Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Keith always knew he’d die in space.

Of course, his idea of death in space was something more heroic, in the form of a great battle in an epic war, losing his life for the cause. But no, Lance, as always, has other plans, and now the big great universe has decided that Lance McClain is actually going to kill him.

He just can’t help it. He’s known that he likes boys since forever, that’s old news. Who knew that being trapped on a ship with tentative allies and one fake rival would be the real killer, the latter who’s easy on the eyes and has some sort of oral fixation that he consistently demonstrates after finding the space equivalent of silly straws on a random planet and now uses them for every beverage that he has, tongue poking out to find wherever the straw has ended up in the cup as he keeps his eyes on whoever is talking, his mouth occasionally pulling up into a smile as he laughs along with the conversation before he finds the straw again and begins sucking, hollowing out his cheeks and—

Honestly, Keith is going to die.

Keith doesn’t pay attention when Pidge and Hunk talk and he knows that’s a problem. It's just that they have terrible timing and are always chatting in a group whenever Lance has a damn straw and Keith is a weak, weak man, just caught staring at Lance in fascination. 

Maybe his tongue could work like that around other objects.

Keith sits up, cheeks aflame at his own traitor of a brain. Lance glances over at him, the movement having caught his eye.

“What’s wrong, mullet?” Lance asks, teasing glint in his eye. “Big fan of lightsabers?”

Keith has no idea what he’s talking about, but the phrase brings large cylindrical objects to the forefront of his brain and Keith definitely doesn’t need to be thinking about that right here out in the open.

He stands up, desperate to go cool down in private somewhere.

He can’t even think of a response, so incredibly flustered as he watches Lance’s long fingers curl around the cup, the other hand finding the straw and holding it in place as he takes another sip. Keith is positive Lance is clueless, but sometimes he’s so deliberate that it makes Keith wonder what it would look like if he was being genuine, not that Keith would be able to handle that either.

He stalks out of the room, unsure of a comeback or a response of any kind and heads to the training room, because having something to focus on other than his gay thoughts, will be in his best interest.

+++

Keith has never been lucky, and that’s just a fact.

After his dad died back on Earth and he got tossed from foster home to foster home before landing in the Garrison with Shiro as his mentor, and then Shiro disappearing and Keith getting kicked out, his only real lucky break was finding that abandoned shack in the desert and making it his home. When Shiro came home and they met the others, finally getting part of his family back and heading out to space was his luck. Everything since then has been better than his life on Earth ever was and though he knows that the rest of the team would disagree, he’s found a sort of peace in the middle of the war that he’s never had anywhere else.

But lucky is not something he would call himself and, as always, the universe is ready and willing to prove that to him.

There’s a meeting with some royal officials that Shiro and Allura tell them they have to go to. The meeting is to secure a very critical alliance with the plant Gorxa to secure the surrounding planets in the system it’s in. However, it’s not very fancy and they stay suited up as always to be prepared, but Keith still dreads having to stand in some big hall when there are things to do, like train and fly and pine for Lance from a safe and comfortable distance.

He stands in the great hall and tries not to look annoyed or bored.

He didn’t used to think he was an emotional person, but after a while ago when Shiro sat him down to talk to him about his unnecessary outbursts, he realized that he just shows emotions in a different and occasionally more negatively volatile way. But he promised Shiro he’d try to control himself, and he knows that Shiro wants them all to be on their best behavior today. Shiro always expects more from Keith than everyone else anyway, which is at times unfair, but Keith knows it’s because of the familial kind of connection they share and that Shiro sees Keith as a younger brother who needs some guidance, not that Keith thinks any differently, seeing Shiro as an older brother/father figure that he had once desperately needed and now is just plain grateful to have.

So he doesn’t complain, instead playing a game in his head by watching Lance from his periphery, seeing how many times he moves and how long it takes for the next movement, his longest running time being 37 seconds and his shortest being 2 seconds usually with a series of short, small movements, like rubbing at his face, dropping his hand, reaching back up and scratching the back of his neck, and dropping his hand again.

“... like your paladins,” King Rix-Ou is saying, which Keith listens to with one ear. “Particularly the red and the blue ones.”

Keith and Lance both look up at the mention of them.

“What?” they ask in unison.

“Look how in sync they are!” the king cries. “Oh, if only everyone loved like that.”

“What?” Keith demands again, cheeks flaming as he worries that he’s just been found out.

His crush on Lance is clearly some kind of head trauma, he thinks. Somehow Lance—annoying, loud, can’t-shut-up-to-save-his-life Lance—has wormed himself deep into Keith’s chest and decided to take up residence there. The only other person who knows is Shiro and Keith desperately swore him to secrecy, not wanting anyone else to know, especially given that with the war and Voltron and everything, there was nowhere to run. Since Keith’s epiphany, which happened very recently, they haven’t tried to form Voltron yet, so Keith’s been spared of the mind-meld and everyone finding out, but it’s only a matter of time and if Keith had a choice for how it went down, it certainly wouldn’t be like this.

“What are they talking about?” Lance demands from Shiro, who looks incredibly awkward.

“We’re talking about your love for each other,” King Rix-Ou clarifies. “How strong and prevalent it is, even when you stand apart!”

“What?!” Lance cries, sounding horrified. Keith, mortified and ashamed, looks away, figuring the best course of action, and his go-to method, is just to stay silent.

“None of our paladins are in a romantic relationship,” Allura chimes in, looking a little harried at the implication. “It would be incredibly distracting for our missions.”

“ Incredibly distracting,” Keith echoes glumly, not wanting to hear all of his thoughts confirmed on why he and Lance would never actually work.

Lance throws a look at him as Shiro adds, “They are friends and teammates first and foremost. We don’t have time for anything more than that.”

“Oh, how sad,” the king says with a sigh. Their tentacles seem to droop with the news. “We thought that paladins were more dimensional than just war machines. How can we trust such emotionless creatures?”

“What Shiro and Allura mean to say,” Pidge chimes in with a mischievous grin, “is that Keith and Lance aren’t together yet . We’ve been waiting for them to get themselves together, isn’t that right, boys?”

Everyone stares at Pidge in horror, Lance scoffing.

“No way I would ever date someone like Keith!” he declares. Keith tries not to take it like the bullet wound that it feels like.

“Look at him! So repressed! Hiding from his true love!” Pidge says to the king, ignoring Lance.

“Oh, how marvelous!” King Rix-Ou cries once again. “How truly marvelous! A secret love!”

Keith blushes furiously, turning his head away from the group to scowl at the floor, trying to will his embarrassment away.

“Hidden from your mentors to not get caught! It’s all too scandalous!” the king cheers. At Shiro and Allura’s open mouth staring, the king says, “Oh, don’t worry, great leaders, your heroes’ love is something to be celebrated. You should stay and join us for our Celebration of Life and we will help you properly celebrate!”

“Celebration of Life?” Shiro asks. “I’m afraid we can’t stay, we have—”

“A few quintants of leisure,” Allura says, cutting him off with a glance. “We would be happy to stay and secure your allegiance to our cause.”

“Yes, how noble! To fight for love!”

“Right,” Allura says, reaching back and putting a hand on Keith’s shoulder. He glares at her hand. “Our young paladins have always danced around each other, but their love is forbidden. Perhaps it’s time we change our ways, however.”

“Yes, yes, how marvelous! We will show you the wonders of love, Voltron! Gorxans are a loving people and we fight for each other! In time, you will learn to fight like us and together we will fight the Galran Empire!”

“Yes, of course,” Allura says, squeezing Keith’s shoulder like she’s trying to ground herself. “We would love to learn from a species as knowledgeable as yours. Perhaps we should discuss the celebration more while our team goes to rest and recover.”

“Yes, yes. I will have a team prepare rooms for you each and have someone come to collect you when they are ready. To stay close is to love!”

“Wonderful. Now please, let us talk more in private.”

King Rix-Ou swirls around on all their tentacles and begins leading Allura and Shiro down the hallway. Shiro glances over his shoulder and mouths Sorry! as he disappears with Allura down the hall.

Keith and Lance immediately whip around to face Pidge.

“Pidge, what the hell ?!” Lance demands before Keith can.

“What?” Pidge asks, looking pleased with herself. “This was probably our most important alliance yet! I could let you guys all screw it up.”

“But why Keith?” Lance practically begs. “Why couldn’t it be Hunk or Allura? No offense, Pidge, but I could never date you either.”

“None taken,” Pidge says, equally as distasteful. “And it’s not my fault you have such natural chemistry with Keith.”

Pidge’s tone takes a teasing lilt and she makes kissy faces at them. Lance scoffs again and Keith turns on his heel, deciding to just head back to explore without getting involved because, again, it’s his safest option. 

As he’s walking away, Lance says to Hunk and Pidge, “See?! You see what I have to deal with?! The guy hates me!”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Hunk soothes. “He’s just prickly.”

“Yeah, like a cactus,” Lance huffs before Keith pushes his way out of the door.

The “friends” label that Lance had half-hazardly slapped onto the relationship was a result of time spent together and because they’re great at teamwork together when they focus on their work long enough to stop bantering. Calling themselves friends was better than calling themselves rivals anyway, but Keith could never admit they were just friends because it ached to call Lance just a friend. Lance isn’t just a friend, not the way that Shiro is his friend. Lance is more than that, he always has been and he always will be. Calling them just friends isn’t good enough and it never would be.

Keith wanders the village in front of the palace, pulling out the blade his dad gave him and spinning it in his fingers as a distraction as he walks. Around him, the village flows with life: children running through the street, vendors calling out to passerbyers, what may be older folks sweeping outside their huts, though he isn’t sure exactly how the Gorxans age. The village, like the palace, seems to hold a combination of people, likely mostly native Gorxans with refugees interspersed from the neighboring moons and planets, which are slowly disappearing thanks to the Galran Empire. It’s one of the reasons why the alliance would be helpful, as neither the Gorxans nor Team Voltron want to see more people and planets die at the hands of the Galra.

He flicks his blade in the air, catching it with ease. He has always been told that he has behavioral issues and thinks that he could solve every problem with violence. While that isn’t necessarily true, hitting things sure does help him feel better most of the time.  He wishes he could just go back to the ship and train because he always seems to be more comfortable in fighting scenarios than he is around people. Shiro likes them all to be prepared for anything so that they’ll never be surprised. Keith can apply that to fighting and fieldwork with ease, but real life—people and relationships—is so much harder.

 It seems sometimes that no matter how much he prepares, he’ll never be anything but surprised by people. It was the same at the foster homes as it was at the Garrison; Keith always fell short of expectations because he didn’t understand what they were expecting or how to meet those expectations. Out here in space, it’s not all that different, though everyone is a lot nicer than anyone else Keith has ever interacted with. And then he gets thrown curveballs like Lance, who is the definition of unpredictability, always doing something new each time you see or talk to him. Keith, who likes routine and predictability, somehow got swept away by Lance’s everything and he still hasn’t found his way back.

With Lance, he’s nothing but surprised, and he doesn’t hate feeling this way. Sure, it’s annoying, just like Lance, but his ability to just go with the flow is something that Keith both admires and envies. He could never be so carefree, but he thinks Lance is all the more interesting because he is. He’s always relaxed and Keith knows it’s mostly a façade and that he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, desperate to win the war so that he can get back home to his family, but Keith just thinks that makes Lance all the better, staying cool in the face of uncertainty, making the best out of a bad situation.

Keith drops his knife and sighs, bending down to pick it up. Now is not the time to be thinking of Lance; he left precisely not to think or deal with this whole “relationship” drama.

He takes a deep breath and flips his knife again, trying to enjoy the warm heat from the twin suns shining overhead.

+++

A couple of hours later, someone from the palace comes to collect the paladins. They’d put together rooms for them, and they’d already returned to the ship briefly and altogether so that they could gather their sparse belongings before Allura, Shiro, and Coran ran off again to meet with officials. 

Keith follows everyone else back to the palace to find their rooms. 

Hunk, Pidge, and Lance are, like always, chatting amongst themselves in a line, Lance in-between the two of them. They never exclude Keith purposely and always make a segue for him to join the conversation, but he usually backs out, preferring to just listen to Lance’s ramblings rather than inadvertently start yet another fight that they pretend is just playful banter. Maybe it is, Keith isn’t sure he can tell anymore.

“I never said she was my girlfriend!” Lance protests. They’re talking about their time at the Garrison, yet another reason why Keith doesn’t add to the conversation. He has nothing good to say about that time, nor anything anyone will want to hear.

“Yes, you did!” Hunk nearly shouts, passionate to the point that he looks like he’s going to tear his hair out. “You literally did! Pidge?”

“You literally did,” Pidge echoes, barely looking up from some tablet in her hands.

“Hunk, my guy, I swear to you that I never said that Kieran was my girlfriend and if I did—which I didn’t—then I certainly didn’t know that you had a thing for her! Swear on my life!”

Hunk takes a deep breath, obviously trying to calm himself down. Their escort, who is in front of the trio and whom Keith can hardly see from his spot almost directly behind Lance, keeps glancing back at all of them like they’re worried that there’s a fight going on. Not that Keith blames them, because he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Hunk so passionate about something that wasn’t engineering, whether it be creating a device with Pidge or figuring out a new Earth-like recipe for the group to try. Getting hair-tearing-out levels of passionate about a crush he used to have at the Garrison just seems so unlike him.

“Fine, I believe you,” Hunk concedes, slipping back into himself as he calms down. He sighs dejectedly. “I really liked her.”

“I’m sorry,” Lance says genuinely, dropping the façade. “Hey, I’ll find you a space hottie.”

Hunk laughs, all the tension gone, and Pidge rolls her head in a way that signals that she’s rolling her eyes with her whole body.

“Sure, Lance,” Hunk says.

“Why don’t you focus on your relationship first?” Pidge says to Lance, elbowing at his side which has him dancing away from her and into Hunk. “You got your own space hottie right here.”

Keith rolls his eyes and Pidge makes a gagging noise, like just saying it made her nauseous. Hunk laughs quietly and Lance comes to life with energy, scoffing, again, and tossing his arms over his chest in a big harrumph. 

“Don’t you have a Christmas to ruin?” Lance bites out. Pidge glances over at him.

“What?” she demands, obviously just as confused as Keith feels.

“‘Cause you’re a gremlin,” Lance hisses.

Pidge does the eye-body roll thing again as Hunk starts laughing harder. Even Lance looks pleased with himself.

“That was terrible,” Keith chimes in, stepping around the three of them as they approach the large doors. Lance makes another scoffing noise and before he can say anything, Keith glances over his shoulder and says, “Can’t you make any other noise? Maybe you should try moaning about it.”

The sentence startles both Keith and Lance, who have a tandem visceral reaction, drawing back in opposite directions as Keith realizes the implication of the sentence and Lance has, well, whatever reaction he’s having. Pidge starts laughing, seeming to understand Keith’s issue, like always, far too perceptive and teasing for Keith’s liking. Hunk withdraws too, as Lance’s sudden movement surprised him, though he has a similarly playful smile tugging at his lips, and maybe if anyone except Keith had said it, Keith would think it’s funny too, especially if it had been Lance. But once again he’s the butt of the joke—entirely his fault—and he flushes with embarrassment, regretting even opening his mouth.

Keith turns back around and stalks into the palace ahead of the guide, disappearing into the hall.

+++

He manages to find Coran, Allura, and Shiro, all of whom are talking in one of the many hallways the palace has to offer. Keith found his way to where they were because of the helpful palace staff, who all pointed him in the right direction with excited smiles.

“Keith, thought you got lost,” Shiro says, setting a hand on Keith’s shoulder when he stops in-between him and Coran.

“Just getting a feel of things,” he replies, which is true. 

War and paranoia have gotten him in the habit of finding exits and entrances, figuring out where he can go and where everything is, just in case. In his time cooling down from embarrassing himself, he quickly made himself familiar with the basic layout of the palace with the help of the staff, saving the bedroom halls for last.

“Did you find the pools?” Coran asks. “I believe the paladins wish to go swimming! We’ll make a trip of it!”

“I need to train,” Keith says, desperately not wanting to see Lance without a shirt on.

“How many times have you trained today already?” Shiro asks.

Keith doesn’t answer.

“You’re going,” Shiro tells him. Keith rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue.

“It’ll be a team bonding activity!” Allura tells him cheerfully. Then she sobers up. “Keith? I apologize for throwing you under the bus, as you say. It was certainly not my intention to—how did Lance describe it?”

“Pimp you out,” Shiro says with a grimace.

“Yes. This alliance—”

“It’s okay,” Keith tells her, sparing them all of the awkward conversation. Keith is willing to suffer for the cause, no matter the price. “I understand that it had to be done.”

Shiro frowns and Allura makes a pensive face.

“Yes, well, let us get through this movement and then everything will be alright.”

“It’ll be fine, Princess,” Keith consoles, sensing her worry. “Lance and I won’t mess this up.”

Shiro’s frown deepens and Allura lets out a sigh of relief.

“I have faith in you, Keith, but please don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with. Our team is more important than anything else.”

“I won’t screw it up,” Keith promises. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

Allura gives him a grateful smile, reaching out and squeezing his hand briefly before letting him go. 

“So, which one’s my room?” Keith asks, glancing down the wrong hallway. Allura and Shiro exchange a glance and even Coran seems to look away from Keith, like he doesn’t want to make eye contact and have to be the one to answer. “What?”

“It wasn’t our idea—” Shiro starts.

“—but the king is insistent,” Allura finishes. Keith has a feeling he knows where this is going.

“Don’t tell me I’m sharing a room with Lance.”

“You can trade with me,” Shiro offers, grimacing again. “If it’s really that bad.”

Shiro wants to get through this unscathed and doesn’t think that Keith and Lance can get along long enough to make it through this movement, especially if they’re rooming together. But Keith, not wanting to alert anyone to what the actual issue is and determined to prove Shiro wrong, just shakes his head.

“We’ll be fine,” Keith promises. “I told you: we won’t mess this up.”

“You’ll be fine?” Shiro asks in disbelief. “You hate Lance.”

Of course, Shiro says it for the crowd, because the look he’s giving Keith is saying, You won’t be able to handle rooming with him because you can hardly be in the same room as him without freaking out .

“I don’t hate Lance,” Keith says with an eye roll. “Sure, he’s the most annoying person I’ve ever met and doesn’t know when to shut up, but at most I feel an occasional disdain for him whenever he’s at peak annoyance level.”

Shiro stares at him for a long moment without saying anything. Allura fills the gap.

“If you feel discomfort at any time, please let us know, Keith. Before—”

“Before I have an outburst?” Keith interrupts. Allura purses her lips and he tries not to take it personally. “I can control myself.”

“Okay,” Allura says, hands held out placatingly as she takes the brunt of Keith’s snappy comment. He hates that it proves exactly what she means. He takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. I will be fine, okay? And if I’m not, I’ll crash with Shiro.”

“Yes, great backup plan,” Shiro agrees. “Just try not to react when Lance pushes your buttons. And, knowing Lance, he’ll do it frequently and with glee.”

“I know. Can you just tell me which room is ours?”

“Second door at the end,” Allura points out. “We’ll see you shortly.”

Keith nods and walks past them down toward the end of the hall, figuring Lance has already been briefed on everything and had time to have his, no doubt, big reaction. When he enters the room, Lance isn’t even in it, though his stuff sits firmly in the middle of the bed.

Whatever; Keith can sleep anywhere, so sleeping on the floor for a few nights is no big deal anyway. He sets his small bag of belongings down by the foot of the bed. Luckily the floor is made of what appears to be a thick, waffled carpet, so sleeping on the floor here should be more comfortable than he was initially anticipating.

The room is rather lavish, with gold and lavender decorating nearly everything in sight. The bed is large, too, obviously made for two as it definitely leaves enough room for Keith and Lance to sleep in it together and not touch, but Keith isn’t going to argue. There’s an en suite and a fireplace, but the room isn’t strictly large, sparse with fancy and probably empty furniture. What it lacks in size, it makes up for in appearance, and Keith has a feeling that Lance enjoys the lavishness, always a fan of anything decidedly extra.

Keith isn’t surprised that Lance isn’t there either, figuring that he probably is with Hunk or Pidge, complaining about the unfairness of his life because people think he’s in love with Keith like that’s the worst thing that could happen to him. Keith doesn’t blame him, knowing that their relationship is hardly anything to write home about, especially when Keith is constantly shutting down because he’s worried he’s going to spill too much information about himself. Staying quiet and unassuming is best, though Lance always seems to manage to get him to talk, even when he doesn’t want to. It’s another Lance specialty.

Keith decides to change into the swimsuit he’d picked up at the space mall forever ago after he and Lance figured out there was a pool at the Castleship. While they’d gone swimming together occasionally with some interspersed commentary and banter, Keith decided once he realized his feelings that he couldn’t take being around Lance anymore with a lack of clothes, especially when he began to notice that Lance was training more and his body, once thin and sinewy, became harder with lean muscles and the faintest line of abs, which he bragged about all the time and didn’t help Keith’s smothering of feelings in the slightest.

Keith slings one of the towels provided in the en suite over his shoulder, which contains some kind of chamber that Keith guesses is probably to wash himself. He’s just grateful there is a toilet—sort of. They’d use the ship if they had to, so he guesses it doesn’t matter anyway.

He heads out of the room and in search of the pool, taking the time to further familiarize himself with the area.

The palace is made up of maze-like hallways, all twisting and turning together. Keith realizes that they probably only appear to be labyrinthian because he’s unfamiliar with them. After all, the Castle of Lions felt the same way when he first started living there. After stumbling around the halls a bit, he relents and asks one of the staff who points him in the right direction.

He enters the pool house and takes a second to take in the wonder of the room. It’s large and open, appearing half like a room to house an indoor pool and half like a conservatory with plants lining the glass walls of the room that curve as they rise, meeting the glass ceiling at an angle. The view is stunning, looking out into the pink jungle forest of the planet, a field of sunset orange grass sitting between them and the purplish-blue sky above, the twin suns shining brightly and filling the room with warm light.

Another thing about space? It’s all so beautiful. Back home, both in Texas where he was born and in the Arizonan desert where he lived at the Garrison, it was always dry and dusty, filled with long plains of untillable dirt that eventually met mountain ranges in the distance, though occasionally you could find a field of crops somewhere, always seemingly untended and barren, just like the rest of the state felt to Keith.

And while he knows that he was just in a particular part of Earth, out here in space, every planet is unique and different, some containing a single biosphere, most with bright and seemingly unnatural colors and beings. But all have their own unique culture, rules and celebrations, and flora and fauna unique to their planet and always the opposite of whatever Keith expects, constantly surprising himself with the wonder of every planet and filling himself with a fierce desire to protect the galaxy and all the creatures and homes within it.

The door to the room opens behind him as he stands on the opposite side of the pool, staring out into the distance. Keith isn’t surprised when Lance says, “Awesome! Look, Hunk, a pool that isn’t upside down!”

A chattering fills the room behind him and Keith doesn’t turn, taking in the view a little longer and cataloging it as a reason to keep fighting, as he always does with every planet they see. When he feels satisfied enough, he turns to face the rest of the room, immediately greeted by the sight of shirtless Lance reaching up to touch one of the plants on the far end of the room, a long line of muscles that causes Keith to look away again.

“So what’s the plan?” Keith asks Allura, wanting time to prepare himself. She stands by the pool, dipping a toe in, leggy with smooth skin that seems to glow in the sunlight. It’s no wonder that Lance likes her; even Keith can appreciate that she’s beautiful without trying.

“Keith, let’s try to relax,” Shiro tells him.

“Yeah, Keith, relax ,” Lance teases.

Keith throws Shiro a look that says, You see what I have to deal with? 

Shiro throws a look at him that says, Just ignore it.

Keith sighs and turns back to the plants, looking them over. They look nothing like Keith’s seen before on Earth, but not entirely dissimilar to plants found on similar jungle planets like Gorxa. They’re mostly pink and feathery almost in appearance, sprinkled with bright, electric colors that stand out against the softer hues of their stems and leaves. Each has a tag associated with them, stuck with the orange dirt with names that Keith couldn’t even begin to pronounce, leading Keith to think that maybe they have their own kind of Latin-like naming system because the words look far more complex than any he’s seen on the planet so far, like some ancient Gorxan language.

“It’s beautiful,” Hunk says, coming up beside him, staring out at the field. “Every planet we go to is beautiful.”

“Not every planet,” Lance says from Keith’s other side. “Remember Xoria?”

Keith does. It almost looked like home, a desert planet with a plethora of sandworms that they all had to fight to protect the planet. It’d been exhausting and while the planet itself wasn’t particularly bad, the tedious nature of fighting off every sandworm left them all with a bad impression of the planet and a desire to never return unless strictly necessary.

Hunk shudders on the other side of Keith.

“Don’t remind me.”

“That wasn’t the planet’s fault,” Keith chimes in. “Just the sandworms.”

“Ugh,” Lance huffs. “Why would you even bring them up?”

“ You brought them up.”

“Whatever,” Lance dismisses, turning on his heel and striding off in the direction of the pool.

Hunk reaches over and pats Keith’s shoulder before heading off to join Lance.

Keith takes a deep breath and turns around to get in the pool with the rest of them, taking Shiro’s advice to just relax, even if just for an hour or so. He’d strategize with Allura or Shiro when they were done because they both probably needed a break too.

Keith slips into the pool, surprised by how temperate it is. At the far end of the pool, Lance has somehow managed to convince Coran to play a game of chicken, hoisting Pidge onto his shoulders and having Hunk put Coran on his. Allura and Shiro relax on the other end, chatting quietly to themselves. Keith knows they both carry heavy burdens every day and he can see the lack of tension in their shoulders as they talk, probably for the first time in a while about something other than Voltron and the war.

Again feeling like an outsider by no fault of his own, Keith hangs out in his corner, watching the grass move through the windows and wondering what kind of animals would even exist on a planet like this one. 

“Keith, come join us!” Pidge calls, still dry and sitting on Lance’s shoulders. Coran, soaked, swims over to Allura and Shiro, evidently done with chicken.

Keith glances over at Shiro, who subtly jerks his head in the direction of Pidge, Hunk, and Lance, wordlessly telling Keith to head over there.

Keith relents and swims over to them, careful to stick close to the sides. He lets Hunk put him on his shoulders.

“You’re surprisingly light,” Hunk tells him. “I thought you were more muscular.”

“Ha! Hunk called you weak!” Lance crows.

“I did not,” Hunk protests.l

“I’m still stronger than you,” Keith points out. Lance narrows his eyes.

“Shiro!” he calls. Shiro turns to look back at them. “Come play chicken so I can kick Keith’s ass!”

Shiro sighs, but complies, swimming over as Lance gets Pidge off his shoulders. When Shiro comes over, he lets Lance crawl up onto his shoulders.

“You’re going down, mullet,” Lance says, cracking his knuckles, though they hardly make a sound and therefore aren’t very intimidating.

“Whatever you say, Lance,” Keith returns.

They get into position, both in a ready stance as Hunk counts them down.

“3, 2, 1, go!”

Lance is aggressive, immediately trying to shove at Keith’s shoulders to make him stumble back, but Hunk has a good grip on his legs and Keith has great balance so he hardly moves, using his ab strength to keep him in place. When Lance reaches out again, Keith grabs his hands, using their point of contact to try to push Lance backward, who surprised, wobbles, though Shiro also does a great job of keeping him upright.

As Keith has noticed, Lance has been training a lot recently, becoming stronger and more sure of himself, so he doesn’t falter as Keith pushes back on him once he realizes how exactly Keith is trying to fight him. Instead, he leans in further, pushing back even stronger against Lance. Quickly, it becomes obvious that Keith is stronger than Lance, but only by a little bit. It’s enough, however, that this time when he shoves, Lance goes toppling back, and not even Shiro’s grip can save him from falling backward into the pool. Hunk whoops and holds a hand out for Keith to high-five before letting him climb off his shoulders.

Lance resurfaces from the pool, glaring at Keith.

“Well, I bet you can’t beat me at a race!” Lance declares. 

Keith knows he probably can’t, as Lance has mentioned before that he grew up swimming and Keith didn’t learn until his time after the Garrison, where he taught himself in a lake and used the swimming pool at the Castleship to practice more. He’s decent now and not fast, but he’ll take competing with Lance and dealing with Lance’s inability to be cool after winning over treading water by himself for the rest of the time they’re there.

“Fine,” Keith agrees. Lance grins, and it makes it a little more worth it.

“Okay, everyone clear a path! Mullet and I are gonna race!” Lance calls out, gesturing to the perimeter of the pool. Everyone complies, swimming more toward the center to give them proper racing lanes.

Lance has Hunk count them down again and they take off. Lance wins, no big surprise, nor is his crowing victory, but Keith calls for a rematch anyway and they spend the rest of the time racing because even if Keith gets slower every time, he still foolishly enjoys having all of Lance’s attention on him.

+++

After they finish swimming, Keith finally declares Lance the victor after he wins five times in a row and they decide to call it and all go back to their rooms. Keith wants to shower, or bathe in whatever the contraption in the bathroom is, but he knows that Lance will want to do the same and doesn’t want to argue over something like that.

They walk back to the hallway all together, each member of their team breaking off into their own rooms all in a line. Keith and Lance’s room is second to last with Pidge after them, so Keith prepares himself for the inevitable comment from her that will probably make both himself and Lance blush and deny it furiously.

But when they get to the room, Pidge says nothing, instead throwing a wave over her shoulder and disappearing into her room quickly, looking tired from the swimming. They have a few hours until their mandatory dinner, so maybe she’ll take a nap. Maybe Keith should too. He honestly can’t say when the last time he took a nap was, though it does sound tempting.

Keith follows Lance into the room, wrapping the towel he slung over his shoulder around his waist so he can sit in the armchair in the corner of the room. The towel is still damp because he used it to dry off, but at least his entirely wet swim trunks won’t ruin the upholstery or whatever.

