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Lance didn’t have to be told that forming a crush on one of his teammates was a bad idea.
Nah, he had figured that part out himself. In fact, if he remembered correctly when it had finally clicked what these weird feelings were, his first thought was a resounding, Oh shit. He hadn’t even had time to really enjoy that sweet floaty sensation in his stomach for a millisecond. One moment he was making some remark about how the day’s victory had been thanks to his fantastic piloting skills, and the next his pulse was pounding like he’d just turned his lion down into a nosedive but he hadn’t, it was just Keith’s victory-high grin popping up on a screen on his console that made his heart do funny things. And immediately, the icy waves of foreboding and terror had crashed over him.
Not that he’d let anyone know. Instead he’d snarked a bit in the general direction of that dumb, beautiful mullet and flown back to the castle and locked himself in his room and laid down for a nap and prayed that these feelings would be gone by the time he woke up.
Big surprise, they weren’t.
(This was actually not a surprise as when Lance took a hot second to examine prior feelings towards Keith it became increasingly and embarrassingly obvious to him that the whole rivalry thing had been born out of a thirst for Keith’s attention.)
Anyway, the bottom line was that this was bad. This was bad, not only because Keith was Keith but also because Keith was a teammate. A fellow paladin. You know, one of those people he was supposed to trust unconditionally and be on the same brainwave with and all that. They should be out kicking Galra ass and saving the universe or whatever, not getting butterflies in their stomachs and thinking how nice it would be to smooch him.
Plus, Lance knew what a bad idea it was to have relationships within a group. He’d had a gang of friends back home from before he went to the Garrison that was now separated into two distinct factions because two of them dated and then almost immediately had a messy, messy breakup. He barely talked to some of them anymore because sides were taken and people were upset. It really broke friendships and splintered squads. And sure, Lance flirted with Allura all the time, but he knew in his heart that that was really just an entertaining pastime and not something that he was serious about, even if Allura for some reason ever did return his “feelings”.
So there was absolutely no way that this…this thing for Keith was going anywhere. He was going to slam on the brakes hard before he moved another inch. It wasn’t as though Keith would ever like him back anyway, so it didn't matter. Keith’s dislike of Lance was a lot more legitimate than Lance’s dislike of Keith was, and he made that pretty clear on the daily. All this really was was just a silly (though long-lasting) forbidden crush.
But jeez, did he want it. Whenever Keith brushed by him, half cheeky hip check, his skin tingled. Whenever Keith called him out, he could feel his ears burn just knowing that he was looking at him. Whenever Keith smiled, it was like he could see all the light of the stars in his eyes.
Don’t, Lance would tell himself each time this happened, and he would physically shake the feelings and thoughts out of his head. He would aggressively convince himself that it wasn’t happening and make a loud remark about how awesome he was and how much Keith sucked.
No, Lance didn’t have to be told that forming a crush on one of his teammates was a bad idea.
But he was anyway. Told, that is.
The first time was after a particularly heated argument with Keith. To be fair, Keith had been minding his own business when Lance had called his piloting abilities into question again. Something in the comment had set Keith off, and then Lance was at his throat, both figuratively and literally, and they were all up in each other’s grills fighting because what’s personal space when you’re both just two parts of the same massive robot anyway?
It had gotten Lance all different sorts of heated and after Keith had strode haughtily away he took a moment, leaning against a doorframe to catch his breath, wearing a classic smirk so no one would think he lost (or that he had a hard-on, which was definitely not the case). Pidge, their audience throughout the whole thing, saw right through him.
“Lance,” she said curtly, like she was fifteen different levels of disappointed in him. She didn’t even look up from what was scrolling by on one of her screens, but her arms were crossed. “Don’t be dumb.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lance replied. He combatted the serious with the casual. “Keith is bad at—”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “I know you’ve got feelings for him or whatever.”
Lance made a squawking sound instead of a statement when he next opened his mouth, trying to figure out how Pidge knew that so quickly when it’d taken him months. He was going to find the words to stammer out a denial when Pidge turned towards him.
“Don’t do anything that’ll get in the way of our mission. If you make things weird, nothing’s going to go well.”
“Like I would ever—,” Lance tried to scoff. But Pidge’s expression pinned him.
“Don’t. Pursue. Keith.”
Lance laughed and walked away and kept laughing all the way to his room, where he sunk down onto his bed and let the laughs die out until he was just pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes and trying not to feel. Pidge was right. Pidge was smart, Pidge knew a lot of things. He’d known this too. If he went after Keith in any sort of serious capacity, things would go bad. Sooner or later, there’d be problems. Even if Keith liked him back (which he definitely didn’t), there’d be problems.
