Archive of Our Own

1.

Lance is startled up from working on his homework with a gasp. It startles him so bad he looks around frantically expecting to find the house on fire. But Rachel shoots her hand over and grabs his wrist in a painful grip, pulling his arm far in front of him. 

“What?” He asks, now scared.

Although instead of the shock or fear he’s expecting he watches her face twist into the all too familiar mischievous smirk. “Ooh, mamá is gonna be so mad,” she sing-songs. He has no time to even look at whatever it is she’s talking about before she shoots up, already shouting for their parents as she runs out of the room. 

He finally brings his right hand back to himself, eyes bulging at the sight on his palm.

Rachel has stopped shouting from somewhere deeper in the house, which means she found their mom, or dad, or both, or even Luis. 

He gives no second thought to his abandoned homework, sprinting to the bathroom, praising whatever outside forces that Veronica is out with her friends right now and not hogging the bathroom. He quickly runs up to the sink, getting the hem of his school uniform sleeves wet and soapy in his haste to wash off the mark. To his dismay, the black smudge on his palm doesn’t wash off. It is just as bright and obnoxious in the middle of hand as before. Still, he pours more soap into his hand and scrubs three times as hard as before. Not caring that his hand flares up in pain from it. 

“Lance?” His father’s voice says from the hallway behind him. Lance scrubs harder, groaning how the soap isn’t turning ugly and black. 

“Lance, what are you doing?” His father finally steps into the bathroom. Lance is too frantic to notice if his tone is angry or not.

Large hands grab his own and turn off the water. He keeps his eyes down to his feet as he’s gently spun around and hands turned palm face up. He braces himself for the shouting, or the emotionless start of the lecture. None of that happens, instead his dad makes a soft woosh of air out of his mouth. Sounding, of all things, awed. Lance is surprised to then feel the soft plushnes of one of the towels wiping off the excess soap and drying his hands. 

“Look,” His dad says quietly, pushing Lance’s hand closer to him, pointing to the middle of his palm. “Do you know what that is?”

Lance, for the first time, takes a careful look at the mark on his palm. His earlier fear is wiped away with confusion. He doesn’t understand what’s so special about it. Other than that he could get in big trouble with his mom for having drawn on himself again. Although now that he’s taking a closer look at it, he sees that it’s not a black smudge, and it actually has a shape. “It’s a knife?”

His dad huffs, crooked teeth breaking out behind his smile. “Yeah,” he crouches down on one knee to be more eye level. “But do you know what it means?”

He bunches his shoulders up to his ears. “I drew on myself again.”

His dad makes the breathy laugh again. “No, it’s a soulmark.”

The word vaguely rings a bell in his mind. Like the blurry memories he has of hearing how his parents met, or when one of the other boys in his class asked the teacher what the colorful butterfly on her temple meant. Maybe it was the reason he was told once, when he got in trouble, again , for drawing on himself, but not understanding why his mom was so against it to begin with. It seems like one of those very distant words adults say that he doesn’t care to know what it means yet, or thinks he’s still too small to learn. 

“Soulmark,” he says the word slowly, testing the word on his tongue, now that he’s starting to get the idea that it means a lot more than he first thought it did. 

Eventually, they explain it to him properly. His parents sit him down on their giant bed, snug between the both of them as a large book is placed in his lap. Yet here he was hoping that it would be something exciting but instead he’s getting more reading homework. 

“Here, this is yours now,” his mom says gently, running a hand on the book cover like she does when she pats him on the head. 

“But before you start reading it, you need to understand something very important, mijo.” His dad says seriously, it makes Lance sit up straighter and put aside his groan at the heavy book in his lap. 

His attention is turned over to his mom when she clasps his hands in hers. “You have a very special gift now, Lance, you need to be careful not to take it for granted or abuse it. Not everyone gets this chance.”

He doesn’t learn until much, much later, just how heavy the meanings of those words actually were.

___________________________________

2.

At some point between accepting that there's nothing he can do to hide his new spontaneous soulmarks, and hitting puberty, his soulmarks somehow become a point of pride for Lance. Occasionally spending hours upon hours holding a mirror in his hand and trying to decipher what the soulmarks mean. 

They're meant to represent life-changing moments in his soulmate's life. 

He guesses that the knife on his palm means his soulmate is a fighter, or a chef. He can't decide which makes more sense or which he'd prefer. 

There's a lopsided heart right above his right eye. Besides that being the start of him plucking his eyebrows near pencil thin to fully show it off, Rachel has made him both super insecure and proud of it. Extremely proud of it because once he got over the insults calling him cute for it, he started genuinely wanting to have his face look nice and put together if only to do justice for the mark. Rachel, however, still won't stop insisting that the mark represents love at first sight. Which makes an unfortunate amount of sense. It's a heart, nearly right on his eye. 

He's stuck between the chest aching pain of jealousy, or the high of being so incandescently happy for someone else. Jealous because the whole point of having a soulmate is that it's the safety and knowledge that someone is out there, meant to spend the rest of their life with him and love him as he is, without conditions, and in spite of his faults. Some deep part of him hates the thought of that someone being with someone else. Scared that when the day comes that they meet, they'll already have picked someone besides him. Yet at the same time, Lance doesn't want to hold them back. He hopes that they get to experience what it's like to fall for someone, and get the experience of a good, happy relationship. That in the future when he and his soulmate are inevitably together, he can reminisce with them and be happy that they made it to him despite all of that.

Then the third soulmarks Lance has is a purple ...something, right above his belly button. That's the one he hasn't told or shown anyone yet. If only because it's a purple blob with no meaning or purpose besides being a purple blob. Plus, he doesn't really have the confidence to walk around showing off his midriff. 

At first he actually thought it was a bruise, from wrestling with his niece Nadia a few too many times. It was only after four days of it not so much as fading or changing color did he finally realize it was another soulmark. 

In his own mind, Lance has rationalized it as vaguely representing the spider-web-like spill of paint, or ink, or some other colorful art substance. Smeared downward like a spill wiped a little too late.

Which, he does admit, this one might be his wishful thinking. Imagining them sitting in their room, or an art studio, or even a plain classroom, and discovering their love for art for the first time. Hoping that it's some sign of their creativity, or some endearing clumsiness. 

It's better than nothing he rationalized. Some purple blob on his stomach as a soulmark gives him nothing to go off of when it comes to deciphering who his soulmate is. When the heart and the knife on him are at the very least recognizable objects.

He had just become content with the fact that he might not figure out the meaning behind it before his next and newest soulmark appears. 

Like his very first soulmark, he's not the first person to see it.

See, it's just that he had submitted his application to the Garrison, and was anxiously waiting day in and day out for a reply. He never thought it would be this nerve wracking waiting for a response from the application he spent days working on. Except that, he submitted the application 10 weeks ago, when the average response time from the Garrison is a month. So the longer he spends waiting, his hope slowly dwindles down to a spark, the more and more angry he gets. Until eventually, he checks the mail and his mom's email daily if only to finally have the weight lifted off his chest and see the "we regret to inform you…" staring back at him from the page. It would break his heart and dash the hopes of his family that one of them will have been able to get out, but at this point he'd rather have a clear answer instead of deafening nothing.