Predictably, Lance says, “Dibs on the shower!” and disappears into the bathroom with his bag. There’s a strange sort of sound, like a machine turning on, then the unmistakable sound of water running and Keith relaxes into the chair. Knowing Lance, his shower will probably take some time, so after a few moments of deliberating, Keith feels it’s safe to change in the bedroom into his clothes, deciding that he should probably just ask Shiro if he can use his shower. He gathers his stuff and heads over to Shiro’s room, knocking on the door.

Shiro’s already showered and dressed, which Keith can only tell by his wet hair. He looks at Keith curiously.

“Lance is using our shower,” Keith explains. “Mind if I steal yours?”

“Go ahead,” Shiro says, pushing off the door and leaning out of the way to open it more. Keith ducks into the bathroom and tries to figure out how to turn on the shower, ultimately giving up after a few minutes and asking Shiro for help, who laughs at him before hitting one button and turning it on.

Keith flips him off and shoves him out of the bathroom.

+++

By the time he finishes showering in the bathroom, he feels properly tired. He thanks Shiro and while he wants to stay in Shiro’s room and just give up then, he realizes that that would probably be some slight against the Gorxans and he promised Shiro he’d try anyway, so he heads back to his and Lance’s room.

He enters their room and can hear him still in the bathroom, though the door’s open now. He picks his head out and glances at Keith, some kind of goop on his face, no doubt some step a part of his endless skincare routine.

“Thought you’d left,” Lance says before ducking back into the bathroom. Keith sets his stuff down on the floor. Figuring that the bathroom is safe now, he enters it, leaning against the back wall as Lance puts on more cream, staring at his reflection in the liquid mirror.

“I just showered in Shiro’s room. I wanted to train, but I don’t think I’m allowed to go back to the Castleship.”

“You and your training,” Lance says, rolling his eyes. “Shiro’s right, you do need to relax.”

“We’re in the middle of a war,” Keith points out.

“Doesn’t mean you should spend all your time thinking about it. How can you be able to perform to the best of your ability if you’re constantly stressed?”

Keith blinks, surprised by the comment. Lance is perceptive, most of the time, and caring, but he usually never turns that kind of attention on Keith. It’s a stark juxtaposition to their usual conversations, but, despite how it seems most of the time, there are occasional times that Lance does try to talk to him like he seems to everyone else. Keith usually tries to take these times in stride, grateful they have them at all.

“You’re right,” Keith agrees, used to this argument with Shiro. “I’m not sure I know how to relax anymore.”

Lance glances at him through the mirror, a look akin to surprise on his face, like he wasn’t expecting Keith to agree with him. 

“Yeah, well, it’s not hard,” Lance says, looking back at his reflection.

“Maybe you could teach me,” Keith says before he can stop himself. Lance turns his head to look at him this time and Keith holds his gaze, trying to make it seem like it’s not a big request, like it’s not something that seems unlikely for Keith of all people to ask of Lance.

“Okay,” Lance says after a moment, turning back to the mirror, “but I’ll have to think about what to do. Relaxing isn’t something you schedule, it’s just something you do.”

“Okay.” Keith feels like he’s being looked at under a microscope, so he tries to change topics. “You know, dinner’s gonna be ready soon. You should probably speed up your process.”

“I’m almost done,” Lance says, rubbing circles into his cheeks as he begins to wash the goop off.

“Are you… have you prepared for what they’re going to say?” Keith asks, not wanting to ruin the ease between them, but wanting to know that Lance isn’t going to react poorly again, especially because of how important this alliance is.

“I’m not going to overreact if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

“Don’t you find it weird though? That they think we’re in love , or whatever.”

No , Keith thinks, but doesn’t say. It kind of thrills him that someone thinks they’d be good together and makes him wonder what exactly about them someone thinks is compatible. But Lance is obviously turned off by the idea, so Keith doesn’t voice his true feelings.

“Kinda,” he lies, “but it’s not a big deal. Especially if it’s for an important alliance.”

“I know,” Lance says. “I just—I don’t know. It’s still weird.”

“Yeah,” Keith says, not really as an agreement, but rather as a space filler. He doesn’t know what to say, not having prepared himself to be having this conversation and therefore not having time to think of possible dialogue options. He decides not to say anything further, instead heading back into the bedroom and leaving Lance to think whatever he wants to think.

+++

Dinner is a formal affair, so the entire team feels out of place in their casual outfits and out of uniform. But the king doesn’t seem to mind, nor the rest of the attendants, who are too enamored by the paladins to care.

“Oh, marvelous, you all are here!” the king cries, from their multiple mouths. It leaves Keith wondering how they consume food, and what kind of food the paladins will be eating. “And you all look so marvelous! Especially you two!”

They gesture to Keith and Lance, who stand side by side by coincidence, rather than on purpose, though the king and the rest of the Gorxans can think whatever they want. And they do, all cooing over Keith and Lance, who shift awkwardly under the attention.

“Our team is very hungry,” Allura chimes in. “Perhaps we should have dinner first.”

“Oh, yes, of course! Let us eat! We have prepared a very special meal for you all! We Gorxans do not consume the way you do, but we are prepared for any guests at any time! Come! Feast!”

They all sit down at the table, Allura, Shiro, and Coran closer to King Rix-Ou presumably to talk, and everyone else sits all in a line, with Lance on Keith’s left and some Gorxan with three eyes on Keith’s right. The Gorxan leans around Keith, staring at him and Lance.

“Are you two really a couple?” They ask, their multiple voices overlapping each other. 

Keith can feel Lance glance at him before he says, “Yep, that’s us! Total couple. Just a couple of… couple.”

“How wonderful!” the Gorxan cries, not dissimilar to the king. “Yes, wonderful, wonderful. How long have you been together?”

“What’s your favorite thing about each other?” Another Gorxan asks in front of them, leaning across the table.

“Oh, yes, please tell!” The first Gorxan says.

“Well,” Lance starts, thankfully taking the lead, “we’ve been together for a little bit. Our relationship is still very new.”

“Yes, that makes sense, you two are still so shy around each other,” the second Goxan says.

“Right, and, uh, my favorite thing about Keith is, well, his…”

“Go on,” Pidge encourages from the other side of Hunk. “What’s your favorite thing about Keith?”

“I’m getting there!” Lance hisses. Keith tries not to sigh, miserable that Lance can’t think of a single nice thing to say about him. “My favorite thing about Keith is his dedication, okay?”

“What?” Keith asks, turning to look at him. “What does that mean?”

Lance blushes, tanned cheeks turning scarlet under the attention.

“You are always doing everything you can for Voltron, even if it is at your own expense,” Lance says pointedly. “It’s admirable, although it’s stupid.”

Pidge chuckles.

“And Keith?” she prompts.

Keith flusters, not knowing what to say. His favorite thing about Lance? It’s hard to say, ranging from the way he cares about other people regardless of reason, taking the time to ensure that none of his teammates are overworked, even Keith, on occasion, to his ability to learn people like the back of his hand and figure out what they need so that he can better help. He likes his physical features, obviously, but the best parts of Lance are reserved for his character and how he acts with other people and himself. He’s a momma’s boy and a flirt and annoying and endlessly kind and likes knowing random facts and gossip if only to annoy people with his newfound information. He likes movies and loves music and enjoys sitting and spending time with people, if they’re doing nothing at all even if it means just sitting and watching Hunk or Pidge or anyone else work on whatever they’re doing, just enjoying the company.

“Wow, really can’t think of anything?” Lance says, a bitter edge slipping into his tone.

“There’s—I don’t know. I can’t pick.”

“You have to pick,” Hunk says, equally as unhelpful as Pidge.

Lance nods, pointing at Hunk like he agrees with him.

“Fine, okay, I like the way you take care of people.”

Lance’s head pulls back a little like he’s surprised at the comment.

“You do?”

“Yeah. You—you’re kind and good at it, but you always take care of everyone else before you take care of yourself.”

“That’s true,” Hunk agrees.

Before Lance can respond, the first Gorxan says, “Oh, how wonderful! You two really are in love!”

Both Lance and Keith blush.

“We have so many questions,” the second one says.

“Maybe we should save them for after dinner,” Hunk chimes in, now deciding to be helpful.

“Yes, we’re starving,” Lance says quickly, dropping his head to stare at his plate.

“Oh, yes, it gives us time to think!” The first Gorxan says.

Great , Keith thinks and starts eating.

+++

After dinner, which consisted of Keith and Lance elbowing each other repeatedly because Keith is ambidextrous and chose to eat with his left hand and now he’s stubborn enough to not stop if only to keep annoying Lance, everyone gathers in a large living room type space, complete with soft couches and chairs gathered around a central fireplace. Not everyone that was at the dinner table joins them, though the ones that do introduce themselves.

“We are Princess Tae-Liu,” says the first Gorxan who began asking them about their relationship.

“And we are Princess Gai-Yo,” the second one says, both of whom followed them eagerly to the open space.

“These are our children,” the king tells the group at large, gesturing to the two Gorxans who move in a manner like they’re blushing and trying to hide their faces, or where their faces should be if not for the amalgamation of tentacles standing in the way, only differentiated by their multiple mouths and eyes and little else. “They are looking for their own second halves!”

“We are so curious about your love!” Princess Tae-Liu says to Lance, their tentacles grabbing at Lance’s wrist. He slightly retreats at the feeling but doesn’t pull away completely, offering a nervous smile to them.

“Father, have you heard from—?” a voice says and two seconds later another alien comes into the room, though she looks nothing like a Gorxan.

This alien has pale orange skin mottled with darker orange splotches and eyes that almost look human, with an outer shell of white surrounding a pale blue iris with a white pupil in the middle. She even has hair, though only on top of her head and not even for eyebrows, and looks surprisingly humanoid. Keith has never seen an alien like her before, but her calling the king father is the most surprising part of her.

“Ah, yes, our daughter, Zori! Come, join us, Zori!” the king says, cutting the alien off.

Zori, as Keith guesses she’s called, looks around the room, taking note of the paladins.

“I just wanted to know if you’d heard from—”

“Yes, yes, come sit!” King Rix-Ou says again. “We will talk about it later. Sit now!”

Zori sighs and finds an empty spot next to Princess Tae-Liu. While Keith has seen other kinds of aliens roaming around the palace, Gorxans are the most prominent, easily recognizable with their multiple eyes, mouths, and tentacles. Zori and the king claiming their familial relationship obviously has a kind of story behind it.

“Zori is your daughter?” Lance asks, and Keith is thankful for his occasional bluntness, because Keith, and probably everyone else, is just as curious.

“Yes, yes!”

“They adopted me,” Zori clarifies, obviously annoyed, but probably because the king keeps cutting her off. “Father, I really must insist.”

“We know, we will discuss it later. For now, we welcome our new friends. Sit, Zori.”

Zori relaxes in her seat, though she still looks annoyed. Lance watches her carefully and Keith can already tell that he finds her attractive, because he knows Lance like the back of his hand.

“We were just discussing our friends! The Paladins of Voltron and their leaders, aren’t they marvelous?”

“Yes, marvelous,” Zori echoes distantly, glancing at some device on her wrist that doesn’t look dissimilar from a watch of some kind.

“We were just discussing their relationship,” Princess Tae-Liu clarifies. Zori looks up, interested.

“Whose relationship?”

“Lance and—”

“All of us have a relationship,” Lance bursts out and Keith struggles not to roll his eyes, predicting this would happen the second Lance saw someone that he found attractive. “In a way. We are all… a cohesive unit.”

Zori furrows her brow, or rather the muscles where her eyebrows would be pull together, and glances between Lance and Keith before standing again.

“I’ll be in my room, patiently awaiting you, Father,” Zori says and walks out of the room.

King Rix-Ou turns to the group at large.

“We’re afraid she’s worried right now,” the king says apologetically.

“Why’s that?” Shiro asks.

“A matter we will discuss tomorrow. It can at least wait until then. Tonight, we will get to know one another. Please, tell us more about your relationship.”

“Yeah, Lance, tell us more about our relationship,” Keith says, throwing Lance an annoyed look. He just can’t help himself sometimes, flirting with anyone that sparks his interest, and it makes Keith both annoyed and jealous. He tries not to pout, knowing that, to everyone else, he has no reason to.

Lance narrows his eyes at Keith.

“Well, I’m a great partner,” Lance boasts. “So caring and kind , as Keith would say.” This time Keith rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest, unable to help himself.

“Yes, but I’m the one who is dedicated to the relationship,” Keith says pointedly, knowing that Lance is gonna blow their façade before they leave the planet because he can’t resist himself. “Lance is a bit flaky at times.”

“Flaky?! You’re—”

“Maybe you two should call it a night,” Shiro says loudly. “It’s been a tiring day.”

It hasn’t, but Keith knows that there’s no sense in arguing with Shiro and he could honestly use a break himself.

“Yeah, sounds like a great idea,” Keith and Lance say together before glaring at each other.

“I’ll escort you,” Shiro says through gritted teeth.

The three of them thank everyone and walk out of the room together toward the bedroom hall. Shiro waits to say anything until they are in the hall, stopping in front of them and forcing them to stop.

“I know that what we’re asking of you two is unfair,” Shiro begins, “but I need a little effort. None of us want this to happen, but we have to make do with what we got, okay?”

“Sorry, Shiro,” they say in tandem.

“Lance, go to your room. Keith, come with me.”

Lance obeys without commenting and Keith follows Shiro into his room.

It’s virtually the same as Keith and Lance’s room, and Shiro takes a seat on a small bench at the foot of the bed, patting the spot next to him for Keith to sit. Keith obeys, knowing that he’s in for a lecture.

The problem is that Shiro may or may not have accidentally figured out that Keith sort of likes Lance. Well, to his knowledge, Keith likes Lance a little. The reality is that it’s a lot more than a little and Keith is in constant agony wrestling his feelings, but he doesn’t tell Shiro any of that and doesn’t want him to know.

“I know that you have a crush on Lance,” Shiro starts.

“Shiro, please .”

“So I know this is hard for you, but I really do need you to try.”

“I’m not the problem and I told you, I am trying.”

“I’ll have a chat with Lance, too.”

“Please don’t.”

“Keith, you know, I don’t think he would reject you if you—”

“Shiro, please , don’t. Lance wouldn’t like someone like me.”

“How can you say that?” Shiro asks with a frown. 

“Because it’s true. You see his usual type: flirty, pretty, nothing like me.”

“You’re… pretty.”

“Shiro—”

“It’s weird saying it to you, okay? But you have nothing to be insecure about. In fact, I think you’re exactly his type. His real type.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, when we first got to space, he had a crush on Allura, right? Allura is strong, smart, and confident, and always challenges Lance, even if it’s not in the way he wants her to. You meet all those criteria.”

Keith sighs, knowing that it’s not worth arguing, even if he does see that about himself at all. He’s not confident and all of his smarts are based solely on tactical strategy and nothing else as he has hardly any formal education, so all he that he can say is that he’s strong in the physical sense and “challenges” Lance, if that means that he pushes his buttons and doesn’t let him get away with anything.

But Lance? Being interested in him ? That would never happen. 

“Lance doesn’t see me like that,” Keith promises. “Can I go now?”

Shiro sighs. “Fine, but only if you promise to talk to Lance. Even if nothing comes of it relationship-wise, you and Lance more than anybody could use some quality bonding to build your friendship.”

“Okay, fine,” Keith says, if only to get away.

Shiro lets him return to his room and Keith finds Lance in the bathroom once again with the door open, so he joins him in there. Lance is already dressed in pajamas, probably getting ready for bed.

“How was that talk from Space Dad?” Lance asks, rubbing more cream into his skin.

“Annoying. Why do you keep putting more stuff on your face? Your face looks fine as is.”

“I’m trying to make it look better than fine. I want to glow,” Lance says with a dramatic flourish of his hands.

You already glow , Keith thinks but doesn’t say. Instead, he hums, preparing himself for whatever talk that Shiro thinks they need to have.

“Shiro wants us to try harder,” he says after a moment. 

Lance sighs and leans down to wash his face. When he stands, he says, “I know.”

He doesn’t say further and Keith doesn’t know what to say either so he just nods and heads back out into the main room. He searches through the cabinet and finds an extra pillow and blanket, setting it up on the floor. Keith’s a light sleeper, always ready just in case he needs to go at any minute, a habit he learned at a young age, so he doesn’t change into any pajamas. He doesn’t have pajamas, so he just takes off his boots and jacket and lays down on the ground facing the bed with his back to the bathroom. 

He closes his eyes and, a few minutes later, hears Lance come out of the bathroom. There’s a hesitation in his footsteps for a moment, before they continue and the light in the room goes out. The sheets rustle somewhere above Keith and he guesses that Lance crawls into bed. The room goes quiet again and Keith slips into sleep.

Chapter Text

He wakes up sometime in the middle of the night. Time works differently here as it does on every planet, but it’s dark outside their window so Keith knows it’s at least still night. Nothing woke him specifically, as far as he can tell, but Keith, on top of being a light sleeper, sometimes just wakes up randomly in the middle of the night, a restless sleeper by nature. 

When he was in the foster homes, they used to cram as many kids in a house as possible, all of them just trying to collect the monthly checks. Keith often slept similar to how he did in the orphanage right after his dad died, in a room with at least five other boys, all varying ages and all pissed at the world. The number of kids that tried to rob him at night and take the blade his dad left for him was astronomical, not to mention that some of the kids just liked to torture the little guys, and he woke up more often than not to being pulled out of bed and dragged to the closet, where it was harder to hear the commotion from the older kids beating him just for fun, which only got worse when they found out he was gay, and in the morning their foster parents wouldn’t even notice or care, not that there was a difference.

So sleeping light and restlessness was just something he was used to. He can’t remember the last time he had a good sleep, though he didn’t even know what qualified as a good sleep anymore. For him, it was a solid four consecutive hours but he knows that people like Lance needed at least ten hours to feel like they had a good enough sleep.

Keith pushes the blanket off him, sliding on his boots and jacket silently and standing up, glancing over at Lance who is nothing more than a lumpy bundle of blankets. Keith heads out of the room, needing to be somewhere else though he doesn’t know where yet.

He lets his feet carry him through the palace. He’s surprised that more people are milling about than he thought, not as busy as it had been during the day but still alive and moving. He sees Zori walking through the hall and she glances over, catching his eye.

“Paladin of Voltron,” she says, looking him over. “You’re… Keith?”

“Yes, and you’re Zori, daughter of King Rix-Ou.”

“Yes. I hear you’re the best fighter.”

“That title belongs to Shiro, our leader.”

“Then what are you?”

“I…” Keith trails off, not knowing what to say.

“You’re a strong warrior though, correct?” Keith nods. “I need your help. My father will mention it tomorrow but I’m worried we won’t have that much time. My second half, Nami, is missing. She went on a mission in the jungle and we haven’t heard anything since. My father thinks she’s fine but I’m worried for her. It’s her first mission and she wanted to prove herself so I think she would do anything to finish her task, even if it comes at great risk for herself.”

Keith doesn’t miss the similarity between him and Nami, even if Zori doesn’t have enough information to make that connection herself.

“What was her mission?”

“To retrieve an artifact from the Arlian Ruins. An excursion to the ancient ruins and slowly retrieving piece by piece of the stone is a tradition for every Gorxan warrior. She’s from Tunna, my home planet, but once we found her and she and I fell in love, she became insistent on trying to prove herself to my father. But we haven’t heard anything in two quintants and I’m starting to get worried.”

“I understand,” Keith says. “I can head out there at first light. Uh, when would that be?”

“In three vargas,” she says, glancing at the device on her wrist again. After a moment, she removes it and grabs Keith’s wrist, strapping it on him. She shows him how to read it. “The horizontal line is my connection to her gara, the device on your wrist. I think she’s too far for it to read so hopefully the closer you get, numbers will begin to appear and count down as you approach her. I would go myself but my father refuses for me to go, wanting her to get back on her own. But she’s still unfamiliar with the planet and was never a skilled warrior to start with though she tries so hard. I would do anything to protect her.”

“I understand,” Keith says, thinking of Lance. “I will find her. I’ll go get ready.”

“Thank you, paladin,” Zori says earnestly. 

“If my team asks, tell them where I’ve gone.”

“You won’t take any of them with you?”

“It’ll be easier to go alone.”

Zori’s face pulls together again but she nods, unstrapping a sword from her belt.

“You should take this too. The jungle is thick and Gorxan steel is the only thing to cut through the density.”

Keith doubts his bayard wouldn’t be able to cut through the vines but he takes the sword anyway, figuring it’ll appease her more.

He turns to head back to his and Lance’s room to suit up. She stops him with a hand on his arm.

“Thank you. You don’t know what this means to me, but I want you to know that if your Lance was in the same position, I would do the same for you.”

“Oh, we’re not really—”

“I may not be born Gorxan but I can sense strong love,” Zori tells him with a smile. “You two are still shy but you’ll get there eventually. I know you feel the same way about him as I do about my Nami.”

“Right… thanks.”

She squeezes his arm before letting him go. He gives her a nod before heading back to the room.

He changes quietly as the suns begin to rise. Lance breathes softly into the sheets as he suits up, keeping the sword strapped to his hip and awkwardly making sure the gara is accessible on his wrist despite his forearm guard. He heads back out of the room and out of the palace, tapping at the gara to make sure that it’s functioning. What seems to be the minute hand changes so Keith knows it’s working even though the line is still straight, no numbers appearing yet as he crosses past the pool house and into the jungle.

Zori hadn’t exactly told him where the ruins were, which is probably Keith’s fault for not asking but going this way into the jungle just seems like the most logical step, especially as he begins to find pieces of a path already carved out through the density. He cuts through the other vines with the sword that Zori gave him, finding out that it slides through the plants like butter with hardly any effort needed on his end.

Logically, he thinks, she can’t be far into the jungle. The planet is relatively small to start with and while the palace itself is surrounded by an outlying village, which in turn is surrounded by fields, calling it an honest jungle planet is a bit of a stretch. There’s a thick jungle surrounding the palace and village though it seems that most of it has been cut away to make room for people to live, so finding his way through the jungle probably won’t be as difficult as it seems.

Keith pushes his way through the pink plants and leaves, the ground littered with sparse orange grass. It’s temperate right now; Keith guesses that it’s the equivalent of springtime as all the plants are in bloom and the air is perfect right now, especially in the early morning suns, which rise slowly through the trees, producing strong rays that peek out from in-between the higher leaves.

Keith pushes onward, figuring he’ll just walk and keep looking down at the gara to check and see if any numbers appear.

After a little while longer as the suns beginning to appear over the trees, the gara makes a beeping noise and Keith looks at it to find that it reads 100 bnm. He’s not sure what bnm. means but thinks that it’s probably some unit of measurement. He’s at least close enough for the numbers to appear and that’s a good enough start. 

He keeps making it through the jungle, small animals running past him, some that even look like deer with two heads staring at him from some distance before disappearing. How they can survive in this environment, Keith isn’t sure, because deer could never survive in a jungle back on Earth, but they’re interesting to look at and watch disappear into the brush.

Eventually, he comes across a red river that he follows deeper into the jungle until he finds a single stone step pressed deeply into the red dirt on the other side of the bank. He crosses the river and looks around until he spots another one, three feet away and disappearing into the trees.

Keith watches the numbers on the gara get smaller and smaller as more and more stones appear in various directions. He continues following the linear ones he’s been on this whole time.

He watches the stones as he follows them, too, each appearing with intricate designs and symbols, some that Keith thinks he’s seen before as ancient Gorxan writing. He wishes he could translate what they say, but he has absolutely no idea.

He just breaks through a clearing and spots a big temple-looking structure, pyramid-like and sitting atop a mountain of steps, when a familiar voice behind him says, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Keith turns, only a little surprised to find Lance suited up behind him and marching toward him through the brush.

“I’m finding someone for Zori,” Keith says, turning back around and beginning to head up the steps to the temple, watching the numbers on the gara get smaller. He’s close.

“Wha— alone ?!” Lance follows him, which is also unsurprising. “You know what? I’m not even surprised. Keith Kogane, rebel, and loner, once again heading off on his own on a dangerous, secretive mission without telling anyone.”

“Fuck off, Lance,” Keith growls, knowing that Lance is just trying to get a rise out of him.

He starts climbing faster. Lance matches his pace.

“Why do you constantly feel the need to go off alone?” Lance demands.

It’s not the first time.

At the Garrison, they said he wasn’t a “team player” and didn’t have a “good attitude” when it came to teamwork. Keith has always had a habit of being alone; it’s just what he’s used to and there’s no one he trusts better than himself. Keith has his own back and he doesn’t trust anybody else to watch it, even his teammates, even if they have good intentions. Often, they find him off doing his own thing on missions, which he always gets in trouble for and he always promises Shiro he’ll try harder, but it’s just easier doing things on his own and it always has been.  

“Look, you can either stay and help or you can go back to the palace and flirt with more aliens. Your call.”

Lance acts affronted and purposefully makes sure his steps are in line with Keith’s.

“And let you get all the glory like always? Yeah, right.”

“Whatever,” Keith mumbles as they reach the top of the stairs.

The temple has an open archway in place of a door, which surprises Keith, though it looks like there’s a door hidden inside the temple that is held up in place by a pulley system. He heads inside the temple, Lance close at his heels.

“Who are you looking for anyway?” Lance asks, glancing around the large cavern they enter, crumbling with age.

“Zori didn’t tell you?”

“I never talked to her. Shiro told me where you were.”

“And to come find me.”

“No, he didn’t, though it seemed like he expected me to come. Probably to save your sorry ass.”

“Sure,” Keith says with an eye roll, knowing that that’s probably exactly what Shiro had expected. He knows he’s in for a lecture later and feels guilty because he knows that Shiro’s probably pulling his hair out by now given how much he has to sit Keith down and try to course correct him. Keith is always too stubborn and impulsive to listen to him.

The opening extends into a large cavern with tall ceilings, all stacking upward and inward like the stairs of the temple. Inside, pink vines and ivy-like plants snake their way through the interior, curling around any piece of stone that juts out or has crumbled, reclaiming them to nature. Keith wonders if these are the artifacts that the warriors are supposed to bring back or if this is only part of the temple. There are doors on either side of a dais at the back of the entrance.

And leaning on the dais, clutching her side, is an alien shorter than Keith who looks similar to Zori, definitely of the same species, with purplish skin and irises, jet black hair tucked into a messy plait with strands that droop in her face as she winces and presses her hand into a spot below her ribs, green blood dripping in-between her fingers.

“Nami?” Keith asks.

She looks up, clearly too previously occupied to notice them enter.

“Who are you?” she demands, her fear replaced immediately with strength as she sits up, tamping down on the flittering expression of pain that crosses her face.

“Zori sent us. Well, me.” Lance glares at the side of his head. Keith approaches Nami, kneeling next to her. “I’m Keith and that’s Lance. What happened?”

“The Guardian got me,” Nami says, relaxing at the mention of Zori’s name and allowing Keith to move her hands to look at her wound. It’s not deep, but it needs to be treated sooner rather than later.

“The Guardian?” Lance asks. “What guardian?”

“I thought King Rix-Ou was just giving me a hard time, teasing me. I should’ve listened,” Nami says as Keith replaces her hands, pushing them down against her to apply pressure. She winces and grits her teeth.

“Did it do this to you?” Keith asks. Nami nods.

“I lost my sword in the inner chamber and I haven’t been able to get up since I shut the doors, and I don’t know when that was, only that I’m starting to get tired and scared. I didn’t think anyone would come find me.”

“Like I said, Zori sent us. I think she would’ve torn apart the jungle to find you if her father didn’t forbid it.”

Nami smiles and reaches out to Keith. He pulls her up to her feet slowly, mindful of her side.

“But I can’t return without an artifact. King Rix-Ou would never bless mine and Zori’s relationship if I did.”

Keith doesn’t think that the king is that heartless, but if it’ll grant Nami peace of mind, he’ll grab a chunk of rubble on the way out.

“Okay,” Keith says, gesturing for Lance to take Nami and let her lean on him. Keith grabs a piece of debris and holds it up for Nami to see. “Good enough?”

“No, it has to be a blessed artifact, from inside the inner chamber.” Nami gestures to the doors. If Keith concentrates, he can hear something big and heavy moving about. 

“I’ll retrieve it. You guys wait here.”

“It’s a fierce warrior, Keith,” she warns him. “Be prepared.”

“Don’t worry,” Keith says, unsheathing the sword Zori gave him. “I’m a pretty good swordsman.”

“Oh, whatever,” Lance says with an eye roll. Nami laughs, looking a little younger when she smiles.

“There’s a switch behind that cluster of risuh to your right,” Nami says, gesturing with her head in the direction of what she’s talking about. 

Keith turns and spots a small group of plants that he guesses is risuh. He pushes it aside and reveals a stone square button underneath. He presses it and the door in front of him begins to slowly slide open upward. Keith is curious as to how this was engineered, though the Gorxans do seem incredibly advanced, another reason why their alliance is so important, another important one being that so many other species admire the Gorxans and seem inspired by them, so if the Gorxan alliance is secured, hopefully, others will follow.

“You two wait here,” he tells them, spinning the sword in his hand to stretch his wrist and determine the weight of the blade. It’s not unlike his bayard, though a little lighter, more like the weight of the bo staff he’s been practicing with back on the Castleship, so at least he’s a little more used to the heft than he was initially expecting.

“Show off,” Lance says from behind him. Keith rolls his eyes and enters the inner chamber.

The inner chamber is dark, only illuminated by the open doorway behind him. Keith looks around for some way to light the chamber when suddenly a blue flame ignites to his left on a wall sconce, first one of each side of the room and then the next and then the next, blue flaming appearing and igniting the room in a deep blue glow. Keith glances back at the door, noting that it’s also on a pulley system and making eye contact with Nami. Her face turns frightened as she looks over his shoulder and he turns back quickly when he hears a low growl, jumping out of the way in time to dodge the fist that slams into the ground beside him.