Evade the issue entirely. Forget about the feelings. It was really the only option, if Lance thought about it logically. Which was something he didn’t do too often, but he needed to defeat the Galra Empire if he was ever going to get back to his family, and he wasn’t about to let some dumb, obnoxious, incredibly good-looking and talented guy get in the way of completing that mission.
And then Hunk was next, completely unprompted from Lance’s point of view. It was Hunk who approached him first, and Keith wasn’t even in the vicinity, at least not physically and outside of Lance’s thoughts.
“Hey, um, buddy,” Hunk said, fidgeting with his hands and looking at the ceiling, the fridge, the walls, the floor, anywhere but Lance. They were in the kitchen of course, and Lance had just wandered in to grab a cold drink to relax with when Hunk had wandered in after him and started to speak. “Can I just say something real quick? Kind of personal. But like, it affects me and everyone else too. So.”
“Yeah dude, shoot,” Lance said, his head half in the Altean fridge. He knew what was coming but pretended that he didn’t because what did it matter anyway? He’d already gotten the same advice not only from Pidge but also from the logical part of his mind. Maybe his way out of this mess was one more person telling him that liking Keith would only lead to the biggest shitshow this side of the Milky Way.
“Well, I guess I’d just kind of noticed the way you talk to Keith and everything, and I just really wanted to make sure…you don’t like him or anything, do you?”
“Like him?” Lance said. “Someone with a dumb mullet and a shitty sense of humor like that? I despise the guy.”
“Whew. Okay. Good.” Hunk laughed nervously. “Pidge was just talking about how obvious it is that you and Keith are in love with each other, and I thought that she must be wrong. That’s ridiculous, right? Haha. But I was watching you guys and she was right, it really does look like you two are somewhere in between arguing married couple and elementary schoolers with crushes on the playground, and the way you guys look at each other when the other’s back is turned—…well anyway I just wanted to make sure, because if you were dating or something that’d be really bad for the team, you know? Like what if you guys fight? More than you normally do I mean. Or what if the rest of us feel left out? Or…. Hey, Lance? Are you okay?”
Lance, who had been staring at Hunk with his jaw hanging open, slowly blinked. “How does Keith look at me?”
“Oh you know, these long lingering gazes sometimes, like he’s pining or something.” Hunk laughed again. “I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything though. I bet he looks at me and Pidge and even Coran that way too and I just don’t notice.”
Trying to brush any thoughts of Keith and lingering gazes from his head, Lance stuck his head back in the fridge to cool his burning cheeks.
“Anyway, just wanted to make sure you’re not thinking of doing anything about that, you know?” Hunk said. The joviality dropped. “You’re not, right?”
Lance snorted. “Think about what you’re saying right now, man. Me and Keith? Really?”
“Yeah, I guess I’m being kind of silly.” Hunk looked a little embarrassed. “Better safe than sorry though. Hey, want me to make you some food?”
Lance declined his offer in favor of taking his lemonade out of the kitchen. He thought only briefly of seeking out Allura in the navigation deck and asking her if she knew anything about paladins falling in love with each other, but that was pretty solidly a bad idea. That information was meaningless to him. Anyway, even if Keith did like him, it was whatever. Nothing would ever, ever come out of this.
But Lance knew shit was real serious when he was wandering the halls one day and almost walked headlong into Keith coming out of the training room with Shiro alongside him. They were both glistening with sweat, and more than that, Keith had a post-workout sheen of determination in his eye and was looking particularly, well, shirtless. Lance thrust a hand out to use the wall for support, his knees suddenly betraying him.
“Work out all you want, you’re never going to get to my level,” he said, completely aware that it was both a terrible insult as well as a terrible way of flirting, but knowing it would get a reaction out of Keith anyway.
“What are you talking about?” Keith said, stopping short. Shiro stopped too, steps behind him. “You can’t even do a full pull-up.”
“That’s big talk, coming from someone who couldn’t even get through his classes at the Garrison.”
“Hey now, that’s enough.” Shiro stepped in gently, doing his best dad-voice, and Lance couldn’t help but feel an impulsive shudder of remorse. “Lance, could I talk to you privately for a moment?”
“Uh, sure,” Lance said, feeling that same pit in his stomach as he did when his third grade teacher would reprimand him in front of the entire class. Shiro’s caringly reproachful eyes were upon him, and and he already felt like he’d disappointed somehow, even though Shiro hadn’t said a word yet.