No matter how much his mamá tries her best to motivate him and keep his head and hope up, the rejection starts weighing on all of them. So she recruits the family to keep him distracted until the Garrison finally deems to give him an answer. Which is how he and Veronica wind up babysitting Nadia and Silvio out on a beach day. 

Vero is in a sundress, because despite her goth phase, she knows better than to go out in the sun dressed in nothing but black. He himself in a tank top and swim shorts. The youngest family members dressed in some light clothes for the heat. 

The four are planning on spending time playing on the beach, then leaving for food after a few hours. If only because Silvio can't swim yet, and Vero can't supervise three kids out in the ocean on her own. Nadia throws a fit at only being able to get her feet wet on the shore, but because she's a good older sister, if her younger brother can't go in the water, then she can't either. 

The distraction works. He doesn't have the time to stop and think about the looming nothing he'll go back home and check the mailbox for. All because he's too busy reminding Silvio to drink from his sippy cup every two minutes, and chasing Nadia as she explores the beach looking for trash and treasures to decorate her sandcastle with. The only rest he gets is when Vero's phone battery lowers down to 15% and she finally puts it down to save battery. He plops down to sit in the sand, slowly baking in the sun. Nadia jumps at the chance to start burying his feet in sand. The slow, cooling feeling of being buried keeps his mind blissfully blank. 

Once Silvio joins in, and the two of them have fully encased just past his knees is when Vero comes over and slaps him on the back. So hard he jolts forward. He ignores the displeased noises from his niece and nephew from accidentally popping out his toes from being slapped, he turns to hit Vero as payback. But she ignores him and harshly turns him over to look at his back.

"What are you doing?" Lance squirms away from her, slapping the hand that's moved the strap of his tank top to the side. 

Vero shushes him loudly, leaning down to closer inspect whatever it is she slapped on his shoulder. 

This is when Nadia's curiosity peaks, and she abandons trying to re-cover his toes to go and stand behind him. 

"What are you doing? " Lance asks again, more indignant. He kicks the sand off his legs and twists away from both girls. 

Silvio stays squatted in the same spot, a small fistful of sand still in hand, and pouting at his now ruined artwork. 

Lance, with the opposite hand, grabs his shoulder and in vain twists and turns to try and see what the other two were so interested in. Besides the mild tenderness from being hit, he has no idea what could be so interesting on his shoulder. 

"Stay still," Vero grabs him firmly by the shoulders and turns him out to sea.

Lance can smell the scrambled eggs she had for breakfast when she bends down to be eye to eye with his shoulders. He even feels Nadia's tiny, cold fingers reach up and try to touch his shoulders.

He sighs, dropping his head. "What is it? What do I have on me?"

"Pretty," Nadia says unhelpfully, her hand bunched up as high as she can reach on his shirt. 

Veronica's gentle fingers are a stark contrast to her earlier actions as she inspects his shoulder blade. 

Lance sighs, condemning himself to not getting an answer from either of them any time soon. He swivels his head from side to side, making sure Silvio is still nearby and hasn't run off while the three eldest are distracted. 

Veronica seems to have the same thought, and she finally releases him and turns to where Silvio is still pitifully staring at Lance's indent in the sand. Which then turns into her rolling up the towel they were laying on, tucking it into her bag, and picking both it up and her nephew. 

Lance assumes that means it's time for them to leave the beach and go get food before finally heading back home. He grabs Nadia and props her on his hip, ignoring how he'll get tired of carrying her three year old weight in about two minutes, but his niece is a well known runner and he won't take any chances when they're back in town. 

Once the two babysitters are walking side by side, Vero bumps their hips together. 

"Congratulations on the new soulmark," she smiles at him, genuinely. 

Lance's shoulder feels like it's on the fire the entire walk through town, ordering food, and back inside their house. He unceremoniously deposits Nadia on the couch and runs to his room to grab his handheld mirror. Then he locks himself in the bathroom, stripping himself of his shirt. 

It takes some mildly painful neck twisting and angling so the one light in the bathroom properly shows his back through the mirror, but he finally manages to see the soulmark emblazoned onto him. 

It's underwhelming, how's it's only a handprint. Although he waves off his initial response to it and takes a closer look. The first, most noticeable thing is that it's huge, definitely the handprint of an adult, not another 12 year old like him, unless his soulmate has giant hands. That alone could mean a number of different things. 

Leaning closer to the big mirror hanging above the sink, the said sink digging into his lower back from the angle, the details in the handprint finally become clearer. 

It's a galaxy. Like the bodiless adult on the other side of his soulmark took a chunk of the night sky in the palm of their hand and gently pressed it into the back of his shoulder. The patternless space emitting from the meat of the thumb in the palm, where a large white star lies. 

Lance is so mesmerized by the sight, his eyes flaring up in pain from looking at this awkward angle for an uncomfortable amount of time finally forces him to look away. 

___________________________________

3.

Adjusting to living at the Garrison is a trip, to say the least. Although it's not so bad. As long as he ignores the initial homesickness, and the fact he sticks out so much when the halls are filled nearly to the brim with white faces, or getting over the sheer number of times he's told his English is amazing –despite the fact that he had to pass an English exam as part of the admission process into the Garrison, or how his dad has a high position at a company in Cuba and can very well afford to teach all his kids English– even if his accent is heavy, or how he has to keep his mouth shut because he spends twice as long on his homework every night compared to everyone else on homework because it all makes more sense in his head if he works on it in Spanish before translating it to English for his teacher to grade. Even ignoring the most stressful part of his year last year, how it took months for his school credits to travel internationally and count towards the beginner classes the Garrison made him take until they finally moved him up when they never arrived and his mom had to incessantly call the school to test him to see his actual educational level. 

This year will be better , Lance tells himself as a mantra. He repeats it in his head the second half of the plane ride into the States. He mumbles it quietly to himself walking through the dorm halls, weaving around other students and their families as he frantically looks for room 223. He feels like it can actually be the truth when, in the middle of unpacking, Hunk finally walks into their shared room and immediately picks him up in a bear hug. In the darkness of his first night away from home this school year, he promises to himself that he will do anything to make sure it's true. 

Lance's promise to himself is quickly dashed, nearly, the first day of classes when he walks into Mr. Iverson's classroom and the first thing he sees is a crudely put together seating chart up on the board. He heard through the grapevine that Iverson is notoriously difficult. He's glad that the teacher at least has the self awareness to get it over with on the first day instead of pretending to be nice only to fail half the class on the first exam. Inhaling deep, he walks himself to the front of the classroom to carefully search through all the names and find his seat. When he finally finds McClain written down in Iverson's blocky lettering the second attempt at killing all his hopes and dreams for the school year is made, when he glances over to see who he'll be sharing a desk with, only to see Griffin pasted next to his own name. No number of his mamá's etiquette lessons could keep the scowl off his face. Filling his lungs with more air than necessary, he walks over to his assigned seat and quietly sits down, grateful for the small silver lining that James hasn't shown up to class yet. 