The Guardian, rather than attacking him again, spots Nami and roars at her. Keith swings his sword out and slices the rope that’s holding up the door and it slams down between the two of them before the Guardian can reach for her again.

“Keith!” Lance calls out behind the rock, barely audible.

“Come on,” Keith says to the Guardian, which turns to him.

It’s a large stone-like creature, crawling with the same risuh that decorates the outer chamber, like maybe it had been asleep for somewhere for a long time causing the plants to grow over it before it was woken up. It has a sharp-looking stone in its hand, which kind of looks like it fell off its crumbling body. Its eyes glow with the same blue flame that lines the walls of the chamber and in-between the place where his joints would be, blue flame resides there too, probably being what holds the Guardian together. How to extinguish it though and whether or not it would kill it, that’s the question.

The Guardian roars at him and charges, swinging the rock toward Keith close enough that only by Keith jumping back again does he avoid getting hit, though it swings in front of his face and Keith can feel the whisss! of its momentum as it passes by.

Keith swings the sword again, readying himself as he lunges and swings downward across the creature’s chest. The blade makes a sizable dent in the stone, a result of Gorxan steel, but it’s not enough to kill it and the Guardian seems more thrown off balance than injured. Keith uses the time it takes for the Guardian to right itself to glance around the chamber, trying to see if there’s any way to stop the Guardian without completely destroying it, because not only is he not sure that he can but also because that probably is some sort of faux pas. If the Guardian has been here for however long, destroying it is probably the wrong kind of action. And if warriors are constantly sent in here to retrieve artifacts, then how do they handle the Guardian? Surely, there’s some easier way to subdue it.

He turns and runs deeper into the inner chamber towards the wall at the back that looks like the Guardian maybe was once up against, an outline of where the risuh stops where it should’ve kept going, where it keeps going on the Guardian, running along its front but not its back. He sees the artifacts, pieces of stone with glowing blue symbols on them piled next to the outline of where the Guardian was. He hears the Guardian stomping toward him and dodges out of the way again as it slams into the wall, taking the opportunity to swipe the sword through the exposed joints, but it only passes clean through.

The Guardian growls at him and turns to face him. Keith backs up, looking at the image in large with the Guardian standing where it once sat. He notices something shining in its upper shoulder area near the neck joint.

The Guardian swings again and Keith dodges low and slices at its shin, causing the Guardian to drop to one knee and allowing Keith to jump on top of the monster and grip hold of the shining piece of metal, wrenching it out of the shoulder as the creature howls in pain. Keith jumps off and backs up, quickly examining the object and trying to see where it came from. 

To his right, there is a broken sword lying on the ground that matches the metal in his hands that was probably Nami’s next to a floor plate that seems to have been pressed in. Maybe that’s what woke the Guardian. If only he could figure out what—

His thought is cut off by the Guardian’s fist slamming into him, rock cutting into his armor and sending him flying toward the entrance of the inner chamber, and his sword hitting the wall on the opposite side.

“Fuck,” he swears, quickly cataloging what hurts. 

His head, for starters, and he tastes blood in his mouth, so he might’ve accidentally bit down on his tongue when he was hit. His armor on his side is cracked, almost an identical wound to Nami’s and he wonders if this is exactly what happened to her, though he’s not bleeding. Other than that and everything just being sort of sore, which is expected when you get hit by a stone fist, he’s fine so he climbs to his feet and wishes he had his bayard, knowing that he’s got to make it back to the other side of the room with the Guardian standing in his way.

He’s never fought weaponless. Well, he had when he was growing up but since being in space, he’s only ever trained to fight with weapons, never thinking he would be without one because even when he didn’t have his bayard, there was always his knife or nearby debris or something that he could find and use. It was stupid not to bring his bayard but he’s not defenseless and he never has been. He just has to be creative.

He waits for the Guardian to move first, knowing that his best chances of getting past it will be when it’s too busy moving forward to twist in time to catch Keith, momentum carrying it forward like a shark. Keith’s fast too, always has been, and small enough that he’s able to move even quicker. The Guardian is too big to be fast, its segmented body taking great effort and energy for each step so that as it starts to run toward him, as it does now, Keith can take the opportunity to charge and slide underneath its raised fist, quickly getting back up to his feet and racing across the room to pick up Zori’s sword.

On the other side of the chamber, as the Guardian wails and begins to slowly turn around with a bull’s anger, Keith spots a floor plate on the other side of the room in the exact place where the one on the right is, directly linear from the door opening. He runs over and steps on it, and immediately the Guardian stops as the plate on the opposite side begins to rise. The Guardian stumbles slightly before it begins to walk slowly back to where it once sat. Keith moves out of its way, still wary of it, but it just leans against the wall and slides down, pieces cementing together as the fire begins to die out, the only remaining blue light emanating from its eyes before it too dies out and it hangs its head, finally resting peacefully.

Keith blows out a breath and sheathes Zori’s sword, reaching down and grabbing an artifact of the temple. He walks over to the door that he didn’t cut the pulley for and finds another switch in the wall, pushing it to open.

The door begins to slowly slide up and Keith hears Lance say, “Oh, thank God.”

When he can see them, he holds up the artifact and Nami lets out a breath of relief.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she chants, moving out of Lance’s arm and grabbing the artifact that Keith offers to her. “Did you find my sword too?”

“It was broken, but I can grab it if you want.”

“Please.”

Keith jogs back in, mindful of his side, and retrieves the pieces, returning to Nami and Lance.

“What happened?” Lance demands, coming over to examine Keith. Keith’s heart pounds, excited by the way that Lance’s hands flit over his face and side as he assesses the damage. “I swear, Keith, only you could go to a peaceful planet and find a fight.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Keith says, slapping Lance’s hands away for the show, though he already mourns the loss.

“I’m sorry,” Nami says immediately.

“It wasn’t yours either,” Keith and Lance say together. They glance at each other and Keith continues, “Let’s just get back to the palace. I think we could all use a little rest. Except Lance, ‘cause he didn’t do anything.”

“Hey!” Lance protests and huffs, though he takes Nami under his arm again and helps her toward the exit.

The journey back is much quicker than the journey there. Though Keith and Nami are both sporting matching side wounds, everyone seems eager to get back to the palace as quickly as possible. Keith’s side wasn’t hurting him that much in the temple, probably as a result of adrenaline, but now the further they get from the temple, the more it starts to hurt. Space has also babied him in a way because using the healing pods has been such an easy way to heal from wounds that he can’t even remember what it’s like to properly heal from a wound. 

By the time they get back to the palace, Keith is starting to hurt and he can’t imagine how Nami is feeling, especially if she was stranded out there for two days. She must be far stronger than anyone gives her credit for, maybe not in the ways of a warrior but clearly in other ways.

They enter the palace and run almost directly into Shiro. He looks furious.

“Keith—” he starts.

“Lecture me later?” Keith asks, clutching at his side. Shiro clocks the torn armor and his expression shifts immediately, turning into Concerned Older Brother™ in a matter of seconds.

“What happened?” he demands as Lance leads Nami further into the palace.

“First, I have to get her back to Zori. Then I’ll explain.”

Shiro frowns but helps Keith follow Lance and Nami into the palace in search of Zori.

They find her in the living room they were in last night. She’s talking with one of her siblings and turns when Nami says her name.

“Nami!” Zori cries, racing over and grabbing her by the shoulders, examining her. “What happened to you?”

“The Guardian got me.”

Zori sighs. “Oh, you activated the plate, didn’t you? Nami…”

“I’m fine. I just need rest.”

Lance helps transition Nami into Zori’s arms and Zori thanks him before looking at Keith. He tries to offer her their swords, but she shakes her head.

“Hold onto them for now while I heal her.” Keith nods and turns to head back to his room when Zori says, “And Keith? I will never forget this and I will make sure my father knows what you have done for us.”

“Just happy she’s safe,” Keith says and she smiles at him before helping Nami off toward a hallway.

“Here,” Shiro says, taking the swords and handing them to Lance. “Put these in your room. I’m taking Keith to find a healer.”

“But—” Lance cuts himself, not finishing whatever his thought was before nodding. “Okay, fine.”

Lance walks off in a different direction and Shiro turns him and Keith back around, escorting him toward the infirmary that Keith found yesterday.

“Do we need to have the conversation about you not running off on your own, or do you have that memorized by now?” Shiro asks, sounding annoyed. 

Keith is sure he is. This isn’t the first, the second, or even the fifteenth time this has happened. Keith just works better alone, as evidenced by today. Lance didn’t “save” him or do anything other than help Nami. Keith fought the Guardian alone and succeeded.

“If it helps spare the lecture, I have it memorized,” Keith retorts.

Shiro sighs and part of Keith genuinely feels guilty for always making him worried. Shiro is probably the only person he’s been close to in, well, a very long time. He doesn’t try to make him worry and he doesn’t like it either, knowing Shiro doesn’t need the added stress and that maybe if Keith was a better person, he wouldn’t be causing such pain to people he gives a shit about. But he’s not and he’d rather eat the guilt than trust somebody again and it wind up being a mistake.

“Keith, I know you have trust issues, but—”

“Shiro, stop, please. I honestly don’t know if I could listen to another lecture.”

“I wouldn’t have to keep lecturing you if you just stayed with the group.”

“You know that’s not me.”

“That’s what it means to be part of a team, Keith. Honestly, I wish you would just—”

“Maybe I don’t want to be part of a team!” Keith says, pulling out of Shiro’s grasp. “Maybe I’m only here for you. You ever think about that?”

Shiro’s face grows sad. “Keith—”

“Stop, just stop.” Keith sighs, clutching at his side. “Just leave me alone.”

Keith turns and keeps walking toward the infirmary and, thankfully, Shiro doesn’t follow.

+++

When he falls out of the healing pod in the quiet of the infirmary and onto his hands and knees with no one there to catch him, he can’t help but feel upset, the guilt and sorrow clawing up his throat, threatening to spill out.

And like always, he tamps it down and gets back up.

+++

When he returns to his and Lance’s room, Lance isn’t in there. Keith collects the swords lying on the edge of the bed and decides to return them to Zori before either of them forget. He doesn’t know what a broken sword will do, but maybe the Gorxans have a special way of fixing it. 

He heads back out of the room and into the main hall, deciding to figure out where Zori could be. His side still aches because he didn’t let it fully heal but it’s nothing more than a cluster of bruises and he’s had enough bruises in his life to be fine with them just healing on their own, even kind of liking the ache of them. 

He asks one of the many workers and they point him in the direction of her room on the other end of the palace and up a couple staircases. He knocks on the door and Zori answers a moment later looking tense, though she relaxes when she sees Keith.

“You brought the swords. Thank you. Come in.”

Keith enters the large room and notices Nami lying down on the bed. She looks over at Keith and smiles, already looking better than she had in the ruins.

“You’re healing well,” Keith points out.

“My wounds are gone but I think the best thing to help me now is rest. At least, that’s what Zori says.”

“And it’s true,” Zori points out. She takes the swords from Keith, laying them down on the bed next to Nami. “Your second half has been in here too.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. “Lance? Why?”

“He’s a talker,” Nami says with a laugh. “He was asking all kinds of questions.”

“Sounds like Lance. What about?”

Zori gestures to two armchairs by a fireplace, taking a seat in one and expecting Keith to sit, so he does.

“He had a lot of questions about second halves. I take it you’re not actually together,” Zori points out.

Keith winces. “Is it actually that obvious?”

“When you speak to Lance, it is. Though I haven’t talked to you about it.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“What’s the saying that you Earthlings are fond of? Two sides to every story.”

“You know Earth sayings?” Keith asks.

Zori shrugs. “I know things.”

“She talked to your paladin, Hunk,” Nami spoils. Zori glares in her direction but there’s no heat to it.

“We’re very fond of hurom,” Zori says. Keith isn’t sure what that means and the confusion must show on his face because Zori elaborates. “When you talk about others.”

“Gossip,” Keith clarifies. “You’re fond of gossip. Then you’re talking to the wrong paladin. Lance is definitely more your guy.”

“But he’s clueless,” Nami chirps.

“And you seem to have the information we want,” Zori adds.

“Such as?”

“What’s the “real deal” with you and Lance?”

“There is no deal with me and Lance.”

“But you want there to be,” Zori says with a smile. She seems much more relaxed now that she has Nami back. It’s kind of nice to see. At least one of them is happy.

“Please?” Nami asks. “We won’t tell anyone. We’re good at keeping secrets.”

“And after everything you’ve done for us, we’d like to help you,” Zori says.

“There’s nothing to help. Lance is… Lance and… that’s all.”

“So you like him,” Zori says with a big grin. “Oh, that’s wonderful! We can help!”

“I don’t—” Keith starts before realizing it’s pointless. It’s all about trust, right, but maybe it’s easier to trust strangers with stupid information about a stupid crush than it is to trust his teammates to save his life. Maybe. Either way, he’s being far too obvious to turn back now or further deny so he just sighs. “Okay, fine.”

“Not now,” Nami says. “I still need to rest,  but tomorrow we can help!”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Zori agrees. It’s already late in the day anyway as Keith was in the pod for a while. “Come back in the morning and we’ll start then.”

“Fine,” Keith agrees, not expecting much. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Keith heads back to his room and Lance still isn’t there, and though he’s hungry and hasn’t eaten anything all day, he decides to just go to sleep, still working off the exhaustion from the healing pod and needing some time to himself before whatever awaits him tomorrow.

Chapter Text

As usual, he’s up before anyone else and goes to find somewhere to train when he runs into someone in the main hall.

“Sorry,” he says, backing up.

The alien in front of him is just as humanoid as Zori, though he has tannish-brown skin that almost makes him look more human, if not for his yellow irises and white pupils. He grins at Keith and Keith feels his heart pound a little because this alien is fairly attractive and he has a nice smile.

“It was my fault,” he says. “I’m Feir. You must be Keith, the Red Paladin?”

“I’m already that infamous?” Keith asks.

“Rather the opposite. You helped my sister Zori with her second half, Nami. She’s so grateful for your help that she told me that I would be helping you.”

“Oh,” Keith says, the idea souring his stomach. And here he thought that Feir might have been interested in him. “Right, yeah.”

“Where were you going?”

“I was looking for somewhere to train, actually.”

“We have a training center here. Would you like to train with me?”

Keith hesitates. Usually, he doesn’t train with anyone else unless necessary, but it’d be nice to have a sparring partner. He nods.

“Sure, why not?”

Feir grins again. “Excellent. Let me show you.”

Feir leads Keith through the palace and down a hallway he hasn’t been down before. He opens one of the doors to reveal a large training center, not as cool as the Castleship’s training room, but it’s wide and open and the morning light is just barely starting to filter in, making it seem peaceful.

“It’s probably not as great as your Castleship, but it’s where our best warriors are trained,” Feir says, striding into the room and turning around to gauge Keith’s reaction.

“It’s great,” Keith says earnestly. “Thanks for showing it to me.”

“Of course.” Feir looks him over. “You know, my second half says I’m a flirt.”

“Your second half,” Keith says slowly. Of course.

“They’re not wrong. I am, but only with those who catch my eye.” Feir punctuates this by giving an appraising look at Keith. Keith flushes under the attention. “It seems your second half is the same way. We just need to make sure that it’s you that his eye catches.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that for a while now.”

“Luckily, for you, I’m a love expert. Are you ready to train? I happen to be an expert swordsman too.”

Keith laughs. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

“You have to be,” Feir insists. “Don’t worry. I’ll teach you. For now, defend yourself.”

Feir unsheathes the sword at his hip and points it at Keith.

This, Keith can do.

+++

The suns are high in the sky by the time the team finds them. Feir is admittedly a skilled swordsman and very quick on his feet, which means that Keith loses a lot more than he expected he would, but he gets back up every time and says, “Again.”

King Rix-Ou enters the training room first as Keith slices at Feir, who dances away laughing.

“Ah, we see one of your paladins has already found the training room! Keith, our daughter speaks so highly of you. She says what you did for her is unforgettable, and we Gorxans have very good memories.”

Behind the king stands the team, though not in their gear. Clearly, they were just getting the tour and stumbled into Keith and Feir’s training session.

Keith straightens when the king speaks to him.

“I’m happy to help. As Paladins of Voltron, we are all happy to help.”

The king’s mouths stretch in a way that may be a smile. Behind him, Shiro nods approvingly and it’s enough to make Keith relax a little.

“Of course, it wouldn’t have been possible without Keith’s second half Lance,” Feir chimes in, coming to stand beside Keith. “For who would’ve known what would’ve happened to Keith and Nami if not for his desire to protect his second half? A desire Zori possessed also but could not act upon.”

Feir throws the last half at the king like he’s angry with him for preventing Zori from going. King Rix-Ou waves the comment off, turning to look at Lance, who’s staring confusedly between Keith and Feir.

“I’m sorry, who is this?” Lance asks. Pidge slaps him for the informality and Hunk restrains him when he tries to lunge at Pidge.

“I am Prince Feir,” Feir says, leaning closer to Keith and placing his hand on his back. Interestingly, Lance’s eyes track the movement. “I am very interested in your team.”

“Sure looks like it,” Lance mumbles. Pidge slaps him again, though she has an amused smile on her face.

“Yes, our son, Feir. We raised him and Zori after their home planet was destroyed. Zori’s second half Nami was another survivor that we recovered later and the two were immediately smitten with each other. Why even Feir—”

“Is interested to hear more about your team,” Feir interrupts. “Father, please, let us all talk over the morning meal. I am just enthralled.”

“Yes, of course, what an excellent idea, Feir!” the king says. “Come, let us consume!”

Feir pats Keith on the back and follows after his father. 

Keith hooks his bayard onto his belt and follows after them, scooping his jacket off the floor. 

“What was that?” Lance hisses into his ear as he passes, latching onto his arm. “Why are you making friends with all the royals?”

“What does that even mean?” Keith says, not shaking Lance off. “I’m just talking to them.”

“Awkward Keith making friends? It doesn’t make sense,” Lance says.

“Lance,” Pidge scolds.

“It’s true! He won’t even talk to us, but he talks to random people!”

“ You talk to random people,” Keith points out, cheeks aflame.

“Yeah, me . You’re not supposed to.”

“You think you own the right to talk to people?” Keith says, shaking Lance off and stopping. Pidge and Hunk, on the other side of him, look between them with worried expressions.

“Well, I’m certainly better at it than you.”

“Evidently not,” Keith snaps. “Isn’t this whole mission supposed to be about talking with the Gorxans and securing an alliance? What have you done so far other than follow me around?”

“Guys,” Hunk says, but neither of them pays attention.

Lance lets out a deep angry breath. “Well, maybe if you didn’t go off alone every five seconds and do things without the team, we wouldn’t be having this issue!”

“And maybe if you left me alone for once, I’d actually want to be a part of your stupid team,” Keith hisses. “I mean, what happened to being friends?” 

He stomps off in the direction of the others without waiting for a response.

He hears Hunk say, “Lance…”

And Lance says, “That wasn’t my fault!”

And Pidge sighs, “It totally was.”

+++

Morning meal, as they call it, consists of everyone in their usual placements, though Feir sits where Princess Tae-Liu sat the other day for the evening meal. When they sit down, Lance still to his left, Keith does his best to stay continuously engaged in conversation with Feir.

“So where have you been?” Keith asks. “Unless I’ve missed you around the palace the last two quintants.”

“Scouting mission to a nearby moon,” Feir responds before leaning in towards Keith. “That’s the official story. Unofficial story? There’s a great bar there that I love to frequent. We should go sometime.”

Keith laughs, still finding himself flustered by Feir’s charm. “I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of flexibility when it comes to just going to random moons to hang out in bars.”

“Well, that’s obviously not the real reason I was there,” Feir says. “Just a bonus. Actually, the real reason may require Voltron’s help, if your team has more time to spare on our humble planet.”

“I’m sure we can help. You should ask Shiro or Allura. They’ll figure it out.”

“Yes, I will,” Feir agrees. “After the meal. Wouldn’t want to spoil any appetites.”

Keith doesn’t know what that means, but he’s sure he’ll find out.

+++

What Feir means is that there’s some kind of black market activity happening on the moon of Kandor, where largely children are going missing and never being seen again. It easily makes Keith sick to his stomach to think about it, so Feir not wanting to bring it up over mealtime is understandable.

“We collected enough intel to know where their base is. Given how many children went missing, however, I feel it would be wisest to have the paladins helping us secure the building and free the children,” Feir tells his father. “If they would be so gracious as to keep helping us.”

“Anything to help,” Allura says, deeply moved by the story. “Anything to help those children. We will aid however we can.”

“Thank you,” Feir says sincerely. “It would be my great honor to fight alongside such esteemed warriors.”

“Yes, how marvelous,” the king says. “We will make preparations for your party to leave in two quintants, the morning after the celebration. Will that be enough time to prepare?”

“Yes,” Feir says, “the sooner the better. I will start getting my preparations in order.”

Feir nods to his father and heads out of the room, patting Keith on the shoulder as he passes.

“In the meantime, as we organize the flight,” the king says in the direction of Allura, “perhaps your paladins could put their desire to help to use around the palace? There are still preparations that need to take place for the celebration.”

“Yes, an excellent idea. Coran, Shiro, and I will help you and your people while the other paladins can help wherever you need them.”

“We believe help in the garden would be most appreciated. Shiro, do you remember where we showed you?”

“Yes, I will bring them,” Shiro says and gestures with his head for the paladins to follow him.

As they make their way out of the hall and down toward the other end of the palace, Shiro says, “Everyone needs to work together on this next mission, okay?”

He glances back in the direction of Keith and Lance holding up the caboose of their party, not like he needed to strictly point them out as everyone knew exactly who he was talking about anyway.

When nobody responds to him, Shiro sighs and doesn’t say anything else.

He leads them to a garden outside of the conservatory that looks much bigger than Keith expected it to. On Earth, he had planted a little garden at the back of his shack, but the only thing he could get to grow were tomatoes and it was kind of hard to make anything with just one admittedly shitty ingredient. This garden, on the other hand, is much larger and thriving, stalks taller than Shiro even, and all at various stages of progress and growth. Down each row are people that are tending to the garden, but more hands would be useful.

Shiro pulls aside one of the workers and has them give each paladin a row to work in, telling them what ripe plants look like and giving them baskets to collect the vegetables. Keith starts in his row and begins picking through the vegetables, enjoying how easy it seems. He knows that getting the vegetables to the stage where they’re able to be picked took a lot of work, but of all the tasks he could’ve had today, he’s happy with this one.

He gets halfway down his row when someone says, “Aha! Found you!” at the end of the row. He looks up and Zori walks toward him with her basket. She comes to stand next to him, watching as he picks the vegetables.

“You’re out here too?” Keith asks.

“Everyone helps,” Zori tells him. “Even my father is out here in the garden on some quintants. We provide the food for our planet and moons, so there are a lot of crops to cull.”

“I can tell. It’s soothing though.”

“Gardening always is. Nami can show you around the plants in the conservatory if you’re curious. She’s always looking for extra hands.”

“I may take you up on that. You know Pidge is really into plants, too.”

“Well, we can always make room for more,” Zori says simply. “Besides, I know from personal experience that gardening is a great way to bond.”

She smiles at him and he sighs, wanting to tell her about his and Lance’s fight, but knowing that Lance can hear them right now and, knowing him, is probably listening in. 

“Yeah,” he says, figuring it’s the safest thing to say. “Have you heard about the mission to Kandor?”

Zori sighs, good mood fading and Keith is sorry to see it go. Once again, she carries the weight of her responsibilities.

“Yes, I know all about it. Yet another thing that my father refuses to let me oversee. Feir is a fierce warrior, but it was my initial intel that prompted Feir’s mission to investigate. Once my father learned how dangerous it was, they forbade me from doing anything near it, instead telling me that I needed to oversee the decoration committee.” Zori sighs. “They say that Nami should go though, now that she’s proven herself to be a competent warrior. Nami was not made for that. She should never have to go to war.”

“And with us, she won’t,” Keith promises. “Hopefully none of you will.”

“I’ve been in war before,” she says. “First rule: don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it’s better to remain ignorant.”

Zori gives him a sad look and Keith wonders if she’s thinking about her destroyed home planet. He realizes that at some point he stopped picking vegetables to meet her eye. He stoops down again, starting from the bottom.

“Gardening would be nice,” he says to break the tension and take her mind away from whatever she’s thinking. “We could all use a little peace.”

“Yes,” she says, visibly collecting herself. “I’ll tell Nami. She’s feeling much better today, thanks to you.”

“It’s my job,” Keith says reflexively.

“It was more than that, but if I’m embarrassing you, I’ll stop.” Zori’s good-natured smile comes back and she taps her boot against Keith’s vegetable basket. “I’ll let you finish here and come find you all when we’re ready.”

“Sounds good. Thanks, Zori.”

Her grin brightens and she nods, heading back in the direction she came. When she leaves, Keith gets back to work.

+++

The suns are well overhead by the time she’s come back and Keith is a couple of crops away from finishing the end of his row.

“Paladins of Voltron!” Zori’s voice announces, getting closer as she presumably peeks her head down each row, at last appearing at the end of Keith’s and throwing him a wave. “When you are all done with your rows, please return your baskets to the kitchen and find Nami and me in the conservatory so that we may give you a lesson in Gorxan horticulture.”

There are various sounds of assent from his fellow paladins and she nods at Keith before disappearing back through the rows again. He finishes his row and totes his full and heavy basket back through the conservatory and into the kitchen, which he finds with relative ease. Everyone else isn’t very far behind him, placing their baskets on a long table where the Gorxan kitchen aid thanks them in a language that they’ve never heard before, but they understand it all the same.

They all head back to the conservatory, where Nami is spraying a green mist over the plants.

“Oh, good, that was quick!” Nami says, much more lively than the last two times that Keith saw her. She moves about easily, her skirts all flowing around her as she moves. “What do you say when you’re ready to teach someone?”

“Buckle up?” Hunk offers.

“Buckle up, paladins, because I am about to teach you the wonders of horticulture!”

Zori laughs at Nami’s excitement. When Nami gestures to her, she holds out a tray of mini spray bottles, offering them to the paladins.

“What’s in these bottles is called amoxin. It’s a liquid protein that we give to plants to make them grow stronger. These plants are very temperamental, so they need near-constant love and nourishment. And as everyone knows, the best way to make a plant grow is to talk to it.”

“Lance’ll have no problem with that,” Pidge says helpfully. Lance glares at her before growing haughty.

“My aunt raised a potato farm in our backyard with my help. I’m great at gardening.”

“Then perhaps you should help Keith,” Zori chimes in. “He’s horrible with plants. Right, Keith?”

“Yeah, uh, I grew tomatoes once though.”

Zori glares at him. Keith clears his throat.

“But, they died,” he says, looking away.

“Yes and Pidge with Hunk. Pidge, you’re skilled with plants?”

“Enough,” she says.

“Well, then you two work with me and Keith and Lance can work with Nami.”

Nami nods. “Perfect. Come this way, Keith and Lance.”

They break off into their teams, Keith and Lance following Nami to the end of the conservatory near the back door.

“These flowers are called amorasi,” Nami says, stroking the leaves of a large colorful flower. It’s pink and orange, dotted with brown spots decorating the petals and even extending down to the stem and leaves, which curl like fern leaves. “They’re named that because it means “lover’s kiss.”” Nami smiles fondly. “Zori gave these to me a couple of phoebs after they found me. We’ve been together ever since.”

“Have you guys been here long?” Keith asks, following her guide to poke at the soft petal.

“A few deca-phoebs, though sometimes it’s hard to tell. Feels like forever at times, and other times it feels like I was just there, stranded on the moon of my home planet…” Nami trails off, growing sad. She shakes herself. “But it was a long time ago and so much has changed. The king found me and now we have Voltron to fight for us. Things are getting better, even if it feels like things are moving second by second sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Lance says softly. “We know that feeling.”

“That’s why stuff like this is so important,” Nami says, gesturing to the flower. “Moments that you share with the people you love mean everything, especially during these hard times. A lover’s kiss—” Nami strokes the petals of the flower. “—can be just enough to get you through the quintant.”

Keith feels Lance glance at him and his cheeks heat up. “You’re right, Nami. I’m glad you have that.”

“As do you,” Nami says pointedly, gesturing to Lance. “What, with you two being second halves and all.”

Keith glances at Lance, whose cheeks are tinged red probably from embarrassment.

“Do you have any other flowers?” Keith asks, desperate to move on.

Nami frowns but nods. “Yes, this way.”

+++

Nami and Zori continue showing them flowers as the suns pass overhead. At the beginning of the afternoon, Feir strolls into the room and takes a deep breath.

“Ah, smells like love is in the air!” he chirps, glancing over at Keith and Lance. “Must be you two.”

Keith blushes, wondering if Lance does too and hates that he’s behind him so he can’t see, and Zori sits up from where she’s leaning over a plant, showing Pidge and Hunk something. 

“Brother, are you all ready?” she asks, the bitter edge clear in her tone.

“Sister, don’t be jealous. It’s unbecoming,” Feir teases, which seems to annoy her greatly. He grows serious. “You should really talk to Father.”

“It’d do no good,” Zori grinds out.

“It might,” Nami offers. “You’ll never know if you don’t—”

“Stop,” Zori commands, turning back to Feir. “What news, Brother?”

Feir frowns, which seems unnatural on his jovial face. He gestures to the group.

“I came to see if the paladins would like to train a little before evening meal if they aren’t too caught up in the gorgeous fauna of our great planet.”

“Relieve them, then,” Zori says, standing. “Surely they are ready to move around.”

“It’s been very enlightening,” Pidge makes sure to mention.

“Maybe it’d be good to train a little,” Hunk agrees. “To get ready for the mission.”

“Yes, then we will go!” Feir announces. “Follow me, paladins!”