Keith glanced from Shiro to Lance, and then slowly turned and walked off down the hall with a, “See you later,” thrown over his shoulder. To Shiro, most likely. Lance didn’t get those kinds of niceties from Keith. But what he did get was a great view of Keith’s bare back and his ass as he strode off down the hallway.
It took Shiro clearing his throat to draw Lance’s attention back to the reason why he was still standing here.
“First of all, don’t think I’m singling you out or anything,” Shiro began, “because I’m about to have the same talk with Keith. But Lance, you know how we’re all a team, right?”
Lance nodded. He knew very very well that they were all a team.
“I’m just worried,” Shiro said. “If we’re a team we all have to be on equal footing. I think that means that if any of us don’t get along like the others it might cause an imbalance and we’ll have problems.”
“Is this about me being better at everything than Keith? Because—”
“No, but it does have to do with him,” Shiro said. “And I’m being serious right now, Lance. Please don’t put our team at risk because of your and Keith’s feelings for each other.”
“Our what?”
“Now, I don’t mind what you do when this is all said and done. In fact, I’ll be very happy to see how well you two set aside your differences in the future and make your relationship work. But think of how much more rewarding it will be to do that once the Galra Empire is defeated and you two don’t have to worry about being paladins anymore.”
Lance burst into the brightest, fakest laughter he could summon. “Wait—,” he choked around a guffaw. “You think that…that Keith and I are together?”
“You don’t have to hide it from me, Lance,” Shiro said. “I would just rather that you two didn’t do this right now. I know you’ve liked each other for a long time, but that just means it can wait a little longer, right? Please try not to put everyone else in a bad spot.”
Lance couldn’t laugh anymore, he could only silently stare. Shiro was closer with Keith than anyone else on the team. If he thought that Keith liked him—
Well that was beside the point anyway. Shiro was right. They couldn’t have a relationship right now. Not with lions to pilot and planets to protect. It didn’t matter how Keith felt.
“We’re all Voltron,” Shiro said, with some finality. “All five of us. Let’s keep being a team like that, okay?”
Lance nodded, like it was obvious. “Yeah, of course.”
“Good.” Shiro smiled good-naturedly. “I’ll leave you to whatever you were doing, then. See you later, Lance.”
It turns out that “whatever you were doing” meant turning around and heading back to his room. He needed to sit down and just not think about Keith for a goddamn minute. This, as it turns out, was much easier said than done, especially with Pidge and Hunk and Shiro’s warnings floating around in his head.
Frustrated, he gathered his remaining heterosexuality and decided to go on a walk and hit on Allura for awhile to take his mind off things. He almost made it to the navigation deck when he heard footsteps on the castle floors racing after him.
Lance spun around just in time to see Keith (with a shirt on now, thank god) charging towards him, brows lowered and eyes focused. A million thoughts buzzed through Lance’s head, seeing his teammate zeroing in on him. Did someone spills the beans to Keith and now he was hunting down Lance because he thought it was disgusting? This is it, I’m gonna get hit, Lance thought to himself, and could only imagine the sweet sensation of Keith’s powerful fist connecting squarely with his jaw.
Keith strode up until he was very much in Lance’s face, and then kept coming so that Lance had no choice but to be backed against the wall. Lance held up his hands in a defensive gesture, trying to put some space between them. Even looking absolutely murderous Keith’s eyes were enrapturing and it burned a little bit to look at him. Lance was more than nervous.
“Hey, is this about when I beat you in the laundry-washing competition yesterday, because—mmph.”
Lance found himself forcefully shut up, in the most pleasant way possible. For a second he let himself forget. What he’d been doing, where he was, who he was. All he knew was that his hands found themselves gravitationally attracted to hips that belonged to someone who was warm and wonderful under his fingertips. There were lips on his and they weren’t just anyone’s lips, they belonged to someone who set his blood on fire and made him a little dizzy when he tilted his head so that they could fit together better. For two people who couldn’t stop fighting, they touched each other surprisingly gently, all fingertips ghosting and broad, tender movements.
Keith pulled away first, leaving Lance stunned and breathless. He blinked and looked down into Keith’s eyes and felt the pounding of his momentarily-satisfied heart. Keith wasn’t smiling, but there was something triumphant in his face, a gleam in his eyes that Lance knew and vociferously hated but quietly loved and it made him tremble a little bit, knowing that their mouths were still only inches from each other and they were breathing the same air and feeling the same warmth and practically occupying the same space. Well, it was true what Shiro and Hunk said, he guessed. Keith did feel this way about him.