The third attempt at Lance's self made promise is when he's told that all the students will start to be ranked. The ranking will be based on overall performance on all their classes. It also may or may not (read: definitely will) determine in a few years if they're in the fighter or cargo classes; for the students working to become pilots like him. Hunk also has to suffer through being ranked with their entire grade, and later the entire school, but because he's just a mechanic there is no such thing as higher or lower class for him. 

Lance is actually fairly confident in his skills when they announce that they're going to start having the rankings up in the second year dorms. At least, until he struts up to the rankings wall, eyes landing on the name in first place, and slowly skimming down until he sees his name, shoulders dropping in time with his eyes down the list. 

Hunk steps up next to him, hissing a wince through his teeth when Lance slams his finger on his name: 88. Alejandro Matias McClain Serrano.  

Lance keeps his finger pressed up to the screen, frowning at how his long name sticks so far out in comparison to the other names on the list. He feels a gentle hand land on his upper back. "Oh, Lan-"

"Yes!" 

Hunk startles back, along with the other four students currently in the hall with them. 

"Top 100, baby. Eff yeah!" 

Hunk only stares at him wide eyed like he grew a unicorn horn out of his nose. 

Lance turns back to the rankings board, discreetly pulling his phone out from the inside of his uniform, snapping a quick picture of his name. He grins stupidly down at his screen as he quickly sends the picture to his family group chat with a quick message of, me debes 250 pesos Raquel.  

He locks and hides his phone quickly like he never had it out. Pointing at his name and turning back to Hunk, unable to help the happy dance in place his feet do. "Lookit, top 100." 

Hunk grins back at his friends, infected with the happiness, "that's amazing Lance."

Lance manages to keep his happy squeal quiet down to an aggressive long exhale. 

Both of them turn back to the rankings. Hunk looking for his own name. Lance looks higher up the list, still in mild disbelief that he made it to the top 100. Now he should look higher. Maybe try and get out of the 80's and up to the 70's. Although that dream is too small, he should look higher. That's when the words 50. James Griffin catches his attention. There, that's the goal he should try and beat. He flicks his eyes a name higher, 49. Keith Akira Kogane. Maybe he and Kogane can work together to beat Griffin. 

He's interrupted from his train of thought by the bell ringing, signaling the end of lunch hour. He and Hunk start walking side by side to their one shared class. 

The name Kogane vaguely rings a bell in his mind. At this point, having finished a year already, he feels he has a good grasp of who is in his grade, and a small number of the upperclassmen. He can mentally connect the name to a wild mane of dark hair and a kid who more often than not gets the occasional side eye from teachers for one thing or another. 

"Do you know Keith?"

"Who?" Hunk is distracted from his shuffling and keeping his shoulders hunched to look over. 

"Keith," Lance repeats. "Kogane," he brings one hand up to his head, pretending to be running his fingers through his non-existent long hair. "Short, black hair, emo, resting B face." 

Hunks confused face clears at the emo comment. "Oh, yeah. The guy with no friends right? What about him?"

"Think imma recruit him to hate on Griffin."

Hunks confused face returns, "what?"

He waves one hand in the air dismissively, "you know, 'cause two against one is better than one against one." 

The confused frown on Hunk's face deepens, "what? Why?"

Lance scoffs. " 'Cause James is terrible? And might as well share with another one of the fighter pilots the privilege of knocking him down many notches."

"No. I meant," Hunk interrupts himself to hold open the classroom door, "why do you want to talk to Keith ?"

Now Lance is the one frowning in confusion, "because we both hate Griffin?" He says slowly. 

Hunk's confusion progresses to blinking quickly. 

They press a temporary pause on their conversation as they walk to their respective desks. Once they've each pulled out the supplies for the class do they turn back to each other and continue where they left off. 

"I don't think Keith would like you talking to him," Hunk says bluntly, hoping to dash this horrendous idea before it escalates to immeasurable altitudes. 

Lance scoffs, in offense this time. "I'm wonderful to talk to."

Hunk reaches over and pats Lance on the shoulder. "Yes you are. But I don't think all the charm in the world could get Keith to not threaten to punch you for smiling at him."

Lance's top lip curls in a sneer, not at Hunk, never at his best friend, at the hidden challenge just presented to him. 

The bell rings, signaling the start of class. Mr. Wright starts speaking right when the bell finishes sounding. 

"We'll see about that," Lance whispers over to Hunks desk.

Hunk sighs, wishing he'd been more blunt.

Keith is surprisingly unsurprisingly a really hard guy to track down. The only times Lance ever sees him is in the two classes they share. It's basically impossible to get him alone aside from then, because Keith walks in through the classroom door right when the bell is ringing, and is out of his seat the second the teacher dismisses them. He can't exactly corner the guy in the middle of class either, since the classes they share also include James.

Since Keith is clearly so determined to not interact with even the air particles outside of class time, Lance figures he just has to get lucky. Since every blue moon he has seen Keith in the cafeteria during lunch or in the halls on the weekends. 

He waits a full month of school. A wasted month that could've been used as beating down Griffin if Keith were a more sociable guy, but oh well, pickers can't be choosers. 

Still, the blue moon rises high in the sky on this day (metaphorically), and he finds Keith in the cafeteria on a Sunday. One of the quieter days for the cafeteria. Sitting by himself at one of the corner tables, idly stabbing the fried food Americans have the audacity to call edible. 

Lance is actually meant to be passing by, on his way to pick up Hunk from one of the engineering classrooms, but, well, Hunk will understand. This Griffin mission is important, and who knows when the next time Keith will voluntarily be out in public again. 

Lance invites himself to sit down across from Keith, overcompensating his momentum and jiggling the entire table, knocking Keith's spork out of his hand. 

"Hi! Keith, right?" Lance clears his throat, Luis' voice at the back of his head telling him to watch his volume. He shoots his hand forward for a handshake, "I'm Lance, don't know if you know me. I'm also a second year. We have Bio and math together. And history last year."

Keith's signature frown is on his face, slowly glancing at his spork on the floor, to the hand nearly in his food, to Lance's bright face. He leans back, giving the hand in front of him the same look he'd give a blowout diaper on a baby. 

Lance keeps his hand hovering in the air between them, trying his best to keep the shaking in the limb to a minimum, although there's little he can do about the sweat breaking out on his palm. He makes a small attempt to re-offer the handshake by nudging his hand a millimeter forward. Another eight seconds of his hand awkwardly hanging in the air is more than enough time to finally give up and pull his arm back to himself. 

He clears his throat a second time, dry skin of his esophagus scraping against itself uncomfortably. "You're probably wondering why I'm interrupting your," he motions vaguely to the spork on the floor, "food." Lance cringes so hard he's sure he'll wake up at the age of 92 in a cold sweat, woken from a nightmare of this exact moment. 

He wipes his hand on his jeans, then presses the thumb on the opposite hand into the knife soulmark on his hand. The small motion gives him enough courage to suffer through his embarrassment and continue. "I'm here to talk about James Griffin."