The paladins follow Feir out of the room after saying goodbye to Zori and Nami, heading in the direction of the training room. Shiro, Allura, and Coran are waiting for them when they arrive.

“Paladins,” Allura says, “today we will train with Prince Feir to ensure that we are prepared for our mission, as we will probably not have another chance before we go. Everybody needs to partner up.”

“Oh, Princess, if you will, I have already chosen partners for everybody,” Feir says. Allura gestures to the group as a sign of acceptance.

“Please, whatever you think is best, Prince Feir. We would be happy to comply.”

“Pidge and Hunk are perfectly matched together: Pidge, a beacon of speed and agility, matched with Hunk, the picture of strength and patience. What a wonderful duo,” Feir says.

Pidge and Hunk tap the sides of their fists against one another, clearly pleased by the compliments. 

“Next, Shiro, the great and capable leader, paired with Lance, the eagle eye with a penchant for running his mouth,” Feir says. Lance opens his mouth to protest but seems to think better of it and closes it.

“And Keith—” Feir grins and Keith flushes. “—such a skilled swordsman and clearly only a match for me. Whoever does the besting is the winner and best and most handsome swordsman, though obviously we barely need to duel for anyone to know that information.”

Feir winks at Keith and Keith has to look away, absolutely flustered with the attention, even though he knows that it’s not genuine. It’s appreciated nonetheless. Keith doesn’t think a guy has ever paid him a compliment before, so not only to get it from somebody as attractive as Feir but also in front of his teammates, specifically Lance and Shiro, is enough to leave him a flustered mess. He thinks if he had to open his mouth, the only thing that would come out is his stutters.

“Okay,” Shiro says after a moment. “Allura, you count us off.”

“Yes, gladly,” she says and begins counting backward for them.

Feir is a skilled swordsman, though Keith already knows this from fighting him earlier in the day. Feir is all into the offensive, striking first and aggressively to throw Keith off balance, though Keith is always ready for it, and pushes back into him with just as much fervor. Feir’s main task, it seems, is to set him off balance, but Keith is quick on his feet and is expecting it, so he dodges underneath Feir’s arm as he swings, hitting the back of his bayard into Feir’s back.

“Point one,” he says, turning on his heel and smiling at Feir’s obvious annoyance.

Feir then smirks and strikes again.

This time Feir is much more aggressive, not willing to let Keith out of his sight and being ready to spin on heel the second that they start to move around. He swings his sword with purpose and if Keith didn’t know any better, it seems like was trying to draw blood, determined in his movements. But Keith likes fighting with an actual person and not a bot, as they’re so much harder to predict, so he’s completely dialed into the fight, his mind moving a mile a minute as he tries to predict Feir’s next step and his next move and eventually, he starts to find a pattern.

The next time Feir swings low, Keith jumps and swings at his shoulder, slicing his arm.

Feir retracts, surprised, and clutches at his arm, dropping to a knee.

Shiro glances over.

“Keith!” he admonishes.

“Oh, no, it’s wonderful, Black Paladin, absolutely wonderful. Your Red Paladin truly has it all,” Feir says, smiling down at the green blood dripping from his arm. He looks up at Keith. “And as I said, you really are the best and most handsome swordsman.”

Keith laughs a little and sticks his hand out to help Feir to his feet. Feir raises his eyebrows like he’s waiting for Keith to say something.

“Well, the same could be said about you,” Keith says awkwardly after a moment. “I mean, you’re so… attractive.”

Feir makes a face at the awkwardness and then laughs, taking Keith’s hand and pulling himself up with Keith’s help as he says, “Oh, if only you weren’t taken by your second half.”

“Yeah, well,” Lance pipes up, “he is.”

Keith glances over at Lance, surprised. Everyone else is looking at him too, but Lance is only looking at Feir.

“I didn’t mean to offend, Blue Paladin,” Feir says, a genuine smile on his face. “But know you are so lucky to have something so great in your possession.”

“Yeah, I do,” Lance says, less confidently. He glances at Keith, who glances away.

“Should we go again?” Keith asks.

Feir glances at Lance.

“Perhaps we should switch. Everyone, rotate.”

Everyone switches down a line with Feir’s instruction, so Shiro goes to Feir, Keith goes to Pidge, and Hunk goes to Lance.

“You ready to lose?” Pidge says confidently. “I’m on a winning streak.”

“You beat Hunk?” She nods. “Alright then, bring it.”

While Pidge’s bayard is similar to Keith’s because it requires close combat, fighting with their weapons against each other would be unfair because of the length of Keith’s sword versus the smallness of Pidge’s katar-like blades. Keith switches to one of the staffs that line the wall of the training room, noting that Pidge has already made the switch, as have the rest of the team, including Feir, who sheathes his sword and pulls out a staff to match Shiro.

When Allura counts them down, Pidge doesn’t strike first. She waits for him to strike first and after a while of waiting, he does. She’s quicker than him, but less skilled with the longer staff, so while she weaves and jabs, he’s able to bat her away and push her back. She stays firm on her feet and tries to jab at him again and this time he ducks and swipes her feet, landing her on her back. He points the staff at her.

“Yield?”

She bats the staff away and he holds a hand out to help her up.

“It was rigged anyway,” Pidge says. “You’ve been practicing on your own.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Keith says and glances to his right.

Hunk strikes the staff out of Lance’s hand, who says, “Dude!” and Hunk replies, “Sorry!” as Shiro and Feir are engaged in a tense battle, and neither one of them seems to let up. With everyone else done fighting, having either won or lost, they watch Feir and Shiro spar.

They move together well, an equal match of strength and skill that’s obvious in their firm movements and steady balance. With every strike, the other meets, the clacking of the wood ringing out as they collide, two unstoppable forces.

Growing up, Keith looked up to Shiro so much. He was just so cool, so self-assured and confident that Keith wanted to be just like him. He did everything he could to get there, but there was always something holding him back. The Garrison and everyone there tried to stand in his way, but Keith knew that they were just setbacks and that he just needed to get past them, needed to be better. He made it top of his class in everything but subordination, where he couldn’t follow simple instructions to rise through the ranks. He tried, but after Shiro disappeared, nothing seemed worth it anymore. It took one comment to make him explode and get him kicked out and after that, he set out on his own path to find Shiro again, however that happened. In searching, he found the Blue Lion and eventually made his way to space.

But one thing was evident: no matter how hard he tried, he would never be like Shiro. He would never amount to anything other than a washed-out rebel and loner, as Lance so helpfully put it.

Feir finally strikes Shiro and Shiro blows out a breath, standing upright and holding a hand. Feir looks at it like he’s not sure what to do with it, but gently places his hand in Shiro’s and lets Shiro give them both a shake.

“Good match,” Shiro compliments.

“It was,” Feir agrees with a smile. “Now, everyone, switch!”

Everyone switches again and Keith walks over to stand in front of Lance.

Lance stares at Keith like he wants to say something.

“What?” Keith asks.

“Nothing,” Lance says all too quickly. Keith narrows his eyes.

“Lance—”

“Go!” Allura shouts.

Lance moves first, swinging out in a rather unskilled move, like he’s too desperate to start the fight to swing properly. Keith knocks the staff away and strikes him.

Lance glares.

“Again,” Lance demands.

They get back into their stances and this time when Lance strikes, it’s deliberate and practiced, a single strike that knocks against Keith’s staff and that Keith answers with a strike of his own. Together, they dance around each other, striking at one another with their staffs and only hitting wood, though there are a few close calls on both accounts. Lance is skilled with the staff; well, he’s skilled with just about anything that’s thrown at him, a quick learner, good with his hands, and has great hand-eye coordination. While he is better with a gun, it’s obvious that the basic practice they’ve been doing is paying off.

Lance is also a great skill match for Keith. Keith’s had more experience with close combat weapons, but Lance has a sort of hungry determination to him that seems to motivate him to try to match Keith blow for blow. Either it’s his refusal to lose to Keith or his desire to win, but whatever it is drives him to push Keith back as he advances on him, swinging and hitting Keith in the shoulder.

“Again,” Keith says. Lance grins at him.

While the others fight beside them, Keith and Lance rematch for a second time, this time much more aggressive than the last two, even though Lance has a little smile on his face as they fight, clearly enjoying himself. Keith pushes Lance back and goes to sweep Lance off his feet when Lance moves quickly and hits Keith’s back.

“Ha!” Lance crows. “I win!”

Keith straightens, rolling his eyes.

“You’re so annoying when you win,” Keith says. “And when you lose. You’re never not annoying.”

“Yeah, but you love it,” Lance laughs and turns away to talk to Pidge and Shiro, probably to brag, both of whom have just completed their sparring too, so he completely misses Keith blushing and looking away.

Hunk catches his eye though and Keith looks up to see Hunk looking at him intently, like he’s putting together puzzle pieces in his head.

A lightbulb clicks and Hunk’s eyes light up.

“Oh my gosh!” he whisper-shouts to Keith. “You like—”

“ Nothing ,” Keith hisses firmly. “I like nothing.”

Hunk’s eyes widen and he mimes zipping his lips.

“Hunk, did you see how awesome I am?” Lance says, turning to face them. Hunk looks at Lance and he already looks like he’s sweating trying to keep the secret in. Great, just great. Why is Keith always surrounded by a bunch of geniuses?

“Yeah, totally,” Hunk says, glancing at Keith before nodding. “But did you see Keith?”

“ No ,” Keith says, knowing what Hunk’s line of thinking is. 

“Yeah, I was fighting him. And he was losing,” Lance says with a smirk.

“Yeah, but—”

“One more,” Keith announces to— begs —Lance, turning to face him. “Last one. Winner takes all.”

“Fine,” Lance agrees easily, sliding into a readied stance.

Keith strikes Lance’s staff again, but this time Lance is quick to parry him, using their connection point to shove Keith back. Another thing about Lance is that he’s so passionate about everything he does. It bleeds through his actions like watercolor, all swirling and melding together to create a beautiful kaleidoscope of color. Lance strikes and Keith can feel his energy in the next point of connection, Lance’s determination and passion coming through so strongly that Keith almost stumbles when Lance strikes next, caught up in watching Lance’s firm and resolute movements, the way he glides with the bo staff like how he glides through water, the air seemingly parting to make space just for him the way that the water does when he swims, like every part of the universe may be in love with Lance too, may move and breathe with him, may love him as deeply and fiercely and secretly as Keith does.

Keith is so caught up in staring at Lance that he misses a block and gets hit—very hard, thanks so much Lance—right in his still aching side. The power of it sends Keith to his knees in an instant, gasping out and clutching his side as a wave of pain overtakes him, blocking everything out for a couple of seconds as Lance shouts, “Oh my God!” and drops to his knees next to Keith.

“Oh my God,” Lance says again and Keith tries to catch his breath. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? I really thought you would block that.”

“What happened?” Shiro demands, also kneeling beside them, reaching for Keith’s side.

“It was an accident,” Keith says, more so to Lance than to Shiro. “My fault.”

“Let me see,” Shiro says and tries to lift Keith’s shirt. Keith tries to fight him, knowing what he’ll find, but Shiro is stronger. He pulls Keith’s shirt up and reveals the mottled patch of dark purple and blue, almost black, bruises that litter his side, that have amalgamated into one large bruise that Lance just so managed to hit perfectly in the center where it’s darkest.

“Oh my God, I did that ?!” Lance all but shrieks.

“No, it’s from the Guardian,” Keith explains.

“I thought you healed,” Shiro says, letting Keith pull his shirt back down.

“I did. Kinda.”

Shiro sighs very deeply and a distinct and familiar guilt claws at the back of Keith’s throat as he tries to push himself more upright, not wanting any more attention on him, especially now that everyone else in the room had come to look at Keith’s monster bruise.

“Lance, take Keith to the infirmary and make sure he stays until he’s healed ,” Shiro says firmly with a pointed look at Keith. “Keith, we’ll talk about this later.”

Keith sighs nearly as deeply and tries to stand up on his own, but doesn’t get very far before Lance grabs hold of his hands and pulls him to his feet gently. Keith lets him, even going so far as to let Lance put his arm around Keith to stabilize him as they walk, even though he’s not that incapable.

They leave the room and Keith directs them toward the infirmary. Lance lasts a solid thirty seconds before he starts in.

“You really need to take better care of yourself,” he huffs, still refusing to let go of Keith. “What’s gonna happen when we’re in a battle situation and you get hurt but you keep going? Do you even understand what would happen if we lost you because of your stupidity? Do you understand what would happen if I—” 

Lance cuts himself off to sigh, his grip on Keith’s upper side tightening as he takes a breath.

When he doesn’t continue, Keith says, “You don’t need to worry about me. You shouldn’t worry about me.”

“Why shouldn’t I? You’re my teammate. You’re my friend.”

“You have a funny way of showing that.”

Lance stops in his tracks and pulls back to look at Keith, who meets his gaze coldly. If Lance thought of him as a friend, like he did Pidge or Hunk, things would be so different. But he doesn’t.

“That’s not fair.”

“It isn’t? Why can’t you just treat me like Hunk or Pidge, or, hell, even Shiro? Why am I the odd one out? Why do you make me the odd one out?”

“Because you’re different,” Lance huffs.

“ Why ?”

“Because you are!” Lance practically shouts and then sighs, grabbing Keith again and continuing to walk, their destination in sight at the end of the hall. “Stop asking me questions.”

Keith complies, but he flags this conversation in his mind to return to later. He doesn’t get why Lance is being so cagey, but, at this point, he decides not to press it, figuring that the sooner they get this all over with, the better.

Lance brings him into the infirmary and the attendant looks over at them.

“Back again?” they ask, rag in hand from cleaning out one of the pods.

“Someone came out before their time was up,” Lance says, patting Keith on the back and pushing him in the direction of the nearest pod. “Think you can help us out?”

The attendant nods and begins focusing on Keith and it’s not too long before he gets shoved back in the pod.

+++

This time, when he comes out, he falls in Lance’s arms.

He tries not to think too much about that.

+++

With still some time to go before the evening meal, Keith and Lance walk back to their room in silence. Keith sort of feels slimy after coming out of the healing pod and he’s sure Lance is unhappy being in sweat-cooled clothes. When they come inside, Lance gestures toward the bathroom.

“You can bathe first if you’re quick,” he says. “But only if you’re quick.”

“Please, my showers are five minutes max. I doubt you could do anything that fast,” Keith throws over his shoulder as he heads into the bathroom with a spare change of clothes.

He closes the door as Lance says, “Yeah, well—” and the rest of his sentence gets cut out once the door completely shuts.

Keith takes a quick bath, finding the alien tub weird, but easy to use after a solid minute of staring at it and finally remembering what button Shiro had pressed to turn it on. He finishes up and changes into his spare clothes, which consist of black pants and a red long-sleeve sweater that he found on a planet a while ago and figured it might be nice to have. He’s hardly ever worn it, but he thinks he looks good in it and it’s soft, and after all of today, it might be nice to have something comforting like it on.

He exits the bathroom and Lance glances up from where he’s taking off his sneakers, straightening when he sees Keith.

“Is that a new sweater?” he asks. Keith tries not to flush.

“It’s old, technically. I just never wear it.”

“It looks good,” Lance says earnestly and something low in Keith’s stomach churns.

“Y-yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Lance stares for a moment before clearing his throat, grabbing his spare clothes, and nodding his head toward the bathroom. “I’m gonna—”

He slides past Keith into the bathroom and closes the door. Keith puts his shoes back on and waits in the chair for Lance to be done, which isn’t nearly as long as normal. When Lance comes out, dressed in a well-fitting blue top that brings out his eyes—not that Keith would ever say that—he glances at Keith and says, “Hey, actually, I wanted to talk to you about—”

There’s a knock on the door and Lance sighs, walking over to open it. Keith stands, walking over to stand behind Lance and see who it is.

Hunk stands on the other side, glancing between Lance and Keith.

“Uh…” he says slowly, looking between them. Keith narrows his eyes and makes a motion like, Keep your mouth shut! and Hunk clears his throat, straightening. “Dinner is ready.”

“Great,” Keith says, moving past Lance and grabbing Hunk’s arm, dragging him away before he can say anything. “Let’s go.”

Lance makes a noise of protest behind them, but quickly follows, appearing on Hunk’s other side.

“What’s the rush?” Lance asks, shrugging on his jacket as he walks.

“Hunk and I are just so happy to have something we can actually chew on, right, Hunk?” Keith asks, arm still linked with Hunk’s.

“R-right! Food goo can only do so much.”

“And aren’t you excited to eat all the fresh vegetables we picked today?” Keith says to Lance.

“I guess,” Lance grumbles. “But Keith, I want to talk to you—”

“Hey, wait for me!” Pidge calls and they all stop, letting her catch up. “Are you all excited for this celebration? If the feast they keep talking about is as good as meals here usually are, then I’m stoked.”

“We were just talking about that,” Keith says. “Great to be relieved of food goo.”

“Oh definitely,” Pidge agrees and begins chattering about the properties of food goo and why Gorxan meals are better, leaving them all to just listen to her and agree.

+++

Dinner passes with excited talk about the celebration. Keith listens without complaint, focusing on eating rather than talking. Pidge and Hunk are right, the food is definitely better and Keith almost missed the act of chewing, something rarely found in the consumption of food goo. 

After dinner, everyone breaks away. Keith is first to go away, just wanting a bit of alone time after all the excitement. He heads back to the conservatory, lying down on the stone in-between the pool and the plants and staring up at the glass ceiling. Above him, there are so many stars in the sky, moonlight shining down on him and reflecting off some of the plants. 

It’s peaceful here, just staring up at the stars. He knows that Lance likes to stare at the stars when he’s homesick, imagining that he’s back on Earth with his family. Keith, however, likes to stare at the stars as a reminder of where he is and how far he’s come. Looking at them is another reminder of what he fights for and why he’s here. It makes him feel confident, knowing that he has a place in everything.

To his left, the door to the pool house opens and Keith glances over to see Lance enter, a look of relief crossing his face when he sees Keith.

“Oh, good, I found you. You know, you really have a knack for disappearing,” Lance says, walking over and sitting down next to him.

“Bad habit,” Keith admits, sitting up on his elbows. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to apologize. For earlier. And… for everything.”

“Did Pidge and Hunk tell you to say that?”

“No! Well, yes, but I decided to come all on my own, especially after our talk. And I mean it, too. So, I’m sorry. For being a jerk and being mean.”

Keith looks up at Lance, who looks down at him, his face so genuine and earnest that Keith can’t even bother to be mad about it. It’s not like he’s been entirely nice either, but an apology is nice to hear either way.

“I accept your apology,” Keith says, knowing it’s what Lance wants to hear. Lance relaxes at the words, so Keith lays back down. “And I’m sorry too, in general. Is that what you were dying to tell me?”

“Yes,” Lance says, scooting down so he can lay back and look up at the stars with Keith, “but you’re a hard man to get a hold of.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“I hope you know this doesn’t mean that I’m gonna stop teasing you though,” Lance says, squirming around like he’s trying to get comfortable.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good, because you’re just too easy to tease. Truce?”

Keith glances over and sees Lance’s right hand extended in his direction. He takes it and looks up to see Lance looking at him. They’re not very far apart, and the way they’re laying and shaking hands is kind of awkward, so Lance lets go of Keith’s hand and uses his left to grab it again, shaking it instead so that they’re both more comfortable. Only now it’s more like they’re holding hands, and it causes Keith to blush deeply.

Lance keeps staring at him as their hands lay in-between them. He doesn’t pull away so neither does Keith, lying caught between a tidal wave of emotions as his heart pounds against his chest like a bird trapped in a cage. He tries to be cool about it. Lance is touchy with everyone except Keith, so maybe this is just him trying to be touchy with Keith, which Keith should remain cool about. It’s just that he doesn’t know when the last time someone held his hand was or if it’s ever happened, honestly. It’s not like he’s ever dated anyone or even kissed anyone and physical touch is not something he’s ever been great at.

But Lance doesn’t seem to mind the rigid line in Keith’s shoulders, instead raising their joined hands and pointing with his forefinger at the sky.

“You see that constellation right there that looks like a flower?” Keith doesn’t, but he nods anyway. “That’s Hamalia, goddess of flowers.”

“Really?” Keith has no idea when Lance would have learned that.

“No, I made it up,” Lance says, throwing a smile in Keith’s direction. “Your turn.”

“Okay…” Keith says, understanding the game and scouring the sky for something that may vaguely resemble a constellation. He spots something that kinda looks like a bird if you squint and tilt your head. He uses their joined hands to point as well. “That’s… uh, Lailai, an ancient mythological bird that feasted on villagers.”

Lance laughs. “Of course, your mind goes to cryptids.”

“Cryptids and mythology aren’t the same. And who said I liked cryptids?”

“Uh, the conspiracy theorist part of you?” Lance says. “Don’t forget that I saw you in the desert with your bulletin board and that red string and marker, searching for clues. If that guy didn’t believe in cryptids, then I can’t speak Spanish.”

Keith snorts and rolls his eyes, not wanting to agree because he knows that Lance would use it to tease him.

“Hey, I think it’s your turn,” Keith says, glancing over at Lance. Lance is staring at him, but quickly looks away and clears his throat, cataloging the stars.

“That’s—here, wait.” Lance adjusts their hands, interlocking their fingers together so he can point better. He points at a small cluster of stars. “That’s Estrellita, home to the smallest planets in the universe.”

“That’s just Spanish, that’s cheating.”

“I never said there were rules,” Lance defends. “Not my fault you expected too much.”

The smile falls off Keith’s face. Surely, Lance does it mean it the way that Keith thinks it, but it brings him back to reality and he moves his hand out of Lance’s, reaching up to tuck his hair behind his ear to not look suspicious.

“It’s getting late,” Keith says, gesturing at the moon as he sits up. “We should probably head to bed.”

Lance sits up beside him, staring at him intently like he’s trying to figure something out.

“What?” Keith demands.

“Nothing,” Lance says after another long moment of staring. “You’re right, let’s go.”

Keith stands and reaches a hand out to Lance to help them to his feet. Lance accepts the hand and pulls himself up, patting Keith on the arm, which is purely friendly, and makes Keith’s throat tighten all the same. 

They walk back into the room together in silence.

“You can sleep in the bed if you want,” Lance offers, gesturing to the barren other side of the bed. Keith glances at his spot on the floor, which ultimately seems more comfortable than the cloud-like structure of the bed, but if Lance is offering, he should take him up on it.

“Okay,” Keith agrees, shrugging off his jacket and boots. He goes to crawl into the bed, but Lance stops him.

“What are you doing?” he asks like he already knows but wants Keith to say it.

“Getting into bed?”

“In your day clothes?”

“I always sleep in my clothes…?”

Lance makes a noise of disgust and violently shakes his head like he’s trying to wipe away the thought.

“That’s just—that’s—no. They have pajamas . You know, the thing that normal people wear to sleep in? Don’t you have pajamas?”

Keith doesn’t. He owns about three shirts and two pairs of pants, alternating changing his clothes based on whatever’s being washed. Pajamas were never really a luxury he had and he got used to being ready to bolt at any time from a very early age. But people seem to get weird when he talks about his childhood, so he just shrugs.

“Not really.”

Lance frowns. “Next stop at a space mall, we’ll get you pajamas. For now, just open the dresser behind you, there’s stuff in there.”

Keith opens the drawer and pulls out a pair of red pants that look to be his size—almost. He’ll have to pull the drawstring taut and tie it tight but it’ll work well enough. He doesn’t see any shirts in the drawer and figures he does need one anyway so he heads to the bathroom and shuts the door behind him, taking off his clothes and replacing them with the pajamas, which are made of a strangely heavy material although they’re incredibly soft. They ride low on his hips and pool around his ankles, pulled down by the weight of the material and dragging on the floor, meant for somebody taller than him. He wonders if maybe they were Feir’s or something, or maybe they were just extras lying around in preparation for all kinds of guests, as the king once said. 

Keith folds his other clothes, which are due to be washed, and heads out of the bathroom after ensuring—again—that the string is firmly tied and trying to pull the pants up on his hips, ultimately giving up when they just slide back down.

Keith drops his folded clothes on the floor next to his boots. Lance is fiddling with something behind him on the nightstand but turns around after a moment.

“My turn—” he starts, cutting himself off with a choked-off noise.

“What?” Keith asks, suddenly concerned. Lance’s face is turning red and Keith starts to move around the bed, worried he’s gonna have to give him the Heimlich to ensure that he doesn’t choke on whatever got caught in his throat. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, fine,” Lance says, swallowing roughly and not meeting Keith’s eyes. “Just fine. Just putting some stuff together.”

“Putting what together? What are you talking about? Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, definitely,” Lance says, clearing his throat and grabbing his pajamas. “I’m going to change.”

Lance walks past Keith, shaking his head in muttering something that Keith thinks is Spanish, though it’s too rushed and quiet to tell. Keith frowns, unsure of what exactly happened, but moves around to his side of the bed and climbs in, not liking how the bed seems to sink underneath him. He’s used to firmer things and sleeps better on them, his bed on the Castleship being probably one of the softer things he’s slept on and while he’s gotten used to it, it’s not his first choice.

This bed seems to move as he moves, allowing him to sink into it as he lays down, the sheets and comforter and mattress beneath seeming to envelop him as he lies there, staring at the intricate ceiling and wondering how anyone could sleep so… entangled.

Lance comes out of the bathroom a moment later and shuts off the lights on his way to bed, climbing in on the other side of Keith. He stares at Keith for a moment.

“Why do you look so uncomfortable? This is the best bed in the world,” Lance says. Keith frowns.

“It’s too soft and squishy.”

Lance snorts. “You’re having, like, the opposite problem of the pea princess.”

Keith looks at him. “What?”

“ The Princess and the Pea ,” Lance says, like that’s supposed to mean anything. “She couldn’t sleep because there was a pea underneath her seventeen mattresses.”

Keith stares at Lance, hoping to convey that he thinks Lance is crazy right now. Lance raises both eyebrows, barely visible in the darkness of the room.

“You’ve never read The Princess and the Pea ? Did you even have a childhood?”

Keith looks away, knowing that he’s not supposed to talk about it. Lance seems to understand the mood shift and grows quiet like he’s trying to think of what to say.

“You don’t have to try to console me or figure out what happened,” Keith says, which is everyone’s usual response. “Every time I tell people, they start treating me differently.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. But if you do, I’m here to listen,” Lance tells him softly.

He shifts down in bed so that he’s lying down facing Keith. Keith glances over at him and in the slivers of moonlight that crawl across Keith’s prone form and curl across Lance’s soft features and open face, Keith is caught staring at how beautiful he looks with the light caressing his face and how easy it would be to just talk to him, to tell him, especially given their conversations the afternoon and how easy it has all seemed, how easy it is whenever they’re not fighting like they’ve got each other’s back no matter what. Lance would have his back, if it came down to it, but telling Lance runs the risk of everyone else finding out. But this Lance, this soft Lance that stares at him, waiting patiently for Keith to say something, either a spillage of guts or a firm and resounding no and to close off like he always does, this Lance seems like he would wait forever for Keith and Keith doesn’t know how to handle that.

Keith moves down in bed to match Lance, laying his head on the mattress, and decides that he doesn’t want to ruin this moment right now, so tentative and fragile, like a fresh spider web swinging in the breeze.

“I don’t want to get into it,” Keith decides and Lance nods understandingly, “but ask me again some other time.”

Lance nods. “Deal.”

He holds out his pinky at Keith, who stares down at it.

“It’s a pinky swear,” Lance tells him at Keith’s blank stare. Keith has heard of them a long time ago, but he’s never done it with someone else. “You wrap your pinky around mine and you swear on it.”

“Why?”

“I… don’t know. It’s just what you do. And you can’t break them, no matter what. Unless you change your mind, of course, then obviously you can break it—”

Keith wraps his pinky around Lance’s. It might be nice to talk to someone about it, someone who isn’t Shiro, someone who’s like Lance and who already has an informed opinion about Keith that doesn’t seem to be easily swayed, someone who’s… Lance.

Lance pulls their joined hands close to his face, kissing the pad of his thumb.

“This part’s optional,” Lance says sheepishly. “You don’t have to do it.”

After a moment, Keith pulls their hands back in his direction and kisses the pad of his own thumb. Lance watches in fascination.

“Now what?” Keith asks, growing sheepish himself. 

“Now you press them together, and it seals it.”

Lance holds his thumb out and Keith meets him in the middle, pressing their thumbs together. It feels so intimate that Keith feels his breath get caught in his throat and closes his mouth quickly to avoid any sounds escaping.

“You know,” Lance starts slowly, his thumb moving gently against Keith’s in a way that makes Keith’s stomach turn, “my family’s pretty big. I’m the youngest of five and a few years after I was born, my first nephew was born, so it was more like I had another sibling than a nephew. More nephews and nieces were born and I just kinda got pushed to the side and it wasn’t really anyone’s fault, just that my parents and siblings were so busy with all the kids that they forgot about me. I used to be so lonely, before going to the Garrison. I used to sit on the top of the bunk bed me and my brother shared and stare out of the little skylight we had, just looking up at all the stars. I always knew that I’d go to space one day, I just thought it would be a lot different than this.”

“I always knew that I’d go to space, too,” Keith says after a moment, rolling out his back, though their hands are still connected. He almost whispers it, because he’s never told anybody this before. “When I was living in the shack in the desert, I used to sit out in this half-broken lawn chair that I found and map the stars. I had the constellations memorized as a kid, but I’d never seen the sky as clear as I had when I was living in the desert. I used to sit out there for most of the night, just watching the sky.”

There’s a long silence after he finishes talking and he looks over to see Lance just watching him, not like he’s waiting for him to say anything, but just… watching. Keith feels scrutinized under the attention, like an ant under a magnifying glass. He doesn’t know what Lance sees or what he’s looking for, but it makes him all too aware of every part of himself, their hands are still joined, Lance’s fingers tracing so softly over his palm and Keith doesn’t think he’s ever been touched this softly before, this carefully, so he looks away again and clears his throat.