Lance couldn’t remember feeling so at peace since leaving Earth’s surface.
Then he shoved Keith back so hard they both stumbled.
“What the hell are you doing?” Lance cried.
Keith had the gall to look hurt. “Shiro told me you like me.” Something turned vulnerable in his face, and it stabbed Lance straight in the gut. “Was he wrong?”
Lance closed his eyes and steadied himself against the wall. This was…difficult. He wanted to get out of it. A sarcastic comment instinctively bubbled to his lips but he tried to bite it back with the desire to be diplomatic.
“Hey, don’t look so upset just because you found out that I’m a better kisser than you,” Lance said.
Damn it.
He really was trying to be mature about this and avert a crisis but it was so achingly hard. His heart was telling him to just gather Keith into his arms and smush their lips together again but he shouldn’t and couldn’t and he could practically hear Shiro’s stern dad-voice in his head warning him against this very situation.
“Okay, so I like you,” he admitted. “But can we take a second to think about this? We’re on a castle hurdling through space on our way to free the universe from some ugly alien tyrant right now and you just want to stand here and make out?” Okay, he phrased that poorly. That didn’t sound bad at all. “What made you do this anyway?”
Keith looked at him like the answer was obvious. “I was told not to.”
Lance could understand the sentiment, but for once in his life it looked like he was going to have to be the responsible one here. He wasn’t sure if he could pull that role off, but Pidge and Hunk and Shiro were probably correct, and they were trying to guide him in the right direction. Right?
Keith crossed his arms. “So you’re still being contrary, huh?”
“I’m not being contrary!” Lance said. He sighed and covered his eyes with his hand, mostly so that he wouldn’t have to see Keith’s face. “Look, Keith. I like you a lot. But I’m sure Shiro gave you the same speech that I did and…you know, he’s right.”
Keith was so quiet, and Lance couldn’t take the silence. He peeked out from under his hand to see a bewildered expression that made breathing a little difficult.
“So you’re saying you don’t want to kiss me.”
No, he wanted to kiss Keith. He wanted to kiss him all day every day for at least the next three days and then for a few hours a day every day after that. He wanted to pull him back in and see those fiery eyes up close and feel him warm against his skin, and run his hands over all those muscles that he spent his time working on. He wanted to banter with him like they were rivals but also something else, something more deeply affectionate, and he wanted to wake up tomorrow morning with their heads on the same pillow and their legs tangled together.
Lance took a deep breath.
“Yeah…. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”
Keith was pulling his strength together to combat the disappointment that was visible in his eyes, and Lance could see it happening across his face. It was hard to watch.
“Scared of commitment?” Keith asked.
Oh no. He did not go there.
“It sounds to me like you’re scared of not being together,” Lance sneered.
And that was it. Next thing he knew they were shouting some rather unpleasant things at each other and then they were rolling across the navigation deck floor with punches aimed to actually do harm and then Allura was pulling Keith off Lance as Lance wiped blood away from his nose. And he stalked off towards his room, full of a strange fury and a raging disappointment and an empty bottomless feeling in his gut and a head stuffed with choking regret, all of which was way worse than the physical pain inflicted from Keith slamming his fist into his face. And when he sat down on his bed the inside of his mouth tasted salty, though he didn’t know if that was from the blood that still dripped from his nose or the tears that were running down his face.
Life became a little bit of a living hell after that.
It started the next morning at breakfast when Keith decided that he would rather take his green goo and his black eye back to his room instead of even granting Lance a sidelong look. This wasn’t too uncommon, but the tension in the room was thick, and when Shiro tried to raise an eyebrow at Keith on his way out, Keith brushed him off.
As soon as Keith had vanished, Pidge spun on Lance. “What did I tell you? Look what you did.”
“It wasn’t me!” Lance said. “He came at me first. I was trying to do what you told me!”
“I’m sure,” Pidge snapped, but Shiro put a quieting hand on her shoulder.
“It was my fault,” he admitted. “I was trying to stop Keith from taking things any farther and I accidentally provoked him into confessing to Lance. I’m sorry.”
Lance sunk down further into his seat, staring absently into his full plate of goo. It was bad enough that this was happening, but it was worse that everyone knew about it and were talking about it in front of him like he wasn’t there. He wondered how long the three of them (and possibly Allura and Coran, too) had been conspiring to make sure that he and Keith wouldn’t start dating. All he could feel was a variety of embarrassed and regretful emotions, and it all coagulated together in his stomach to make his appetite disappear.