Somehow, Lance didn't think it possible, the glare on Keith's face grows deadlier. Keith shifts a tad further away, chin tilting up the barest amount.

"Well you see, I was kind of hoping that you and I, me and you, could maybe, if you want, you don't have to, this is all just an idea, maybe a really stupid idea, but an idea, so that together we can maybe work together to go-"

"Oh, hello."

Lance shuts his mouth so quickly he must now have an open wound in his tongue from biting it. 

A Garrison issued lunch bag plops onto the table next to Keith's tray. Quickly followed by a grown adult sitting on the bench behind it. 

If his throat was dry before, now it's Mercury's surface. 

A quite pitiful squeak somehow escapes Lance's throat instead of a proper hello his mamá drilled into him since he could babble out lala as baby speak for hola. 

"I'm Takashi Shirogane, but any of Keith's friends can just call me Shiro."

Lance stares, half awed, half fearfully, at the hand in front of him offering a handshake. Somehow, by some miracle, his hind brain kicks in and his body moves automatically despite his mind short-circuiting. His mamá's social etiquette drilling must be working after all. Although with how sweaty his palms are, shaking his hand must feel like holding an extra slimy fish. 

Forcing Mr. Shirogane to hold his fish hand thankfully lasts no time at all. He can quickly hide his shaking fists in his lap under the table. 

"Sorry, but what's your name? Don't think Keith's ever told me about you." Then he turns over and gently nudges Keith in the shoulder. Keith immediately bristles, seemingly not able to decide who he currently hates more at this table.

Watching Keith finally turn the glare on him is all the kick-starting Lance needs to exterminate himself from this cafeteria as soon as possible. He stands, tries to at the very least, knocking his thighs into the table, biting his lip to keep from crying out in pain. The movement shakes the whole table. Mr. Shirogane turns over to him curiously, then he also frowns. Lance cannot untangle his ungainly legs from the table fast enough. 

"You don't want to eat lunch with us," Mr. Shirogane leaves the end of his question open-ended, still hoping to get a name. 

Lance pulls his leg out from under the table, like a bullet shooting out of a gun, explosive and not without some spare shrapnel. I.e., his shoe flies off and lands with a deafening thud under the table. 

" Coño!" Lance whispers shouts, quickly bending to retrieve his shoe. "Coño," he says again, quieter, when he realizes he just cursed in front of Mr. Shirogane . 

Popping out from underneath the table, clutching his shoe to his chest, he eyes Keith, then Mr. Shirogane. In a last ditch effort to be polite, he jerks his head in a bow, before booking it out of the cafeteria, two pairs of eyes burning into his back, lopsided with only one shoe on, and face burning worse than the one time he accidentally took a nap on the beach back home. 

He walks like that the entire way back to his room, slamming the door closed behind him, and quickly curling up on the floor where he stands. 

Back at the rankings board, Lance glares daggers at, 33. Keith Akira Kogane . 

From this day onward Keith Kogane is officially his rival. For embarrassing him in front of Mr. Shirogane. 

Well, eventually, he forgot the actual reason why he's so adamant on the rivalry, until it becomes more a rivalry based on the idea of the thing rather than reason. If only because he's trying to block out how cringey a 13 year old he was. The higher Keith climbs in rankings, the more reason Lance has to beat him. 

At least, until he finds his soulmate. By way of finding the soulmark on the back of shoulders smeared –what was the hand at his back guiding him towards the stars, turned into a black, bloody print trying to get away, still sparkling as if scorned by the white star in it– when looking at himself in the mirror one night; the same day that the entire school has gone silent for the three fallen heroes of the Kerberos mission. 

___________________________________

4.

Luckily, Lance doesn't embarrass himself so terribly the second time meeting Mr. Shirogane officially. It does leave a lot to be desired. Since, he'd rather meet his hero at a conference, or in class, and not save said hero from the institution that allowed them to meet face to face in the first place. 

Shiro has forgotten they’ve technically already met by now. He hesitates a second too long grabbing the other’s hand, and the all familiar jealousy burns in his gut that it ends quickly before all attention in the room is turned to Keith again. Although the burn is nothing in comparison to the night before. Barging in to save Shiro, where running into his late abuelo would’ve been less surprising than running into Keith. Only to be completely forgotten by the one person he spent years of his life at the Garrison trying to be known by. He made such a big deal when they were younger to show off and make himself stand out as much as possible, only to finally run into each again and be asked, who are you?  

Lance can’t really help his bad attitude towards Keith after that. Not even when they miraculously survive the cliff-side car chase, or the entire time they’re all at the decrepit shack, or finding ‘Voltron’, then rocketing out to space and mentally speaking with the interplanetary weapon spaceship he’s flying through a wormhole. Lance is really good at holding grudges. It’s not surprising really, it is surprising how he can manage to hold it even when he discovers that he’s just forced himself and a bunch of strangers and his friends for the indefinite future to be stuck fighting in a war they might never make it out of. Maybe he should take a moment to reevaluate his priorities if he’s forcing Keith through petty fights because of an even more petty miscommunication when they were children instead of focusing on his more important accidental paladin job. 

If only fear didn’t grab his heart in a chokehold whenever he does take a breather to think , only to be reminded of the fact that there is an entire race out there that wishes him dead. 

Alas, c’est la vie. 

Speaking of taking a breather, Lance didn’t think he would be so grateful to see a bed in his entire life. He collapses face first onto the too-hard alien mattress. If he was a little less tired, maybe he’d put more thought into how it immediately molds to his form. 

He’s sure he passes out quickly afterwards because when he opens his eyes again, he’s curled up on his side. Chestplate digging into his stomach painfully, the crotch of his undersuit bunched up and chafing, and the terrible dry taste in his mouth from sleeping with it wide open. 

Groggily sitting up, he blinks quickly through the aching in his head, idly wondering if it’s from the crick in his neck, sleeping too long, not sleeping long enough, or if he now has a perpetual headache and has barely noticed it. Fumbling with the clasps of his chestplate, the lights in the room brighten when he places both feet flat on the floor, forcing him to squint through the sudden blindness. 

Slowly, he abandons his armor on the bed, standing with joint-popping relief, before shuffling to the attached bathroom. Once there, he drops his undersuit to the floor, tiredly rubbing the crustiness from his eyes as he starts the shower. Taking a breath to try and enjoy another second of the bad sleep he just had before the water pressure punches him awake. 

He inhales deep, shutting his eyes and standing under the spray of the water. Feeling immediate relief as the water pounds into the back of his head and slowly makes its way down. For a moment it almost feels like he’s back home, almost. If it weren’t for the fact that he is not taller than the showerhead, or how the water is actually warm and not cold from him usually being one of the last people to take a shower, or how there is no background noise from outside the bathroom door of his loud family, or the tv going, or some music, anything. When he opens his eyes he half expects to look down at his feet and see the familiar sight of four different brands of hair wash on the walls of the bathtub, the yellow fade of the tiles, or even the bright pink shower curtain his mamá insists on having. Instead it’s the stale white that makes up the entire bathroom, the only color is his own stark contrast, and the only noise is the steady thrum of the water. 

