head on the bar table while his eyes still linger on Keith’s face. He feels his face getting warm and his eyes close.
“This isn’t fair, how come you get the tasty drink even though it looks like wet cement and I get the one that looks like a strawberry milkshake but tastes like literal ass.” Keith jokes, seeing that the mood has been lifted. He doesn’t hear Lance say anything. He looks back at him to find Lance staring at him with.. this look. He looks all sappy and drunk and Keith just smiles back at him. “Lance, c’mon get up before you actually fall asleep,” Keith says sarcastically.
“Well maybe I want you to carry me back to my lion," Lance mumbles. He really does feel sleepy. Something about the lighting and watching Keith act comfortably. He feels his eyelids get heavy and he’s actually about to sleep. Keith sees this and takes a quick photo of Lance, something to make fun of him for later. Then, he shoves his shoulder to wake him up, “Dude, I’m not gonna actually carry you back. It’s wayyy too far.” Keith says seriously now.
Lance sits up immediately, his eyes just look heavy but he’s about to get up, but not before paying for both drinks. “Oh Lance, you didn’t have to do that..” He felt guilty, Lance had to pay for the drink even though Keith didn’t even finish. ‘What type of gentlemen would I be if I didn’t pay..?” Lance is joking but Keith takes it seriously and blushes slightly. He thanks the poor lighting for hiding his pink face. “Okay, now it’s time to leave.” Keith urges Lance.
Lance stands up from the stool and stretches his arms. His shirt lifts up slightly and Keith can’t help put peek. Keith stands up as well and they walk out. They walk out in comfortable silence. It was now darker outside, dark purple with hints of dark pink with big blue stars. Suddenly, as they walk, Lance points to the sky and sees a shooting star. “Keith! Look!” He tugs on Keith’s leather jacket. But Keith doesn’t look at the sky, he just looks at Lance. He notices that when the shooting star flies past them, Lance’s eyes turn even brighter, the way his eyebrows are raised, and how happy he looked. Keith could stare at his face all day.
Lance looked back at Keith, starry-eyed and bright smile, waiting to see his reaction to the star. Keith had missed it but he had seen something more beautiful.
“Did.. did you see it..?” Lance spoke after a moment of silence. Keith looked up at Lance and just nodded. They continued walking.
They make it back to the Lion, not speaking the whole walk. “So. Was that fun orrr..” Lance tried to ease the awkwardness. Keith was just… in his own head now. They get inside the ship and Lance takes a seat while Keith holds on to the chair while standing, “Huh..? Oh yeah, it was.. really fun.” Keith chuckled awkwardly. After a few moments of flying, Keith teases Lance, “So. You take me to the same place you took Allura for a date, we stay at the beach during the sunset, and share drinks. Was.. was that a date?”
Lance’s shoulder tense up as his face becomes hot, “What?? Umm.. no, like, totally no. I mean, it was fun… yeah but, a date..?” He started rambling nervously while Keith just laughed at his muttering.
They end up coming back to the castle where they leave the Lion and enter Hunk’s room. Pidge is obviously on her laptop on the floor while Hunk lies on his bed. “You guys!? You were literally gone all day.” Pidge looks up when they come inside the room. “How was your little date..?” Hunk teases them both.
Keith and Lance look at each other with wide eyes and they both start denying the fact that it was in fact a date. Pidge and Hunk just give each other the look and continue talking. Lance storms out of the room in embarrassment while Keith just watches. The door closes and he looks back at Hunk and Pidge. They erupt into laughter while Keith just stands there, embarrassed and confused. Keith ends up leaving the room a few seconds after. “Look, he’s going to find his boyfriend,” Pidge says sarcastically while Hunk just laughs harder.