He stood up and slinked back to his room, shrugging off Hunk’s hand when he tried to stop him with some comforting words. He didn’t want to be comforted right now. He mostly just wanted Keith. Not even in a romantic way at that moment, he just would’ve given anything for a good lion race or them bitching at each other.
This was probably for the best though. No talking meant no relationship. No relationship meant nothing to fuck up terribly and leave the group in pieces. Nothing to get in the way of them forming Voltron as a cohesive unit. Nothing to stop their teamwork and camaraderie. Neither he nor Keith had a confusing relationship to worry about or potential future breakups to be anxious over, and the rest of the team was included in all team activities because there was nothing between them to shut other people out of. It was like how it was supposed to be: all the paladins of Voltron working together seamlessly.
Except for the fact that they weren’t.
Their first time trying training after the fight was like something straight out of Allura’s worst nightmares. It didn’t help that when they gathered to discuss the training maneuver and Keith walked into the room, Pidge shot both him and Lance a look that clearly said, Don’t you dare try anything.
Lance felt like shouting back, “What is there to try?” because they still weren’t talking or even looking at each other. And Pidge’s nosiness was more annoying than anything else, adding to Lance’s irritation and frustration. His lion picked up on all this pretty easily, her flying erratic and difficult. Keith wasn’t having a much better time in Red, growling angrily into the comms whenever something went awry, which was pretty often. This only put Lance on edge, hearing Keith’s voice so close to his ear. Under other circumstances his voice had the power to be elating, but right now it just made him uneasy.
Oh yeah, and they couldn’t form Voltron.
When they came back, all exhausted and frustrated and not wanting to so much as look at each other’s faces, Allura was there to chastise them for not getting along. Which didn’t help one bit. All present went to bed angry, and since no one had the energy or desire to find dinner, hungry as well.
“Hey, Lance?” said Hunk carefully the next morning as they crossed paths in the kitchen. “Not that any of this is your fault or anything, but could you maybe…I don’t know…do something? So that we can be a team again?”
Lance was too exhausted to think of a snappy retort. He just shrugged and threw a half-eaten plate of goo away.
It was a little irritating (a lot irritating) that these people had given him this advice and now that they were dealing with the consequences of it, they didn’t like them. This wasn’t his fault, was it? He’d just been following orders like a good paladin. It had made sense to him, too. But if that was the case, why wasn’t the team working together?
And why did he feel so awful?
This went on for days. Weeks, maybe. Lance tried so hard to put on a happy face and just deal with it, but he could never shake the feeling that he was dragging his feet around everywhere, that his heart just wasn’t in anything. Training was boring without his and Keith’s competitions. Even daily life was missing something vital and fun. Keith hadn’t spoken a word to him since their fight, and if his eyes did happen to meet his, they passed over him quickly like he wasn’t even there.
The one time it did look like it might get better, the paladins were all called for dinner, and by the time Lance got there the only open seat was next to Keith. He swallowed nervously, took a deep breath, and placed himself as confidently as he could next to the Red Paladin.
He couldn’t help it. He could see a beautiful person out of his peripherals and it jerked on some deep-seated instinct in him to open his mouth.
“Hey,” he said, resting his chin in his hand and his elbow on the table. “Come here often?”
Pidge kicked him so hard in the shin that he squealed, and the only response he got from Keith was silence. But something had shifted in his face when Lance had made his undignified noise, and it was almost, almost a ghost of a smirk.
Dinner progressed as well as it could in the given situation after that. Polite conversation was made, although occasionally strained by the ever-present tension that crackled between Lance and Keith like plasma. That is, until Lance unthinkingly reached for that delicious yellow alien sauce that he liked so much without glancing at it, and found his hand brushing against something warm and smooth.
Later he would tell Hunk that it was a total accident that his hand lingered there, but actually when he looked up and saw that his hand was overlaying Keith’s, and then looked over and met Keith’s eyes, something in his body screamed at him not to move. So he sat there, looking into Keith’s eyes, their hands touching, their lips quivering, their resolve wavering. Lance’s pulse jumped, his finger itched to close around the hand under his, and he leaned in—
Hunk stood up loudly, clattering silverware as he went. “Well I’m done. Who wants dessert?”
Lance recoiled. He pulled his hand back into his lap and snapped his head forward, pretending he didn’t see the way Keith’s eyebrows lowered out of the corner of his eye. That was bad. He couldn’t do that.