“We should go to bed,” Keith decides, his heart beating against his chest so aggressively that he’s almost worried that Lance can hear. “Busy day tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Lance agrees after a moment, “yeah, good point.”

They untangle their hands and Keith stares at the ceiling again.

“Goodnight, Keith,” Lance says softly before rolling over.

“Goodnight, Lance,” Keith whispers.

It takes him a long time to lower his heart rate before he can finally fall asleep.

Chapter Text

When Keith wakes up, the suns are in the sky. He frowns, surprised that he slept so well, and takes stock of his environment, only to realize that there is something warm and firm pressed in a line against his back and wrapped around his waist, and he realizes with a start that it’s Lance cuddling him.

He tries not to freak out. Lance is an octopus awake, so no real surprise that he also is when he’s sleeping. And while it feels nice to be wrapped up in his arms—the way they fit together so well, their heights a perfect match as they line up neatly, Lance’s head tucked into Keith’s shoulder, warm fingers splayed loosely against Keith’s stomach though he feels so secure in Lance’s arms—it’s just an accident that Lance didn’t mean to do, so he slides carefully out of Lance’s grasp and lands on the carpet with soft feet. Lance turns over when Keith is gone, curling in on himself.

Keith takes a deep breath, steadying himself. He makes a move to find his clothes when there’s a sharp knock on the door that has Lance sitting up and muttering, “Wha? Wha’s happening?”, his voice still thick and syrupy with sleep.

Without either of them saying okay, the doors open and two handmaidens enter the room, giggling when they see Lance and Keith, even though they’re not even in bed together anymore. One of them eyes Keith and he self-consciously crosses his arms over his chest, realizing that he’s not exactly dressed appropriately. Lance seeing him this way is one thing, but strangers seeing him this way is something that he doesn’t approve of.

Lance sits up more, now aware that there’s someone in the room.

“What’s happening?” he asks, glancing over at Keith. Keith shrugs, frowning as the handmaidens pick up their clothes.

“What are you doing?” he demands.

“It’s Celebration Day,” the one on the left says. “Everyone must wear their ceremonial garb before the night’s festivities! We will wash the old ones!”

The handmaiden on the right drops down two piles of clothes, one red and one blue. Well, at least they’re sticking with the theme.

“Don’t worry, they should fit,” the handmaiden says, giggling and returning to the right side as she looks at Keith’s pants.

Keith flushes and pulls his pants back up from where they had ridden low again.

“We’ll see you for the morning meal!” The left handmaiden says and they head out of the room together, hiding their laughter behind their tentacles.

Keith blows out a breath and immediately heads for the new clothes, desperate to change into something less revealing, though that was never his intention in the first place. He disappears into the bathroom while Lance moves about on the bed, probably getting his bearings.

The clothes they provided are very loose and lightweight, far better than the sleep pants. The sleep pants were almost weighted but Keith guessed that it did seem to make him fall asleep easier. But these clothes are easy to move around in, with baggy pants that gather around the ankle, scarlet red with gold detailing like fine filigree decorating the sides, ankle, and waistband, which come up high on his hips, ending right where his waist begins. The top is similar, scarlet red with fine, gold detailing, cut in the shape of a vest, without sleeves and open with no way to secure the front of it. It ends a few inches higher than the waistband and he hates the fact that he’s going to spend more of his time without a shirt in front of people who only seem to gawk at him.

When he heads back into the bedroom, he’s pleased and horrified to note that Lance seems to be in the same position as him. Staring at Lance’s lean and tanned stomach and his defined muscular biceps is almost enough to push Keith completely over the edge  but he just clears his throat and Lance looks up.

“Not bad,” he says about Keith, gesturing to his outfit. “I wonder if we’re all the same or if it’s just ‘cause we’re… you know.”

“Yeah,” Keith says noncommittally. He hopes they’re not singled out, at least not any more than they’ve already been.

“We should probably go find the others,” Lance says after a quiet moment. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

They head out into the hall together, pleased to find Hunk and Shiro already waiting and dressed in the same outfit.

“Oh, good,” Lance says. “We thought we were the only ones.”

A door behind them shuts and they watch Pidge and Allura come over. Pidge’s outfit is similar, green and gold with an open vest, though she wears some kind of bandaged or wrapped top underneath to protect her modesty. On top of that, her pants are a little extra swoopy and have a design of gathered fabric that wraps around her loosely and tucks into her waist. Allura is dressed the same in pink, both of their hair tied up with gold ribbon, Allura’s flawless as always, and Pidge’s done as best they can with her short hair.

“Oh, is that what those ribbons are for?” Lance asks and Keith glances over to watch him untie one from his wrist. He looks at Keith. “This is probably for you, then. Here, let me.”

Lance turns Keith so that his back is to Lance and begins to run his hands through Keith’s hair. Unfortunately, this means he’s facing Shiro and Hunk, both of whom watch with amused expressions as Lance begins to tie up Keith’s hair, completely unaware of what exactly he’s doing to Keith.

“There,” Lance says, putting his hands back on Keith’s shoulders. “I used to do my sisters’ hair all the time. Though theirs was a lot longer and curlier than yours. But I’m an expert braider now.”

Keith doubts his hair is long enough to braid, but he reaches a hand back and feels something that feels like it could be braided and turns around to face Lance.

“Thanks,” he says. Hunk wolf-whistles behind him.

“It looks great!” he compliments. “And look at us, all dolled up.” Hunk glances past Keith with a cheeky smile. “Even Pidge looks good.”

“I expect the negging from Lance, Hunk, but never from you,” she says, mock hurt. Hunk’s eyes get big.

“I’m sorry. I was just joking—”

“She’s playing you, Hunk,” Lance points out. “Look at her face.”

Pidge laughs and walks forward, patting Hunk on the arm. “Sometimes you’re just too easy.”

“Hey!” Hunk protests, but there’s no heat behind it. 

Allura slides past Keith, squeezing his arm as she passes and latching onto Shiro’s arm, which he adjusts to properly let her hold as she begins talking to him about the celebration. Together, they all move toward the dining hall, Lance and Keith holding up the end of the procession.

“So what do you think this celebration entails?” Lance asks.

“It’s the Celebration of Life,” Allura tells them, glancing over her shoulder. “Founded after the loss of King Giralgh. They were the second half of King Rix-Ou. It’s a new celebration, but incredibly important to the people, who loved their King fiercely. Our outfits and the festivities are complimentary of the traditional funerary clothing and festivities.”

“Right,” Lance says, “uh, thanks, Allura.”

“Of course,” she chirps, turning back around.

“So what do you think they’ll have us do?” Lance asks Keith, this time much quieter. Keith shrugs.

“I’ve never been to a funeral other than my dad’s,” Keith says. At Lance’s glance, he continues. “When my dad died, I…. Well, he was a firefighter and he’d gone back into a burning building and was killed in action. He had a couple of buddies on his team that looked after me for a bit, especially for the funeral, but I gave them so much hell that I didn’t even go in the building, so I don’t really know what you’re supposed to do at them, other than bury the body when you’re done. I doubt this is gonna be anything like that, though.”

“I didn’t know your dad died,” Lance says. Keith’s never explicitly said it to anyone other than Shiro, but he’s sure that everyone could’ve put that together.

“Yeah, well, it was a long time ago,” Keith dismisses, not wanting the condolences. Lance doesn’t offer them though.

“My grandparents died within a week of each other when I was a kid,” he says. “Both of them insisted that their deaths wouldn’t be sad. We listened to music and told stories and collected all these photos of them and hung them up everywhere with these kinds of calaveritas that everyone wrote. It was a real celebration and even though their deaths were sad, it was like we were celebrating with them one last time. Maybe this is like that.”

“That sounds nice,” Keith muses. “I guess I always thought that people dying was scary.”

“It is,” Lance agrees, “but it’s important to celebrate the good parts of their life too.”

Keith thinks about it. His dad was a good guy and the few years that Keith got with him were easily some of the best of his entire life, nothing comparing to them until very recently. Shortly after his dad passed away, Keith became an orphan and stayed in the orphanage for a few months before he got moved into foster care, where he bounced around the system until Shiro came into his life and he moved to Arizona to live and study at the Garrison. He thought about his dad sometimes, but no one ever really cared where he came from or what happened to him other than Shiro, and when they didn’t ask, he didn’t bother telling. He never got the chance to celebrate his father. He’s not even sure if he remembers the day he died or his birthday, not that it would matter anymore.

Maybe he’ll do something when they get back to the Castleship, but for now, he just focuses on getting through today.

They enter the dining hall and have the morning meal without the king’s presence. Keith is sure he’s off somewhere making sure all the preparations are in place, both for the celebration and the mission tomorrow.

The morning meal is fairly normal, where everyone just eats and chats amicably about nothing in particular. Keith listens as Lance, Hunk, and Pidge talk, not joining the conversation, but nodding every time Lance looks back at him, like he’s checking to see if Keith is still paying attention. Keith just listens as he eats, enjoying the way Lance animatedly speaks.

When they’re done with the meal, Zori and Nami swoop in to collect the team and take them to the village, doling out what look like flower wreaths for the team to all pass out.

“It’s customary to greet the villagers before the celebration,” Zori tells them as she begins passing out the flower wreaths to the people, who all smile and praise her. The team begins doing the same. “My other father, King Giralgh, believed that good ruling was found in how those in power treated those without power. Now we honor their legacy by ensuring that our villagers are celebrated too. Tomorrow, while you all are on your mission, we will send out all the food we harvested to be brought to the other planets in our system, at least those that consume sustenance the way we do. The others will receive baskets of favor that we will make when we return to the palace.”

“King Giralgh had great beliefs,” Allura says, smiling when one of the village children offers her a small flower in return, which she lets them tuck into her hair. “We believe the same. It’s what we fight for.”

“I know,” Zori says, glancing back at her and smiling. “It’s one of the reasons why King Rix-Ou believes your fight to be worthwhile, and if we can bring peace to the entire universe, then we will have honored King Giralgh the best we can.”

“King Giralgh was the one who petitioned to save the refugees from our planet,” Nami adds. “Anything we can do to honor them will be enough.

“It is a noble cause,” Shiro chimes in. “You already honor them well.”

Zori nods. “Your cause is noble, too, Black Paladin. In my eyes, it would be an honor to fight by your side, should you ever need us. Though my father is indecisive and doesn’t want to hedge their bets, per se, I think that they will agree in the end. The idea of peace is far more important to them than their desire to remain neutral.”

“Let’s hope that’s true. Your allegiance would be incredibly helpful,” Allura says candidly.

“I understand. If I can push them any more, I will.”

They continue passing out the flower wreaths to the villagers, all breaking off so that they can focus on different sectors, spending their time talking to the villagers who stop them and ask them questions.

Keith gets stopped by a refugee mother and her three children, two of whom paw at Keith’s finery and the wreaths, pulling the flowers out and sticking them in each other’s hair. As the mother talks about the splendor of the palace, one of the kids pulls at Keith’s pant leg, forcing him to look down. This child looks like a young girl and she makes a motion like she wants Keith to bend down, so he squats so that he’s on her level. 

“My mommy says you’re a brave warrior,” the girl says.

“That’s true,” Keith replies, not wanting to argue with a child about the schematics of the word brave concerning Keith.

“Even the bravest of warriors need flowers,” the girl says, placing her flower wreath on top of his head.

“Thank you,” Keith says, reaching up to pull one of the flowers out. He hands it to her. “But princesses need flowers too.”

“I’m not a princess,” she giggles but takes the flower and bounds off inside the hut. Keith stands and the mom smiles at him, reaching out to rub his arm before disappearing inside after her daughter.

Keith turns around and catches Lance staring at him from across the dirt road. Keith flushes, wanting to reach up and take the flower wreath off his head, but the little girl runs out of the house again and grabs at his arm, taking some of the wreaths out of his hands.

“Let’s give these to my friends!” she says, pulling him along the road.

He forgets about Lance and follows her around, giving her friends the wreaths and amassing a small army of children that all have him sit on the ground and join him, deconstructing the flowers wreaths and reconstructing them so that they form smaller wreaths, like bracelets and necklaces and smaller crowns that fit the children’s heads better. They decorate him and each other with flowers, adorning themselves with the vibrant colors of the local flora and all giggling in Keith’s ear as they clamber all over him, completely lacking the understanding or care for personal space.

After a couple of minutes, Lance comes over and sits down next to Keith with his own gaggle of children and a few older aliens that look like they may be teenagers or young adults, or whatever the equivalent of what that may be for their race. They begin doing the same thing and deconstructing their wreaths, sticking the flowers behind Lance’s ears and working them into new pieces of natural jewelry. 

“You too?” Keith asks as a child collapses in a fit of giggles into his lap. Her friend continues to throw flowers at her as she tries to hide in the space in-between Keith’s crossed legs. Lance isn’t much better, being fawned after by the older Gorxans, who giggle behind their hands, placing multiple flower necklaces on Lance as he bows his head every time to make it easier on them.

“Something about tradition,” Lance shoots back, smiling down at the kid who’s nestled in Keith’s lap. “I’m just going with it.”

One of the older ones gets up and comes to sit on Keith’s left, shooing one of the kids out of the way. He grabs Keith’s hand and slides a small woven ring onto Keith’s ring finger, giggling as a girl on Lance’s side does the same. Keith understands the implication and tries to school his face into a neutral expression as Lance glances over at him.

“They’re not as pretty as the real thing,” the boy to Keith’s right says, drawing Keith’s attention back to him. “You should see the rings that Princess Zori and her second half Nami wear!”

As if on cue, Zori walks by, talking to one of the older Gorxans.

“Princess Zori! Princess Zori!” the children chant. Zori glances over at them with a smile and excuses herself, taking a seat next to Keith, as the boy who was just there graciously slides over to give her room.

“Show us your ring, Princess Zori!” the boy says, gesturing to her hand.

Like humans, she wears her ring on her left hand ring finger and presents it to the group. Keith has never noticed it before, never really observant like that, but she shows them each the band, the blue metal contrasting her skin nicely. It’s engraved with a leaf-like design in the thin metal, almost microscopic when not looked at closely. She brings her hand in the direction of Lance and Keith, Lance taking her hand in his to look at it.

Keith half expects him to make a comment or try to kiss her knuckles or something, but instead, Lance just lets her go after a moment and says, “It’s beautiful.”

“Nami had them made,” Zori says with a fond smile. “It’s customary that once you become a second half with someone, you exchange rings that represent your other half. Mine have the leaves of the amorasi flower on them, while hers has a sword design that wraps around the band. They’re tradition. We should have some made for you two!”

Keith wants to protest, but Lance says, “That sounds great, Zori. Thanks.”

Zori’s grin widens. “Our blacksmith, Lorsi, can have them made by the day after tomorrow. I’ll go tell him. We should get back in any way.”

Zori stands up and Keith and Lance follow, much to the children’s chagrin. They head back to the palace, freshly adorned in their flowery jewelry, meeting up with the rest of the team on their way in.

“Whoa, you guys got flower-bombed?” Pidge asks, poking at some of the plants on Lance’s necklace.

“A tradition for second halves,” Nami tells them. “Especially when they haven’t been tied.”

“Tied?” Hunk asks.

“The rings,” Zori says, holding hers up again. Nami does the same. “Sharing rings is a ceremonious tying, binding the halves together to make one whole. Surely, you have something like it.”

“Marriage,” Pidge says with a snicker. “Leave it to Lance to get space married.”

Lance glares at her but quickly recovers, turning to Zori.

“So, what kind of rings would they make?” he asks. Nami chimes in from the other side of her.

“They always create something significant of your other half,” she says, showing off her ring again. It’s as Zori described, a thin band with a sword wrapped around the band, the color of the band itself being similar to a goldish color that also compliments her skin. “Mine is a sword because Zori is a great warrior. Lance, your ring may look like this.”

“Yes, and Keith’s could look like waves!” Zori says excitedly. “Oh, Lorsi would love that!”

“Can’t we decide?” Lance asks. Keith glances over at him, surprised he’s as seemingly into this as he is.

“Oh, of course,” Zori says. “If you have an idea, Lorsi is always willing to comply.”

“Maybe,” Lance says, glancing at Keith. Keith, confused, stares right back until Lance looks away again. Even the others seem to sense the seriousness in his tone.

Zori and Nami lead the team back inside and toward the dining hall, which has been turned into an assembly line of packaging baskets that Keith is sure are full of goodies to send out to the other planets in the system. The goodies range from seed packets to jars full of material that looks like food goo to rock-like objects that Keith has no idea what their purpose is. The palace staff package the baskets, sliding them down the table as they go. Zori sets them all up to finish tying together the baskets at the end of the line before asking Lance and Keith to come with her. Keith hears Pidge’s ooh! but ignores it.

Keith and Lance follow Nami and Zori through the bowels of the castle, making their way from room to room until they descend a staircase and enter a room that seems more like a cave, a large rocky dias containing smithery tools overlooking a large cavern of clear, pink-tinged waters and purple hanging plants. There are some kind of blue and pink glowing gems on the ceiling, like stalactites or bioluminescent rock-like creatures, stagnant and shining down, throwing the cave into neon hues of bright aqua and pink. They look like stars and Keith and Lance both stop at the entrance of the room to stare at the beauty of it.

“It’s called the Cave of Amoras,” Zori says, stopping next to them with a smile on her face. “It’s where second halves are tied together. There’s another entrance further down that we will use later to tie you two together, after your journey to Kandor. It’ll be best to have something as light-hearted as that after your journey to the moon.”

Zori frowns like her mind is drifting off to somewhere far away. It makes Keith wonder what she’s thinking about, either intel she gained regarding what’s happening on Kandor, or her home planet and sympathizing with the inhabitants of Kandor.

“Yes, Zori and Nami, Zori and Nami,” an alien behind them says. 

They all turn around, Zori’s face easily melting into something calm and relaxed. How the alien speaks, Keith isn’t sure, because he doesn’t see any mouths, eyes, or anything that resembles a face. The alien is pretty blob-like, a snotty green color with undefinable limbs that seem to drip ooze and reconnect with the rest of the blob as it drips off. Though, if Keith didn’t know any better, he’d say the top half of the alien appears to almost be smiling, but kind of in the way that you have to squint and tilt your head to see it

“Lorsi,” Zori says. She grins brightly and gestures to Lance and Keith. “Surely, you’ve heard of the Red and Blue Paladins.”

“Yes, of course, of course,” Lorsi sings, or, uh, Keith isn’t sure. Either way, he hears a voice responding to Zori and decides not to question the biology of how it’s being produced. “The second halves.”

Surprisingly, or maybe not, neither Keith nor Lance respond negatively to the connection. Instead, the conversation continues, like this is all just commonplace now.

“Yes, they were looking for rings for their tying ceremony,” Nami adds. “Would you be able to have a pair ready for the day after tomorrow?” 

“Yes, enough time, enough time,” Lorsi sing-songs. “What are the designs?”

Everyone turns to Lance and Keith, who glance at each other. Keith doesn’t know what he would say, or what a good design would be. Making entire engraved rings for them when they’re not even actually together just seems like a waste but saying that in front of everyone is surely a faux pas. 

But before he can say anything, whether it be the truth or continuing with the lie, Lance says, “I have an idea.”

Keith looks at him, surprised that Lance is suddenly so on board with everything. He’s been a lot nicer recently too, especially after last night when he apologized and they talked. Since then, Lance seems… different. Good different but different all the same. 

“What is it?” Zori prompts.

“Uh,” Lance starts, glancing over at Keith. When he decides whatever he wants to say, he looks back at Zori. “A surprise.”

“A surprise?” Keith asks.

“Oh, how romantic,” Nami says, clasping her hands together. “Yes, I’ll take Keith back upstairs and Lance, you work with Zori and Lorsi to get the rings made.”

“Great idea,” Zori agrees. Nami grabs Keith’s elbow and winks at Lance before dragging Keith back the way they came.

When they’re far enough away, Nami says in his ear, “We told you that he likes you!”

Keith blushes furiously. “We don’t know that.”

Nami says something in a language that Keith guesses is native to her, admonishing him with a light slap on his arm.

“You’re just as in denial as he was,” she says with a shake of her head. 

“I am not in denial,” Keith says with a shake of his head. If anything, he was all too aware of his feelings. And whatever transpired last night wasn’t what he thought it was, obviously, and Lance is being the way he’s being because… well, Keith doesn’t have a good enough explanation for that but he’ll think of one.

Nami only laughs lightly, clearly amused by his suffering, and leads him back to the others.

+++

The rest of the day continues at a frenetic pace.

They package the gift baskets and load them all up, ready to have them delivered for the next shipment. Lance reappears sometime as they’re wrapping up and immediately gets dragged into private conservation between Pidge and Hunk, which Keith stays out of. He doesn’t miss his own glances from Shiro and Allura, both of whom give him indecipherable looks that he doesn’t know exactly how to translate.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because they stay busy, being dragged from room to room as they help make sure the palace is ready for the celebration. As Zori said, everyone helps and that’s not limited to the villagers and Voltron, though they are still seen as guests. Near the end of the day, Zori and Nami send everyone back to their rooms to get ready.

“You’ve all done more than enough,” Zori declares. “Now it is time for us all to get dressed and return in time for the real celebration to begin.”

They all head back to their rooms, and Keith and Lance enter to find that there are two boxes on their bed, each labeled with their name, that contain their outfits for the night. Keith opens his box to reveal something sheer and internally sighs, because it really seems like the Gorxans do not care about modesty if the everyday garbs of wrapped fabric and exposed skin are an indication.

“I’ll take the bathroom,” Keith offers, grabbing his box and heading into the bathroom. Lance doesn’t argue, staring down into his box.

Keith shuts the door behind him and begins pulling out the clothes. When he changes, he looks in the mirror. The outfit isn’t entirely different from Earth fashion, though never something Keith would wear. It’s a see-through top, made of a fabric that hardly looks like a top at all if not for the red sheen it gives off, a sort of tulle material, and there are no buttons as it opens up to right above his navel. The pants are leather-like, though a lot more buttery smooth and easy to move around in, stopping just above the short boots they gave him. There’s jewelry included in the box, too, a thin gold chain and a couple of rings, all of which look so similar to Earth fashion that it leaves Keith wondering if certain fashions are universal. They must be, but still to see something so Earth-like all the way out here, it’s almost unnerving.

He dresses in the clothes, sliding them and the boots on before spending a solid five minutes trying to figure out how to clasp the necklace. He’s never worn a necklace before, or jewelry for that matter, and decides that maybe Lance will be able to maneuver the tiny clasp in the way that Keith can’t.

He slips on the rings and opens the bathroom door, taking in Lance’s appearance.

Lance is wearing baby blue slacks and a tulle-like shirt similar to Keith’s which is blue and only has one sleeve, slashing across his torso and leaving nearly half of his torso uncovered with no shirt underneath. Instead, what’s underneath is some sort of series of complicated and sparkly chains that weave around his torso like a very exposed shirt. He looks really good and he stops from where he’s messing with his boot to look up at Keith, his mouth falling open slightly.

“You look…” Lance says, trailing off. When he doesn’t complete his sentence, Keith clears his throat and gestures with the necklace.

“Can you help me?” Keith asks, approaching Lance slowly because he’s genuinely worried if he comes too quickly, Lance’ll get spooked, judging by the expression on his face.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Lance says, reanimating and reaching out once Keith is close enough to take the necklace from him. “Turn around.”

Keith does as he’s commanded, waiting for Lance to put the necklace on.

“Uh, your hair,” Lance says.

“Oh, sorry.”

Keith lifts his hair, which is still in the braid from earlier. Lance’s cold fingers touch the heat of his neck and he tries not to shiver at the contact. It feels like Lance is just hesitating, but then he feels the warm metal, warmed from its time in Keith’s hand, sliding around his neck slowly. It all feels so sensual, so charged in a way that Keith has never experienced before. Lance’s fingers brush at the knot at the top of his spine, small metallic noises being the only indicator that he’s clasping the necklace. After a moment, the noise stops and Lance’s hands linger for a moment before he pulls away completely.

“Got it,” Lance says. Keith turns back around.

“It looks fine?” he asks, reaching up to touch the metal. Lance’s eyes track his hand.

“It looks good,” Lance says, not sounding like himself.

“Are you okay?” Keith asks, genuinely concerned.

“Fine,” Lance says hurriedly. “Just fine.”

Keith stares at him and the way he doesn’t meet Keith’s eyes. Maybe Nami and Zori are right, to some degree. Keith’s never known anyone who had a crush on him, but maybe this is how they act. It doesn’t feel like this is how Lance acts—not how he’s acted before and with other crushes—but maybe if he presses enough, then maybe Lance will just snap back into his normal self.

“This is nice,” Keith says, reaching out to touch one of the dangling jewels hanging off the chain shirt that Lance wears, his fingers poking through the gap in chains and brushing against Lance’s skin, which feels much warmer than his fingers had moments ago. Lance laughs, and it even sounds nervous to Keith’s ears.

“I feel a little exposed.”

“How do you think I feel?” Keith asks as he pulls his hand away and gestures at himself. “At least you get a jacket.”

“Yeah, well, you look good.”

Keith blinks.

“Well, you do too.”

Lance lets out a breath and nods to himself, glancing toward the door.

“We should probably get going, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Keith agrees, and when Lance reaches down and grabs his hand, and begins pulling him toward the door, Keith just lets him, even going as far as to tangle their fingers together, not that Lance seems to mind.

They exit their room and since no one is in the hallway, they figure everyone must already either be there or still getting ready, so they venture toward the grand hall to get it all over with. Before they turn the corner and enter the hall, Lance stops him.

“What is it?” Keith asks when Lance doesn’t say anything.

“I just—I just wanted to say that I—that I—”

“Lance,” Keith says, as it seems to take all of Lance’s energy just to say a few words. Keith puts his hands on Lance’s shoulders and he relaxes into the touch, dropping his eyes to the floor. “Start over. What are you trying to say?”

Lance takes a big deep breath and opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, before seeming to think better of it, surging forward, and pressing his lips to Keith’s.

Keith’s brain short circuits completely.

It takes him a second to understand what’s happening and a second more to grab Lance by the front of his shirt and pull him in, so that they are pressed closer together. Lance sighs into his touch and Keith pushes him back against the wall, pressing against him as he tilts his head and— oh , that’s much better.

Lance opens his mouth for Keith, who’s never kissed anyone before, but kissing Lance is so—it just feels so natural that he opens his mouth too and—

A throat clears behind them and they break apart like they’ve just been shocked.

Shiro stands there, clearly amused with his arms crossed over his chest. Luckily, it’s only him, but Keith would’ve rather been caught by anyone not on his team, and especially not Shiro, who will tease Keith way more than he’ll tease Lance if the self-satisfied smirk on his face right now is any indication.

“Shiro, we were just—” Lance tries.

“Kissing my baby brother, Lance?” Shiro asks, his smile growing as Lance splutters, obviously unsure of what to say.

“Shiro,” Keith groans, face aflame. 

“You clean up well,” Shiro says, reaching out to straighten Keith’s shirt from where Lance was tugging on it. “Obviously why Lance couldn’t resist.”

“ Shiro ,” Keith hisses as Lance says behind him, “Oh my God.”

“I’m teasing,” Shiro insists, his grin wider than Keith has seen it in a long time. “You two are lucky I found you first. The others aren’t far behind me.”

Keith is marginally grateful for that, although he knows he’d be teased either way. As if on cue, the others make their way down the hallway, laughing and chatting as they walk towards Keith and Lance.

Pidge looks out a wolf whistle before bursting into laughter when she spots them.

“Wow, don’t you two look nice,” she says behind her hand, a large and amused smile consuming the rest of her face. She looks so much younger when she’s smiling like this, a special kind of joy sparkling in her eyes as she looks them both over.

The rest of the team hasn’t been spared of the funeral garb, all dressed in over-the-top and fancy outfits. If this is the traditional kind of funeral outfit, Keith does wonder what wedding outfits would look like or party attire. He guesses this is its own kind of party, which explains the outfits, and definitely nothing like the funeral of his father.

“We all look good,” Lance says, coming back to himself. He straightens his sorry excuse for a shirt and gestures to the hallway behind them. “Shall we?”

Lance sidles up next to Allura with an extended arm, which she takes with a curtsey.

“Thank you, Lance. Let us enjoy ourselves tonight, okay?”

Everyone gives their assent and they start to head down the hall toward the party. Keith starts to follow, but Shiro puts a hand on the back of his neck, like a mother holding her kitten, effectively keeping him in place. When the others are far enough ahead, Shiro’s hand moves down to Keith’s shoulder and he moves to stand next to Keith so that Keith can look up at him.

“Don’t,” Keith warns before Shiro can open his mouth.

Shiro laughs, amused and so carefree. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were. I know you, you can’t lie to me.”

“I’m just happy for you, that’s all,” Shiro says, now moving his arm to wrap around Keith’s shoulders as he begins to drag him along. “You seem so different when you’re with him.”

“Different?” Keith asks, glancing at the back of Lance’s head as he laughs about something with Allura. “Different how?”

“Good different,” Shiro assures him. “You seem like a teenager in love.”

Shiro ruffles his hair and Keith bats his hand away, blushing.

“I am a teenager,” Keith defends.

“Yeah, but you usually don’t act like it. He makes you… happy. He makes you forget about all the other stuff.”

“You’ve barely even seen us together,” Keith says, knowing that Lance’s behavior today is the best it’s been ever, so there isn't enough data to make any conclusions.

“Even when you’re fighting, you’re not focused on the bigger picture. You get so competitive with him. You’re like you were before the Garrison, back when you were just a kid and you were determined that you could beat me in a foot race.”

“I still could,” Keith argues.

“You so couldn’t,” Shiro says with another laugh. “It’s nice to see. I miss that version of you.”

“I’m still me,” Keith protests. “There’s just a lot going on.”