Lance’s chest aches hollowly. It has not been so much as a day since he’s been out in space, but he hopes this feeling lasts a little longer so he doesn’t forget what the inside of his family’s bathroom looks like. 

He brings both arms up to run his hands through his hair and get it completely wet. Freezing when red shows up in his periphery. 

Pulling his arm across his chest, he stares dumbstruck at the new soulmark emblazoned on his deltoid. Quite literally emblazoned, as its fire not so subtly emitting from the Voltron crest. He would think it looks awesome if the sight of it didn’t make his already aching head pound more. 

He runs his thumb on the now colorful skin, scoffing, “of course it’s the right arm, por que todo tiene que ser obvio contigo, no? ” He mumbles disdainfully to himself. Turning his head to face the opposite wall to finish his shower, too bone tired to deal with this right now.

He goes through his shower quickly, wanting the satisfaction of being dressed and feeling clean from a grueling past few hours. Unless that all already happened the day before. He genuinely has no idea if he slept into the next day as he hasn’t checked the time yet. All he knows is that they unlocked the black lion, once they reclaimed the last lion as theirs, Allura forced them into hours of group training exercises. The moment she announced they were done for the day Lance came straight to his room and now has no clue if it is still the same day.

He dresses in his signature t-shirt and jeans, accepting that it must be that grey area of time where it’s late enough that any average person would be in deep sleep right now, yet early enough that it’s most likely pointless to try for another hour or two of sleep, but the shower has him wide awake nonetheless. 

He leaves his room, planning to, at the very least, make it through the day.

All the paladins are lounging in the common room. Slowly, one by one, they converged in this room. All walking in with the intention of doing work, on some piece of tech, or reading important documents, depending on the person, but work. Although with how long they’ve been in the room together, of course they’ve deviated from their original plan. Which is how they wind up sitting close together on the semicircle couch and talking. 

“ –and that’s why my cousins banned me from using their trampoline ever again,” Lance finishes his story by leaning back and crossing his legs.

Hunk is chuckling under his breath goodnaturedly, already having heard the story before. Pidge is laughing on her couch cushion, unabashedly calling him an idiot. Shiro looks stuck between wanting to laugh, and giving him his signature lecture for making questionable choices. Keith however, makes the choice for him. 

“Why the hell did you still do it a second time after you hurt yourself the first time?”

Lance shrugs, “I dunno. It was fun?”

Pidge starts laughing harder.

Keith, it turns out, is amazing at channeling his inner Shiro and giving out severely disappointed faces. “But you gave yourself a black eye.”

Lance lifts his pointer finger to wave it around for the signal to ‘no, that is incorrect,’ “also broke my nose,” he brings the same hand up to his nose, “still don’t know if it straightened out afterwards.”

“But you still did it a second time .” 

Lance has no idea why Keith is so caught up on his childhood stupidity and maybe early signs of masochism, but he’s enjoying seeing Keith so riled up.

Pidge is the one that interrupts their mini argument, finally sobered from her laughing fit. She’s sitting criss-cross on the couch, staring down at her lap. “Matt once broke his leg trying to climb a tree. The only reason I knew he needed to go to the hospital was because I had a soulmark pop up of a stick person laying down at the base of a tree.” Then she stretches out her leg, showing said mark on her shin. 

She smiles fondly down at it as everyone else leans in closer to get a glimpse of it. “He refused to ever tell anyone why he was trying to climb the tree, but I guess the whole thing was embarrassing enough that I have it tattooed on me now.”

This also turns the mood in the room bittersweet. Everyone is hyper aware of Pidge’s ongoing challenge of finding her brother and father. Under normal circumstances they would maybe try to help her get through the five stages of grief, or find where their bodies wound up. Although if Shiro survived then who's to say that Sam or Matt didn’t? Also it would be ignoring the most obvious fact that Pidge and Matt are soulmates, and even if it’s been months since her last soulmark appeared, she still had some appear after the Garrison announced everyone on the Kerberos missions deceased. It barely, if at all, gives her leads as to his whereabouts, and gives no confirmation at all about her dad, but it is more than a good enough reason to continue searching. 

Pidge re-crosses her legs, clearing her throat to try and lead the conversation away from herself. Unfortunately, Lance is the person she chooses to change the conversation to. “Have you met your soulmate yet? Do you know what the heart stands for?”

Lance barely restrains himself from bringing a hand up to touch the heart on his face she’s referring to. He’s been asked about it plenty, he should be used to this by now. He never thought that in his entire life he would be so hesitant to talk about his soulmate, who is in the very same room, yet here he is, avoiding looking at said soulmate and choosing to be as vague as possible. “No. I don’t know what it means.” he belatedly thinks that maybe he shouldn’t be so blase about it. “But it’s cute.” Now he brings a hand up to touch it, a faint smile on his lips.

In his peripheral vision, he catches Keith shifting away from the group uncomfortably. It makes Lance swallow and also shift tensely. 

He shifts the conversation of soulmates away from himself as soon as he can. Coran and Allura start asking questions. Keith leaves then. Lance also takes the chance to exit, purposefully going in the opposite direction of where Keith walked.

___________________________________

Keith disappears. 

Hunk, with his large and caring heart, has started a small search party throughout the castle to try and find him. The search party consists of Hunk and Coran currently. Pidge and Allura are too busy trying to figure out why Shiro completely vanished into nothing from inside the Black Lion.

Although Lance knows better. If Keith does not want to be found, then he will not be found. The best he can hope for is making sure no pods or that the Red Lion does not leave the castle ship. Instead, Lance heads to his own room. 

He walks straight into the bathroom, stepping up to the mirror and looking himself in the face. The adrenaline from the fight with Zarkon has him trembling and dirty. Even to himself, he looks crazed.

In one practiced move, Lance pulls his chestplate up and over his head. He’s slowed down by the arm armor pieces but he takes those off also. All so that he can reach behind him and pull down the black bodysuit underneath. 

First he glances at the Red Lion insignia on his bicep. It looks exactly the same as it always does, so he pulls open a drawer under the sink to grab a handheld mirror. 

Leaning heavily into the counter and twisting, he finally catches a glimpse of the handprint soulmark on his back. Although now it barely looks like a handprint at all. Before, it was the universe held gently in palm, now the black ink of the mark has bled so bad that one star remains. The white star on the meat of the thumb has distorted and warped so that it has turned into a hole, sucking up the blackness around it. The soulmark has shifted so that it could not be mistaken for a soulmark. Now it is a large black blotch with five jagged points, a white hole simultaneously sucking up and spreading the emptiness around it.

Lance stares at the now third time changed soulmark until he goes cross eyed. 

He changes into his regular clothes. Then runs out of his room to help look for Keith on the castleship.

Keith has hidden himself away in the oddest possible spot in the castleship, in Lance’s opinion. 