“Sorry,” he muttered under his breath, but Keith had already pushed back from the table and was walking away, without even a backwards glance. And Keith made a point of eating in his room from then on.
This was worse than being rivals or fighting or anything else. Keith was treating him like he didn’t exist.
Maybe Keith would never talk to him again.
Shiro sat Lance down one day and asked him to please, please be the bigger person and try to make up. Lance tried to explain as calmly as he could (which was in fact not very calmly at all) how hard he’d been trying to get Keith so much as look at him, and how he hadn’t met anything but resistance. They’d all thought that avoiding a relationship would mean maintaining the status quo, but instead the group was fractured, and as much as Lance wanted to go back to the good ol’ days where he and Keith were nothing more than bickering rivals, something had distinctly changed between them.
“I’ve tried talking to Keith too,” Shiro said. “He won’t hear any of it, though. Is there anything you can do?”
“I’ve tried!” Lance said. “He doesn’t want anything to do with me. I’m sure even if I was to ask him out at this point he’d reject me.”
But Lance knew it was still partially his fault. He felt awkward around Keith now, and seeing him still hurt. It pained him to know that if they weren’t here, hurtling through space, they could be together. If they were living different lives, everything would be okay. But he’d hurt Keith, and he didn’t really blame him for not wanting to talk to him.
“I didn’t think he’d take it this hard.” Shiro shook his head, frowning.
“What about me?” Lance replied, pouting. “I’m taking this hard too, you know! I’m all upset and broken-hearted.”
Shiro placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lance. I hope you feel better soon. In the meantime—”
Alarms blared, cutting Shiro off and making Lance jump. Suddenly they were bathed in flashing red lights.
“Oh no,” Lance groaned. “This had better be a drill.”
But he was left talking to no one, because Shiro had already taken off in the direction of the lions.
It wasn’t a drill.
“We’re being pursued by a Galra battle cruiser,” Allura announced over the ship’s comm as the paladins made their way to their lions. “It appears there is just one of them, so this is not a full-scale attack. But please distract or damage them enough so we may escape through a wormhole without threat of being followed.”
Moments later Lance was snugly seated in Blue’s cockpit, shooting through the star-speckled emptiness of space with the other lions around him.
“Let’s not worry about forming Voltron,” Shiro said over the comms, mostly likely because he knew that they couldn’t right now. “We can deal with this. Keith, Hunk, go take out the ion cannon while we cover you. If that fires at the castle we’re done for.”
“Me?” squeaked Hunk, but Red and Yellow peeled away from the formation as they approached the looming ship, which was already firing at them. Smaller fighter vessels hovered around the ship like gnats around a light, and Lance watched Keith’s skilled maneuvering around them. They were shooting though, and they weren’t about to give him a chance to break through. It was Lance’s job to make sure that happened.
He followed Keith into the dazzling fray, shooting back at anything that shot at him, but more importantly, anything that shot at Keith. Watching the red lion twist and turn in front of him, he was overcome with a fierce desire to protect it and its occupant. He and Keith might not be talking, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t about to do everything in his power to make sure he didn’t get hurt.
Swooping down, freezing and destroying ships with ease, he cleared the air around Keith and moved in to follow him when he felt something suddenly rock his lion.
“Lance, watch out!” Pidge called, a moment too late. He was already taking damage.
“Watch your back, Lance,” Shiro said, as Lance spun around to wreck the enemy that had shot at him. The damage wasn’t bad, but it shook him away from Keith’s trail.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Lance said. “Anyway, I’m trying to cover Keith and Hunk. I’m talented but I can’t do everything at once!”
“Fall back a little,” Shiro commanded, and Lance had to focus on keeping his mouth shut to stop himself from arguing. He couldn’t cover Keith as well from back here, and with the way things were being fired down there it was only a matter of time until the red lion took a hit.
Keith had slowed too though, circling back around until he was more even with the blue lion. Lance stared at him, wondering what he was doing, until Keith fired off some shots that sailed past him. Turning, he realized that he’d just been saved from a pack of fighters that had snuck up behind him.
“Thanks,” Lance breathed, forgetting to be an asshole for a second because Keith just saved him.
“Get your head in it,” Keith growled. They were the first words he’d said to him in ages.
“Keith, the cannon,” Pidge said.
“It’s in range,” Allura said, urgency in her voice. “It could start charging any tick now!”
Keith took off, and Lance took off after him, firing blasts from their lions’ mouths at anything that happened to get in their way. Lance was right on Keith’s tail, because goddamn if he was going to let Keith get away with saving his life without trying to do the same for him. Not that it was a matter of owing. He wanted to make sure Keith was okay anyway. But the fact that Keith had saved his life first made it worse.