“I know,” Shiro says somberly. “If I could’ve spared you from all this, I would’ve. All of you. You’re too young to fight.”

“You are too, you know,” Keith says.

Shiro gives him a sad smile and stops, pulling Keith in for a hug.

“You know, I’m so proud of you. Your dad would be proud of you.”

“Shiro—” Keith starts, trying to pull away. Shiro’s grip tightens.

“I know, I know,” Shiro relents after a moment, beginning to pull away. “You don’t like to be touched.”

As Shiro starts to pull away, Keith is struck with the realization that he doesn’t remember when the last time he actually hugged Shiro was, and, filled with a sudden rush of desperation to not let him go, he clings to Shiro, not letting him get away much further.

“It’s okay,” Keith says as Shiro relaxes into his grip. “One hug won’t kill me.”

Shiro’s grip tightens on Keith once again and they stay like that for a moment, Shiro being the one to pull away first.

“Come on, kid,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. Keith’s honestly not much better. “Let’s go party.”

They catch up to the rest of the group.

+++

The grand hall is decorated in a splash of color, streamers and intricate paper balls hanging from the large ceiling of all shapes and sizes, stretching down to the party, so close that Shiro could probably touch one if he stretched, though, obviously, still too far out of Keith’s reach. When they get to the hall, Shiro pushes them in the direction of the rest of the group, who are stopped a little bit ahead and taking in the decorations. Shiro steals Allura away from Lance and pushes Keith to take his place, winking at him before disappearing with Allura into the crowd. Coran, Hunk, and Pidge head off toward the snack table, and Keith and Lance are left standing on their own.

“So… some party,” Lance says, gesturing to the room. Everyone is dancing, or what must be dancing but isn’t anything that resembles dancing on Earth.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” Keith replies, surprised to find that he means it.

“Hey, do you—”

“There you are!” A voice from behind them says and they turn in tandem to see Zori and Nami, Feir and someone else following them closely behind. Zori grins and continues, “You both look amazing. Thank Nami for your great outfits.”

“Thanks, Nami,” they say together and Nami grins.

“I just knew you guys would look great together,” Nami says. “You’re so complementary of each other. Like me and Nami. Or Feir and Renat.”

“Feir and who?” Lance asks.

Feir and whoever he’s with step out from behind Nami and Zori. His partner, who Keith assumes is his second half, is not the same race as Feir, Nami, and Zori, nor of the Gorxans. This alien, who Keith also assumes is called Renat, looks Galaran, complete with purple furry skin and yellow, slitted eyes, which watch both Keith and Lance like they’re waiting for something to happen. Lance does draw back in surprise but, probably at everyone else’s lack of reaction, he relaxes, staring at Renat like something in their appearance will give a big answer. When it doesn’t, he looks at Feir, awaiting an explanation.

“Though Renat is of Galran descent, they are not affiliated with the Empire any longer,” Feir says diplomatically, keeping a close eye on Lance. “They are a friend and my second half, so I expect you to treat them with respect.”

“Your second half?” Lance asks, straightening. It seems whatever his defenses were before fade away and he straightens, looking between the two of them. “You have a second half?”

“Of course I do,” Feir says haughtily. “And why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, I thought you—”

“You thought that I was truly enamored by your second half, didn’t you?” Lance flushes. “Well, I don’t like sharing and I figured you didn’t either. All is well now, I assume? I heard you’re being tied.”

“Yes, we are,” Lance says, reaching down and grabbing Keith’s hand in his own. Keith tries not to flush.

“Well, good thing you came to your senses then, little paladin,” Feir says, patting Lance on the head. Lance glares at him. Feir tugs on his partner’s hand. “Come on, ama, let’s dance.”

Feir and Renat break away to the dancefloor, leaving Keith and Lance with Nami and Zori, who give them twin grins before pushing them all out onto the dancefloor too. 

Keith isn’t much of a dancer (read: he’s never danced a day in his life) but Lance, Nami, and Zori’s enthusiasm is infectious and he allows himself to be dragged out onto the floor with little regard for how he’ll look. Zori and Nami have their own sort of dance that looks intimate and personal, but Lance jumps around to the lively music, just sort of moving his body in any way it can move and calling it dancing. Keith suddenly grows very self-conscious and looks around to see if anyone is looking at them. They’re not, and after a moment there’s a gentle hand on his chin, guiding his gaze back to Lance, who gives him a reassuring smile.

“It’s okay,” Lance says. “No one’s watching us. It’s just you and me.”

Just you and me.

“Right,” Keith says slowly. “And you and me are dancing.”

“Well, I’m dancing. You realize you have to actually move for it to qualify as dancing, right?”

“I don’t know how to—I’ve never—”

He cuts himself off, cheeks heating in embarrassment. It feels like a silly thing to be embarrassed about but here he is, embarrassed all the same.

“ Ever ?” Lance asks incredulously. When Keith doesn’t meet his eyes, he hums and reaches out, placing his hands on Keith’s hips.

“What are you doing?” Keith asks, face heating up even more.

Lance forcefully moves Keith’s hips to one side and then back the other way.

“The basis of any good dance is just moving your hips,” Lance explains. He pauses briefly before continuing to move Keith’s hips from side to side. “Well, and your arms, but we’ll get to that.”

Keith tries not to feel even more embarrassed, but Lance slowly gets him to ease up more and more until he feels okay enough to move his hips on his own, even if it’s only minute. After a little bit of just swaying, Lance steps closer and takes Keith’s hands, putting them around Lance’s neck, before dropping his own hands to Keith’s hips.

As Keith flushes again, Lance says, “Just keep moving your hips and we’re dancing.”

Keith shakes his head. “I don’t know how you’re so okay with this. Aren’t you worried you’re gonna look like a fool?”

“I’m probably gonna look like a fool regardless,” Lance admits, which makes Keith laugh a little and lighten up. “I might as well look foolish while having fun than look foolish and not enjoy myself.”

“Are you having fun?”

“Somehow I always seem to have fun with you,” Lance admits gently. “Even when you’re annoying.”

“Oh, I’m annoying?” Keith huffs and Lance laughs. “You’re one to talk.”

“Even when we’re fighting,” Lance continues like Keith didn’t speak. “Even when you’re actually mad.”

“It sounds like you’re talking about something other than having fun,” Keith points out.

“Maybe I am,” Lance says, hands tightening on Keith’s hips. “I guess I’m just… I guess I’m just grateful.”

“Grateful?”

“Happy,” Lance clarifies. 

“Happy,” Keith echoes. “I am too.”

Lance stops moving, his eyes flitting around Keith’s face like he’s thinking. After a moment, he pulls back and clears his throat.

“We should get a snack, or a drink or something. C’mon.”

Keith lets Lance drag him by hand toward the snack table, which is temporarily empty as almost everybody is out on the dancefloor right now. He doesn’t see the rest of the team, not on their way to the table and not anywhere near the table, but he knows they’re somewhere lurking around, and while he’s enjoying all the attention from Lance, he doesn’t want to be teased right now, so he slips his hand out of Lance’s as they come to a stop and if Lance minds, he doesn’t say.

There’s an assortment of dubious-looking food spread out over the long table, though Keith knows firsthand that it all tastes far better than it looks. He picks at a few pieces, grabbing things that he hasn’t tried before and popping them into his mouth as he turns to survey the party. Off in the distance, he can see Pidge and Allura dancing on their own, both looking so young and carefree in their twirling dresses, which Pidge has already tied up and out of the way for more comfort. Off to their side, Coran, Hunk, and Shiro are all talking and Hunk says something that makes the other two start laughing, Shiro so much so that he bends at the waist as he doubles over and covers his face to hide his laughter.

Keith watches with an amused smile on his face, pleased that everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. To his left, Lance leans against the food table, picking at some sort of pastry monstrosity that leaves blue residue all over the napkin it rests on and Lance’s fingers and mouth as he eats. Keith watches him for a moment, wondering what it tastes like, wondering if he’s brave enough to find out, before turning his head away and looking back out at the party. 

They sit there and snack for a while. Whatever Lance watches, he doesn’t say, but Keith keeps watching their friends. It’s strange because even though he’s in the position of an outsider by standing so far away and not even being able to hear what they’re all laughing at, he doesn’t feel like an outsider. Whether it’s because Lance is at his side or because somehow despite it all he’s matured in the last few days, he’s not sure. Either way, for the first time in a while, he feels as he told Lance: happy.

Chapter Text

As the party wears on, and Nami, Zori, and Feir drag them on and off the dancefloor, Keith begins to understand what the celebration is when Zori explains it best to him.

“King Giralgh believed that life was a celebration, always. It was always important to them to celebrate even the smallest of achievements to survive during trying times. It was because of them that we have become a peaceful and optimistic society, especially in the face of the war and everything that’s happening. So their Celebration of Life is a joyous ceremony where we are reminded to hold on to what is important in everyday life, to help us fight for something greater than ourselves.”

“You guys make it sound so easy,” Keith says. Zori tilts her head in confusion.

“Don’t you do the same?”

“I don’t know what I fight for,” Keith admits. 

Some days it’s harder to tell than others. Looking at all the beauty that surrounds them is one thing, but for something that impacts his everyday life, something like love, well, he’s never thought about it like that.

“Sure you do,” Zori says simply. She gestures at Lance, who has reconvened with the rest of the team who stand in the middle of the dance floor, most of them laughing and talking rather than dancing. She gestures at the team in order. “You fight for him, and her, and him, and your leaders and your allies and the people you swore to protect. They listen to you and they love you; they wait for your steady guidance and assuredness to know what to do next. You are a leader, even if you are not the leader. How lucky you are to be fighting for your friends, your family, and so many others who look to you for hope. That is why you fight, Red Paladin. For those who can’t, and for those who fight alongside you.”

Keith stares out at his teammates and wonders when Zori’s words had come true. He does feel a sort of connection to his teammates, one he’s always denied or shied away from to preserve himself from the inevitable hurt that would come when they parted ways, either when he was kicked out for his impulsivity just like the Garrison or when the war ended. He always assumed that he didn’t have a place among them, the seventh wheel, but Lance and Shiro’s determination to keep him included had just gone to prove him wrong. He wonders if he should stop thinking about his teammates and start thinking about them like friends. After everything, after this trip, they feel a lot more like friends now, and he thinks they would all welcome the change with open arms.

“You’re good at that,” Keith muses. She hums, a clear sign for him to clarify. “Public speaking. Speechmaking. Whatever you want to call it. You’d be a good leader, too.”

“My mother,” Zori admits softly,  “who cradled me in her arms as our world crashed all around us, she said that I would be a good leader. She said I could sell a mealwin to a bosh.” She laughs and Keith does too even if he has no idea what she’s talking about. She grows slightly wistful. “Parents are always like that, though. King Giralgh was like that, too.”

“I lost my dad when I was younger,” Keith says, the words slipping out before he can stop them. She doesn’t seem surprised to hear it, though she does tilt herself a little more in his direction like she’s telling him that she’s listening. “Before then, for a few years, I felt like I just took advantage of him. I didn’t realize how precious the time I had with him would be.”

“You were young,” Zori tells him sorrowfully. “You weren’t supposed to.”

“When I look back on it, I realize that maybe I’m just lucky I got the time I got. And maybe—” Keith watches Pidge nearly spit her drink out as Hunk spins Lance too roughly and Lance faceplants on the floor. “—maybe it’d be foolish to miss out on this time, too.”

Zori smiles softly at him, placing a hand on his arm reassuringly. “I think that’s the thing about growing up: learning how to budget your time. You are fortunate enough to be working alongside some of the most brilliant minds and bravest warriors that this universe has ever seen. Don’t discredit that.”

“I don’t. I mean, I won’t. If you promise not to forget what I said.”

“I know my worth,” Zori says, amused. “You should know yours.”

“I do. Well, I’m starting to.”

Zori smiles at him again and pats his shoulder before moving back out onto the floor, pulling Hunk along with her as she goes. She calls for Pidge over her shoulder, who joins them. Lance stands alone, straightening out his sheer shirt and making sure none of the gems on his undershirt had come off in the fall. He smiles when he meets Keith’s eye and Keith finds himself smiling back before he can stop himself. But he shouldn’t stop himself, he thinks. He should smile back, he should talk more, he should participate more. Like always, years of his life are passing him by with his complacency. Maybe he should stop the world from spinning. Maybe he should try harder. Maybe he should talk more. Maybe he should smile.

So he does.

And Lance smiles back.

And it’s the start of something that Keith didn’t know he was desperate for.

+++

The party seems to go on forever. Keith’s never been social, so he’s starting to get drained to the point where he needs to leave or be alone to recharge, but Lance sticks so closely to his side that he doesn’t get very far toward the exit without Lance trailing after him, throwing confused goodbyes over his shoulder to whomever he was talking to.

“Where are we going?” Lance asks, following Keith closely.

“I need to be somewhere else,” Keith offers. Lance seems to understand well enough to keep quiet and keep pace with Keith’s fast footsteps.

They retreat to the bedroom in silence. Keith lets out a breath when they enter the room, shoulders deflating with relief as he’s somewhere quiet and empty. Lance shuts the door behind himself as he enters and though Keith’s back is to him, he knows that Lance is looking for something to say, just by the air in the room.

“What is it?” Keith asks.

“Are you okay?”

“Too many people,” Keith offers after a moment. “I don’t… I don’t like to be around a lot of people for very long.”

Lance hums like he’s mulling the idea over.

“That’s why you train so much, right?”

Keith turns to face him.

“Training helps me focus on something other than the other things we deal with. It’s just training. It’s not strategizing a route to ensure that we help as many planets as possible. Or mind-melding like Voltron. I don’t have to think when I train.”

“Well, you’re lucky then. I have to think so much when we train. I don’t think it comes naturally to me the way it does with you. I think I’m much more of a lover than a fighter.”

Lance says it almost haughtily, like of course he’s a lover. It makes Keith smile.

“Oh, really?”

“Proven fact,” Lance says with a quick nod, though his eyes seem almost nervous. “You know what else is a proven fact?”

“What’s that?”

“Great kisser. Runs in the family.” Lance then makes a face. “Oh, no, that’s a bad joke. Pretend I didn’t say that.”

“Who says you’re a great kisser?”

“People,” Lance says unconvincingly. A smirk takes over Keith’s face as Lance’s squirming. He takes a step closer, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Lance, who straightens and meets Keith’s gaze head-on. His confidence grows. “Lots of people.”

“Oh, sure,” Keith agrees. “Lots of unnamed people think you’re a great kisser.”

“They do,” Lance says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Prove it then,” Keith urges. “If you’re so great.”

“Fine! I will.”

Lance takes a couple extra strides forward, taking Keith’s face in his hands and kissing him so deeply that Keith is pushed back from the force and left scrambling for a grip on Lance’s shoulders when his shirt proves to be an insufficient hand hold. He gasps into Lance’s mouth as Lance licks open the seam of his lips, suddenly brave with a sense of determination as he sucks on Keith’s tongue and elicits a moan from Keith in response.

Lance’s hands move down Keith’s neck and over his shoulders, fingers getting caught in the opening of his shirt. Despite the thin sheerness of the shirt, Keith untucks it from the pants and rucks it up over his head, hands moving to do the same to Lance’s shirt as soon as he’s free. Lance beats him to it, lifting the half-shirt over his head and off to the side, the warm jewelry underneath brushing against Keith’s chest and eliciting another moan from him that gets trapped somewhere in Lance’s mouth.

Lance’s hands start pulling on Keith’s pants when there’s a knock on the door.

Lance pulls away first, glancing over his tanned and freckled shoulder that draws Keith’s eyes in.

“One sec,” Lance says, making an aborted move for his shirt before deciding against it and strolling over to open the door.

The door opens to show Shiro, who glances between both of them before something like guilt crosses his expression.

“Suit up,” he tells them. “The Kandor mission just got critical.”

The light and fun mood that hung between Lance and Keith moments ago fades away and they both slip into their serious-we’re-in-the-middle-of-a-war mode. Keith straightens and starts off to go find his suit while Lance nods and closes the door on Shiro, who probably walks off to go tell whoever else to get ready.

Keith and Lance change out of their outfits and into their suits. They meet up with everyone in the hall, Shiro guiding them out of the hall and down to the hangar underneath the palace, accessible via a wing Keith hasn’t explored yet. Feir meets them on the ship, suited up himself with his sword secured at his hip.

“No Lions,” Feir tells Shiro. “We will go quietly. I don’t want to risk anyone’s life, either our teams’ or the victims’. Your team can work on getting the victims out while we infiltrate the base. Be aware of any mechs; it seems like they’re building something in the base.”

“We’ll follow your lead,” Shiro assures him. “You tell us what to do and we’ll do it.”

“And I’m grateful for that,” Feir says, patting Shiro on the shoulder. He’s much taller than Shiro, a full head at least, which makes Shiro look so much smaller than he is, to say nothing of Keith or Pidge. “Your team really does give me hope that maybe we can end this war for good.”

“That’s the plan,” Shiro says. “With your aid, we may achieve that goal faster.”

“Regardless of what my father decides, you have my aid and my soldiers. And my sister and her second half, your Red Paladin made sure of that.”

Keith tries not to flush under the attention as Lance pats his shoulder. 

“Come, then. Let us not waste any more time. The Kandorians need us.”

The paladins and Feir take their seats and allow the ship to take off as Feir continues to tell them about what is happening on the moon, as far as they know.

The moon is inhabited by Kandorians, mostly a city-like moon, with industrial structures and factories that help produce Gorxan steel and other materials. There aren’t many citizens on the moon and somehow the numbers are dwindling despite Gorxa knowing every citizen on the moon and not noting that anyone has left, other than the daily cargo runs. Despite this, passenger ships keep showing up with new inhabitants, and yet the numbers still dwindle. Zori’s intel provided that these passenger ships were full of known pirates who have histories dealing stolen material in illegal circles. Zori came to the hypothesis that they were dealing Gorxan steel, though how she wasn’t sure and why people were going missing remained a mystery as well. Zori’s first thought was that they needed more hands to process and move the material. Then children started going missing and all attempts at remaining logical went through the window.

When they set foot on Kandor, they land on one of the less busy parts of the moon, which is a good enough distance away from the base that they should be able to remain hidden easily enough. They break off into groups: Feir’s team heads off first to infiltrate the base, while the paladins wait behind to give them some time before following. The plan is that Feir’s team will approach from the roof, whereas the paladins will enter through the front doors, but they have to give them enough time to actually take care of the guards before entering, so Feir ensures that their comms are linked before following the rest of the team, instructing the paladins to wait for his signal before continuing.

The paladins keep out of sight lining the factory, or as best they can with their armor that sticks out like a sore thumb against the monochrome moon. Maybe they should’ve gone with just their undersuits to be stealthy, but then they would’ve had no armor. Luckily, the streets are surprisingly empty and no one stumbles upon them. They get the signal from Feir to enter and they do, slipping in through the front door and past the bodies of guards, either sleeping or dead, not that it matters.

They sneak into the base and try the doors near the bodies of the guards that flank either side of the long entrance hall. They’re locked, but whimpering comes from inside, so, with a nod from Shiro, Lance shoots off all the locks and they each take a door, opening them up and escorting the prisoners out of the makeshift cells. 

“Shiro, what do we do?” Hunk asks as they all realize that there is a staggering amount of people shuffling out of the rooms, all dirtied and in tattered clothing that barely covers their scaly skin. 

Shiro looks slightly panicked by the large number of people, but he gestures with his head toward the front door, his arms fully supporting a woman who staggers on her own.

“Hunk, Pidge, take the survivors back toward the ship and away from the traffic. Secure the area and I’ll send more your way. Lance and Keith, you two go deeper in and see if there are any more cells or survivors. I’ll finish this room.”

Everyone does as they’re told, Hunk and Pidge escorting those who can walk out of the front room while Shiro continues helping the rest out of their cells. Keith and Lance head deeper into the base. It’s eerily quiet. Keith can’t even hear Feir’s team, which may be a testament to how deep the base actually goes. There are multiple levels, but the upper levels seem to consist mostly of catwalks. Still, they’ll have to clear every level, so they start on the ground floor for now.

They take either side of the second hallway, checking the doors, all of which are unlocked and contain empty rooms. At the end of the hall, there are two doors on either side, but while neither are locked, they both seem blocked with something heavy in the way. Lance gestures for them to move up a floor, so they do. They ascend the staircases on either side of the beginning of the hall and repeat the process on the second floor. It’s much of the same, large rooms that look like they’ve been left in a hurry, but no signs of where anyone went. There are two doors at either end of the hall like the floor below, and like the floor below they are blocked, so they ascend again. They repeat the process again on the third floor, finally coming to a door at the far end of the hallway on Lance’s side that’s locked, but seems more movable than the others. Lance motions for Keith to come over, whose door on his side is blocked, so he crosses at the junction and meets Lance by the door.

“Shoot it,” Keith tells him when Lance jiggles the handle again. “They know we’re here anyway.”

“We don’t know that,” Lance says, but pushing Keith back with his elbow in a clear gesture of wanting space. Keith backs up down the catwalk.

“We can assume it. We’re probably walking into an ambush. It’s too quiet.”

“Well, then, you go low and I’ll stay high like always, right?” Lance glances back at his armor, which is still torn at the side. “Just be careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

“Sure you are. Ready?” Lance doesn’t wait for Keith to say anything before shooting the lock off and entering first so he can clear out anyone immediately before Keith takes over leading the charge.

Lance swings in first and does a clean sweep, bayard moving out of the way in clear signal for Keith to slide past. He does and takes in the next room.

It looks like a mess hall and as Keith glances around, he notices that there are multiple chairs and tables and boxes all lined up against the other doors.

“I guess we know this was their escape route,” Lance offers.

“Yeah, but where did they go? I mean, how deep does the factory go that we haven’t even found Feir?”

“Radio in. See where everyone’s at.”

Keith turns on his comms and hears them crackle to life.

“Status update for everyone: Lance and I are in what looks to be a mess hall,” Keith says.

“Hunk, Pidge, and I have relocated the survivors back near the ship. We are tending to the wounded,” Shiro says instantly.

“My team is searching the factory for what remains of the guards,” Feir says. “We’ve taken out what we think to be most of the guards, but we’ve lost any trail of them. It appears they were working on some kind of big metal animal. Lance, Keith, why don’t you two head out of the building and see if you can track them from there?”

“Will do,” Keith shoots back and after the line stays silent for a minute, turns his comms back off. He gestures to Lance. “Feir wants us to head back outside and try to track the rest of the guards.”

“Fine by me. Lead the way.”

Keith retraces their steps back through the door, over the catwalk, and down the two flights of stairs. It’s still quiet when they re-enter the first room, which seems even more haunting when Keith peers inside one of the rooms to see bloodstains and tattered pieces of clothing, like someone was trying to stop their bleeding. He swivels his head straight again and keeps walking, a quiet fire raging in him.

They exit the building and Keith glances around. It’s the right time of night where the sun is on the opposite side of the moon and the streets are only illuminated by the neon purple and pink streetlights. It gives the area an almost futuristic, alien glow, which Keith guesses is fitting. Keith and Lance glance around the street, trying to find any sort of sign where the extra guards went, but the place looks entirely empty, and all the dust shows signs of hundreds of footprints, all indicative of the survivors, so if there were any tracks before that, they’ve probably been covered up by now.

Lance blows out a breath.

“Well, this feels like a bust. Are we sure they’ve even exited the building? What if they’re still inside while we’re out here searching for clues that don’t exist.” 

Lance sighs, putting his bayard back on his hip to cross his arms over his chest. He keeps talking, but Keith starts paying less and less attention as he stares down at the ground, watching a rock next to his boot shake erratically. He stares at it for a moment before squatting down to stare at it closer, wondering why it’s shaking. 

“Keith, are you even listening to me?”

Keith straightens immediately, looking around the second he starts to feel the ground shake. Lance is standing in the middle of the road, though now he seems to feel the ground shaking too.

“Lance, move!” Keith shouts and doesn’t wait to jump forward and tackle Lance out of the way as something big and heavy stampedes past them. Keith scrambles to his feet and turns to assess the situation. Behind him, Lance does the same.

What stormed past them was a large bull-like metal creature, with an armored back like an armadillo and gears lining its limbs. It seems to have the turning radius of a shark, as it makes a large loop to turn and face them.

“Guess we know what they were making,” Keith says. He gestures to Lance. “Call the others. Let them know what we found. I’ll hold it off.”

“How did I know you were gonna say that?” Lance grumbles, but makes a move to turn his comms on and steps out of the way.

“Okay, then,” Keith says to the bull. “Let’s go.”

The bull charges and Keith stays fixed to his spot as he watches it carefully. It moves with great speed despite its size, but it’s not very mobile or flexible, only seeming to move in a linear pattern. When it gets close enough, Keith swings at it before jumping out of the way. It continues on its fixed path until it realizes that it didn’t kill him and once again makes a large loop to turn around. Keith watches this time as its horns, which look less cylindrical and more like scythes, gleam under the streetlights. It rights itself and stomps at the ground, a horrible grinding noise echoing from somewhere inside it, almost like it’s bellowing. 

“Lance?” Keith asks, not taking his eyes off the bull.

“Feir found the other guards. Half of his team is heading to the survivors and the rest is taking them out. Shiro and Hunk are heading this way,” Lance says, readying his bayard again.

“Get somewhere high,” Keith commands. “Look for a chink in its armor. There has to be a way to slow it down. I’ll try to keep it distracted down here.”

“That’s, like, the opposite of what I want to happen,” Lance says, but doesn’t protest further and jogs off somewhere behind Keith. The bull almost seems to watch him go, its bright red eyes tracking Lance.

Keith whistles sharply to ensure the bull keeps its attention on him and slowly starts backing up, flashing his bayard at the bull and attempting to urge it forward. The bull turns back to Keith and leans its body down as if it's getting ready to charge. Keith, like last time, waits for it to do so and holds his position as it approaches.

“Shit!” 

He hears Lance cry somewhere above him and his head whips up to see where he is. He sees Lance get thrown down on some stairs, but he rights himself quick enough to fire two shots at the two men attacking him, taking them down in quick succession. He gets upright again and Keith turns to look back at the bull, only to be struck and tossed to the side as it collides with him, bellowing once again as it passes.

“Keith!” Lance yells and Keith hears him fire a few shots at the bull.

Keith groans and stands up, his side aching, but the adrenaline in his body moving fast enough that he barely processes it. He turns to see where the bull is and watches as it turns around again. Keith watches as the back plates slide together, a small opening in-between the fifth and sixth plate that looks just wide enough for Lance to shoot.

“I’m fine! You see what I see, Lance?” Keith asks, gesturing toward the bull’s back. Lance follows his gaze and nods, lining up the shot.

“Tell me when,” Lance says.

“Wait for my signal,” Keith says.

“Always.”

The bull bellows again and stamps the ground, demanding Keith’s attention. Keith walks back into its path and readies his stance again. The bull lowers itself and charges once again. Keith waits until it's close before slicing at its face plates and dodging out of the way. As he does, he signals to Lance, who shoots it several times at the spot of its back and once more at its now exposed eyes, which Keith had torn off in his strike. The bull falls dead flat next to Keith, letting out one last groan as it deactivates.

“Bullseye!” Lance cheers. “Literally!”

Keith rolls his eyes fondly and walks over to the bull, ensuring that it’s actually dead. Lance comes down from the balcony he was waiting on and kicks at the metal, before immediately wincing and raising his feet to rub at it. Keith kneels next to the bull just as Shiro and Hunk come running up.

“Damn, too slow,” Hunk says. 

“What happened?” Shiro asks.

“Found the other creature they were working on,” Keith says, standing up. “Lance took it out.”

“Nice!” Hunk cheers.

Lance, humbly, says, “It was a team effort.”

“The survivors?” Keith asks.

Shiro nods. “Safe. Mostly uninjured, at least physically. The rest of the team is at the entrance to the ship. Feir wants to make sure that the moon is completely secure before we evacuate them. He thinks it’d be best to take them back to Gorxa to heal while they finish securing the moon. More ships are already on the way. Are you two alright?”

Lance looks himself over. “Yeah, I think so. Some guards got the jump on me, but I took care of them. Keith, when he wasn’t acting like a matador, took a hit from the bull, but he says he’s fine.”

“I am,” Keith insists. “I just want to make sure everyone is safe.”

“Well, we can use extra hands making sure everyone is taken care of back at the ship. Are you sure it’s dead?”

Lance turns and shoots the bull twice before nodding.

“Yup. It’s dead.”

“Okay, then…” Shiro says slowly. “Just follow us back. I’m sure the survivors would be happy to see some friendly faces.”

Lance and Keith return their bayards to their hips and follow after Hunk and Shiro. Hunk slides around Keith and goes to the other side of Lance to talk to him, so Keith catches up a bit to fall in line with Shiro.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Shiro asks, glancing down at Keith’s torn armor. “I should’ve had that fixed.”

“It’s fine,” Keith assures him. “I’m okay. I don’t need you worrying about me all the time anymore.”

“Yeah, because you found someone else to worry about you,” Shiro says with a sly grin. “Don’t think that escaped my notice.”

“With you barging in on us, I would be surprised if it did.”

“Well, you know I think it’s a good idea. I’m just sorry I interrupted you.” Shiro’s voice tilts up into a teasing lilt as he elbows Keith’s good side.

“Stop,” Keith pleads, blushing furiously. “It’s not fair that I’m the only one getting teased about this.”

“You know what, you’re right. Lance, c’mere a second.”

Shiro pushes Keith into Hunk, who rights him as Lance glances at Keith before crossing the line to stand next to Shiro. Shiro puts an arm around him and drags him up further so that Keith and Hunk can’t hear the conversation.

“Is he giving you a hard time?” Hunk says with a big smile on his face. “Yeah, my older brother Taito is just like that. Any time I had a crush, no matter how small, he always teased me. It used to be so annoying, but now I kinda miss it.”