Hunk and Coran had already ruled off the most trafficked common areas, all the training rooms, both Keith’s and Shiro’s rooms, and even all of the Lion’s bays. They were left wandering around the rest of the giant caste, hoping to stumble across Keith eventually.

Lance had a sort of plan in how he searched. Although the plan was more ‘walking into the plan’ rather than being thought out beforehand. He walked as far as he could from the main hub of the castle, until he came across a blocked off hallway, specifically stating in multiple alien languages to Do No Cross . So Lance crossed and kept walking until he found his next Do Not Cross sign. So on and so forth until he found a hallway that came to a complete dead end. Which is when he checked all the doors in the hall. Finding Keith huddled in the corner of an empty storage closet.

Personally, Lance would prefer to have a good long cry session or existential crisis in the comfort of his bed and overstuffed comforters. To each their own he supposes.

Keith does not react when the door opens, nor when Lance plops down next to him. Keeping a buffer of space between them, Lance patiently waits for his eyes to adjust to the pitch darkness of the cramped room. Once it does, he turns over to see Keith has not moved a single centimeter. Mentally, Lance questions why that is.

Initially, his thought process was along the same line as Hunk and Coran. Although Keith is not overworking himself by training. For sure he thought that Keith would be punching and slashing away his anger and despair some other way. Although Lance, after the third Do Not Cross sign he passed, realized the Red paladin had hidden himself away for something much more private. He half believed that once he found his friend, Keith would be sobbing uncontrollably. He was not expecting to walk in here and for Keith to be completely… numb.

Keith is not crying, or sniffling, heaving with sobs, gasping for breath, or even curled up to minimize a tremble in his shoulders. He is only sitting in the corner, in the dark, unmoving, breathing even and deep. The only reason Lance knows the other man is not asleep is because Keith is too still.

Sighing in sympathy, Lance leans sideways, closing the scant space between them and pressing their shoulders together. It takes a minute, but Keith leans back into him in return. 

He opens his mouth to speak. To say anything. To ask if the other is okay. Maybe even mouth off the first thing that comes to mind and hope that it is a joke to lighten the mood. Feeling inadequate for either being comforting or shifting Keith’s focus away from his problems, Lance closes his mouth again. 

Lance knows that this is too serious to joke about or put aside for a different time. The large black mark on his back is more than enough proof of that. Although he also fears making things worse, like he always does, by opening his big mouth. 

A compromise then. Slowly, still second guessing the action himself, Lance pokes the back of Keith’s head. Soft, but annoying enough to get the other man to lift his eyes out from between his arms. Then he wiggles his hand in front of Keith’s face. 

Keith stares at his hand quizzically for a moment, before reluctantly taking the offered limb. Their hands clasp easily, their intertwined fingers landing softly in Keith’s lap.

That is how it continues. Lance gently tests the boundaries of how close Keith is comfortable being. His main goal being to get Keith uncurled from his stiff position in the corner of the cold room. It starts with their hands loosely held together. To Keith twisting to rest his head on Lance’s shoulder more comfortably. Until eventually, Keith is comfortably tucked under arm with his legs draped over Lance’s own. Keith is lightly tracing the outline of the mark on Lance’s palm. 

“When did this one appear?”

Lance blinks out of his half drowsy state. Their heads knock together lightly as he turns to look down. His brain lags behind trying to come to full consciousness again and answer the question. Keith’s soft hair tickles slightly at his cheek.

“When I was… seven. Or six. Maybe. It was the first one that I got.”

“The first one?”

Lance hums a confirmation, still sleepy. Closing his eyes, he fully rests his cheek on the top of Keith’s head. 

“What did you think it meant at first?” Even though they have been whispering so far. Keith still asks this question quieter, giving the impression that Lance’s answer might later weigh heavily on his mind. 

Letting out a breathy chuckle, “I thought it meant you were a chef.” He continues when Keith moves out from under him to stare, appalled. “In my defense, I was a kid. And, my parents were really careful about knives only ever being used by adults and in the kitchen.” He looks down to where Keith has not moved his thumb off of the soulmark. “I think it’s why me and Hunk are such good friends now.”

Vaguely, Lance remembers the first few days of the Garrison. Trying and failing to find anything in common with people to make friends. Then Hunk had stressed baked for the same reason, accidentally making enough brownies to feed their entire dorm building. Lance had been in so much awe from Hunk’s natural baking talent that he had to befriend him. There was the minor inkling of hope that Hunk and he were soulmates. Although the two of them have been best friends since.

He closes his hand into a fist, Keith’s finger still held in his palm. “Although I think you are just as cool as is. I’m kind of jealous at how well you can work a knife.”

In the dark of the closet, and with how close their faces are, Lance has a front row seat to see the way Keith’s eyes widen in shock, then the apple of his cheeks darkening. He almost regrets not being able to see this in the light.

Keith ducks his head, hiding behind his bangs. Lance feels himself flush in embarrassment. Was that too much too soon? After all, this is the first time that they have so blatantly acknowledged that they are soulmates.

Another gentle movement brings attention back to their clasped hands, where Keith has brought the soulmark closer to his face. He stares at the black ink, his thumb so featherlight that tingles run up Lance’s arm. 

“I think that it must have shown up when my dad died then.” Keith whispers. “My mom’s knife was some of the few personal artifacts I could keep from him before they sent me to a home.”

Lance inhales sharply at the statement. Before he can respond, Keith leans back slightly to look at his face. 

“How old were you when this one appeared?”

“The- what?” Lance may still be reeling from the fact that Keith so casually brought up his dead father. He feels extremely immature knowing now the appearance of the mark had a much deeper, sadder meaning behind it, and he was here thinking as a child that it meant his soulmate was a chef.

Their hands separate when Keith brings one up to press a thumb into his eyebrow. 

The tingles that earlier ran up his arm now spread on his forehead. Lance realizes the feeling might have nothing to do with how gently or how much pressure Keith puts into the actions; it has everything to do with the fact that Keith is touching the soulmark at all. 

“I was twelve.” Lance’s voice is shaky. He wonders if it is because of the pleasant tingles emanating from the soulmark above his eyebrow making his hair stand on end, or if it’s because this is the first time since stepping into the closet that they have looked at one another. Keith, with his thumb, follows the gentle curve of his eyebrow, starting another wave aflutter, and Lance decides that it’s the latter.

Keith’s eyes unfocus as he thinks, most likely trying to remember vital events in his life that happened around the same time. The memory hits him abruptly, that he leans further away, his hand falling away from Lance’s face. 

“Oh,” Keith says softly. 

“What?”

Clearing his throat, Keith lifts his face again, although his line of sight remains fixed on the heart soulmark. “When I was thirteen there was this…boy. He was older, in high school, and we lived in the same foster home. I looked up to him a lot, I think especially ‘cause he was actually nice to me.” He laughs softly, dryly, almost self deprecating. “He figured out it was a crush before even I did. So one day he said some stuff about not being gay too and that I shouldn’t hang around him anymore.” He returns his hand to where it was before, thumb gently pressed to the center of the heart. “Thanks to him I had a black eye for a good month or so.”