He wasn’t supposed to be doing that. Lance was going to be his hero today. Save his life, sweep him off his feet. He imagined going back to the castle and Keith swooning into his arms, thanking him for saving him. They’d be talking again and Keith would admit that Lance was his superior and his hero and give him another kiss, long and deep, and—
He shook his head to clear it and focused on the attack. Darting, swerving, spinning, shooting.
“Keith, where are you?” Hunk asked, crashing the body of his lion into the cannon. There was anxiety in his voice and the impact barely made a dent.
“On my way,” Keith said. He rolled out of the way just as Lance froze a group of fighters approaching him.
“It’s charging the ion cannon,” Allura announced, but she didn’t have to because everyone could see that. Lance rocketed forward, sweeping a herd of fighters out of Keith’s way with blasts blazing from his lion’s mouth. Keith was almost there, readying his weapon, and together he and Hunk would be able to—
“What is that?” Hunk cried, his voice jumping octaves.
Lance looked up to see what he was talking about, and came face-to-face with a much larger fighter ship than the ones they’d been engaging. It floated out from where it’d been hidden behind the battle cruiser, cannons charged and aimed.
Aimed right at Keith.
Lance didn’t have time to think, not that he did much of that usually anyway. He just had time to act. Accelerating hard, he thrust his lion between Keith and the ship, right in the path of the cannon. He felt the impact, like he’d just hurtled headfirst into an unbreakable wall, and the heat, even from within his lion, like a burning star. He was blinded, nothing visible outside of his lion except the scorching white light of getting caught in the blast.
Vaguely he was aware that his name was being shouted, but then his lion slammed back against the surface of the battle cruiser. He was violently jostled in his chair, his body knocked against the restraints that kept him in place. He barely registered the pain before his head collided with the back of his chair, and everything started to go blurry and dark.
“Lance!” Keith was shouting in his ear, but it was fading, echoing and distant. “Lance!”
Lance’s world muted out. His vision went black.
The inside of the cryo-pod was warm and comfortable, the same way that a bed is on a cold winter morning. This made it pretty hard for Lance to open his eyes, let alone even dream of moving. Five more minutes, he promised himself.
That was before it decided for itself that it was time for him to get up. Like a piece of toast from a toaster, he was done so it opened up and popped him out.
Disoriented, eyes still shut, Lance stumbled forward from the pod, and straight into something warm and moving and organic.
His eyes shot open.
Keith was there, hands on his shoulders. Lance was leaning on him heavily, his legs still wobbly and fawn-like, and found that Keith’s face was every bit as beautiful as it had been in his cryo-pod dreams. Allowing himself a moment of weakness, he relaxed against him, and breathed in his scent, soap and open air. He was so aware of Keith’s warmth on his body that he could feel himself heating up, a natural response, and not an unpleasant one at that.
They stood in silence for a minute, Lance feeling the sensation return to his extremities, but more than that feeling the glowing happiness in his stomach that Keith was here. He must’ve been waiting for him to wake up. That was…that was so cute. And now he was holding Lance so patiently, his concerned eyes roving over his face, trying to find signs of injury.
It wasn’t until his cheeks began to hurt that he realized he was grinning hard.
“This is great and all,” Lance said, “but you were supposed to be the one swooning, not me.”
Keith dropped him and spun on his heel.
“Hey,” Lance squawked, catching himself and stumbling a few steps. “Keith, hold up.”
Keith paused but didn’t turn back towards him, instead facing the door. But Lance knew he was listening, even if his arms were crossed. Lance struggled for a second to find the right words.
“Look, man, I’m sorry,” Lance said. “I shouldn’t be treating you like this. I was just listening to Shiro and the rest of them, and trying to stop us from ruining shit around here but that kind of backfired.”
Keith turned a little bit so that he could look at Lance over his shoulder, out of the corner of his eye.
“I don’t know what else to tell you but I honestly really, really miss you. I miss us fighting and being rivals and I miss being able to talk to you and look at you without feeling weird. I miss you not actively hating me. Can we not do this anymore?” He shut his eyes. “Please be my teammate again.”
“Teammate?” Keith echoed. “Is that what you want?”
Lance sighed. He knew this was coming.
“I don’t know, Keith. How can we justify being in a relationship right now with everything else that’s going on? Especially if the others are against it.”
Keith turned around fully, and Lance could see the hurt in his eyes. “What if the others don’t know?”