Keith doesn’t think he’s ever heard Hunk talk about his family before. For the surprising and personal information, he offers, “Shiro kinda raised me after my dad died. I think he thinks that he’s like my dad and brother all in one. I guess I kinda think that, too.”

“It’s cool that you guys have each other,” Hunk says, his smile a little more softer now, but no less meaningful. “I mean, we all have each other, but to be out here with your old family too is luck.”

“Yeah, well, after Kerberos, I wasn’t gonna let him out of my sight ever again.”

“Well, maybe he feels the same,” Hunk says casually, like that doesn’t change Keith’s entire perspective. “Maybe he’s scared of losing you again, too.”

“Yeah,” Keith says softly. “Maybe.”

Hunk pats him on the back as they approach the ship. It looks like the rest of Feir’s team have all arrived and they and Pidge are helping the survivors. There are a lot of people, a lot of clearly scared and hurt people. The fallout is going to be rough, but Feir, Zori, Nami, and all the rest of their people seem to be interested in helping out in any way they can. Keith, and everybody else, can only hope that the king agrees.

Shiro lets go of Lance, who is completely flushed and glances over at Keith before looking up at Pidge.

“Pidge, what’d you need?” Lance asks like he’s desperate to get away from the attention.

Pidge begins listing off instructions: Hunk, go help the people near the wing; Lance, take the people in the bay; Shiro, help take these guys over here. They all break off and as Keith goes to find something to do, he’s stopped by Feir.

“Your team did good,” Feir says. “I’ve already said as much to your leader, but I thought you should know, too.”

“We try to. We just want to help.”

“And I appreciate that. All these people, they appreciate that, too. I won’t stop at convincing my father of the importance of our alliance. I’ll shout it to everyone who’s within ear range.”

“I’m sure Allura will be appreciative of that,” Keith says with a smile, looking over at all the people.

“The ships should be arriving soon. Are you alright?”

“What?” Keith looks over at him. Feir is looking down at his side.

“You’re bleeding,” Feir says. Keith glances down to see blood trickling out in between the cracks of his armor. Now that he's cognizant of the fact that he’s injured, it’s like he can suddenly feel it, his side aching as he becomes aware of his injury.

He presses his hand against his stomach, pressing into the wound because although it makes him hiss in pain, there needs to be pressure on the wound.

“I’ll get Lance and Shiro,” Feir says. “Just stay here.”

Keith obeys as Feir jogs off to go get help. Keith pulls his armor plate off and is surprised to see that his entire side, right where he was injured a few days ago, is cut open in a long thin slice that bleeds sluggishly, though it seems like it has been bleeding for a while and was squashed by the armor plate, because the whole wound is covered in blood and looks a lot worse than it probably actually is. That being said, with the adrenaline fading, it may be worse than it looks, because Keith doesn’t feel so great.

“I knew you were injured!” Lance says, running up to him. “¡Déjame ver!”

“It’s fine ,” Keith says but moves his hands so that Lance can bend down and look at the wound as he demands. He says something else in Spanish that’s too quick for Keith to comprehend.

“Esta idiota,” Lance mutters, which Keith does catch. Keith glares at him, but Lance continues before he can rebuttal. “What were you thinking? Charging the bull like that!”

Shiro comes up a second later with Feir on his heels.

“Yeah, you seem real fine, Keith,” he says. Keith throws his hands up and winces as the movement pulls at his side. Lance immediately helps his arm back down, pulling Keith so that he’s relaxed against his side.

“I was fine,” Keith hisses. “It was a freak accident.”

Keith says this with a glare to Lance, who narrows his eyes.

“They’re sending a ship out with some of the survivors as soon as the new ones pull in. I want you on that one, Keith,” Shiro says before Lance can argue again. “Lance, I need you here.”

“But—” Lance starts.

“It’s okay,” Keith says. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you back on Gorxa.”

Lance frowns but nods.

“Fine.”

“I’ll have a pod waiting for him,” Feir promises. “There are survivors who need your help here.”

“You’re right,” Lance says sadly. “We at least need to stop the bleeding before they come.”

“I’ll get supplies,” Shiro offers.

“I’ll call the infirmary at the palace,” Feir says. Both disappear to complete their tasks.

Lance looks over Keith again and examines his wound. It’s really not that bad, though it does hurt quite a bit. Lance seems to realize this as his eyes make their way back up to Keith’s face.

“You’re too reckless,” he says and it sounds much sadder than it should. 

“I’m sorry,” Keith says, because for once in his life he feels sorry about it. For once in his life, he wishes he wasn’t. For once in his life, it affects someone other than himself. “If we’re being fair, I was too worried about you to see the bull coming.”

“That just makes me feel worse,” Lance says.

“I’d get hurt again if I knew it’d keep you safe,” Keith says, feeling uncharacteristically bold.

Lance sighs softly and gives Keith this look that’s so raw and genuine that it makes Keith realize that what he said was very hefty.

“That makes me happy and sad,” Lance says after a moment. “I don’t know which one it makes me more.”

“I mean it,” Keith insists. “There’s very little I wouldn’t do if it would ensure your safety.”

“I feel the same,” Lance says immediately. “I didn’t… I didn’t think I did for a long time, but I do, Keith, I really do. You know that, right?”

“I think I do,” Keith says. 

Lance surges forward and kisses Keith. It’s full of passion and sorrow and something that might be love but is ultimately too tentative to name. Keith kisses back with just as much fervor, leaning into Lance’s supporting grip because he knows that Lance will support him.

“Well, I have gauze and cloth and—oh. Well, don’t you think we should bandage Keith up before you latch onto him again?”

Keith and Lance break apart to see Shiro glancing between them with a grin on his face. Lance looks guilty, a blush high on his cheeks. Lance pushes away from Keith enough that Shiro can step in and begin tending to the wound. 

“Lance, I could use your help over here,” Pidge calls. 

“Coming!” Lance calls, before turning to Keith. “I’ll find you later.”

He presses his promise against Keith’s lips and jogs off in the direction of Pidge.

Shiro throws him a smile, but, thankfully, doesn’t comment.

+++

Keith gets on the first ship back to Gorxa. Bandaged by Shiro, he helps ensure that everyone on the ship is comfortable and without pain with the help of some of Feir’s teammates. Most everyone on the first ship is a critical case, but by the time they reach the palace, they’re met with a large group of Gorxans who are ready and able to help. They escort the Kandorians and Keith off to the infirmary. Keith tries to insist on letting someone more injured take his spot in the healing pod, but apparently Feir prepared them for his difficulty and they all but shove him inside with the insistence that the sooner he gets better, the sooner he can help.

By the time he comes out, there are more Gorxans and the entire palace staff seems to be helping to the best of their abilities. Someone helps Keith down and makes sure he’s healed before sending him off in the direction of the hangar to help retrieve the new Kandorians that are arriving. He passes Hunk and Feir in the hallway, who both ask if he's alright, to which he says yes, he feels much better now, and finds his way back to the hangar.

He watches the new ship land and waits for the bay door to open before rushing in to help unload the new refugees. Lance comes off the ship and gives him a once-over before nodding and helping shuffle the rest of the Kandorians off the ship. Keith follows as they relocate them to the grand hall, which has now been transformed into a makeshift, temporary center for the Kandorians and mostly free of all the celebration decorations. The king is absent, but Keith is sure he’s off somewhere doing kingly duties. Zori and Nami meet them in the hall.

“I knew you guys could do it!” Zori says, helping Keith by taking the Kandorian out from underneath his arm. “Feir told me everything. They’re working on clearing the moon right now, but in a few quintants, the Kandorians should be able to move back home. Because of Voltron, they’ll be free again.”

“It’s our job,” Keith tries.

“It’s more than that,” Zori insists. “Because of your team, the Kandorians will have a home again.”

“We’re just happy to help,” Lance says.

Zori smiles at him. Nami swoops in to help the other Kandorian out from under Lance’s arm and escort them to a cot that’s been set up. Zori follows after her.

“You’re okay?” Lance asks, looking over at Keith. His eyes drop to Keith’s stomach. The undersuit is still torn in a wide, jagged line and Keith admittedly doesn’t know where his armor plate ended up, hoping that one of his teammates picked it up as they cleared the moon. But there’s no blood and Keith’s skin has been knitted together once again.

“I’m okay,” Keith promises. “We have a job to do anyway.”

“That doesn’t mean that you’re not allowed to not be okay,” Lance grumbles but follows when Keith starts walking back toward the hangar again.

“I’m okay,” Keith promises again. “I can prove it to you later.”

“Oh, ho,” Lance says with a laugh. “Is that a promise?”

Keith doesn’t even try to fight the smile off his face. “Maybe. If you can keep up.”

Lance’s face grows confused and Keith takes off down the hall before he can question him. He hears Lance shout after him and then pounding footsteps and though Lance protests loudly, it really is no surprise when Keith beats him.

+++

They spend the next countless hours checking with each Kandorian and ensuring they are all comfortable and safe. Lance disappears with Hunk to help some of the kids feel better, while Allura finally passes by in the chaos and demands Keith follow her. He follows her into a council meeting with King Rix-Ou, Feir, Zori, Nami, Coran, and Shiro, among other council members who all seem somber at the news of Kandor.

“My team is still working to clear the moon,” Feir says. “To clear it in its entirety will take quintants, surely, but I know that we can ensure the safety of the Kandorians for that long.”

“Yes, of course, yes, of course,” King Rix-Ou says. “Our heart aches for the Kandorians. How thankful are we that our son was brave enough to save them.”

“It was a collaborative effort,” Feir says slowly like it’s not the first time. “Without Zori’s intel and Voltron’s help, the Kandorians would still be missing. Or, rather, it would’ve taken ages to free them, and who knows how many lives would’ve been lost in the process.”

“Yes, of course, yes, of course,” the king says. “Voltron is a mighty resource.”

“We are not a resource, King Rix-Ou,” Allura says carefully. “We would be allies. That means whatever battle you fight, we fight. And whatever battle we fight, you fight. I don’t mean to be blunt, but we must have an answer. Will you join our alliance? Can we count on you?”

King Rix-Ou looks put on the spot, or, as best they can, anyway with the lack of a clear face.

At their reluctance, Zori says sternly, “Father, it would be wise to agree.”

The king turns from Zori to Allura. At last, they say, “Allies. Yes, we would be honored.”

Allura lets out a very minute relieved breath. “As would we, Your Majesty. Now, let us all tend to Kandorians during this difficult time.”

“Yes, of course,” the king says, and it seems like everyone else lets out their own breath of relief.

On the walk back to the grand hall, Keith steps in line with Allura, who looks annoyed.

“Don’t like politics?” he jokes. She sighs deeply.

“Sometimes I wish I had been born to anyone other than a king,” she admits after a moment. Then she gives Keith a small smile. “But only sometimes. Every headache is worth it when I see another planet taken care of. It brings us one step closer to liberating the universe.”

“And with you in charge, I think that’s a genuine possibility,” Keith says. Her smile turns grateful.

“You know why I brought you in?” she asks. He shakes his head. “I think it’s important that someone else understands the politics behind everything, other than me or Coran or Shiro. You’re a natural leader, Keith. If anything happened to any of us, I trust you to take over the team.”

“You hardly know me,” Keith tries to argue. Allura pins him with a sharp look.

“Keith, we’ve been working, living, and training together for how long? Of course, I know you. Maybe not as well as others, but I see such potential in you and I would be foolish to not help foster it.”

“You should like Shiro,” Keith says with a snort.

“Maybe he has a point,” Allura says, but her smile is just as amused. She wraps an arm around him, squeezing his left arm with her hand. It feels so sibling-y that it really does remind him of Shiro. “I want you to know that I will try never to expect too much, though I do think you could really do some good, not just for yourself but for the galaxy. I think you were meant to be here, Keith.”

Keith glances at her and she gives him a genuine smile. Not teasing, not joking, but real, like she actually means it. Keith lets the words wash over and thinks that maybe she’s right.

+++

They work well into the night, enough so that the suns are coming up by the time that Allura finally declares that everyone should head to sleep. They all head off in the direction of their room, exhausted from the very long day.

Keith pushes through the door, Lance following in shortly after. Keith spots his missing chest plate leaning up against the bed and gestures to it.

“Oh, you left that on Kandor,” Lance says, beginning to strip out of his suit. “I figured you’d probably need it.”

“Thanks,” Keith says, stripping and throwing the rest of his suit in the same vague direction.

He climbs into bed and sighs as he relaxes into the blankets. What a day, with all the preparations for the celebration, the celebration itself, then the journey to Kandor and helping all the Kandorians. Keith is absolutely exhausted and just ready to sleep. It seems Lance is in the same boat as him, collapsing into the sheets and sighing as soon as he’s lying down.

“Thatwasalongday,” Lance says in one long exhale. 

“But it’s over,” Keith says. “And we finally get to sleep finally.”

“You’re at an advantage,” Lance says, pointing a finger at Keith. “You got to sleep in the healing pod.”

“I’d hardly call that sleep.”

“Still counts,” Lance insists and rolls onto his side so that he’s facing Keith. Keith mirrors him. “Hi.”

“Hi. We need to sleep.”

“How can I sleep when you’re here?”

“Well, I can leave,” Keith says and makes an attempt to get up, but Lance pulls him simultaneously back down and closer.

“You can’t leave me. I won’t let you.”

“You won’t let me?”

“I won’t,” Lance promises. “You’re stuck now. Sorry!”

“You don’t sound sorry.”

“It’s ‘cause I’m not.”

Lance leans forward and presses a gentle kiss against Keith’s lips.

“I’m not sorry about that either.” Lance kisses him again. “Or that.” And again. “Or that.” Again. “Or—”

Keith grabs his shoulders and kisses him fiercely and swiftly so that Lance will stop talking. Lance’s fingers card through Keith’s hair and tug hard enough to expose Keith’s neck, which Lance latches onto and sucks at, climbing up and over the top of Keith, whose hands try to grip at Lance’s waist and hips and find something to hold onto.

“Lance,” Keith says, hands roaming up Lance’s back. Lance licks a stripe up the side of his neck and Keith tries not to moan. He tries again. “ Lance .”

“Yes?” Lance says, pulling back and setting his forehead against Keith’s.

“As much as I genuinely would love to continue this, I really do think we should just go to sleep.”

“You’re no fun,” Lance pouts, pressing another kiss to Keith’s lips before dropping off to the side of him, but not going very far.

“I know,” Keith laments, annoyed with himself for being practical. “Rain check.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Lance says, snuggling alongside Keith and wrapping himself around him. “Dude, you gotta get more comfortable.”

“I’m plenty comfortable.”

“Just roll over,” Lance instructs and even goes as far as to turn Keith’s body with his hands so that Keith’s back is to Lance and so that Lance can slot himself behind Keith, wrapping around him like an octopus and kissing Keith’s shoulder blade. “Better.”

Keith laces his fingers through Lance’s that rest on his stomach. It feels so easy, the weight that settles between them. Like this is nothing new, like this happens every day. Keith thinks back to when he ever thought that Lance didn’t like him. Maybe he didn’t at first, not like Keith liked Lance, but their time on Gorxa seems to have changed them both in unspeakable ways and now the way things stand, it seems so easy that Keith could not imagine what it was like before, can’t even remember. Now Lance checks on him after battle, refuses to leave his side, curls up with him in bed, kisses and holds him and it all feels so natural.

Keith falls asleep with something akin to love on his mind.

Chapter Text

By the time they wake up, thankfully after a long sleep with no interruptions, they dress and make their way to the dining hall, where everyone seems to be milling around. Lance, on the walk over, insists on holding Keith’s hand and refuses to let go until he’s forced to use it to make a plate for himself, which he loads up completely before handing it to Keith and making a new plate.

“What’s this?” Keith asks at the outrageous amount of food.

Lance gives him a once-over.

“You need to eat more,” he decides, finishing filling up his plate and gesturing for Keith to follow him back to their usual seats.

They eat breakfast, Keith finding he’s hungrier than he originally thought and eating most of his plate while Lance chats happily to anyone who’s willing to respond. 

“Are you excited for your ceremony today?” Pidge asks. She seems surprisingly earnest, which takes both Lance and Keith by surprise. 

“Yeah,” Lance answers after a moment. “I am.”

Keith feels his heart stutter in his chest. He wonders if he has any hope of living to a long age, either killed first by something for the war or Lance. At this rate, it’ll be Lance that gets him first.

“Are you?” Lance asks, turning to look at Keith. Behind him, Pidge and Hunk give him dual looks of smugness.

“Yes,” Keith says and commends himself for not bursting into flames from being so simultaneously flustered and happy.

It kinda is sudden to be tying themselves together in this way, especially given that Keith didn’t think that Lance liked him until a couple of days ago. But the idea of dying alone in space, if that really is his fate, is not something that comforts him. With the war, with constantly being on the go and running around everyone, maybe it’s time to put down some roots. His teammates have become his friends, Shiro his dad and brother, the aliens he’s met close allies, and Lance… Lance has become something that Keith never thought he could actually have, not at home, not in space, and certainly not with Lance. But despite everything, Lance seems to like him genuinely, though he still teases him and treats him like before but now he’s also nice and caring and all of the good traits he normally has that he shares with everyone else have been turned onto Keith, the full force of his affection so evident in his actions that it’s near blinding for Keith, who has never been on the receiving end of anything like it.

So does he want to get the equivalent of space married to Lance?

It’s an easy call.

+++

Zori and Nami find Keith and Lance at the end of the morning meal. They steal them away with a teasing wink and grin, taking them toward the underbelly of the palace again, down to the cavern where Lorsi is hammering away at the sword.

“Ah, Zori and Nami! And you’ve brought the paladins, the paladins!” Lorsi cries, setting down the hammer. “The rings are ready and beautiful, beautiful!”

Lorsi presents a rectangular, black velvet case to both Lance and Keith, who take either side with their opposite hands. Lance opens the case and inside are two rings. The one on Lance’s side is silver with small stars pressed into the metal, their centers each a small blue gem, with a large sun engraved on the front of the band. The one on Keith’s side is gold, the same with small stars, though they have red centers, and imprinted in the middle of the band is a moon. Keith extracts the gold one from the box and looks at it closer.

“That one’s, ah, for me,” Lance says, gesturing at the ring. “The silver one’s for you.”

“But this one is red,” Keith says, holding up the gold ring.

“They’re supposed to represent each other. So mine is for you and yours is for me.”

“Oh,” Keith says and puts the gold ring back in the box.

“Do you like them?” Lance asks with uncertainty. “I wasn’t sure if—”

“I like them,” Keith says before Lance can work himself up. “They’re nice.”

“High compliment,” Lance says with a laugh, although it sounds relieved. He turns to Zori and Nami, both who watch them with gleaming eyes. “So what’s next?”

Nami breaks out into a grin. “Next we start getting ready. Ornamental painting is an important part of tying ceremonies and they take a lot of work. Most couples do the paintings themselves, but because you two are visitors and regarding your status in court, you will be hand-painted by Relsha. She paints all of the royalty and important guests when we have such large ceremonies.”

“Why didn’t she paint anyone for the celebration yesterday?” Keith asks.

“The Celebration of Life calls for customs to honor King Giralgh. Their culture does not hold the same customs as Gorxan culture, hence why no one was painted. But the tying ceremony is completely Gorxan and very important and traditional, so you two will be treated like real royalty for the event.”

“That seems like a lot of effort just for us,” Keith says.

“Well, you only are tied once,” Zori says and then glances back and forth between Lance and Keith’s faces, which probably show twin looks of surprise. “Isn’t that how you do it on your home planet?”

“Some people do,” Lance says slowly. “Like my parents. But some people don’t. Some people get married multiple times.”

Zori and Nami now shared equal looks of distaste.

“Tying is something sacred,” Nami says. “You only tie yourself to your second half, who is someone you are destined to be with.”

“Like a soulmate?” Lance asks.

“Perhaps,” Nami says.

“It’s someone you are fated to be with. But it’s not real, it’s just a thing that people say when they’re with someone really special.”

“I assure you, second halves are very real,” Zori says. “Second halves are in sync and know each other better than anyone else in the entire galaxy. Nothing can separate them, not even death. Second halves always find their way back to each other, no matter the distance.”

Keith thinks of the Garrison and meeting Lance very briefly while he was on his way out. He thinks of the desert and of finding Shiro and Lance again. About the fact that he and Lance always seem to end up together even when all odds are against them. About the fact that when they’re not fighting, they are entirely in sync. About the fact that Keith doesn’t think that now that he has Lance, he will ever let him go again, no matter what happens.

Keith glances over at Lance and finds that Lance is already looking at him.

+++

After they leave the cave, and thank Lorsi profusely for the rings, Zori and Nami escort them in separate directions to begin preparing for the ceremony. Nami leads Keith to yet another part of the palace that he’s never been to. They go back up the stairs and into a suite that looks like it’s meant for nobility, where a woman with a head covering but very little clothing elsewhere is sitting on the floor, her four legs crossed underneath her as each of her four hands holds a paintbrush and all are brought up to her eyes, maybe to inspect them closer.

When Keith gets close enough, he realizes that the head covering is made out of a strange fabric. It appears solid from far away, but as Keith sits on the floor pillow in front of her, it appears opaque and he can see her face. She looks spider-like, with eight solid red eyes that watch him as he sits and a mouth that’s just wide enough that it’s unnerving. But she seems friendly, and the slit of her mouth is curved upward pleasantly.

“You are Keith,” she says, voice carrying almost the same cacophonous nature as King Rix-Ou’s, though she only has one mouth. At least that Keith can see, and he can see a lot of her.

“Yes. You are Relsha?”

“Yes,” she says. “You are to be tied today. You are to be painted.”

“Yes.”

“Relsha is very skilled at tamalka,” Nami says, “which is the art of painting for ceremonious events. She lives on one of the planets in the system, Nevara.”

“I come to paint those to be tied, those to be birthed, those to die,” Relsha further explains. “You must undress.”

Keith glances at Nami, who elaborates, “Don’t worry, you can keep your pants on. Just remove your shirt and your gloves. She needs to see your arms, torso, and face.”

Keith nods and takes off his gloves, shirt, and jacket, folding them and setting them beside himself. Relsha glances him over, though it’s kind of hard to tell what she’s looking at. When she’s done, she stands, so Keith does too. Two of her hands drop their brushes and pick up pots of paint instead. She steps closer to Keith, dips both paintbrushes in their respective hands’ colors, and begins to paint.

Relsha doesn’t talk for the first ten minutes and neither does Nami. Just when Keith starts thinking that she isn’t going to talk at all, she says, “Tell us the story of your love.”

So Keith begins to talk.

He talks about the Garrison and being down on his luck for so long that getting anything good his way just tasted like a sour lemon and he couldn’t help but feel like a thief for stealing happiness that surely belonged to someone else. He had convinced himself for so long that he didn’t deserve any happiness, not after his dad and the orphanage and the foster homes, not even when Shiro found him, not even when he saved him, not even when Shiro made him feel like maybe he could be deserving of happiness. He kicked and screamed and fought as hard as he could at the Garrison, only there for the briefest of seconds, a good couple of months where he rose to the top but his temper and his tongue couldn’t keep him there. He met Lance, briefly, a couple of basic classes here and there where, if he remembers back far enough, Lance used to glare at him during class. He never thought much of him, never thought much of anyone during that time. When he got kicked out, it was no surprise.

Finding Lance and Shiro again in the desert and flying out to space, finding a home out here, it was all so much at one time. When Keith had gotten a better look, he realized that Lance was actually really attractive, and being forced to spend time with him—training, bonding, meals, all of it—Keith began to quickly and surely fall head over heels. By the time they made it to this planet, he was so completely wrapped up in all things Lance that he could barely think of anything else, his mind and judgment clouded by ensuring Lance was okay and happy and safe. Of course, he’s still annoying and loud and has absolutely no filter regarding anything, but Keith likes him all the same, which is probably a true testament to how absolutely gone he is for Lance.

But love? Is it love? Can he call this love? He thinks of Lance laughing at a dumb joke that Hunk has just made, nose and eyes scrunched as he curls in on himself, holding his stomach as he laughs. He thinks of Lance when he’s focused, a perfect soldier with a deadly aim and a strong desire to protect what he loves. He thinks of Lance on the rare moments that Keith catches him alone on the observation deck, sitting and quietly staring at the stars, no doubt thinking of his home so far away. Could he love that Lance? Any of those Lances?

Just like tying himself to Lance, it’s easy.

He relays this to Relsha, keeping some details for himself, but giving her the large gist of why he likes Lance and the truth about how they came together, leaving out the part about mostly only getting together because of the fact that everyone already thought they were dating, which, while it definitely helped expedite the process, Keith feels like he’s not supposed to talk about it. She doesn’t say anything when he finishes, doesn’t say anything to continue the conversation or ask any more questions. He doesn’t even know if she heard him, but she continues painting all the same.

It takes quite some time for Relsha to fully paint his torso: arms, chest, and back. The paint is silver and red on his arms, short quick lines and looping swirls decorating his skin. When she finishes, she directs him to a liquid mirror on the other side of the room. Keith walks over and stands in front of it, staring at the symbols that Relsha has left behind. If they’re words, he doesn’t know them, but they decorate him completely, covering him and as much of his skin as possible, lines stretching up his neck and down his hands to his fingertips, which she has painted red.

He turns back to her, her face once again obscured by the distance. Her posture is obviously a sign that she’s waiting for him to say whether or not he likes it.

“It looks good,” he tells her and her rigidity relaxes as she clasps two hands together, the right one on the bottom still holding a wet paintbrush.

“I am glad you enjoy. You retreat. Send in your second half. I paint him.”

Nami nods, thanking Relsha before guiding Keith out of the room.

“We will go eat the afternoon meal and I will send word to Zori to have Lance brought up to Relsha. Are you hungry?” Nami asks as they walk back through the halls.

Nami and Keith don’t go to the main dining hall, but to a smaller room instead with a round table that looks like it’s meant for servants or the main family to sit and eat at when they’re not entertaining. There’s already food waiting for them, so they sit at the table and eat together in silence, which Nami must think that Keith needs and he’s appreciative of that.

It takes about the same time for Lance to be painted too. Near the end, Nami leads Keith back to their room and has him change into an outfit like the daytime ceremonial garb, only he wears no vest, probably to show off the paint. He also wears no shoes, though Nami helps him wrap his feet like a kickboxing foot wrap, only made out of red fabric and completely unsupportive. She also ties his hair up and out of his face, though a few stray and untamable strands fall into his eyes like they always do.

Once his feet are wrapped and his hair is pulled back, the door opens and Lance strolls in with Zori right behind him. Keith guesses there’s no superstition about seeing the person you’re marrying before the wedding in Gorxan culture but he’s grateful that they’re in private, because seeing Lance adorned in shining gold and electric blue paint that compliments his eyes and skin tone perfectly, that makes him look like the sun and that makes him look entirely golden, it damn near takes Keith’s skin away and in the quiet of the room where they’re just looking at each other, he’s thankful that he didn’t actually gasp because Lance would’ve teased him about that until the day they die.

Yet, seeing Lance all adorned in his ceremonial gear, although only part way, and being all dressed up in his own garb, he begins to understand how real this situation is and once again thinks that this is all happening too soon because while he’s liked Lance for a long time, he doesn’t know how Lance feels about him, which he guesses is a pivotal part of this whole thing.

“Lookin’ good, Red,” Lance says, cracking into a smile after a moment of consideration on both ends. 

Keith smiles. “I could say the same about you.”

He’s rewarded with Lance blushing, which also compliments him well.

“Alright, you two,” Zori says with a smile. “Let’s finish getting ready first. Once you’re both ready, you’ll have some time before the ceremony while we finish setting up. You two can flirt all you want then.”

Lance and Keith both look away from each other, blushing to themselves. Zori gets clothes for Lance to change into and helps him wrap up his feet in blue fabric while Nami adds face paint to Keith, just a few swirls and dots and a stripe down his bottom lip in red. When he finishes, he glances over to see Zori finishing the same pattern on his face, yet in the gold and blue paint, mirroring Keith in every way except color.

“There,” Zori says, stepping away from Lance. She glances over at Keith. “Now you two are ready.”

“We’ll come get you when we’re ready,” Nami says. “Until then, relax.”

Nami and Zori give them matching smiles and waves before disappearing out of the room. When the door closes behind them, Lance lets out a big sigh and sits down on the edge of the bed. Keith walks over and sits next to him.

“Are you tired?” Lance asks. “Maybe we can take a nap. You think this paint will smear?”

Keith reaches down to Lance’s side and tries to smudge his finger through the paint. It doesn’t smear, but Keith still thinks it’s a bad idea to try to sleep right now. He says as much to Lance.

Lance makes a face but doesn’t reply. He twiddles his hands and his leg bounces up and down. Keith glances up at his face.

“Are you nervous?” Keith asks.

“Why would I be nervous?” Lance says. His leg bounces faster. He wrings his hands together. “We’re only getting space married in front of all our friends and also an entire planet. What part of that would make me nervous?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Keith says slowly, pulling away from Lance.

Lance snorts. “Well, it’s not like I can just say no now.”

Keith stands up and crosses his arms over his chest, turning to face Lance but glaring at his feet.

“You don’t have to do this because you think it’s what you’re supposed to do,” Keith says, trying not to completely snap. “No one’s forcing you.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Lance says softly, standing up and crossing the short distance between them to take Keith’s face in his hands and force him to look up. “I would be honored to get space married to you.”

Though he says it earnestly, Keith rolls his eyes at the wording and, cheeks aflame, bats Lance’s hands away, but doesn’t go far. 

“Are you sure you even like me?”

“Why wouldn’t I be sure about that?” Lance asks, sounding genuinely confused. 

His tone is enough to make Keith unsure of his next words, though he speaks them anyway. “It just seems kinda sudden with you liking me.”

“Well, it seems kinda sudden with you liking me,” Lance argues.