“Oh, Keith.” Lance instinctually reaches to grab the other’s free hand.

Surprisingly, Keith smiles. “Nah. I think he was just scared. I know he wouldn’t’ve hit me if his friends didn’t force him to confront me about it. Besides,” finally, their eyes meet, “he still helped me figure out that I’m gay.”

They lapse into silence. Lance is completely enraptured by Keith’s eyes, they draw him in. Also is it just him or are they glowing despite the pitch black room?

“What other soulmarks do you have of me?” 

Lance blinks out of his reverie at Keith’s question. The first one that comes to mind that he wants to know about is the purple blob on his stomach. The handprint and the Voltron sigil on him are self explanatory. Although given the amount of goosebumps he has from Keith holding his hand he immediately shoves that thought aside for a different time. He will not be able to handle it if Keith also wants to touch that one. Baby steps. He will have to get used to the constant tingles from holding hands before they can venture into any under shirt touching. If they ever get to that point. Hopefully one day they do.

“I, uh, have one from Shiro.”

Keith raises his eyebrows in curiosity.

Lance flushes, “It’s on my back.” He makes some eyebrow movement, hopefully clearly signaling that he would rather not have to take his shirt off right now to prove it. “But it’s how I knew to come looking for you. It kind of…darkened? Since a few hours ago.”

Face going through several different complicated emotions, Keith settles on quiet sadness again. 

“Are you going to be okay? With him gone. Again.” Lance nudges before Keith can fully shut down again to how he was when Lance found him in this closet.

Keith’s eyebrows furrow together deeply. “I dunno.”

Lance figures that that is the best both of them can hope for right now.

___________________________________

+1.

“Thank you, Voltron.” The king groans. His voice is hoarse and weak. He tries waving away his daughter, who is attempting to put pressure on the gushing wound in his side, she mutters angrily under her breath, crowding closer. 

Lance turns his head around to smile reassuringly at the king. “You don’t have to thank us. We are more than happy to help.” He turns back to face forward again. 

Keith and Lance quickly, but as smoothly as they can as to not jostle the gurney between them too much, head to the large crowd of gathering people. 

The battle has just ended. The paladins are on the ground, attempting to start the clean up. At the edge of the burning forest the medical tent is still only half set up, although a few aliens do drop what they’re doing to attend to their king. The couple leave the king in the capable hands of healers, returning to the depths of the battleground to find more people to bring to the medical area. Soon enough, Keith gets pulled aside to help clear out the cindering and crushed forest. He is forced to stop working when the daylight burns out and it is too dark to work. Only once he steps into the Castle of Lions does the soreness and exhaustion pound into his bones. 

Given the amount of people he passes in the halls on his walk to the room, he has to keep his back straight and plaster a smile onto his face. These people are being given temporary housing in the castle while their homes are being rebuilt; he can maintain his hero facade for a few more minutes for their sake. 

Stepping into his room, he registers nothing more than the darkness of it before flopping face first onto the bed. He comes to clarity laying on his back, blinking the blurriness away at the brightness of the room, Lance’s face hovering over his own. 

“Get your perfect ass up and into a shower. You will not stink up the bed or so help me.” Lance grabs Keith’s hands, and it is a group effort to get both of them upright. The taller of both of them taking the brunt of the weight as Keith tries to re-enter consciousness. 

He is sat down on the closed toilet cover, the remains of his interrupted nap dissipating completely when his chest plate is pulled over his head. He reaches down to unlatch the armor pieces of his left leg. Lance flaps the hands away and kneels to do it himself. 

Once undressed, he is walked into the shower. He screeches when the full force of Altean, cold, water pressure hits his bare back.

“You’re such a baby,” Lance snickers. Soon enough, stepping into the shower next. 

Lance pulls Keith’s head down under the spray of water. He lathers shampoo in both hands, pulling Keith’s now soaked head out of the water, and begins scrubbing in the shampoo. 

Dutifully, Keith keeps his head down to stare at the floor between them, even if he knows staying like this long enough will create a crick in his neck in his already sore body. He however does not want to ruin the moment by shifting away to wash his own hair. Instead he closes his eyes, enjoying the massaging scrape of Lance’s fingers on his scalp. He is guided through rinsing his own hair, he tries returning the favor but Lance refuses. Which is how the rest of the shower goes. 

After being swaddled in a towel and forced to sit back on the toilet as Lance blows dry his hair, he is finally allowed to dress himself, even if the set of pajamas do get picked for him. He genuinely has no idea where Lance has gotten the motivation to be so caring and dutiful tonight, especially since they must be equally exhausted after the day they have had. Although Keith can’t say he hates it. Especially once they crawl under the covers together, and he is thankful for being persuaded into a shower with how nice the clothes and blankets feel on his freshly scrubbed skin. They barely manage to whisper goodnight to each other before he crashes into unconsciousness again.

The second day of after battle clean up is much less frantic than the day before, although just as busy. Keith helps to clear away the remaining area of forest before they were forced to stop at nightfall. He is then pulled into using his lion to transport construction materials from the other side of the planet who did not experience the brunt of the battle. Which then leads to becoming, temporarily, a part of the construction team who is going around putting up frames of houses. 

This is how the first week on this planet passes by. During the day spending his time working wherever he is needed, with not a minute to rest. At night letting Lance drag him along through a quick, pampered shower. The two of them barely see or talk to each other, and he sees the rest of the team even less. Although the more days pass the easier and slower the work goes by, as tasks become less and less urgent. 

At the tail end of day seven the Rebels arrive, as they are more available to stay long term to help re-establish this place. Voltron can now prepare to pack up and move on to their next distress call. Although their departure does get delayed another night as the king, now healed enough to move around without additional help, insists on throwing them a proper goodbye party.

The party, as it turns out, is a makeshift outdoor barbeque. This planet has technically not invented barbeque grilling, and the princess herself bemoans the inability to throw them a “real” party as the castle is half destroyed. Although it is still rowdy and lively enough that Keith has to step away from the festivities to destress after about an hour. He knows full well that the king is using Voltron and the paladins as an excuse to throw a celebratory rager for being Empire free. No one will notice him slip away to get away from the crowd of the surviving citizens. 

He walks far from the newly determined town center. Then he pulls out his communications device, sending Lance a quick message to ask where he is. Realistically, he knows that Lance would drop everything to come and be with him; will probably drop everything right now despite not being asked to yet, Keith still feels too needy directly asking for them to spend time together. 

Keith pockets his comm to wait for a response. He thinks back to the soft, shared nights this past week. There was rarely a word exchanged between them, if anything, the tiredness weighing both of them down has made all of nights blend together into a mesh of blurred comfort. Although it was exactly what he needed. Some sort of repeated routine during multiple days in a row of busy chaos. He can’t remember the last time he has had someone dote on him so caringly, if ever. 

He also knows that Lance is genuinely doing it out of the kindness of his heart, not expecting anything in return. If asked, he would also probably state something along the lines of doting on and being extremely lovey dovey to Keith is more than enough of a return gift for him. 