Speechless with thought, Lance opened and closed his mouth a few times. “I, uh, I don’t—”
But that wasn’t the answer that Keith was looking for. “You know, if you don’t want me, you can just say so,” he said, spinning around again and striding towards the door. “I’m over it. Fuck you, Lance.”
As he strode out the door, Shiro rounded the corner. Keith brushed past him even when Shiro tried to catch him, and marched off down the hallway. Both Shiro and Lance silently watched him leave, and then Shiro brought a hand up and pinched the bridge of his nose. He stood like that for an extended moment, and then picked his head up and walked up to Lance.
“Lance, I’m sorry,” Shiro said. “This is my fault. I was wrong.”
“No, you have a valid point,” Lance said. “And I don’t know how to make him understand that.”
“Maybe you don’t have to,” Shiro replied. “You want to be with him, don’t you?”
More than anything. “Well yeah, kind of.”
“Then maybe you should.” Shiro put his hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Are you feeling okay? Your head’s alright?”
Lance reached up and touched the back of his skull, where he vaguely remembered it hitting something hard. “Yeah, I feel fine. What happened?”
“After you passed out, Keith singlehanded took out the ion canon on that battle cruiser and the fighter ship,” Shiro said. “Then he grabbed Blue—yes, she’s fine—and brought you back here. You’ve seen how insane he gets when he’s determined but that…that was something else.
“It made me think about some things. I was worried about the problems that the two of you being in a relationship might cause, but I never really thought about the good things. That selfless determination was real strength. I think with that kind of power, maybe we really could win this war.”
Lance blinked at him. “So uh. What’re you getting at?”
“Go after him,” Shiro said. “If you want to, that is. I don’t know if Pidge and Hunk agree yet, but I think we all know that something has to be different than what’s been happening around here. So go get him.”
Lance didn’t have to be told twice. He was off like a shot through the castle.
Keith was sitting on the floor of the observation deck, his knees tucked into his chest, staring out at the cosmos. All the lights inside were off but everything was softly illuminated by starlight, including the outline of Keith’s face. Lance was viciously tempted to just swoop down and kiss him, but he didn’t want to mess this up now. Words first. There would be time for making out, probably. If this went well.
“Hey,” Lance said gently, knowing that Keith had probably heard his footsteps already and knew he was there.
“Leave me alone,” Keith said. It hurt probably as much as if he’d stabbed Lance through with his sword.
“No way, pal,” Lance said. “You can’t just steal a guy’s heart and save his life and then say that.”
“I just did.”
“Come on now, how are you going to survive without my gorgeous face in your life?”
Keith stiffened. “I don’t know, Lance, but I’ll make do.”
Lance strolled up beside him and sat down, trying to sift through the anger in his voice to find what was really there. He was putting on a good show of seething, but there was something deeper there. Something sadder.
“You don’t have to,” Lance said. “Keith, I like you a lot. I miss you a lot. Would you please go out with me?”
Things were very quiet for a time, for a long time, and Lance began to wonder if Keith was ever going to talk at all, or if the two of them would just be stuck here in relationship limbo while speeding through space. Maybe eventually Allura would come get them for a mission or Hunk would call them for dinner but maybe they were actually frozen here in time and nothing was going to move them ever.
Then, “What changed your mind?” Keith asked quietly.
“Well, I talked to Shiro and he said he was okay with it,” Lance said. “Buuut honestly I think I would’ve gone for it even if he didn’t. I miss you, and I like you, and I need you. Who cares what the others say? We can do what we want.”
Keith lunged, and Lance threw his hands up, thinking he was being attacked. And he was, in a way. He found himself pinned to the ground and Keith’s face inches above his own, that determined gleam back. Lance’s breath caught in his throat again, and his heart leapt. He felt vaguely threatened, but more than that, he felt very, very attracted to the man hovering over him.
“Any more bullshit and I’ll let the Galra have you next time,” Keith growled. His voice was low and even though his words were dangerous, Lance had never found anything more seductive.
“No more bullshit, I promise,” Lance said, feeling a triumphant smirk sneak its way across his lips.
Lips which were soon caught up by another pair of lips, ones that felt soft and hungry and wonderful against his own. And then Keith was nibbling at his bottom lip and Lance’s tongue was in Keith’s mouth, and everything was warm and pleasantly hazy. And he wondered as he wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist and pulled their bodies together, why, why had he ever thought that this was a bad idea?
In fact, it turned out that forming a crush on one of his teammates was a very good idea.