“But I’ve always liked you,” Keith argues.

“Not always,” Lance counters, which is fair. “Maybe I’ve always liked you too. Maybe I’ve always secretly thought you were cool. Maybe I’m a river in Egypt because I’ve been completely in denial about liking you.”

“Lance—” Keith groans.

Lance grabs his hands, forcing Keith to meet his eyes. 

“I’ve never… felt this way about anyone before,” Lance confesses. “You drive me completely crazy, in more ways than one. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the Garrison and it took me a long time to realize why. Ask Hunk and Pidge, I’ve probably driven them crazy too by how much I talk about you with them. You liking me back, the past week, it’s all helped me realize just how completely gone I am on you. There’s nobody but you, Keith. I should’ve realized it sooner, but now I’ll spend every second for the rest of forever making up for lost time if it means I get to spend that forever with you.”

Keith doesn’t even know what to say. He doesn’t even have anything to say. It’s not like there’s much competition for the most romantic thing ever said to him, but he imagines this confession will be hard to beat in the future.

He does what he does best and acts instead of saying anything, pulling Lance in and kissing him soundly. Lance kisses back instantly, pulling Keith close against him and tilting his head, which forces Keith to do the same. Lance’s fingers card through his hair, messing up the ponytail and tugging the strands loose under his wild touch. Lance licks at the seam of his lips and Keith parts them open eagerly so that Lance can lick his way inside, swaying into Lance’s body as he grabs at his waist, desperate to keep himself as close to Lance as possible. Lance nips at his bottom lip and Keith moans at the sharp sting of pain, followed by Lance soothing the area with his tongue. Lance strays from his mouth, kissing further down his neck along the tendon of his throat, mindful of the paint. 

He pulls away after a moment and Keith mourns the loss. He drops his forehead against Keith’s.

“Unfortunately, I think we have to stop,” Lance says. “I’m worried we’re gonna get walked in on again.”

“Shiro didn’t walk in on us,” Keith corrects, although he understands. He pulls his head back and laughs at Lance’s face.

“What?” Lance says though he looks entirely entranced by Keith laughing.

“Your lip is purple,” Keith says. Instead of the electric blue it was before, now it’s smeared with streaks of red that turn it purple.

“Well, red and blue do make purple,” Lance says with a smile, kissing Keith again. Keith tries his best not to melt completely into Lance’s kiss, but he fails.

Lance pulls away again and smiles when Keith trails after him briefly before remembering himself and pulling away, flushing. 

“You get flustered really easily,” Lance says with a smirk on his face. It’s unfair how hot it looks on him. Lance tilts his head to the side a little bit. “Is this your first relationship?” When Keith stays silent but gets redder, Lance’s smirk turns into a grin. “Aw, so you’re nervous.”

“Shut up,” Keith bites out. “I take it you’re a pro then.”

“Well, they don’t call me a great kisser for nothing,” Lance teases. Keith rolls his eyes and Lance shrugs, sincerity taking over. “I’ve only ever “dated” one person that never really went anywhere. I’ve kissed a couple more but in the same sort of situation. I’ve never actually dated anyone, so I guess we’re in the same boat.”

“So we’re dating, then?” Keith asks for confirmation.

Lance levels him with a look. “We’re getting space married. I think it’s safe to say that we’re dating.”

“Fair enough,” Keith says with a smile. Lance reaches a blue fingertip out, poking at Keith’s cheek.

“You look good when you smile,” he says earnestly. Keith crosses his arms over his chest to stave off the resulting blush.

“I don’t know how to handle compliments,” Keith admits.

“Well, you’ll get used to them with me,” Lance promises. “As long as you can still be your stick-in-the-mud self.”

Keith glares and Lance smiles, pulling him in for another kiss.

A knock resounds from the door and they pull apart. Keith wipes at his lip area to try to clean up the smudged paint, before realizing it’s probably no use. Lance walks over and opens the door and Keith hears Nami laugh before she says, “Of course you two couldn’t wait. Come on, we’re waiting on you.”

Keith and Lance follow Nami out of the bedroom and through the palace. Most of the workers giggle as they pass, but don’t say anything to them. Keith fidgets under the attention, but he keeps walking with them.

They make their way through the palace and down a new set of stairs in what is becoming an impossible and ever-changing labyrinth of a palace, with new staircases and hallways appearing seemingly out of nowhere. This staircase descends into a long hall, which holds an ornate door at the end, decorated with an arch of amorasi flowers, like the ones that Nami showed them in the conservatory the other day. Nami leads them through the doors, which open into a large cave, which was once visible on the other side of Lorsi’s workshop. It’s the Cave of Amoras with the glittering bioluminescent creatures on the ceiling above them and a small river of water running through the cave beside them. In a rotunda also decorated with the amorasi flowers stands King Rix-Ou, Feir and his partner, Zori, and the paladins. There isn’t anyone else, which Keith is grateful for. It feels embarrassing to be vulnerable in front of people he’s close with, but if Lance is doing it with him, then it won’t be all bad.

Nami leads them to stand in front of the king, taking her place by Nami’s side when they’re there. Everyone is silent, but the cave almost sings with noise. When Keith concentrates, he realizes that the noise is coming from above them, from the same creature that’s responsible for the bioluminescence. He looks back down when the king begins speaking with a better understanding of why this cave is perceived to be romantic.

With the voices of the creatures in the background singing softly, King Rix-Ou says, “It is the wish of every Gorxan to one day find our second half. Some are lucky and already have met their halves.” The king gestures to his children and their partners, all of whom bow their heads at his gesture. “Some are still searching.” The king gestures to the paladins, who repeat the gesture tentatively like they’re not sure if they should. “On this quintant, we celebrate the love of those who have concluded their search.” The king now gestures to Keith and Lance, who also bow their heads. “Zori, present the rings.”

Zori steps forward with the ring box and opens it, motioning with her head for Keith and Lance to retrieve the rings from the box. Keith picks up Lance’s ring. He’s seen weddings in movies before to know that you’re supposed to pick up the other person’s ring and put it on their finger. Not that this is like a traditional American wedding, but it’s not entirely dissimilar either.

“With these rings, you are melding your souls to be rejoined once again. Born apart, but now you are reunited to live out the rest of your days together. May your lives and hearts be full, and may you live long and satisfying lives. Now exchange rings.”

Keith turns toward Lance, who holds out his left hand for Keith to put the ring on. Keith tries to be in the moment, taking Lance’s hand in his right one as he slides the ring onto his finger. The creatures sing above them, but otherwise it’s quiet.

He looks up and Lance is just watching him. His face is so soft and open; Keith isn’t sure he’s ever seen anyone more beautiful than Lance, especially in the soft aqua and pink hues. Beautiful is the right word here, too, from the length of his eyelashes to the soft blues of his eyes to the small smile he wears as he stares at Keith. It’s so intimate,  almost too much so, but Keith can’t look away and doesn’t want to either. 

Lance takes his hand and slides Keith’s ring on his finger, not letting go of his hand when it’s in place. 

The king says, “Traditionally, love is sealed with some form of intimacy. You may choose whichever you like.”

Lance untangles his hand from Keith’s and grabs his face again. Keith lets him guide him forward, swaying into Lance’s space as Lance bends down slightly to kiss him. It’s not as heated as any of the other kisses they’ve shared, which Keith is grateful for because he’s not sure he could take that level of embarrassment doing this in front of his teammates, but it’s soft and sweet and something so simple and yet so complex in nature, a binding that seals them together and that unites their souls as the king says. Keith can almost feel it if he concentrates, something in his chest settling down in contentment, something realigning within him. He grabs onto Lance and pulls him closer, relishing in the feeling.

Lance pulls away first and Keith has enough self-control this time to not trail after him, but Lance still smiles all the same like he knows that Keith wanted to. There’s cheering from all around them, not just the paladins, who are whooping and hollering their congratulations, but also the royal family, Feir, Zori, and Nami who all clap loudly and even King Rix-Ou has taken to smiling at them fondly with their multiple mouths, if that could be called a smile.

Lance smiles at Keith and it’s blinding. His lip is completely purple, their smeared artwork not standing a chance when it came to them. Keith is sure he’s in the same boat. Keith wants to kiss him again, but he refrains, squeezing Lance’s hand which has dropped back down again to his side. They turn to face the paladins, who step forward, Hunk rushing to Lance’s side and throwing his arms around him, practically sobbing, and Shiro puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder, smiling at him.

Keith relishes in this feeling too and holds onto Lance as the King urges them all to return upstairs and to the celebration that they have prepared in their honor, a final act of gratitude.

They head upstairs and into the grand hall once again, where many villagers and refugees are already celebrating. There’s a long table that the paladins all sit at, with Keith and Lance in the center. Keith rubs subconsciously at his bottom lip, which he’s sure is just as purple as Lance’s, but Lance reaches over and pulls his hand away.

“It looks fine,” he insists. “A testament to our love.”

Keith levels Lance with a look that makes him laugh.

“Our love,” Keith echoes, a joke halfway out of his mouth that he forgets the longer he stares at Lance. It doesn’t seem funny anymore and Lance smiles softly at him, his face relaxing into something softer and more open. He reaches over and grabs Keith’s hand again, fingers slotting in-between Keith’s with little effort like they were always made to be there.

“It’s just a party,” Lance says when Keith glances over at all the people already dancing. The apprehension must be easy to read on his face. Even though he’s happy and has Lance at his side, a familiar pit of dread forms in the bottom of his stomach of the thought of having to socialize or continue to keep up the farce about the beginning of their relationship, a fact that still hasn’t been cleared up and probably never will for clarity’s sake.

It doesn’t matter how it started or whether they were destined to be, because they’re here now, standing in front of each other and holding hands, red and blue gems glittering on their fingers. What matters is that it’s them, just them and Keith loves Lance and Lance loves Keith and they just got space married. This should all be a joyous occasion.

Lance’s thumb strokes the back of Keith’s hand, which seems paler than normal, even to him, in contrast to Lance’s honey skin. The starkness of the red gems on his own hand, which Lance traces his thumb over a few times like he’s learning the position of the ring, draws Keith’s eyes down to stare at the ring, he too cataloging its place on his hand.

“You were fine the other night,” Lance tries to point out, meaning the night of the celebration. Keith can agree because he was fine then, but it’s been a long week and so much has happened and he feels simultaneously selfish and desperate to have some kind of alone time with Lance, especially with how much everything has changed over the past week.

“I know,” Keith says, taking a deep breath. Right now, they have a private moment. They sit in the center of the long table with their friends on either side, all of whom are consumed in their own conversations and paying no attention to Keith and Lance, which may be on purpose. Keith appreciates the solitude either way, intentional or not, and leans more into Lance’s space to maintain their air of privacy. “But I don’t want to be around people right now.”

He doesn’t elaborate further, feeling silly for even thinking of saying something like, “I just want to be with you,” even if it’s true because he knows that Lance will poke fun at him momentarily before sobering up and being more serious. But Keith doesn’t want to be teased and he doesn’t want to feel vulnerable, so he keeps his wall up at least out here in the ballroom where he feels like he has to. And if Lance can see through that or knows what he’s thinking anyway, then good for him.

And he seems to as he says, “Well, it doesn’t have to be for long. We’ll talk to a few people, have a drink or whatever they consume celebratorily, then disappear after thirty minutes and leave them thinking that we can’t keep our hands off of each other.”

Lance says the last part practically into Keith’s ear, his breath tickling Keith’s cheek, and he turns his head to face Lance, which he thought may cause Lance to retract slightly, but it doesn’t. Instead, Lance surges forward and kisses him, maybe just because he can, bringing his hands up to hold Keith’s face in place, to move him however he wants. When Keith feels himself melting into the kiss, he pulls away, his face heating up with embarrassment he knows he doesn’t need to feel. There’s time for kissing later, preferably in thirty minutes when they’re alone.

Lance seems to understand this to and he smirks, but he doesn’t say anything further, finally letting go of Keith’s hand and facing forward. Keith pulls his hands back in his lap, following suit.

At the beginning, they bring out food that seems to only be for the long table. The people on the floor stay dancing or talking or generally minding their own business. The food is better than what was at the celebration a few days prior and they bring drinks that seem to shimmer golden in the lighting, almost like champagne but something far brighter and that looks near undrinkable. Keith watches Lance take a slight sip of it first, something pleasant curling over his face as he swallows.

“It’s good,” he promises to Keith. Fortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of speech or toast attached to the drink, so Keith picks up his glass and takes his own small sip. Somehow it tastes like honey and summer sun and a million other indescribable light things that remind him of Lance. When he pulls the cup away from his mouth, Lance holds his own glass out and Keith realizes that he wants to cheers him. Keith knocks his cup against Lance’s and they take their own drinks again, Keith taking a longer sip this time and letting the cool feeling wash over him.

“Tastes like cinnamon,” Lance says, setting his cup down.

“Does it? I taste honey,” Keith offers. Lance hums.

“Maybe it tastes different for everybody. Or maybe something’s wrong with your tastebuds.”

“Nothing’s wrong with my tastebuds,” Keith says defensively. 

Lance smirks again, as if the comment was even slightly sexual, and his eyebrows move in this complicated, suggestive gesture and Keith scowls and looks away, not wanting to meet his eyes, genuinely worried that his face may catch on fire if he does. Lance teasing him is one thing, but Lance teasing him and waggling his eyebrows and meaning some sort of sexual innuendo is entirely different. When he and Lance were never a possibility, Keith wasn’t worried about being so embarrassed by Lance’s ability to make any situation a sexual one. But now that they are a thing, and the possibility of him and Lance being sexual together is a thing, well, it’s a bit too much for Keith to handle, his carefully cool exterior melting at every broad grin that Lance sends his way, to say nothing of his eyebrow and hand movements.

Their glasses stay full and Shiro soon pulls him into a side conversation about an old professor at the Garrison, who Pidge, on the other side of Shiro, recounts Matt’s stories of the same professor, who Keith truthfully knows little about, but enjoys listening to the two of them attempt to paint a clear picture for Keith while he pretends that he knows exactly who they’re talking about.

Keith allows himself to be wrapped into the conversation. He’s not aware of how much time passes, but definitely longer than Lance said they would stay out here. Yet, when he glances over his shoulder to see how Lance is holding up, he too seems to be wrapped in a conversation with Coran and Allura about something or other, a spoon dangling loosely out of his mouth. Keith looks away, suddenly reminded of the straw back on the ship, and while he knows he’s now allowed to look and stare and imagine them together, it’s once again the issue of the fact that they’re so out in the open and that he would rather have this realization or thoughts when they’re alone. But he finds himself no longer desperate to leave, instead enjoying being around everyone and enjoying the easy day, in comparison to the mission on Kandor.

Food is deposited in front of them, rising in a pile that seems to extend from the bottom of the table at Keith’s stomach and tower all the way to his collarbones. It seems like a waste, especially on someone like Keith who, despite Lance’s jokes, doesn’t feel like he has enough of a sophisticated palate to understand or appreciate all the different kinds of flavors and foods on the plate before him. If Keith was able to, which is the case on the Castleship, he would just eat the same thing over and over with little to no distaste or discomfort. He glances over and watches Lance bite into some sort of fruit, juice dripping down his painted face and neck. Keith looks away again, knowing that Lance is at least pleased to be eating something new.

They eat and even he can admit that the food is good, like the rest of the food. And like he and Hunk bonded over before, it is admittedly nice to have something that’s actually chewy. Keith personally likes crunchy things and there’s a bit of hard vegetables on his plate that crunch nicely, so he supposes it is nice to not exactly the same thing every time and the food is tasty, even if it all sort of tastes the same.

After the mountain of fruits, vegetables, and meats, they bring out desserts, which is a variety plate of all sorts of delicacies, ranging from small toffee-colored cakes to round nut-shaped yet soft-looking pieces of chocolate to long multicolored sticks that look like they may be cinnamon or something akin to it. Lance fawns over the new dish, clearly a dessert person. Unsurprisingly, Keith isn’t and that’s largely due to most desserts being soft or rich. He turns and watches Lance’s eyes light up as he picks up one of the soft chocolates between his fingers. It looks like a cloud, so delicate and well protected in Lance’s fingertips. Lance glances over at Keith when he notices him watching, his face slipping from pure joy to something a little more embarrassed and simultaneously smarmy.

“What is it, mullet?” Lance asks with no heat, voice lilted and teasing. “Want some?”

Keith must make a disdainful face because Lance laughs.

“Is that a no? Come on, try a piece,” Lance says, holding the small cloud out to Keith. 

Keith stares at it, wondering what it’ll taste like. It looks like chocolate mousse, something he’d only see once before as a child at some sort of function for the unit his dad worked in. One of the other firefighters’ wives made it, a multilayered cake with porous mousse peeking out in between the other layers of cake. He didn’t know what it was and he asked the woman. She’d smiled down at him with her perfect pink lipstick and told him it was simply called chocolate mousse cake, explaining further when he asked what chocolate mousse was. He doesn’t remember her answer now, just the way it looked. He doesn’t even think he tasted it and doesn’t know how old that memory is either. 

He stares at the small piece of chocolate in Lance’s fingers and without thinking about it, leans forward to try a piece. Lance’s eyes widen as Keith sinks his teeth into the cool chocolate. The inside is filled with something white and creamy that Keith has never tasted before either, something maybe like whipped cream, another thing he’d only ever seen and never actually had himself.

He pulls away, wiping at his face. He feels like he has chocolate everywhere even though his hands come back clean. He glances up at Lance’s expression—tight, almost as if he’s in pain—and his own brows furrow at the sight.

“What is it?” Keith asks, having a suspicion but wanting to hear Lance say it.

“Doesn’t matter,” Lance says, glaring in Keith’s direction. “You’re doing it on purpose.”

Keith grins because he didn’t do it on purpose, but he sure loves seeing Lance squirm.

“I thought you said thirty minutes,” he teases. 

Lance narrows his eyes, popping the rest of the treat into his mouth. His face morphs into something like pleasure. Keith can’t say it’s the best thing he’s ever had, but he can certainly understand why someone like Lance, who seems like a dessert person anyway, would like it.

Keith watches him for a moment before looking away again, feeling himself getting flustered just by looking at Lance’s face.

“Thirty minutes of mingling,” Lance corrects. Keith looks back at him and finds Lance already staring at him. “Come on, then. You seem eager.”

Keith flushes what’s sure to be beet red and turns away from Lance, but not completely. Lance stands and holds his hand out for Keith. Keith, without looking over, takes his hand and lets Lance lead him out onto the floor, where there’s a mixture of people still dancing and some who have stopped completely to take up conversations in the middle of the floor. The dancers circle around them, completely wrapped up in their partners to notice anyone else. Keith hopes that Lance doesn’t ask him to dance or anything of that nature. He can bumble his way through conversations, but something as delicate as dancing is not in his skillset. 

Lance pulls Keith along onto the floor. Lance acts almost like he knows everyone, pulling partygoers into conversations about frivolities that Keith doesn’t care to concern himself with. Lance talks about families with the refugees and celebrations with the natives. He’s always had this way with people, a crazy ability to create a connection seemingly out of nowhere and maintain it long after they leave. He says that he doesn’t have a purpose, but Keith watches him laugh with young lovers and listen to an old woman talk about her home planet and just bond with people, always finding something in common with him. His strength is his humanity and while Keith cannot relate, it will always be one of his favorite things about Lance.

Keith allows himself to get wrapped in the conversations. They talk to Zori and Nami and Feir, but Keith feels completely taken away from the conversation, too wrapped up in watching the way Lance’s eyes light up and the ever-present smile on his face widen every so often. He guesses his infatuation is obvious because after only ten minutes, Lance turns him and says, “I think Keith is ready for bedtime.”

Zori laughs. “Oh, I’m sure he is.”

Keith turns to look at her and glares. He wonders if the middle finger is as poignant of a gesture here as it is on Earth, but decides against it as Lance wraps an arm around him, waving to everyone else as he leads Keith off the dancefloor and toward the bedrooms.

Keith sighs as they enter the hallway, relieved to be away from the party. He’s enjoyed his time here but as he said to Lance, he’s more of a private person. He’s eager to have alone time with Lance, which is quickly becoming second best to alone time with himself.

Lance pushes into their bedroom, still not taking his arm off Keith’s shoulders, even as they shut the door and come to stand in the center of the room. Instead of removing his arm, Lance pivots himself and places his other arm on Keith’s other shoulder, holding him close. Lance isn’t much taller than Keith, but enough so that Keith has to look up a little to meet his eyes. Something stirs in his gut at the look in Lance’s eye. The air feels electric between them, even with just a look, even with there still being enough distance between them that the only parts of them touching are Lance’s arms on his shoulders. Then Lance slips his arm down, hand catching on the back of Keith’s neck. Keith wonders how many times Lance has done this and who he has done this with. Is Keith the first? Is Lance naturally this smooth? Keith can’t even be surprised if that’s the case. Suaveness and charm just suit Lance.

Lance’s other hand cups Keith’s face. His movements are slow and deliberate like he knows exactly what he’s doing. And Keith’s lack of patience causes him to blurt out, “Can you just kiss me already?”

The words are barely out of his mouth when Lance surges forward and kisses him. Lance doesn’t waste any time, licking into his mouth and pulling him close. Keith allows himself to melt into Lance’s arms, knowing that regardless of whether or not Lance knows what he’s doing, he’ll still take good care of Keith. 

Lance’s bare hands roaming Keith’s skin, separated only thin layers of paint, hardly a separation at all. His mouth moves against Keith’s, tongue tracing the seam of Keith’s lips, teasing them open. Keith sighs into Lance, opens his mouth, and lets Lance lick inside. Lance’s hands travel up to the back of his head and comb through Keith’s hair, no doubt pulling out the pieces tied back and making his hair completely wild. Keith doesn’t care, deciding that he needs to push Lance back and toward the bed and get somewhere where they can press fully against each other.

Keith’s never done this. Any of this, for that matter. But he’s impatient and desperate and his skin feels like it’s going to explode, every feathery touch drifting across his skin and igniting it like a line of fire ants. The desperation consumes him, his hands pushing Lance back and back and back until Lance is falling across the bed and taking Keith with him.

Keith crawls across Lance, situating a knee on either side of Lance’s hips. Keith reaches back with a hand and hurriedly unfurls the wrappings on his feet. His actions draw him away from Lance’s lips and Lance laughs, breath tickling the stray hairs on Keith’s cheek.

“You’re so eager,” Lance teases. “It’s hot.”

“I’m not eager,” Keith dismisses, throwing the loose wrappings on the ground and turning around to face Lance, dropping his hands on either side of Lance’s head. Lance’s smile is crooked and up close he has faint freckles. Keith’s stomach churns with want.

“You are,” Lance says, sitting up on his elbows and bumping Keith’s nose. Keith draws back a little, but not much. “And it’s hot.”

Keith bends down and licks a stripe from Lance’s bottom lip to his top, just because he wants to. Lance lets him, his smile growing when Keith pulls away.

“Is that really the game you want to play?” Lance says, thumbs digging into Keith’s hipbones. His thumbnail digs into the soft skin.

“I don’t want to play any games,” Keith says, bending down again to nip at Lance’s bottom lip. “I just want you.”

“You know,” Lance says, making a small, mewling noise when Keith bites down hard enough, “you’re totally falling into that repressed but secretly a freak-in-bed stereotype.”

“I know you always talk this much,” Keith says, nipping a line down Lance’s neck, Lance making little ah-ah-ah s as Keith does, arching his back, “but, God, you’re mouthy. Can you even back up the flirting?”

Lance laughs breathlessly, gripping Keith’s waist.

“Fine,” Lance says, “but you asked for it.”

He flips Keith over onto his back, leaning over him. He mimics Keith’s movements and kisses his way down Keith’s bare neck, chest, and stomach, going down down down until his fingers as pulling at the waistband of Keith’s pants and Keith is a helpless mess beneath him.

Lance pauses, glancing up at Keith, who glances down at him.

“This is my… first time,” Lance says bashfully. “I’m not gonna be very good.”

“Hey,” Keith says, fully aware of how wrecked his voice sounds. “It’s my first time, too. So, no matter what happens, it’ll still be the best.”

Lance laughs, face growing red. “Wow, who knew you were so nice? Is that what second base does to you?”

“I wouldn’t call this second base.”

“You wouldn’t?” Lance asks, sticking his hand down Keith’s pants unceremoniously. Keith groans, dropping his head back against the bed. He doesn’t need to look at Lance to know he’s grinning smugly.

“Shut up,” Keith groans. Lance chuckles lowly.

“Okay,” he says, before finally putting his mouth to good use.

+++

They spend the rest of the night and for a good part of the morning in bed. Not always doing stuff, sometimes just sleeping, but they never go far from one another, not separating for very long except for a brief shower (together) to wash all the body paint off and a brief trip where Lance ran to find food for them, coming back blushing from head to toe with a plate piled high, informing Keith that everyone was very concerned they were going to tire themselves out and needed the energy.

Nobody comes for them in the morning. It’s one of the first times that they’re not woken up by alarms, duties, or anything else. It’s like the universe has come together to grant them peace, which is probably a stupidly selfish and incorrect thought, but Keith doesn’t care. He sleeps well into the morning with Lance, curled up against his chest. Lance’s teasing doesn’t end, all too quick to poke fun at Keith’s sudden clinginess, but Keith doesn’t care about that either. He just got space married to Lance, the person he’s had a crush on for a good chunk of his life, at least the part of his life that he’s cared about.

Lance hums, fingers carding through Keith’s hair.

“What?” Keith asks, playing with Lance’s other hand. Both their fingertips are still stained blue and red, though luckily the rest of the colors have faded.

“I just don’t think I’ve said it.”

Keith sits up a little so he can look at Lance’s face.

“Said what?”

Lance looks down at him and smiles.

“That I love you.”

Keith can practically feel his heart banging against his chest. He wonders if Lance can feel it too.

“I love you too,” Keith says, unable to keep the gooeyness out of his voice.

Lance grins softly, scooting down in bed so he can take Keith’s face in his hands and kiss him softly.

Keith kisses back, unable to keep a smile off his face.

+++

They stay on the planet for another day or so. It’s about all the time they can spare, and with the alliance secured here, it’s time for them to move on in the galaxy looking for others to help or who can join their cause. Allura thanks the king and Zori, Nami, and Feir for all their help these past few days. After the sentiments, they all start their long walk back through the village toward their ship. The royalty walk with them, to show they stand together. Keith and Lance walk side by side.

Pidge and Hunk walk ahead of them, laughing to themselves. Lance watches as they do.

“You can go on ahead,” Keith tells him. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

Lance glances over at him. “Are you sure? I can walk with you. We’re married now, we should do things together.”

“But we don’t have to do everything together,” Keith points out. “You know I like my solitude. Go on ahead, it’s okay. I’ll still be right here.”

Lance leans over and kisses him briefly before jogging ahead to catch up with Pidge and Hunk, who instantly welcome him with open arms. They even glance back in Keith’s direction and make a gesture for him to join them, but he waves them on. He continues walking on by himself but doesn’t feel nearly as lonely as he usually does.

Keith glances around at the villagers as their procession passes, all of whom smile and wave, throwing flower petals from the leftover decorations at their feet. He doesn’t even notice when Shiro waits as the others pass until he’s by Keith’s side to resume walking again. 

“Crazy few days, huh?” Shiro says, causing Keith to look over. He startles, only slightly, but it’s enough to make Shiro smirk smugly. “You really do have your guard down, don’t you?”

Keith glares but drops the gaze after a moment. He feels a lot calmer than usual, a lot less ready to explode. He doesn’t know if that feeling will last, but for now, he enjoys it as what it is.

“It’s been nice not having to worry about, you know, everything,” Keith admits. Now, the idea of returning to the ship and resuming a life of war doesn’t sit very well with him, but if him fighting means people and planets like these ones get to live in peace, then fight he will. 

Shiro’s good mood drops slightly, a dip as he remembers the weight of everything, before he relaxes again, throwing his arm around Keith and pulling him closer. 

“I’m proud of you,” Shiro says. “You know that right?”

“You’ve only said it a dozen times since I got married.”

Shiro laughs. “I can’t believe you got married before I did. You’re growing up.”

Keith rolls his eyes as Shiro pretends to dab tears away with his free hand. 

“Yeah, guess you’re gonna be a sad single man for the rest of your life.”

“Ouch,” Shiro says with a laugh. “And you’re suddenly funny now. Guess Lance is rubbing off on you.”

Then he laughs and opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but Keith stops him before he does.

“Stop,” he says, knowing what Shiro is going to say. “God, you’re as bad as Lance.”

Shiro laughs heartily. It’s nice to see him so relaxed because Keith knows that the second they get back on the ship, all of the carefree attitudes are going to shift into work mode and he’s dreading it for Shiro as much as he is for himself. Even Allura, far ahead of them, throws her head back and laughs at something Zori says, she and Nami chime in with robust laughter as they keep walking.

Keith thinks about his time on this planet and how much he has changed over the last few days, how much things have changed in general. His time here has shown him that he doesn’t always need to worry so much about the little things and that it’s important to relish in the little things. Being with Lance and meeting Nami, Zori, and Feir, it all has made him realize that his life can be about more than just war or moving from one mission to the next. He thinks about his father and how little time they got together, about a mother he never knew, and he realizes that even though he’s lost so much, he’s gained so much more along the way. He looks over at Shiro and realizes that he’s glad that he, and the rest of their team, are all together in space and fighting this war because he could not have picked a better group of friends to fight with. And he realizes that they are his friends too, not just his teammates. 

“What?” Shiro asks, noticing the look on his face.

“Nothing,” Keith says. “I just… I think I’m happy.”

Shiro smiles at him softly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Keith says. “Just a lot to be happy about recently.”

“Well, good. You deserve it.”

Maybe I do , Keith thinks. 

But he doesn’t say that. Instead, he pulls Shiro along with him and catches up with his friends.