Keith can’t help how his hidden insecurities rise inside him. He feels that he needs to put more effort into reciprocating. That maybe to some extent, Lance is still exercising his self-sacrificial tendencies by not letting Keith return the favor. Being selfless comes naturally to Lance after all. 

Keith knows that they both need to learn how to care for themselves a little more. While he himself needs to get more comfortable with not working himself ragged, Lance needs to learn to not run his emotions ragged for everyone else. They’re working on it, together.

Train of thought interrupted by a ding and buzz from his pocket, he pulls out his comm. Lance has responded by returning his own question of where Keith is. 

Predictable , Keith tells himself. Even without asking directly he still knew that Lance would drop everything to see him. He sends a message asking if they can meet at the castle. Lance responds with a winky face emoji. 

Repocketing his comm, Keith turns around to start heading back to the castle. Although before he does he looks over to the still standing temporary medical tents put up on day one. There is something he can do to return the favor.

“Hey,” Lance greets, sing-song, giving him a wet, chaste kiss.

Through his smile, Keith grimaces, wiping the spit off his cheek. “Gross.”

Affronted, Lance retorts by planting another wet kiss to his cheek, this time with more mouth and a heavily exaggerated smack of lips. Keith cries out in disgust again, which makes Lance dive in with twice more vigor.

Their laughter reverberates off the castle walls. The noise dies down when, eventually, they are pressed up close together against the wall kissing deeply. Keith separates only to catch his breath.

“Not that I could ever tire of sucking face with you.” Keith grimaces, in real disgust this time, at the crude language. Lance ignores the reaction and continues speaking. “But is there an actual reason you wanted to see me?”

Lance speaks so seriously and caring that Keith steps away with an awkward clearing of his throat. He wipes his mouth to rid himself of the spit from their long make out session, the uncomfortable taste of Lance’s fruity chapstick on his tongue. 

“Yeah, I, uh” Keith wipes his sweaty palms on his pants, “I have something for you.” 

“You didn’t have to get me anything.” Lance says, but his eyes are wide and shining under the castle’s LED lights. 

Keith glances around the empty entrance hall of the castle. His anxiety at gift giving is only amplified by the realization that anyone could walk in at any moment; could have walked in at any second while they were distracted “sucking face” as Lance not so nicely stated. He grabs his partner’s hand, and stomps the both of them in the direction of his room, or Lance’s room? He genuinely had no idea. They accidentally started coexisting in each other’s rooms, randomly switching which one they use to sleep in. At some point they will need to have a serious conversation about either moving a bigger, combined bedroom or abandoning one so they share a space full time.

Probably a big step in the relationship taken too soon given the short amount of time they have been official. However, Keith does not feel rushed in the relationship nor does he care what others would think. He decides to go for the closest one, formerly known as his room.

“Oho,” Lance chuckles, “gift for the privacy of a bedroom I see.”

Keith flushes, not letting the regular antics distract him from his goal. He walks to the bed, sitting down next to Lance. Then he shoves his hands in his pockets, tightly wrapping his fist around the gift. 

Lance sobers, noting his anxiety. A hand gently cradles his elbow.

“Keith, really, you didn’t have to get me anything.”

Holding his breath in his chest, “but I wanted to.”

Lance’s eyes soften, then he nods, placing both hands in his lap. 

Keith exhales slowly, steadily. He stares straight into Lance’s dark blue eyes. Then decides that look is too much for him and reels forward to get a second tasting of that familiar, fruity chapstick.

Lance separates from the kiss with a gasp when a heavy weight lands in his hands. 

“Wha-” Lance goes speechless. 

With bated breath, Keith carefully watches Lance’s face for a reaction. 

“I- sorry. What is this?”

Keith could go smash his head through a wall. “It’s, you know, the…nevermind. Here.” He grabs the small cube out of Lance’s hand. He closes his eyes, trying to mimic what the king did earlier today. The cube grows warm in his palm, through his eyelids he can see the flash of light. His eyes shoot open when Lance gasps again. He looks down to see what memory the cube conjured. The present blush on his cheeks doubles in intensity and its spread. Projected and playing noiselessly inside the clear and hollow cube is a memory from a few weeks back.

Voltron had attended a coalition meeting. Although the memory is from after, when the more adult adults in the meeting had spread off to start the serious business spoken about in the meeting. The paladins and few rebel fighters had stayed behind in the conference room. Matt had smuggled alien alcohol onto the castle, stating something or other about being present to experience Pidge’s first drink of alcohol. 

The silent projection in the cube however, is at the peak of the group’s insobriety. Lance is hammered, Keith tucked under one arm and his nth drink of the night in the other hand. Lance has his drink held high, loudly singing along to the song the rebels had started chanting. Keith had been struck dumb at the sight, even if Lance missed every single word of the song. 

The projection flickers off when Lance takes the cube into his own hand. He clasps his hands together, the cube held tightly between. He closes his eyes, face scrunching in concentration. A flash of light from between his fingers, and Lance holds out the cube in the space between them.

Since it is from Lance’s point of view, it is hard to tell how old this memory is. Although Keith would have to guess a few years at least, since he does not recognize a single person. 

The memory is in a house, and not any of the conversations can be heard, but it looks to be happening at a party of some kind. Lance is constantly turning and facing a new person. 

Although Keith does not have to be able to hear to know that the party Lance is remembering is loud, with flashing lights and his family tightly packed into the living room. This is the first time he is starting to understand truly how large and diverse Lance’s family is. 

The mini projection flicks thrice, the light inside dimming. Keith has no time to lift his head to question why it stopped, before he has an armful of teary, but brightly grinning Lance.

“Thank you.”

“I know.”

Keith huffs softly when he is smacked on the shoulder. “What? You already said that like thirty times.”

Lance pouts. “Still. I’m serious.” He turns over, with the hand previously used for aggression, he flips a tuft of hair away from Keith’s forehead. “Thank you.” His next words are much, much quieter. “I was starting to think that I would forget what they all looked like.”

Keith grabs Lance’s hand, they hold onto each other loosely. “Well, you’re welcome. I’m glad I got to see them for the first time too.”

Lance bites his own kiss swollen lips, tightening his grip on their clasped hands and bringing it to his chest. He stares blankly at the sheets between them. Thinking much too deeply about something that is meant to be a happy occasion.

Keith leans forward to lightly bump their forehead together. “I love you.”

Lance’s sharp inhale almost echoes in the quiet of the bedroom. 

It is much too soon. They are doing this relationship thing completely out of order. He did not even know that he truly felt this way until this afternoon when thinking about returning the favor. Still, looking into Lance’s watery eyes, Keith can’t find it in himself to regret the words.

Warm breath fanning across his face as Lance exhales. “I love you too.”

The sentence barely finishes leaving Lance’s mouth when they lock lips again. Then they each separate with a gasp. Keith feels like he’s burning. Although his attention is taken away from the spreading heat in his own chest by the spreading, gushing warmth coming from where their hands are still clamped together. He stares in awe as color blooms and spreads on Lance’s sternum, hidden behind their entwined hands.